“Oh, yes, papa! You would never let me be harmed.”
“Not if I could help it, dear child, I would protect you with my life. But I can not always do so; some day, daughter, your father will have to die and leave you.”
“Oh, don’t, papa, don’t talk of that!” she exclaimed, catching her breath with a half sob.
“I don’t speak of it to distress you, my darling,” he said, softly smoothing her hair, “but I want you to reflect how desirable, how necessary it is for you to secure a nearer, dearer, more powerful Friend. One who sticketh closer than a brother, whose love is deeper and stronger than a mother’s, and who will never leave nor forsake you, never die. The Lord Jesus, who is all these and more, now offers you his friendship and his love; but how long he will continue the offer, none can tell. Will you not come to him now, this moment?”
“Papa, I can’t. I can’t make my heart want to do it,” she said despairingly.
“Make the effort and he will help you, as he did the man with the withered hand. He might have said: ‘I can not stretch it forth, I have not been able to move it for years;’ but instead, he tried to obey, and Jesus gave him strength, and so will he help you to obey his call. ‘Come unto me,’ if you will but try to do so.”
“But perhaps he doesn’t mean for me to try just now, papa,” she said struggling with herself.
“No; that can not be so. His time is always now, to-day; never to-morrow, or next week or next year.
“‘To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart as in the day of provocation.
“‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.’