"Mother, I think you know everything; I am afraid I did feel a little conceited when talking to Willy Day, at least I know I thought how much more I knew than he did. It is hard to think right thoughts, mother."
"God only can enable us to do so, my son. Jeremiah says, in speaking of man's thoughts, 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.' And David earnestly prays to God that the 'meditations,' that is, the thoughts of his heart, may be acceptable in God's sight."
"There's one thing I don't quite understand, mother; if God places us in a 'path of life,' how can we be said to choose our path?"
Mrs. White took down her Bible, and turning to the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, she bade Walter read the 10th verse: "'For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'"
"St. Paul here plainly tells us that we were created by God unto 'good works.' When, through the disobedience of our first parents, sin entered into the world, man's whole nature became changed and corrupted, and he who had been made in God's holy image, became the servant and slave of sin. But God's purpose still remained unchanged; He had created us unto 'good works,' not unto 'evil,' and 'for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins,' He now brings us nigh unto Him through Christ's blood, who is our 'peace' with God.
"In God's strength, then, and through His Holy Spirit strengthening us, we may still do those good works which He hath before ordained that we should walk in; and it is when we are thus, for Jesus Christ's sake, led by the Spirit, that we regain our lost place as God's children, and walk in the path of holiness which He has appointed us. How many of us resist God's Holy Spirit, and choose the path of sin! And how thankful we ought to be when we are enabled to walk in the path of God's commandments, which can only be through His grace helping us. 'For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.'"
"I think I understand it all now," said Walter; and then, he added, "Oh, mother, Gracie says she wishes her mother would talk to her as you do to me."
[CHAPTER V.]
UNJUST SUSPICIONS.
WALTER was at work in good time the following morning, but the foreman and Frank were both at the yard before him, and the foreman spoke angrily to Walter as he entered the workshop. "If this is what is to come of your going to the evening school, Walter, why I, for one, should say the sooner you give it up the better."