“What do you mean?” Ruth asked, turning a full, wondering gaze on her sister. “You surely don’t believe that people are perfect in this world?”
“Pass that thought, just now, will you? Let me illustrate what I mean. I found my besetting sin to be to yield to constant fits of ill-temper. It took almost nothing to rouse me, and the more I struggled and tossed about in my effort to grow better the worse it seemed to me I became. If I was to depend on progressive goodness, as I supposed, when was I to begin to grow toward a better state; and when I succeeded should I not really have accomplished my own rescue from sin? It troubled and tormented me, and I did not gain until I discovered that there were certain promises which, with conditions, meant me. For instance, there was one person who, when I came in contact with her, invariably made me angry. For months I never held a conversation with her that I did not say words which seemed to me afterward to be very sinful, and which angered her. This after I had prayed and struggled for self-control. One day I came across the promise, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ Sufficient for what? I asked, and I stopped before the words as if they had just been revealed. I found it to be unlimited as to quantity or time. It did not say, ‘After you have done the best you can—struggled for years and gained a little—then my grace shall be sufficient.’ It did not say, ‘My grace is sufficient for the great and trying experiences of this life, but not for the little every-day annoyances and trials which tempt you—you must look out for yourself.’ It was just an unlimited promise—‘My grace is sufficient—not for my saints, for those who have been faithful and successful, but for thee.’ Having made that discovery, and felt my need, I assure you I was not long in claiming my rights. Now, I want to ask you what that promise means?”
“‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’” Ruth repeated, slowly, thoughtfully. Then she paused, while Susan waited for the answer, which came presently, low-toned and wondering.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I read the verse only yesterday, but it didn’t occur to me that it had any reference to me. I don’t know what I thought about it.”
“But what does it seem to you that it says? Christ meant something by it, of course. What was it?”
“I don’t know,” she said again, thoughtfully. “That is, why it can’t mean what it appears to, for then there would be nothing left to struggle about.”
“Well, has Christ ever told you to struggle? On the contrary, hasn’t he told you to rest?”
“It seems to me,” said Ruth, after revolving that thought, or some other, in silence for several minutes—“it seems to me that one who thought as you do about these things would be claiming perfection; and if there is one doctrine above another that I despise it is just that. I know one woman who is always talking about it, and claiming that she hasn’t sinned in so many months, and all that nonsense; and really she is the most disagreeable woman I ever met in my life.”
“Look here,” said Susan. “Do you rely on the Lord Jesus for salvation? That is, do you believe you are a sinner, and could do nothing for yourself, and he just had to come and do it for you, and present your claim to Heaven through himself?”
“Why, of course there is no other way. I know that I am a sinner; and I know it is wonderful in him to have been willing to save me; but he has.”