Had Arctura set herself to understand him the knowledge of
whom is eternal life, she would have believed none of these false
reports of him, but she had not yet met with any one to help her to
cast aside the doctrines of men, and go face to face with the Son of
Man, the visible God. First lie of all, she had been taught that she
must believe so and so before God would let her come near him or
listen to her. The old cobbler could have taught her differently;
but she would have thought it improper to hold conversation with
such a man, even if she had known him for the best man in Auchars.
She was in sore and sad earnest to believe as she was told she must
believe; therefore instead of beginning to do what Jesus Christ
said, she tried hard to imagine herself one of the chosen, tried
hard to believe herself the chief of sinners. There was no one to
tell her that it is only the man who sees something of the glory of
God, the height and depth and breadth and length of his love and
unselfishness, not a child dabbling in stupid doctrines, that can
feel like St. Paul. She tried to feel that she deserved to be burned
in hell for ever and ever, and that it was boundlessly good of
God--who made her so that she could not help being a sinner--to give
her the least chance of escaping it. She tried to feel that, though
she could not be saved without something which the God of perfect
love could give her if he pleased, but might not please to give her,
yet if she was not saved it would be all her own fault: and so ever
the round of a great miserable treadmill of contradictions! For a
moment she would be able to say this or that she thought she ought
to say; the next the feeling would be gone, and she as miserable as
before.
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