“Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose that ‘making no profession’ will excuse you to the Lord? Does your Bible read, ‘He that maketh no profession shall be saved’? And also—Are you free?”
“Am I free? Why, of course I am!” she cried. “I can do what I like, without asking leave of priest or minister.”
“God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth shall come between Him and me.”
“That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?—no, not for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won’t dance, because Mr Gardiner disapproves of it; she can’t sing a song, of the most innocent sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won’t do this, and she can’t go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what do you call that?”
“Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan’s two grand masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods’—‘Yea, hath God said?’—and lastly, ‘There is no God.’ To the weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery, offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life with authority—offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for you. Now just notice how far God’s religion is from both. It does not say, ‘Ye shall be as gods;’ but, ‘This Man receiveth sinners’: not, ‘Hath God said?’ but, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Turn to the other side, and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him.”
“We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!” said Miss Newton, shrugging her shoulders. “If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be sending Caesar to show you the clock.”
“I have not exceeded it yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond.
“Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says she has been—is ‘converted’ the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms. And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit sin. I wish you would talk to her.”
“I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner.”
“Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,—well, they don’t count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that your creed, Mr Raymond?”