“I never thought of it,” said Ruth. Then, after a little, “Did you find out what a saint was?”
“Why I found some characteristics of them, and tried to see if they answered my description. Have you ever looked the matter up?”
“No,” said Ruth, “I did not so much as know that I was expected to be a saint; tell me what you found.”
“Why,” said Susan, drawing her chair and opening her Bible, “see here, I found a promise, ‘He will keep the feet of his saints.’ It made me all the more eager to learn as to my claim. Was I his saint? would he keep me? In that same verse there is a contrast, ‘He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness.’ Now, if there are only two classes of people, saints and the wicked, which am I? In God’s sight who are the wicked? I looked for a description of them and found this statement: ‘The Lord preserveth all them that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy.’ Now, I know I love the Lord, and I know that he will not destroy me, for I have in my heart the assurance of his promise. If that is so, I must be one of his saints. Then I found the promise, ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’ Keep who? And looking back a little I found, ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’ But he promises to keep only those who are his saints. Then I found the promise, ‘He maketh intercession for the saints.’ Now, I said, if there is no one interceding between a just God and me, what will become of me? But I found the inspired statement of St. Paul, ‘Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ That puts me at once among those for whom he intercedes, and his special work in heaven is to make intercession for the saints. By this time I was ready to claim the name, and you may know I was anxious to find what it meant. I went to the dictionary; the first definition I found was, ‘A person sanctified.’ That startled me. Could it be that I was sanctified? Why, I feel so sinful, and so weak, and so small! Well, I said, What does ‘sanctified’ mean? and I found that it was defined as set apart to a holy or religious use. It recalled to my mind the statement of Paul. ‘But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.’ A great deal ought to be expected of us, after that.”
Ruth drew a long sigh. “I don’t know anything about it, I believe,” she said, sadly; “I never read the Bible in that way. Half the time it doesn’t seem to have anything in it really for me.”
“Don’t you think that some of our trouble is in being content with simply reading, not studying the Bible? I thought the other night that if I had spent an hour on geometry, and then begun to understand it somewhat, I should feel as though I were repaid. But sometimes I read a Bible verse over two or three times, and then, because its meaning is obscure, I feel half discouraged. I was speaking of it to—to father last evening, and he said he thought the trouble was largely in that direction.” Susan had not yet gotten so that she could speak the unfamiliar name without hesitation. As for Ruth, her brow clouded; it did not seem to her that she could ever share that name with anyone. But she was interested—and deeply so—in the train of thought which had been started.
“What next?” she asked, curious to see whither Susan’s thoughts had led her. “You said you read no farther than the fourth verse. What stopped you there? I don’t see much in it;” and she leaned forward and re-read the verse from Susan’s open Bible.
“Oh, why don’t you? ‘Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints.’ That verse stopped me longer than any other, especially the sentence: ‘Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus’—it is such a common form of expression. I thought of it last evening while listening to the talk in the parlor. ‘I heard that the Wheelers were going abroad,’ some one said; and another, ‘I heard that Dr. Thomas was soon to bring a wife home.’ Two of the young ladies talked in low tones, and nearly all I could catch was the expression: ‘I heard he was,’ or ‘she was,’ or ‘they were.’ It was evident that a great deal had been heard about a great many people. I said over the verse: ‘We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.’ Who hears of such things? How many people have such marked and abiding faith in Christ Jesus, that when we talk of them we say, ‘I heard that Miss So and So had the most implicit faith in the power of Christ to keep her.’ Now wouldn’t that be a strange thing to say?”
“I should think it would,” said Ruth, amazed at this train of thought. “After all, I suppose many people have the faith; only it is not the custom in society to talk about such things.”
“I don’t,” answered Susan, positively. “Of course many people have it in a degree; but not to such an extent that it arouses interest, and excites remark. I think it is the custom in society to talk about that which interests people—which has been suggested to their minds by passing events. I have heard that it is a very common thing in localities where Mr. Moody has been holding meetings, to discuss his remarkable faith and love. Don’t you suppose, if my Christian life were so marked a force that all who came in contact with me, felt its influence, it would be natural to speak of it, when my friends chanced to mention my name?”