“I do; I do!”
“The shield of his presence was over you.”
“How glad I should be to think so! But we have no right to think he cares for us till we believe in Christ—and—and—I don’t know that I do believe in him!”
“Wherever you learned that, it is a terrible lie,” said Donal. “Is not Christ the same always, and is he not of one mind with God? Was it not while we were yet sinners that he poured out his soul for us? It is a fearful thing to say of the perfect Love, that he is not doing all he can, with all the power of a maker over the creature he has made, to help and deliver him!”
“I know he makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the evil and the good; but those good things are only of this world!”
“Are those the good things then that the Lord says the Father will give to those that ask him? How can you worship a God who gives you all the little things he does not care much about, but will not do his best for you?”
“But are there not things he cannot do for us till we believe in Christ?”
“Certainly there are. But what I want you to see is that he does all that can be done. He finds it very hard to teach us, but he is never tired of trying. Anyone who is willing to be taught of God, will by him be taught, and thoroughly taught.”
“I am afraid I am doing wrong in listening to you, Mr. Grant—and the more that I cannot help wishing what you say might be true! But are you not in danger—you will pardon me for saying it—of presumption?—How can all the good people be wrong?”
“Because the greater part of their teachers have set themselves to explain God rather than to obey and enforce his will. The gospel is given to convince, not our understandings, but our hearts; that done, and never till then, our understandings will be free. Our Lord said he had many things to tell his disciples, but they were not able to hear them. If the things be true which I have heard from Sunday to Sunday since I came here, the Lord has brought us no salvation at all, but only a change of shape to our miseries. They have not redeemed you, lady Arctura, and never will. Nothing but Christ himself, your lord and friend and brother, not all the doctrines about him, even if every one of them were true, can save you. Poor orphan children, we cannot find our God, and they would have us take instead a shocking caricature of him!”