lk a little about those good things
which, as you truly say, are contained in the Catechism. Did you ever
consider what it is to be a member of Christ, a child of God, and an
inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?"

"I think, sir, I have lately considered it a good deal; and I want to be
such, not only in name, but in deed and in truth. You once told me, sir,
that 'as the branch is to the vine, and the stone to the building, and
the limb to the body and the head, so is a true believer to the Lord
Jesus Christ.' But how am I to know that I belong to Christ as a true
_member_, which, you said one day in the church, means the same as a
_limb_ of the body, such as a leg or an arm?"

"Do you love Christ now in a way you never used to do before?"

"Yes, I think so indeed."

"Why do you love him?"

"Because he first loved me."

"How do you know that he first loved you?"

"Because he sent me instruction, and made me feel the sin of my heart,
and taught me to pray for pardon, and love his ways; he sent you to teach
me, sir, and to show me the way to be saved; and now I want to be saved
in that way that he pleases. Sometimes I feel as if I loved all that he
has said and done, so much, that I wish never to think about anything
else. I know I did not use to feel so; and I think if he had not loved
me first, my wicked heart would never have cared about him. I once loved
anything better than religion, but now it is everything to me."

"Do you believe in your heart that Christ is able and willing to save the
chief of sinners?"

"I do."

"And what are you?"

"A young, but a great sinner."

"Is it not of his mercy that you know and feel yourself to be a sinner?"

"Certainly; yes, it must be so."

"Do you earnestly desire to forsake all sin?"

"If I know myself, I do."

"Do you feel a spirit within you resisting sin, and making you hate it?"

"Yes, I hope so."

"Who gave you that spirit? Were you always so?"

"It must be Christ, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I was quite
different once."

"Now, then, my dear Jane, does not all this show a connection between the
Lord Jesus Christ and your soul? Does it not seem as if you lived, and
moved, and had a spiritual being from him? Just as a limb is connected
with your body, and so with your head, and thereby gets power to live and
move through the flowing of the blood from the one to the other; so are
you spiritually a limb or member of Christ, if you bel