isele,"
said my mother. "Jehovah not only sees all you do, and hears all you
say, but knows every thought which is passing through your mind, and if
you think anything that is wrong, and utter even a careless word, He is
grieved at it. He is so pure and holy that even the bright heavens are
not clean in His sight; and were He to treat us as we deserve, when we
indulged for a moment in an evil thought, or departed in the slightest
degree from the truth, He might justly punish us; but He is merciful,
kind, and long-suffering, and thus He allows sinners to continue in
life, to give them an opportunity of repenting and turning to Him."

"Then there would be no use for my father and all the chiefs and people
whom I know to _lotu_, for they have done over and over again all sorts
of things which you have told me Jehovah hates," remarked Lisele.

"My dear Lisele," said my mother, taking her hand, "Jehovah has said in
His holy Book, that He will receive all who turn from their sins and
come to Him in the way He has appointed, through faith in His dear Son;
and He also tells us that the blood of Jesus His Son `cleanseth from all
sin.' Likewise He says, `Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be
as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as
wool.' Believe this blessed promise yourself, Lisele, and tell your
father that though Jehovah knows all the murders he has committed, and
every crime he has been guilty of, if he will but turn from them and
trust to the perfect sacrifice which Christ offered up on Calvary when
He was punished, by dying that cruel death on the cross instead of us,
then all will be forgiven and blotted out of God's remembrance. `The
blood of Jesus Christ,' I repeat, `cleanseth from all sin.'"

The Indian girl stood with her eyes open, gazing at my mother, and lost
with astonishment at what she had heard.

"But surely we must do something to gain this great favour from God. We
must labour and toil for Him. We must pay Him all we have in recompense
for the bad things we have done, that have offended Him so much," she
exclaimed.

"No! we poor weak creatures have nothing to do. We could do nothing to
make amends for the ill we have done, to blot out our sins; and all the
wealth we possess could not recompense God, for all things are His. But
the debt has been paid for us by Jesus, he became our surety, and when
we go to Him, and trust to Him, and pray to Him, as He is now seated