"I gave myself to this Jesus when I was at Chautauqua," I said to him; "that I had stood one side, and had nothing to do with his words all my life; just taken his favors in silence and indifference, but that for the future I was to belong to him. Now, of course, I don't know how many times I shall fail, nor how many things I shall fail in. The most I know is, that I mean to 'continue.' After all, don't you see that the verse doesn't say, If you are perfect, but simply, 'If you continue.' Now, if I am trying to climb a hill, it makes a difference with my progress, to be sure, whether I stumble and fall back a few steps now and then. But for all that I may continue to climb; and if I do I shall be sure to reach the top. So now my resolution is to 'continue' in his words all the rest of my life."
She did not ask Rich. to do the same. She said not a word to him about himself. She said not a personal word to one of them, but every boy there felt himself asked to join her. More than that, not a boy of them but respected her. It is wonderful, after all, how rarely in this wicked world we meet with other than respect in answer to a frank avowal of our determination to be on the Lord's side. They were all quiet for an instant; and again Flossy caught a glimpse of Dr. Dennis' face. It looked perplexity and distrust. Was she telling them a fairy story, or teaching them a new game of whist?
"Then there is such a grand promise in this lesson," Flossy went on. "I like it ever so much for that. 'And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'"
"Free from what?" asked Rich., abruptly. The very question that Miss Marion Wilbur had asked in such anxiety. But Flossy was in a measure prepared for him. It chanced that she had asked Evan Roberts that self-same question.
"Why, free from the power and dominion of Satan; not belonging to him any more, and having a strength that is beyond and above anything earthly to lean upon, stronger than Satan's power can ever be."
Rich. gave a scornful little laugh.
"He is an old fellow that I don't particularly believe in," he said, loftily, as though that forever settled the question as to the existence of such a person. "I think a fellow is a silly coward who lays the blame of his wickedness off on Satan's shoulders; just as if Satan could make him do what he didn't choose to do! always supposing that there is such a creature."
Oh wise and wily Flossy! She knew he was wrong. She knew he had contradicted his own logic, used but a few minutes before, but she did not attempt to prove it to him; for, in the first place, she felt instinctively that the most difficult thing in the world is to convince an ignorant person that he has been foolish and illogical in his argument. You may prove this to an intelligent mind that is accustomed to reason, and to weigh the merits of questions, but it is a rare thing to find an uncultured brain that can follow you closely enough to be convinced of his own folly.
Flossy did not understand herself well enough to reason this out. It was simply a fine instinct that she had, perhaps it ought to be called "tact," that led her to be careful how she tried anything of this sort. Besides, there was another reason. She did not know how to set about doing it. It is one thing to see a sophistry, and another to take to pieces the filmy threads of which it is composed. She waived the whole subject, and jumped to one on which there could be but one opinion.
"Well, then, suppose you were right, and every one were free to be perfect if he would; that only reaches to the end of this life. We surely haven't been perfect, you and I, for instance, so our perfection cannot save us from the penalty of sin, and that is death. What a grand thing it would be to be free from that! You believe in death, don't you? and I suppose, like every other sensible person, you are afraid of death, unless you have found something that makes you free from its power."