“Yes—all of them, without exception. To suppose the opposite, and imagine that a wise, loving, and almighty Being would create anything for no purpose seems to me the very essence of absurdity. Our only difficulty is that we do not always see the purpose. All things are ours, but we must ask if we would have them.”
“But I have asked, mother,” said the youth, with an earnest flush on his brow. “You know I have done so often, yet a way has not been opened up. I believe in your faith, mother, but I don’t quite believe in my own. There surely must be something wrong—a screw loose somewhere.”
He laid down his knife and fork, and looked out at the window with a wistful, perplexed expression.
“How I wish,” he continued, “that the lines had been laid down for the human race more distinctly, so that we could not err!”
“And yet,” responded his mother, with a peculiar look, “such lines as are obviously laid down we don’t always follow. For instance, it is written, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you,’ and we stop there, but the sentence does not stop: ‘Seek, and ye shall find’ implies care and trouble; ‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you’ hints at perseverance, does it not?”
“There’s something in that, mother,” said Charlie, casting another wistful glance out of the window. “Come, I will go out and ‘seek’! I see Shank Leather waiting for me. We agreed to go to the shore together, for we both like to watch the waves roaring in on a breezy day like this.”
The youth rose and began to encase his bulky frame in a great pilot-cloth coat, each button of which might have done duty as an afternoon tea-saucer.
“I wish you would choose any companion to walk with but young Leather,” said the widow, with a sigh. “He’s far too like his father to do you any good.”
“Mother, would you have me give up an old playmate and school-fellow because he is not perfect?” asked the youth in grave tones as he tied on a sou’-wester.
“Well, no—not exactly, but—”