this, to be sure, but I gathered it from her story. I alluded to
her religious history and present hopes. She said she did not think
continued acts of faith in Christ necessary; she had believed on Him
once, and now He would save her whatever she did; and she was not going
to torment herself trying to live so very holy a life, since, after all,
she should get to heaven just as well through Him as if she had been
particularly good (as she termed it). I don't know whether a good or a
bad spirit moved me at that minute, but I forgot that I was a mere child
in religious knowledge, and talked about _my_ doctrine and made it a
very beautiful one to my mind, though I don't think she thought it
so. Oh, for what would I give up the happiness of praying for a holy
heart--of striving, struggling for it! Yes, it is indeed true that we
are to be saved simply, only, apart from our own goodness, through the
love of Christ. But who can believe himself thus chosen of God--who can
think of and hold communion with Infinite Holiness, and not long for
the Divine image in his own soul? It is a mystery to me--these strange
doctrines. Is not the fruit of love aspiration after the holy? Is not
the act of the new-born soul, when it passes from death unto life, that
of desire for assimilation to and oneness with Him who is its all in
all? How can love and faith be _one act_ and then cease? I dare not
believe--I would not for a universe believe--that my very sense of
safety in the love of Christ is not to be just the sense that shall bind
me in grateful self-renunciation wholly to His service. Let me be _sure_
of final rest in heaven--sure that at this moment I am really God's own
adopted child; and I believe my prayers, my repentings, my weariness of
sin, would be just what they now are; nay, more deep, more abundant. Oh,
it is _because_ I believe--fully believe that I shall be saved through
Christ--that I want to be like Him here upon earth It is because I do
not fear final misery that I shrink from sin and defilement here. Oh,
that I could put into that poor bewildered heart of hers just the sweet