“Nay, Master Tremayne, you be now too hard on me. I love not darkness rather than light.”
“God saith you so do, dear maid. And He knoweth—ay, better than yourself. But look not only on that side of the matter. If a man believe that and no more, ’tis fit to drive him unto desperation. Look up unto the writing which is over the gate into God’s narrow way—the gate and the way likewise being His Son Jesus Christ—and read His message of peace sent unto these sinners. ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ It is God’s ordering, that whosoever will, he can.”
“You said but this last Sunday, Master Tremayne, that ’twas not possible for any man to come to Christ without God did draw him thereto.”
“I said, my maid? My Master it was which said that. Well—what so?”
“Then we can have nought to answer for; for without God do draw us, we cannot come.”
“And without we be willing to be thus drawn, God will not do it.”
“Nay, but you said, moreover, that the very will must come from God.”
“Therein I spake truth.”
Blanche thought she had now driven her pastor into a corner.
“Then you do allow,” she asked triumphantly, “that if I should not will the same, I am clean of all fault, sith the very will must needs come from God?”