"Mr. Richmond—must I be willing to do nothing?" Matilda asked without uncovering her face.
"If the Lord bids you do nothing."
"But I thought—He bade me—do so many things?"
"So He does; and just now the very first and foremost of them is, that you should be content with His will."
The daylight had faded sensibly when the next words were spoken, so many seconds went by before Matilda was ready to speak them.
"Mr. Richmond," she said, after that pause of hidden struggle, "isn't it very hard?"
"It depends upon how much any one loves the Lord, my dear child. The more you love Him, the less you want your own will. But you were never more mistaken in your life, than just now, when you thought He had taken all your opportunities away."
"Why, what opportunities have I, Mr. Richmond?" said Matilda, lifting up her face.
"This, for one. Opportunity to be obedient. The Bible says that Christ, coming here to stand in our place and save us, learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and I don't know but we must, too."
Matilda looked very hard at her adviser; it was not easy for her to get at this new thought.