I have found, in my reading to-day, the end of Eva's sentence—"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
How simple the words are!—"Believeth;" that would mean, in any other book, "trusteth," "has reliance" in Christ;—simply to confide in him, and then receive his promise not to perish.
But here—in this book, in theology—it is necessarily impossible that believing can mean anything so simple as that; because, at that rate, any one who merely came to the Lord Jesus Christ in confiding trust would have everlasting life, without any further conditions; and this is obviously out of the question.
For what can be more simple than to confide in one worthy of confidence? and what can be greater than everlasting life?
And yet we know, from all the teaching of the doctors and fathers of the Church, that nothing is more difficult than obtaining everlasting life; and that, for this reason, monastic orders, pilgrimages, penances, have been multiplied from century to century; for this reason saints have forsaken every earthly joy, and inflicted on themselves every possible torment;—all to obtain everlasting life, which, if this word "believeth" meant here what it would mean anywhere but in theology, would be offered freely to every petitioner.
Wherefore it is clear that "believeth," in the Scriptures, means something entirely different from what it does in any secular book, and must include contrition, confession, penance, satisfaction, mortification of the flesh, and all else necessary to salvation.
Shall I venture to send this end of Eva's sentence to her?
It might mislead her. Dare I for her sake?—dare I still more for my own?
One hour I have sat before this question; and whither has my heart wandered? What confession can retrace the flood of bitter thoughts which have rushed over me in this one hour?
I had watched her grow from childhood into early womanhood; and until these last months, until that week of anguish, I had thought of her as a creature between a child and an angel. I had loved her as a sister who had yet a mystery and a charm about her different from a sister. Only when it seemed that death might separate us did it burst upon me that there was something in my affection for her which made her not one among others, but in some strange sacred sense the only one on earth to me.