“So am I,” he answered sincerely; “I fall below my own ideal often enough; if anybody cared enough for me to be disappointed in me they would have reason enough.”
“I don’t believe they would,” thought Judith.
“Mr. King,” Marion began doubtfully, “do not answer me if my question is intrusive; but I would like to know how you read the Bible for yourself.”
“That is a coincidence,” exclaimed Mr. King; “as I was driving along this morning a question came to me that I never thought of asking myself before: suppose someone asks you to-day how you study the Bible for yourself, what will you say?”
“How wonderful,” both girls said in the same breath.
“So I told myself what I would say. One of my ways when I am in special need of a word from my heavenly Father is to ask him to give it to me, and then I am sure to find it in my reading. Often I open and find it; often and often I find it in the chapter that comes next in my daily reading. Asking the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to see his special word to you in that special need is the safest way and the quickest for me. I am assured then that I shall learn that day’s lesson in that day’s place. The truth I need most has never failed to come.”
“That is a very simple way,” Marion said. “As simple as a child asking his mother for something she has promised. The only hindrance is self-will.”
“Oh, dear, that hinders everything,” sighed Judith, who was battling with the suggestion from within herself that perhaps her boarding-school days were over and she ought to go back and help nurse Aunt Rody. The aunts had been so kind to her mother when she was a homeless little girl, and to herself when she was a homeless little girl. She had kept it out of her prayers ever since she had thought of it. If only she had not thought of it. Aunt Affy would never ask her to give up her studies and her happy home to bury herself with three old people.
“Are you far enough along in life to know that?” asked Mr. King, giving the girl of eighteen a glance of keen interest.
“I think I was born knowing it,” said Judith. “Do you know about anybody who wanted to do right and had a will of his own—”