“I don’t know, ma’am; I hope I love the Saviour, and I know he loves me, and he gives me so many blessings I don’t think much about punishment. I don’t feel as if he was angry with me, when he has died for me, and I want to please him more than any thing else in the world.”
“I am afraid, my dear,” she replied, “that you do not realize how great a sinner you are, if you think you don’t deserve punishment for your sins.”
“No indeed, it isn’t that,” Willie exclaimed, while his cheeks flushed with the excitement of his feelings. But Miss Letty could keep silence no longer, and interrupted him, saying,
“Mrs. Flint, my little Willie can’t talk much now, but I think he lives religion better than a great many of us. He means, and I say, that though we don’t deserve any thing but punishment for our sins, it isn’t always a sign that God is angry with us when he lets us suffer in this world. He wasn’t angry with Job, when he allowed Satan to try him so; nor with Daniel, when he was put into the lions’ den; but he did it to show what religion could do for people when they are in the worst of troubles. I believe it’s just so nowadays; and that God is nearer to us sometimes when every thing seems to go wrong, than he is when it’s fair weather and smooth sailing.”
“That may be so,” replied Mrs. Flint, “but don’t you think there’s danger of making the way of religion too easy, so that people will think they are Christians when they are not?”
“I don’t think we have any thing to do with making the way hard or easy. We must take it just as Jesus Christ left it; and he says, ‘I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me.’ I don’t read that any thing but repentance and faith in the Saviour, and renewing by the Holy Spirit, is necessary to be a humble Christian; and I am sure the Saviour never turned away any one who came to him in earnest, and wanted to be his disciple. But Willie is getting tired, and it wont do to talk any longer.”
The visitor departed, leaving the little invalid weary and feverish, until soothed by the gentle ministrations of Miss Letty and Elinor Fenton. Why is it that some individuals, who pass in society for good people, have the unenviable talent of making every one uncomfortable with whom they come in contact? Under all the velvet of their professions, the claws continually lacerate, even while they seem to caress. There are few communities in which some of these specimens of humanity may not be found; and it is sad when they wear the garb of religion, and pretend to be holier than others, while doing the work of him who has sought from the beginning to foment strife and jealousy among brethren.
During the fall, Willie had several attacks of hemorrhage of the lungs, which rapidly wasted his strength; but he was still the same happy, trusting, loving boy, enjoying life with all a boy’s enthusiasm, yet welcoming death with perfect serenity.
On one of the last days of the Indian summer, when a golden haze lay on every thing, softening the landscape and giving to autumn more than the beauty of spring, I was called to see Willie die. I found him sitting up in bed, gasping for breath, and his forehead damp with the death-dew; but his eye was still clear, and on his lips was a smile bright with heaven’s own radiance. “Dear Willie,” I said, “you are almost home.”
“O yes, I like this home very much, but that one is better. I am where Christian was when he began to cross the river, and in a little while I shall be over.”