f
religion; and I don't believe that religion means that sort of giving up
at all. Of course, God is pleased when we do what He wishes us to do,
because He knows it is the best for us; but I don't believe He wants us
to do things when we hate doing them, just to please Him."

"Perhaps not. Still, if one does a thing one doesn't like doing, to
please another person, one often ends by enjoying the doing of the
thing. And even if one never enjoys it, the thing has still to be done."

"Well, if you were awfully fond of anybody, should you want them to
spend their time with you, and do what you were doing, when you knew all
the time that they didn't like being with you, but were dying to be with
some one else?"

"Certainly not." Christopher might not know much about theology, but he
knew exactly how people felt when they were, as Elisabeth said,
"awfully fond of anybody."

"Of course you wouldn't," the girl went on; "you would wish the person
you loved to be happy with you, and to want to be with you as much as
you wanted to be with them; and if they didn't really care to be with
you, you wouldn't thank them for unselfishness in the matter. So if an
ordinary man like you doesn't care for mere unselfishness from the
people you are really fond of, do you think that what isn't good enough
for you is good enough for God?"

"No. But I still might want the people I was fond of to be unselfish,
not for my own sake but for theirs. The more one loves a person, the
more one wishes that person to be worthy of love; and though we don't
love people because they are perfect, we want them to be perfect because
we love them, don't you see?"

"You aren't a very good instance, Chris, because, you see, you are
rather a reserved, cold-hearted person, and not at all affectionate; but
still you are fond of people in your own way."

"Yes; I am fond of one or two people--but in my own way, as you say,"
Christopher replied quietly.

"And even you understand that forced and artificial devotion isn't worth
having."

"Yes; even I understand as much as that."

"So you will see that unselfishness and renunciation and things of that
sort are only second-best things after all, and that there is nothing of
the kind between people who really love each other, because their two
wills are merged in one, and each finds his own happiness in the
happiness of the other. And I don't believe that God wants us to give up
our wills to His in a 'Thy way not