"My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine.
Now hear me while I pray,
Take all my guilt away,
O, let me from this day
Be wholly Thine."
He hoped that with Lottie it might crown the teachings of the day, and fix her thoughts on the true source of help.
This hope found a richer fulfilment than he expected, for to her awakened spirit the lines seemed inspired to express her deepest need. As the last words trembled from her lips the rush of feeling was too strong for repression, and she impetuously left the room.
CHAPTER XXI.
MISUNDERSTOOD.
Lottie was conscious of a strange lightness of heart when she awoke on the morrow. It seemed as if her life had been unexpectedly enriched. She could not understand it, nor did she seek to, being contented with the fact that she was happy. She had always been seeking her own enjoyment, and now she was happier than ever before. She was not a philosopher who must analyze everything. She widely differed from some prudent people who must take an emotion to pieces, and resolve it into its original elements, and thus be sure that it is properly caused and wholesome before enjoying it. Many seem to partake of life's pleasures as did the members of the royal family of their feasts, in the days of the ancient Roman empire, when it was feared that poison lurked in every dish.
We have seen, however, that Lottie was not morbidly conscientious. She had gathered honey everywhere, and often in spite of conscience's protest. But now, for a rarity, conscience appeared with, and not against her. She was satisfied with the fact that she felt better than ever before; and the majority of even somewhat experienced Christians ask, as their ground of confidence, not "What is truth?" "What has God promised?"—but, "How do I feel to-day?" Little wonder, then, if inexperienced Lottie, with everything to learn, was content with being happy.
She had always looked upon religion as a painful necessity at some remote and desperate emergency of the future; but, after the hours spent with Hemstead, it seemed a source of joy beyond all the pleasures of her highly favored life. She was like one who had been living in the glare of artificial light, brilliant enough, it is true, but who had suddenly come out into the natural sunshine, and found it warmer, sweeter,—in brief, just what she craved and needed.
The distrust of these exalted and emotional states is general, and often well-founded, especially when experienced by such mercurial temperaments as that of Lottie Marsden. And when it is remembered that her ideas of true religion were of the vaguest kind, the conservative will think, "Whatever may take place in a book, the morning dew would be the type of all this feeling in real life."
And this would be true—alas, it is true of multitudes—had she been stirred by merely human causes, as sympathetic excitement, or appeals to her feelings or fears. But, as we have said before, she had looked upon the face of the Son of God. Circumstances, and the story of Lazarus, had concentrated her mind on Jesus Christ, as in that old and touching record He stands before the world in one of His most winning attitudes. She did not understand how she connected with Him the hope and happiness she felt. She was no doubt like many who, eighteen centuries ago, knew little of Christ, but in the midst of their pain and anguish suddenly felt his healing touch, and exulted with great joy, forgetting that only one disease had been cured, or one trouble banished, and that they still remained in a world where pain and trouble threatened to the very end. But here was the ground of hope for those whom Jesus touched, as well as for Lottie: in curing one evil, He had proved His power and willingness to remove every evil, and when pain of body and the suffering of guilt again oppressed, the true source of help was known, and so Christ eventually became their Good Physician, intrusted with the entire care of their spiritual health.