"Read that, Mrs. Celia."
"'And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'"[[10]]
"Ben't that nice?" delightedly asked old Cicely.
"But how are we to know Him?" said Celia, wearily. "O Cicely! I wanted to ask you of what you were thinking this morning in the sermon which pleased you so mightily. You smiled as if you were so happy."
"Did I, my dear?" answered old Cicely, smiling again. "Well, I dare say I did. And I was cruel happy, that's sure! 'Twas just these two verses, Mrs. Celia, as I've been a-showing you. I'd read 'em last thing yesterday, and surely they did feel just like honey on my tongue. So, as I couldn't nohow make out what Parson Braithwaite were a-saying about them many keys, I falls back, you see, on my two verses. Well, thinks I, if He has promised us, sure we need not be afeard of losing none of it. If you promise somebody somewhat, my dear, mayhap afore you come to do it you'll feel sorry as you've promised, and be thinking of harking back, as Jack says; but there is no harking back with Him. I think, afore He promises, He looks of all sides, and you know, if he sees everything, no wonder He promises so sure. Well, then, I thinks again, what has He promised us? Eternal life. Why, that's another bolt, like, put on the door. If 'tis eternal life, surely we can't never let it go no more."
"But, Cicely," interrupted Celia, "don't you feel that you are often doing wrong?"
"Of course I am so, my dear!" said Cicely. "Every day in the year—ay, and every minute in the day. But then, you see, I just go to the Book. Look what I was a-reading when you came in."
She pointed to the verse which had engaged her. "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we should be made the righteousness of God in Him."
"Look there, Mrs. Celia! Here's One that did no sin, and yet bare the punishment that our sin must needs have. And if He bare the punishment that did no sin, then belike we must go free for whom He bare it. Don't you see? 'Tis just a matter of fair dealing. The law can't punish both—him as did the wrong and him as didn't. So the other must go free."
"But we must do something to please God, Cicely? We must have something to bring to Him? It cannot be that Jesus Christ hath done all for us, and we have but to take to ourselves what He hath done, and to live as we list!"