“You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn’t wish it to be such as it is.”
“Can one then be in it, and yet seem to be out of it, Malcolm?”
“So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might well imagine it the other way with some.”
“Are you not uncharitable, Malcolm?”
“Our Lord speaks of many coming up to his door confident of admission, whom yet he sends from him. Faith is obedience, not confidence.”
“Then I do well to fear.”
“Yes, my lady, so long as your fear makes you knock the louder.”
“But if I be in, as you say, how can I go on knocking?”
“There are a thousand more doors to knock at after you are in, my lady. No one content to stand just inside the gate will be inside it long. But it is one thing to be in, and another to be satisfied that we are in. Such a satisfying as comes from our own feelings may, you see from what our Lord says, be a false one. It is one thing to gather the conviction for ourselves, and another to have it from God. What wise man would have it before he gives it? He who does what his Lord tells him, is in the kingdom, if every feeling of heart or brain told him he was out. And his Lord will see that he knows it one day. But I do not think, my lady, one can ever be quite sure, until the king himself has come in to sup with him, and has let him know that he is altogether one with him.”
During the talk of which this is the substance, they reached the Seaton, and Malcolm took her to see his grandfather.