“I might have done differently in some things, and I wish I had, though I don’t know that it would have amounted to much, anything that I could do.”
“And it is well that it is not our ain doings we have to trust to when life is wearing over,” said Mrs Fleming, gravely. “I doubt the best of us would find but poor comfort in looking back over our life, when the end is drawing on; it is to Him who is able and willing to save to the uttermost that we have, one and all, to look.”
“Yes, I know, there is no one else. And my life is most done, but I haven’t never confessed Him, not before men.”
“But it’s no’ too late for that even yet,” said Mrs Fleming, gently; “and you have confessed Him in a way, for you have fed the hungry and clothed the naked, and all men trust your word, which, God forgive them, is more than can be said of some who have His name oftenest on their lips.”
“Folks ought to get religion young, as Lizzie did here, and Jacob. I hope it’s all right with Jacob. I’ve seen the time when I would have been glad to come forward and confess Him and do my part in the church, before Lizzie’s mother died. But when a man gets on in years it isn’t easy for him to come out before the world and do as he ought. I hope it will be all right, and as I told Jacob the other day, when the time does come for me to be judged I’d full as lief be standing on the same platform with old David Fleming as with most any of the professors in Gershom.”
“Eh, man! It would be but a poor place to stand in,” said Mr Fleming, with a startled movement. Mrs Fleming looked from one to the other a little startled also.
“It is just this,” said she, quickly and softly. “Do we love Him best, and honour Him most? No professing or doing will stand to us instead of that, either now or afterwards. And it is our life rather than our lips that should have the telling of our love. Though they should both speak,” added she, gravely.
“Ay! that should they,” said her husband.
“And if we love Him best and honour Him, that is so far an evidence that we are His, and we need fear no evil.”
“I love Him; I know I love Him,” said the squire gravely. “As to having honoured Him before the world all these years—I have little to say about that. And now my life is most gone—most gone—”