"And pray what command do you mean?" said Claude. "Really, May, this is too absurd!"
I opened the Bible and handed it to him; there was a mark against the verse in the Epistle to the Corinthians, and his face clouded over as he read the words.
"I wish that verse was cut out of every Bible in the world," he said, angrily; "I wonder how many people's happiness has been ruined by it; and it is perfectly ridiculous! Why, May, you don't even understand the wording of the text; you can't even read it in Greek, and yet you are going to overthrow all my plans and schemes for the future, and spoil all my happiness in the world, just for the sake of that one obscure verse."
I could not help noticing how much Claude dwelt on his own plans, and schemes, and happiness in the world, and how he looked at the matter quite from his own point of view, and not at all from my side of the question.
"No, Claude," I said, calmly, "I cannot read it in Greek, but I understand quite enough of it to make me quite sure that if I were to consent to marry you, I should be grieving my best Friend, by disobeying His clear command."
"Why, May, that just shows you know nothing at all about it," he said. "That verse has no more to do with you than it has with that table; it was spoken to the Corinthians, who, before Paul preached to them, were an ignorant lot of heathens, and all it means is, that Christians are not to go and marry heathens. I'm not a heathen, bad as you seem to think me."
"But," I answered, "it says unbelievers, and surely that means those who are not believers. Claude, are you a real believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you honestly say that you are? Would you like to be called a believer by the world?"
Claude could not answer this question, so he quickly turned the conversation into quite a different channel.
"And so you set up yourself as too good for me, May, that's what it is! You think yourself far too saintly to be joined to a poor heathen like me!"
"No, Claude, indeed it is not that," I said; "indeed it is not. I am not good at all; very, very far from it; but I do trust that I have come to the Lord Jesus, and that I believe in Him. Yes, though I am very imperfect and sinful, oh, Claude, I do hope that I am a believer," I said, with tears in my eyes.