led me if I had found it as pleasant
as it was horrible; for I am sorely tried with painful thoughts, and
feel sometimes as if I would do almost anything to get rid of them."

"There must be a good way of getting rid of them! Think it of God's
mercy," said Donal, "that you cannot get rid of them the other way."

"I do; I do!"

"The shield of his presence was over you."

"How glad I should be to think so! But we have no right to think he
cares for us till we believe in Christ--and--and--I don't know that I
do believe in him!"

"Wherever you learned that, it is a terrible lie," said Donal. "Is not
Christ the same always, and is he not of one mind with God? Was it not
while we were yet sinners that he poured out his soul for us? It is a
fearful thing to say of the perfect Love, that he is not doing all he
can, with all the power of a maker over the creature he has made, to
help and deliver him!"

"I know he makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the evil
and the good; but those good things are only of this world!"

"Are those the good things then that the Lord says the Father will give
to those that ask him? How can you worship a God who gives you all the
little things he does not care much about, but will not do his best for
you?"

"But are there not things he cannot do for us till we believe in
Christ?"

"Certainly there are. But what I want you to see is that he does all
that can be done. He finds it very hard to teach us, but he is never
tired of trying. Anyone who is willing to be taught of God, will by him
be taught, and thoroughly taught."

"I am afraid I am doing wrong in listening to you, Mr. Grant--and the
more that I cannot help wishing what you say might be true! But are you
not in danger--you will pardon me for saying it--of presumption?--How
can all the good people be wrong?"

"Because the greater part of their teachers have set themselves to
explain God rather than to obey and enforce his will. The gospel is
given to convince, not our understandings, but our hearts; that done,
and never till then, our understandings will be free. Our Lord said he
had many things to tell his disciples, but they were not able to hear
them. If the things be true which I have heard from Sunday to Sunday
since I came here, the Lord has brought us no salvation at all, but
only a change of shape to our miseries. They have not redeemed you,
lady Arctura, and never will. Nothing but Christ himself, your lord a