"It is mere excitement," he said; "it will not last."
"Time alone can prove that. In my own case the excitement has lasted fifty years, and I see no signs of its passing off. Robert, you can't think how it distresses me to see you coming to church, Sunday after Sunday, with a regularity that might put many a professor to the blush, yet never advancing beyond that point."
"I should like to ask you one question, Emily. Haven't I heard you say you were almost certain of my salvation?"
"Yes, I have said it. But salvation is not the sole end of man; his first end is to glorify God."
"Well, don't I glorify Him? Point out any word or deed of mine that is sinful, if you can. Am I not fair and square in all my dealings? Do not I give, liberally, to the poor? Am I bad-tempered? Am I a backbiter?"
"We have gone all over this ground scores of times," she replied. "If mere morality glorifies God, then I must allow that you are living up to all His claims. But the Bible is our standard, and we learn there that Christ rejected a man who had kept the law from his youth up."
"I never could see the reason for that. I have always aimed to lead a blameless life, and think I have."
"To be saved by a blameless life one must never have transgressed in a single point. Now you do not pretend that you never once transgressed?"
"I know it would be a lie to stand up in a prayer-meeting, and say I was the chief of sinners, as so many do."