"The unsanctified heart," rejoined Arctura, astonished at her own
boldness, and the sense of power and freedom growing in her as she
spoke, "surely needs God as much as the sanctified! But can the
heart be altogether unsanctified that desires to find God so
beautiful and good that it can worship him with its whole power of
love and adoration? Or is God less beautiful and good than that?"
"We ought to worship God whatever he is."
"But could we love him with all our hearts if he were not altogether
lovable?"
"He might not be the less to be worshipped though he seemed so to
us. We must worship his justice as much as his love, his power as
much as his justice."
Arctura returned no answer; the words had fallen on her heart like
an ice-berg. She was not, however, so utterly overwhelmed by them as
she would have been some time before; she thought with herself, "I
will ask Mr. Grant! I am sure he does not think like that! Worship
power as much as love! I begin to think she does not understand what
she is talking about! If I were to make a creature needing all my
love to make life endurable to him, and then not be kind enough to
him, should I not be cruel? Would I not be to blame? Can God be God
and do anything conceivably to blame--anything that is not
altogether beautiful? She tells me we cannot judge what it would be
right for God to do by what it would be right for us to do: if what
seems right to me is not right to God, I must wrong my conscience
and be a sinner in order to serve him! Then my conscience is not the
voice of God in me! How then am I made in his image? What does it
mean? Ah, but that image has been defaced by the fall! So I cannot
tell a bit what God is like? Then how am I to love him? I never can
love him! I am very miserable! I am not God's child!
Thus, long after Miss Carmichael had taken a coldly sorrowful
farewell of her, Arctura went round and round the old mill-horse
rack of her self-questioning: God was not to be trusted in until she
had done something she could not do, upon which he would take her
into his favour, and then she could trust him! What a God to give
all her heart to, to long for, to dream of being at home with! Then
she compared Miss Carmichael and Donal Grant, and thought whether
Donal might not be as likely to be right as she.
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