“What must one do to be a Christian?” she had asked abruptly.
He had not expected such a question, and looked surprised, but he answered simply enough: “You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, my child, and come to him in repentance.”
“And where is he?” Rose cried, “and who is he, and what does he want of me?”
Mr. Gray stared at her in amazement and sorrow. “My dear,” he said, “who is he? He is God, and he is everywhere, and he wants your heart.”
“How do you know that?” Rose exclaimed. “Tell me how you know it.
The old man laid his hand upon his Bible. “Where should I know it but here?” he asked.
“But other people think differently,” Rose said. “I have read it myself, and I don’t find what you preach. The Baptists read the Bible, and so do the Methodists, and so do the Episcopalians, and you cannot agree to be one. How do you know the Bible is true?”
It was of no avail to tell her of internal evidence, or of spiritual conviction, or of visible effects. Quickly enough it became clear that Rose Howson had no faith left in the Lord Jesus Christ as God. She did believe as an historical fact that he had lived once upon earth, and was man, and possibly something more than man; that was all. To everything Mr. Gray said she returned the answer, “How do you know it? Is not the Baptist minister a Christian?—and yet you differ. Is not the Unitarian minister a scholar, and does not he pray to God?—and yet you say he is mistaken.” And
when Mr. Gray reminded her of her father, and asked how he would have felt to hear her speak thus, she cried out that she was a woman grown, and it was her own soul she was talking of, and her father could not save that; fathers made very little difference when it was heaven and hell you were thinking about.
“All Christians agree on the vital points,” Mr. Gray said; “at least, all evangelical Protestants.”