"I will try, Uncle," I answered. "But you said--does God _never_ save
anybody against his will?"

My Uncle Drummond was silent for a moment.

"Well, Cary, perhaps at times He does. But it is not His usual way of
working. And no man has any right to expect it in his own case, though
we may be allowed to hope for it in that of another."

I wonder very much now, as I write it all down, how I ever came to say
all this to my Uncle Drummond. I never meant it at all when I began. I
suppose I got led on from one thing to another. When I came to think of
it, I was very grateful to Flora for going away and calling Angus after
her.

"But, Uncle," I said, recollecting myself suddenly, "how does anybody
know when the Lord has heard him?"

He smiled. "If you were lifted out of the tank and set on dry ground,
Cary, do you think you would have much doubt about it?"

"But I could see that, Uncle."

"Take another emblem, then. You love some people very dearly, and there
are others whom you do not like at all. You cannot see love and hate.
But have you any doubt whom you love, or whom you dislike?"

"No," said I,--"at least, not when I really love or dislike them very
much. But there are people whom I cannot make up my mind about; I
neither like nor dislike them exactly."

"Those are generally people of whom you have not seen much, I think,"
said my Uncle Drummond; "or else they are those colourless men and women
of whom you say that they have nothing in them. You could not feel so
towards a person of decided character, and one whom you knew well."

"No, Uncle; I do not think I could."

"You may rest assured, my dear, that unless He be an utter Stranger, you
will never feel so towards the Lord. When you come to know Him, you
must either love or hate Him. You cannot help yourself."

It almost frightened me to hear my Uncle Drummond say that. It must be
such a dreadful thing to go wrong on that road!

"Cary," he added suddenly, but very softly, "would you find it difficult
to love a man who was going to die voluntarily instead of you?"

"I do not see how I could help it, Uncle," cried I.

"Then how is it," he asked in the same tone, "that you have any
difficulty in loving the Man who has died in your stead?"

I thought a minute.

"Uncle," I said, "it does not seem real. The other would."

"In other words, Cary--you do not believe it."

"Do not believe it!" cried I. "Surely, Uncle, I believe in our L