visibly embarrassed. "But, Ruth, it
sometimes seems to me as if you had said to yourself, 'Now I will work
so much and pray so much, and then I ought to have rest from the pain
that is goading me on, and I ought to be able to feel that I have atoned
for past mistakes, and the account against me is squared.'"

Ruth turned from her impatiently.

"You are a strange comforter," she said, almost indignantly. "Do you
mean by that to intimate that you think I ought _never_ to look or hope
for rest of mind again because I have made one fearful mistake? Do you
mean that I ought always to carry with me the sense of the burden?"

"I mean no such thing. You cannot think I so estimate the power of the
sacrifice for sin. Ruth, I mean simply this: Nothing that you or I can
do can possibly make one sin white, one mistake as though it had not
been, give one moment of rest to a troubled heart. But the blood of
Jesus Christ can do all this, and it does seem to me that you are
ignoring it, and trying to work out your own rest."

Ruth was thoughtful; the look of vexation passed from her face.

"It may be so," she said, after a long silence. "I begin dimly to
understand your meaning; but I don't know how to help it, how to feel
differently. I surely ought to work, and surely I have a right to expect
results."

"In one sense, yes, and in another I don't believe we have. I begin to
feel more and more that you and I have _got_ in some way to be made to
understand that it is not our way, but the Lord's, that we must be
willing to do, or, what is harder, to leave undone, exactly what he
says, _do_ or _not_ do. I can't help feeling that you are planning in
your own heart just what ought to be done, and then allowing yourself to
feel almost indignant and ill-used because the work is not
accomplished."

"I don't know how you have succeeded in seeing so deeply into my heart,"
Ruth said, with a wan smile. "I believe it is so, though I am not sure
that I ever saw it before."

"I know why I see it; because it is my temptation as well as yours. You
and I are both strong-willed; we have both been used to having our own
way; we want to continue to have it; we want to do the right things
provided we can have the choosing of them. Flossy, now, with her
yielding nature, is willing to _be led_, as you and I are not. I have to
fight against this tendency to carry out my plans and look for _my_
results all the time. The fact is, Ruth, we must learn to