She stopped there, and even shut up her book, in utter sorrow and shame, that if 'pure in heart' meant pure to the All- seeing eye, hers was so very, very far from it. There was not a little scrap of her heart fit for looking into. And what could she do with it? The words of Job recurred to her, — "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one."
Elizabeth was growing 'poor in spirit' before she knew what the words meant. She went on carefully, sorrowfully, earnestly — till she came to the twenty-fourth verse of the sixth chapter. It startled her.
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon."
"That is to say then," said Elizabeth, "that I must devote myself entirely to God — or not at all. All my life and possessions and aims. It means all that! —"
And for 'all that' she felt she was not ready. One corner for self-will and doing her own pleasure she wanted somewhere; and wanted so obstinately, that she felt, as it were, a mountain of strong unwillingness rise up between God's requirements and her; an iron lock upon the door of her heart, the key of which she could not turn, shutting and barring it fast against his entrance and rule. And she sat down before the strong mountain and the locked door, as before something which must, and could not, give way; with a desperate feeling that it must — with another desperate feeling that it would not.
Now was Elizabeth very uncomfortable, and she hated discomfort. She would have given a great deal to make herself right; if a movement of her hand could have changed her and cleared away the hindrance, it would have been made on the instant; her judgment and her wish were clear; but her will was not. Unconditional submission she thought she was ready for; unconditional obedience was a stumbling-block before which she stopped short. She knew there would come up occasions when her own will would take its way — she could not promise for it that it would not; and she was afraid to give up her freedom utterly and engage to serve God in everything. An enormous engagement, she felt! How was she to meet with ten thousand the enemy that came against her with twenty thousand? — Ay, how? But if he were not met — if she were to be the servant of sin for ever — all was lost then! And she was not going to be lost; therefore she was going to be the unconditional servant of God. When? —
The tears came, but they did not flow; they could not, for the fever of doubt and questioning. She dashed them away as impertinent asides. What were they to the matter in hand. Elizabeth was in distress. But at the same time it was distress that she was resolved to get out of. She did not know just what to do; but neither would she go into the house till something was done.
"If Mr. Landholm were here! —"
"What could he do?" answered conscience; "there is the question before you, for you to deal with. You must deal with it. It's a plain question."
"I cannot" — and "Who will undertake for me?" — were
Elizabeth's answering cry.