he raging forces
than the calm that would follow the death of her love for Evan
Knowlton. "But it could never die!" was the impatient objection of her
heart; and then came the whisper of conscience, "It ought; you know it
ought; and the Lord never bade you do a thing he would not help you to
do, or do for you if you are willing." And she remembered: "If ye shall
say to this mountain, Be thou removed."--Could she be willing? that was
all. Would she say it?

The Lord said, there are some sorts of devils that are only cast out by
prayer and fasting; and I suppose that means, by very great and
determinate laying hold of the offered strength and fullest surrender
to all its dispositions.

This was a battle before which Waterloo sinks to a play of
fire-crackers and Gravelotte to a great wrestling match. There was
struggle on those fields, and bitter determination, and death faced and
death met; and yet the combatants there never went to the front with
the agony which Diana's fight cost her. And if anybody thinks I am
extravagant, I will remind him on what authority we have it, that "he
that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Let no
one suppose the battle in Diana's instance was soon fought and over. It
was death to give up Evan; not the death of the body, which lived on
and was strong though she grew visibly thin, but the death of the will;
and that is a death harder by far than the other. Diana was in the
struggle of that fight for many a day, and, as I said, growing thin
under it. She was not willing; if she could be delivered from this
passion which was like her life, she was not willing to be delivered.
Yet duty was plain; conscience was inexorable. Diana struggled and
fought till she could fight no longer, and then she dragged herself as
it were to the feet of the Stiller of the waves, with the cry of the
Syro-Phenician woman on her lips and in her heart: "Lord, help me!" But
the help, Diana knew by this time, meant that he should do all the work
himself, not come in aid of her efforts, which were like ropes of straw
in a flame. Let no one think, either, that the first struggle to have
faith was faith itself, or that the first endeavour to submit was
surrender. There is a wide difference, and often a wide distance. But
there came a time--it was slow in coming, but it came--when like a
wearied child Diana ceased from her own efforts, and like a helpless
child threw herself upon strength that she k