expect such a sudden change as if you were a great big drunkard? It's
absurd.'

'But my _heart_ is as bad as the heart of a big sinner,' cried poor
Katie in an agony of fear. 'I have been as bad inside, if not in my
outward actions and words.'

And then she took hold of God in faith. 'Lord, I must be converted. I
cannot rest till Thou hast changed my whole nature; do for me what Thou
dost do, for the thieves and drunkards.'

But for six weeks it seemed as if God did not hear her cry. She grew more
and more unhappy. All her past sins rose before her: those bursts of
temper when she was at school, those wrong thoughts and feelings. Yes,
the Bible was true when it said: 'The heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked.'

Katie argued, too, like this: 'I cannot recollect any time or place where
I claimed Salvation and the forgiveness of my sins; if God _has_
saved me, He would surely have made me certain of it. Anyway, I must and
will know it. I must have the assurance that I am God's child.'

Unable to rest, she would pace her room till two o'clock in the morning,
and would lie down at last, with her Bible and hymn-book under her
pillow, praying that God would Himself tell her that her sins were
forgiven. At last, one morning, as she woke, she opened her hymn-book,
and read these words:--

My God, I am Thine,
What a comfort divine,