"Open the Bible at the first chapter of Matthew, and read. Ask honestly, of your own conscience and of God, at each step, what obligation upon you grows out of what you are reading. If you follow his leading he will lead you on, — to himself."
Elizabeth sobbed in silence for some little time; then she said,
"I will do it, Mr. Landholm."
"If you do," said he, "you will find you can do nothing."
"Nothing!" said Elizabeth.
"You will find you are dependent upon the good pleasure of God for power to take the smallest step."
"His good pleasure! — Suppose it should not be given me."
"There is no 'suppose' about that," Winthrop answered, with a slight smile, which seen as it was through a veil of tears, Elizabeth never forgot, and to which she often looked back in after time; — "'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.' But he does not always get a draught at the first asking. The water of life was not bought so cheap as that. However, 'to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.'"
Elizabeth hearkened to him, with a curious mixture of yielding and rebellion at once in her mind. She felt them both there. But the rebellion was against the words; her yielding was for the voice that brought the words to her ear. She paused awhile.
"At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got what they wanted," she observed, when the silence had lasted some little time.