Even Bertie Sanderson had been struck with the sermon. If her heart was indeed a temple of the Holy Ghost, how was she defiling it? Envy, hatred, and malice were allowed to run riot there; love of dress and vanity were the idols enthroned on the altar; pride, disobedience, irreverence, contempt of rightful authority, idleness, and unfaithfulness were barring the door and keeping the loving Saviour, who stood knocking there, from coming into his own.
Bertie felt uncomfortable; the Holy Spirit was speaking to her, and she could not help but hear. But to hear and to obey are two very different things. The girl knew that she could unbar the closed door of her heart if she chose. One earnest, sincere prayer would bring the omnipotent aid of the Spirit to cast out the evil things and cleanse the defilement. But she did not want them cast out; she loved them too well. It would be all very well to have Christ's love, pity, forgiveness, and protection, and to be sure of heaven when she died; but to be a Christian—a saint she would have called it—now, to give up the things that most interested her, and live a life of self-denial and obedience,—she had no idea of doing any such thing. So, to drown the voice that she could not help hearing but did not mean to obey, she went off on a Sunday afternoon's excursion with some of the boys and girls, received a sharp reprimand from her father for so doing, and went back to her work on Monday morning more rebellious, more hardened, more idle, more malicious than before.
The blessed Holy Spirit is always longing to have us come to Christ and walk in his holy and happy ways. He watches for an opportunity to speak to us, and does speak, again and again, inclining us to give up sin and choose holiness, offering us, if we will do so, all the help we need. But he will not force us to obey his gentle call. If we will not listen and obey, he lets us go off on our self-chosen path, ceases to speak audibly to us, and patiently waits for another and more propitious season. Bertie Sanderson, that June Sunday, greatly "grieved the Spirit."
But not so did Etta Mountjoy. This young lady, ever since that first Wednesday when she attended her sister's tea-party, had thought more seriously than she had ever thought before. The duty of being a Christian had come home to her during Eunice's talk and prayer, and at the same time she had felt that she was not, and had never tried to be, one. She had seen this still more clearly during the subsequent meetings, from which her duty to her own class would not permit her to be absent. Dishonesty and hypocrisy were not Etta's vices; she could not pretend to be what she was not, and yet she could not shake off the impression that she ought to give herself to Christ and openly confess his name. She tried to put the subject out of her thoughts; but still, as she listened, day by day, she grew more and more dissatisfied with herself, her own character, her aims in life. The preparation of her Sunday-school lessons became a dreaded task, for it was impossible to minutely consider the shells of sacred things and not at the same time take cognizance of the spiritual kernels which they envelop, and these spiritual realities made her uncomfortable and more and more dissatisfied with herself.
This Sunday's sermon had gone to the very quick of Etta's conscience, painting as with a finger of light what she ought to be and what she was. God had made her for his own temple and dwelling-place; made her fair, outside and within; endowed her with intellectual and spiritual gifts, and with wealth, station, and influence, giving her opportunities for culture and usefulness far greater than most of those who surrounded her. It was not chance or accident, but God, who had given her all this, and he demanded, as he had a right to demand, in return, her love, her obedience, her service. Had she given him these? Never once in her whole life. She had set up upon his altar in the midst of his beautiful temple the idol of self-pleasing, and never in her whole seventeen years had she acted from any other motive than to please herself. It was sacrilege, it was idolatry, it was dishonesty; and so were all the actions which had come from such a corrupt source.
Etta was too clear-headed to suppose that any sudden change of practice, which it was in her power to commence now, would make any difference. She might obey mechanically, but she could not make herself love, and she did not love, God. His service was a weariness, prayer a formality, the Bible a dull, uninteresting book. She did love a light, gay, frivolous life; she saw no attractiveness in one of self-denial and holy living.
She went directly to her room on reaching home, refused to go down to dinner, sat behind the shaded blinds, and thought till thought became insupportable; and then, having come to one settled determination, put on her hat, covered her tear-stained face with a veil, and walked down the hill to the parsonage, and rang the bell with a nervous jerk. Whatever Etta did she did with a will; she made no halfway decisions.
The servant who admitted "Miss Etta" showed her into the pastor's study, where after a time he joined her, looking a little surprised at receiving such a visitor on Sunday afternoon. Etta's peculiarities, however, were well known, and he concluded she had some new project in her head, in which she desired his assistance and, as usual, could not wait a moment to put it into execution. He was rather surprised by the tear-swollen eyes and the resolute expression of face, and after courteously welcoming his visitor, waited somewhat impatiently to hear what she had to say.
"I came," said the girl, with her usual directness, "to ask you to give my Sunday-school class to some one else."
"Tired of holding your hand to the plow, and beginning to look back already, eh?" he said.