“But that is just it; I don’t love him; you can’t make yourself love a person! I might say I did a thousand times over, in words, but that wouldn’t alter anything.”
Aunt Elsie regarded the pale-faced large-eyed girl on the bed with a kind of wistful tenderness in her eyes; the child had come so near, so very near, to changing worlds, and had evidently not understood how to take the first steps toward making a safe journey! She must make it plain to her now, even though there had to be more talking.
“That is true,” she said, quietly. “You cannot make yourself love anybody, but you can tell the rightful Ruler of this world that you have decided to serve him, and him only, all the days of your life; and if you do this with an honest determination to carry out your resolve he will attend to the rest. You see, it is different from any human love; he agrees, just as soon as you make deliberate choice of him as King, to make such instant changes in your feelings that you will never again be able to say you do not love him.”
Jean made an impatient movement among the pillows and spoke quickly: “Aunt Elsie, that doesn’t seem possible! How could just deciding to obey somebody make one all over new?”
“It doesn’t, dearie, it doesn’t at all; the deciding is only the part which the Lord gives to you; he does the rest. How he does it I can’t explain; we don’t have to understand how things are done, you know, before we can believe that they are done. Jesus Christ said if we were ever to belong to his kingdom we must be born again; and he also said that if we would attend to our part he would see that that great thing was done. Why not do your little part, dearie, and leave him to attend to his?”
There was silence in the room for several minutes, then Jean drew a long sigh, as she said:
“It seems small and mean to think of doing a thing that you don’t want to, merely because you are scared at the thought of dying. I don’t think I could be such a coward as that. I don’t want to be a church member, and I don’t want to read the Bible; not regularly; it doesn’t interest me; and I would lots rather read real good stories and such things; and—oh, well, there are lots of things that Christian people think they must do that I don’t want to do, and a perfect jam of things that they think they mustn’t do that I want to; now, how could it make me any better to pretend that I didn’t think and feel just that way?”
While she talked, Aunt Elsie took swift counsel of her Lord. Here was a lamb who clearly needed instruction in order to safely make the fold, but she was growing tired and nervous; she ought not to argue, she ought to be sleeping.
“Don’t pretend anything, dear,” she said. “We mustn’t talk much longer now, but I want to ask you just two questions. Have you always wanted to do just exactly the thing that your father wanted you to do, and to leave undone what he wanted left?”
“No,” said Jean, promptly, “I haven’t; not by a good deal! But that—” Her aunt interrupted: