And, when I began to think the matter over, with a more unbiased mind, I was driven to the conclusion that Claude was far more likely to lead me away from Christ than I was to lead him to become a believer. For surely if I had not enough influence now to persuade him to love better things—now, when he was so anxious to win my favour,—surely afterwards, when he felt certain of my love, he would not be more likely to be led in an entirely different direction. Surely I should become worse, and Claude would become no better. I should be less of a believer, and he would remain still an unbeliever.
To do evil, that good may possibly come, is entirely opposed to the whole teaching of the New Testament; nowhere is the faintest hope held out that such a course will result in good. And I could undoubtedly expect no blessing from God on my endeavours to lead Claude aright if I had acted in the face of God's command and had gone in direct opposition to His clear injunction:
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers."
And so I felt, when I had thought the whole matter carefully over, that it came to this:
Was I willing to shut Christ out from the first place in my heart, and put Claude there instead? Or, on the other hand, was I willing to give up Claude, and hold all the closer and firmer to Him who had for years been my hope and my refuge?
Christ's love or Claude's! Which should I choose? I could not have both, for I felt that to have both was impossible. Choosing Christ, I should offend Claude; choosing Claude, I should forfeit the love and the favour of Christ. Christ or Claude—which?
A verse, which I had learned as a child, came suddenly into my mind, and looking up to the sky above me, in which the sun was once more shining, I repeated it aloud, for it seemed exactly to express the earnest cry of my soul:
"My heart is fixed, O God,
Fixed on Thee;
And my eternal choice is made,
Christ for me."
Christ for me. Christ's smile, Christ's favour, Christ's blessing; these are my choice. Whatever it costs me, I cannot, I will not, give them up.
I knelt down, and thanked God from the bottom of my heart for showing me the clear, the sure, the right way for me to take. And then I took up my pen to answer Claude's letter.