“And what else, dear Mary, would you have him do?”
“O Grace! This is poor work indeed, working in view of a merely possible salvation. No! What he has learned now is to see that his Saviour, in whom he humbly and truly believes, has given him a present salvation; so that he, and his wife and daughter too, can now say, ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ And so they work and suffer cheerfully, and even thankfully, from love to that Saviour who has already received them as his own. This is what I mean by working from salvation. Surely we shall work more heartily for one of whom we know that he has saved us, than for one of whom we know only that he has saved others, and may perhaps save us also in the end.”
“I see what you mean, dear Mary, but I never saw it so before. Such a view of God’s love to us personally must take the selfishness out of our good works, because what we do will be done just simply from love to Christ. It is a beautiful way of looking at God’s dealings with us.”
“Yes, Grace; and as true and scriptural as it is beautiful. It is just what God sees that we need, and furnishes us with the most constraining motive to serve him, and to deny self in his service.”
“I see it,” said Miss Willerly sadly and thoughtfully, after a pause. “I very much fear, dear Mary, that I have been greatly deceiving myself. I have been just simply building up a monument to my own honour and glory out of my heap of little daily crosses.”
“Nay, dear Grace, you are dealing too severely with yourself.”
“No, I think not. At any rate, I am sadly aware that not the love of Christ, but the love of human applause, has been the constraining motive in my acts of self-denial. I have made such a parade of my willingness to thwart my own will that I might please others, so that while I should have been startled to see a full-grown trumpeter at my side proclaiming my unselfishness, I have all the while been keeping in my service a little dwarf page, who has been sounding out my praises on his shrill whistle.”
“You judge yourself hardly, dear Grace; and yet, no doubt, self does enter largely even into our unselfishness. I am sure I have felt it, oh, how deeply! And specially just lately, since I have undertaken this work at Bridgepath.”
“You, dear Mary!”
“Yes, indeed. And I see now how wisely our heavenly Father ordered his discipline in my case. There was indeed a ‘needs-be’ in my dear aunt’s former harshness and irritability to me; but for that, and for her disparaging remarks on my conduct, I might have been more self-seeking than I am. But the discipline has been changed now, and I trust that the chastisement has not been wholly in vain. What we all want, I am sure, if we are to be true workers for God, is to lift our eyes from self, and keep them steadily fixed on Him who has done so much for us.”