“You weren’t made to continue so, at all events. God gives us the necessary strength to resist what is bad in us. He is making at you now; only you must give in, else he cannot get on with the making of you. I think very likely he made you ill now, just that you might bethink yourself, and feel that you had done wrong.”
“I have been feeling that for many a year.”
“That made it the more needful to make you ill; for you had been feeling your duty, and yet not doing it; and that was worst of all. You know Jesus came to lift the weight of our sins, our very sins themselves, off our hearts, by forgiving them and helping us to cast them away from us. Everything that makes you uncomfortable must have sin in it somewhere, and he came to save you from it. Send for your daughter and her husband, and when you have done that you will think of something else to set right that’s wrong.”
“But there would be no end to that way of it, sir.”
“Certainly not, till everything was put right.”
“But a body might have nothing else to do, that way.”
“Well, that’s the very first thing that has to be done. It is our business in this world. We were not sent here to have our own way and try to enjoy ourselves.”
“That is hard on a poor woman that has to work for her bread.”
“To work for your bread is not to take your own way, for it is God’s way. But you have wanted many things your own way. Now, if you would just take his way, you would find that he would take care you should enjoy your life.”
“I’m sure I haven’t had much enjoyment in mine.”