"Two things must go, I think, to make up a call," said her mother, greatly to Hester's relief. "You must not imagine, my child, that because you have never opened your mind to me, I have not known what you were thinking, or have left you to think alone about it. Mother and daughter are too near not to hear each other without words. There is between you and me a constant undercurrent of communion, and occasionally a passing of almost definite thought, I believe. We may not be aware of it at the time, but none the less it has its result."
"O mother!" cried Hester, overjoyed to find she thought them thus near to each other, "I am so glad! Please tell me the two things you mean."
"To make up a call, I think both impulse and possibility are wanted," replied Mrs. Raymount. "The first you know well; but have you sufficiently considered the second? One whose impulse or desire was continually thwarted could scarcely go on believing herself called. The half that lies in an open door is wanting. If a call come to a man in prison it will be by an angel who can let him out. Neither does inclination always determine fitness. When your father was an editor, he was astonished at the bad verse he received from some who had a genuine delight in good verse."
"I can't believe, mamma," returned Hester, "that God gives any special gift, particularly when accompanied by a special desire to use it, and that for a special purpose, without intending it should be used. That would be to mock his creature in the very act of making her."
"You must allow there are some who never find a use for their special gifts."
"Yes; but may not that be that they have not sufficiently cultivated their gifts, or that they have not done their best to bring them into use? Or may they not have wanted to use them for ends of their own and not of God's? I feel as if I must stand up against every difficulty lest God should be disappointed in me. Surely any frustration of the ends to which their very being points must be the person's own fault? May it not be because they have not yielded to the calling voice that they are all their life a prey to unsatisfied longings? They may have gone picking and choosing, instead of obeying."
"There must be truth in what you say, Hester, but I am pretty sure it does not reach every case. At what point would you pronounce a calling frustrated? You think yours is to help your poor friends: you are not with them now: is your calling frustrated? Surely there may be delay without frustration! Or, is it for you to say when you are ready? Willingness is not everything. Might not one fancy her hour come when it was not come? May not part of the preparation for work be the mental discipline of imagined postponements? And then, Hester—now I think I have found my answer—you do not surely imagine such a breach in the continuity of our existence, that our gifts and training here have nothing to do with our life beyond the grave. All good old people will tell you they feel this life but a beginning. Cultivating your gift, and waiting the indubitable call, you may be in active preparation for the work in the coming life for which God intended you when he made you."
Hester gave a great sigh. Postponement indefinite is terrible to the young and eager.
"That is a dreary thought, mother," she said.
"Is it, my child?" returned her mother. "Painful the will of God may be—that I well know, as who that cares anything about it does not! but dreary, no! Have patience, my love. Your heart's deepest desire must be the will of God, for he cannot have made you so that your heart should run counter to his will; let him but have his own way with you, and your desire he will give you. To that goes his path. He delights in his children; so soon as they can be indulged without ruin, he will heap upon them their desires; they are his too."