Stepping Heavenward Part 6

"Katy, all that you say may be true. I dare say it is. But G.o.d loves you. He loves you."

"He loves me," I repeated to myself. "He loves me! Oh, Dr. Cabot, if I could believe that! If I could believe that, after all the promises I have broken, all the foolish, wrong things I have done and shall always be doing, G.o.d perhaps still loves me!"

"You may be sure of it," he said, solemnly. "I, minister, bring the gospel to you to-day. Go home and say over and over to yourself, 'I am a wayward, foolish child. But He loves me! I have disobeyed and grieved Him ten thousand times. But He loves me! I have lost faith in some of my dearest friends and am very desolate. But He loves me! I do not love Him, I am even angry with Him! But He loves me! '"

I came away, and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, "He loves me!" I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face. I looked at it, and said with tears of joy, "But He loves me!" Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted, so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.

Feb 10.-What a beautiful world this is, and how full it is of truly kind, good people! Mrs. Morris was here this morning, and just one squeeze of that long, yellow old hand of hers seemed to speak a bookful! I wonder why I have always disliked her so, for she is really an excellent woman. I gave her a good kiss to pay her for the sympathy she had sense enough not to put into canting words, and if you will believe it, dear old Journal, the tears came into her eyes, and she said:

"You are one of the Lord's beloved ones, though perhaps you do not know it"

I repeated again to myself those sweet, mysterious words, and then I tried to think what I could do for Him. But I could not think of anything great or good enough. I went into mother's room and put my arms round her and told her how I loved her. She looked surprised and pleased.

"Ah, I knew it would come!" she said, laying her hand on her Bible.

"Knew what would come, mother?"

"Peace," she said.

I came back here and wrote a little note to Amelia, telling her how ashamed and sorry I was that I could not control myself the other day. Then I wrote a long letter to James. I have been very careless about writing to him.

Then I began to hem those handkerchiefs mother -asked me to finish a month ago. But I could not think of anything to do for G.o.d. I wish I could. It makes me so happy to think that all this time, while I was caring for n.o.body but myself, and fancying He must almost hate me, He was loving and pitying me.

Feb. 15.-I went to see Dr. Cabot again to-day. He came down from his study with his pen in his hand.

"How dare you come and spoil my sermon on Sat.u.r.day?" he asked, good-humoredly.

Though he seemed full of loving kindness, I was ashamed of my thoughtlessness. Though I did not know he was particularly busy on Sat.u.r.days. If I were a minister I am sure I would get my sermons done early in the week.

"I only wanted to ask one thing," I said. "I want to do something for G.o.d. And I cannot think of anything unless it is to go on a mission.

And mother would never let me do that. She thinks girls with delicate health are not fit for such work."

"At all events I would not go to-day," he replied. Meanwhile do everything you do for Him who has loved you and given Himself for you."

I did not dare to stay any longer, and so came away quite puzzled.

Dinner was ready, and as I sat down to the table, I said to myself:

"I eat this dinner for myself, not for G.o.d. What can Dr. Cabot mean?"

Then I remembered the text about doing all for the glory of G.o.d, even in eating and drinking; but I do not understand it at all.

Feb. 19.It has seemed to' me for several days that it must be that I really do love G.o.d, though ever so little. But it shot through my mind to-day like a knife, that it is a miserable, selfish love at the best, not worth my giving, not worth G.o.d's accepting. All my old misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than itself. I wish I had never been born! I wish I were thoughtless and careless, like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along very well, and to enjoy themselves far more than I do.

Feb. 21.-Dr. Cabot came to see me to-day. I told him all about it. He could not help smiling as he said:

"When I see a little infant caressing its mother, would you have me say to it, 'You selfish child, how dare you pretend to caress your mother in that way? You are quite unable to appreciate her character; you love her merely because she loves you, treats you kindly?'"

It was my turn to smile now, at my own folly.

"You are as yet but a babe in Christ," Dr. Cabot continued. "You love your G.o.d and Saviour because He first loved you. The time will come when the character of your love will become changed into one which sees and feels the beauty and the perfection of its object, and if you could be a.s.sured that He no longer looked on you with favor, you would still cling to Him with devoted affection."

"There is one thing more that troubles me," I said. "Most persons know the exact moment when they begin real Christian lives. But I do not know of any such time in my history. This causes me many uneasy moments."

"You are wrong in thinking that most persons have this advantage over you. I believe that the children of Christian parents, who have been judiciously trained, rarely can 'point to any day or hour when they began to live this new life. The question is not, do you remember, my child, when you entered this world, and how! It is simply this, are you now alive and an inhabitant thereof? And now it is my turn to ask you a question. How happens it that you, who have a mother of rich and varied experience, allow yourself to be tormented with these petty anxieties which she is as capable of dispelling as I am?"

"I do not know," I answered. "But we girls can't talk to our mothers about any of our sacred feelings, and we hate to have them talk to us."

Dr. Cabot shook his head.

"There is something wrong somewhere," he said, "A young girl's mother is her natural refuge in every perplexity. I hoped that you, who have rather more sense than most girls of your age, could give me some idea what the difficulty is."

After he had gone, I am ashamed to own that I was in a perfect flutter of delight at what he had said about my having more sense than most girls. Meeting poor mother on the stairs while in this exalted state of mind, I gave her a very short answer to a kind question, and made her unhappy, as I have made myself.

It is just a year ago to-day that I got frightened at my novel-reading propensities, and resolved not to look into one for twelve months. I was getting to dislike all other books, and night after night sat up late, devouring everything exciting I could get hold of. One Sat.u.r.day night I sat up till the clock struck twelve to finish one, and the next morning I was so sleepy that I had to stay at home from church. Now I hope and believe the back of this taste is broken, and that I shall never be a slave to it again. Indeed it does not seem to me now that I shall ever care for such books again.

Feb. 24.-Mother spoke to me this morning for the fiftieth time, I really believe, about my disorderly habits. I don't think I am careless because I like confusion, but the trouble is I am always in a hurry and a ferment about something. If I want anything, I want it very much, and right away. So if I am looking for a book, or a piece of music, or a pattern, I tumble everything around, and can't stop to put them to rights. I wish I were not so-eager and impatient. But I mean to try to keep my room and my drawers in order, to please mother.

She says, too, that I am growing careless about my hair and my dress.

But that is because my mind is so full of graver, more important things. I thought I ought to be wholly occupied with my duty to G.o.d.

But mother says duty to G.o.d includes duty to one's neighbor, and that untidy hair, put up in all sorts of rough bunches, rumpled cuffs and collars, and all that sort of thing, make one offensive to all one meets. I am sorry she thinks so, for I find it very convenient to twist up my hair almost any how, and it takes a good deal of time to look after collars and cuffs.

March 14.-To-day I feel discouraged and disappointed. I certainly thought that if G.o.d really loved me, and I really loved Him, I should find myself growing better day by day. But I am not improved in the least. Most of the time I spend on my knees I am either stupid; feeling nothing at all, or else my head is full of what I was doing before I began to pray, or what I am going to do as soon as I get through. I do not believe anybody else in the world is like me in this respect. Then when I feel differently, and can make a nice, glib prayer, with floods of tears running down my cheeks, I get all puffed up, and think how much pleased G.o.d must be to see me so fervent in spirit. I go down-stairs in this frame, and begin to scold Susan for misplacing my music, till all of a sudden I catch myself doing it, and stop short, crestfallen and confounded. I have so many such experiences that I feel like a baby just learning to walk, who is so afraid of falling that it has half a mind to sit down once for all.

Then there is another thing. Seeing mother so fond of Thomas A Kempis, I have been reading it, now and then, and am not fond of it at all. From beginning to end it exhorts to self-denial in every form and shape. Must I then give up all hope of happiness in this world, and modify all my natural tastes and desires? Oh, I do love so to be happy! I do so hate to suffer! The very thought of being sick, or of being forced to nurse sick people, with all their cross ways, and of losing my friends, or of having to live with disagreeable people, make's me shudder. I want to please G.o.d, and to be like Him. I certainly do. But I am so young, and it is so natural to want to have a good time! And now I am in for it I may as well tell the whole story. When I read the lives of good men and women who have died and gone to heaven, I find they all liked to sit and think about G.o.d and about Christ. Now I don't. I often try, but my mind flies off in a tangent. The truth is I am perfectly discouraged.

March 17.-I went to see Dr. Cabot to-day, but he was out, so I thought I would ask for Mrs. Cabot, though I was determined not to tell her any of my troubles. But somehow she got the whole story out of me, and instead of being shocked, as I expected she would be, she actually burst out laughing! She recovered herself immediately, however.

"Do excuse me for laughing at you, you dear child you!" she said.

"But I remember so well how I use to flounder through just such needless anxieties, and life looks so different, so very different, to me now from what it did then! What should you think of a man who, having just sowed his field, was astonished not to see it at once ripe for the harvest, because his neighbor's, after long months of waiting, was just being gathered in?"

"Do you mean," I asked, "that by and by I shall naturally come to feel and think as other good people do?"

"Yes, I do. You must make the most of what little Christian life you have; be thankful G.o.d has given you so much, cherish it, pray over it, and guard it like the apple of your eye. Imperceptibly, but surely, it will grow, and keep on growing, for this is its nature."

"But I don't want to wait," I said, despondently. "I have just been reading a delightful book, full of stories of heroic deeds-not fables, but histories of real events and real people. It has quite stirred me up, and made me wish to possess such beautiful heroism, and that I were a man, that I might have a chance to perform some truly n.o.ble, self-sacrificing acts."

"I dare say your chance will come," she replied, "though you are not a man. I fancy we all get, more or less, what we want."

"Do you really think so? Let me see, then, what I want most. But I am staying too long. Were you particularly busy?"

"No," she returned smilingly, "I am learning that the man who wants me is the man I want."

"You are very good to say so. Well, in the first place, I do really and truly want to be good. Not with common goodness, you know, but-"

"But uncommon goodness," she put in.

"I mean that I want to be very, very good. I should like next best to be learned and accomplished. Then I should want to be perfectly well and perfectly happy. And a pleasant home, of course, I must have, with friends to love me, and like me, too. And I can't get along without some pretty, tasteful things about me. But you are laughing at me! Have I said anything foolish?"

"If I laughed it was not at you, but at poor human nature that would fain grasp everything at once. Allowing that you should possess all you have just described, where is the heroism you so much admire for exercise?"