Christie Redfern's Troubles Part 6

"Oh, yes, you could," said Effie. "'Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with G.o.d through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Don't you mind?"

"Yes; I mind now," said Christie, turning to the verse in her new Bible, and reading it, with several that followed. "Do you mind what he said, Effie?"

"Some things. He said a great many very important things." She paused, and tried to recollect. "He told us what justification meant. Don't you mind?"

"Yes; but I knew that before, from the catechism." And she repeated the words.

She paused a moment, considering, as if the words had a meaning she had not thought of before.

"Yes," said Effie; "and he went on to explain all about it. I canna repeat much of it; but I understood the most of it, I think."

"I was always waiting to hear something about the peace," said Christie; "but he didna get to that."

"No. He told us he had kept us too long on the first part of the subject. He'll give us the rest next Sabbath."

Christie sighed. The chances were very much against her hearing what was to be said next Sabbath. In a moment she repeated, musingly:

"'Pardoneth all our sins; accepteth us as righteous.' I never thought about that before. 'The righteousness of Christ imputed to us.' What is 'imputed,' Effie?"

"It means put to our credit, as if it were our own," said Effie. "I have read that somewhere."

"Do you understand all the catechism, Effie?" asked Christie, looking wonderingly into her face. Effie laughed a little, and shook her head.

"I don't understand it all, as the minister does, but I think I know something about every question. There is so much in the catechism."

"Yes, I suppose so," a.s.sented Christie. "But it's a pity that all good books are so dull and so hard to understand."

"Why, I don't suppose they _are_ all dull. I am sure they are not,"

said Effie, gravely.

"Well, _I_ find them so," said Christie. "Do you mind the book that Andrew Graham brought to my father--the one, you know, that he said his mother was never weary of reading? And my father liked it too--and my aunt; though I don't really think she liked it so much. Well, I tried, on two different Sabbaths, to read it. I thought I would try and find out what was wonderful about it. But I couldna. It seemed to me just like all the rest of the books. Did _you_ like it, Effie?"

"I didna read it. It was sent home too soon. But, Christie, you are but a little girl. It's no' to be supposed that you could understand all father can, or that you should like all that he likes. And besides," she added, after a pause, "I suppose G.o.d's people are different from other people. They have something that others have not-- a power to understand and enjoy what is hidden from the rest of the world."

Christie looked at her sister with undisguised astonishment.

"What _do_ you mean, Effie?" she asked.

"I don't know that I can make it quite clear to you. But don't you mind how we smiled at wee Willie for wanting to give his bonny picture-book to Mrs Grey's blind Allie? It was a treasure to him; but to the poor wee blind la.s.sie it was no better than an old copybook would have been.

And don't you mind that David prays: 'Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law'? That must mean something. I am afraid most of those who read G.o.d's Word fail to see 'wondrous things'

in it."

Effie's eyes grew moist and wistful as they followed the quivering shadows of the leaves overhead; and Christie watched her silently for a while.

"But, Effie," she said, at last, "there are parts of the Bible that everybody likes to read. And, besides, all the people that go to the kirk and listen as though they took pleasure in it are not G.o.d's people--nor all those who read dull books, either."

Effie shook her head.

"I suppose they take delight in listening to what the preacher says, just as they would take pleasure in hearing a good address on any subject. But the Word is not food and medicine and comfort to the like of them, as old Mrs Grey says it is to her. And we don't see them taking G.o.d's Word as their guide and their law in all things, as G.o.d's people do. It is not because they love it that they read and listen to it. There is a great difference."

"Yes," said Christie; "I suppose there is."

But her thoughts had flown far-away before Effie had done speaking. A vague impression, that had come to her mind many times before, was fast taking form: she was asking herself whether Effie was not among those whose eyes had been opened. She was different from what she used to be.

Not that she was kinder, or more mindful of the comfort of others, than she remembered her always to have been. But she was different, for all that. Could it be that Effie had become a child of G.o.d? Were her sins pardoned? Was she accepted? Had old things pa.s.sed away, and all things become new to her? Christie could not ask her. She could hardly look at her, in the midst of the new, shy wonder that was rising within her.

Yes, there were wonder and pleasure, but there was pain too--more of the latter than of the former. Had a barrier suddenly sprung up between her and the sister she loved best? A sense of being forsaken, left alone, came over her--something like the feeling that had nearly broken her heart when, long ago, they told her that her mother had gone to heaven.

A great wave of bitterness pa.s.sed over her sinking heart. She turned away, that her sister might not see her face.

"Christie," said Effie, in a minute or two, "I think we ought to go home. There will be some things to do; and if Annie and Sarah went to the Sabbath-cla.s.s, we should be needed to help."

It was in Christie's heart to say that she did not care to go home--she did not care to help--she did not care for anything. But she had no voice to utter such wrong and foolish words. So, still keeping her face turned away, she took her Bible and began to roll it in her handkerchief--when a thought struck her.

"Effie," she asked, quickly, "do you believe that G.o.d hears us when we pray?"

In the face now turned towards her, Effie saw tokens that there was something wrong with her little sister. But, accustomed to her changing moods and frequent petulance, she answered, quietly:

"Surely, Christie, I believe it. The Bible says so."

"Yes; I ken that," said Christie, with some impatience in her tone.

"The Bible says so, and people believe it in a general way. But is it true? Do _you_ believe it?"

"Surely I believe it," said Effie, slowly.

She was considering whether it would be best to say anything more to her sister, vexed and unhappy as her voice and manner plainly showed her to be; and while she hesitated, Christie said again, more quietly:

"If G.o.d hears prayer, why are most people so miserable?"

"I don't think most people _are_ miserable," said Effie, gravely. "I don't think anybody that trusts in G.o.d can be very miserable."

Christie leaned back again on the stone, from which she had half risen.

"Those who have been pardoned and accepted," she _thought_; but aloud she _said_, "Well, I don't know: there are some good people that have trouble enough. There's old Mrs Grey. Wave after wave of trouble has pa.s.sed over her. I heard the minister say those very words to father about her."

"But, Christie," said her sister, gravely, "you should ask Mrs Grey, some time, if she would be willing to lose her trust in G.o.d for the sake of having all her trouble taken away. I am quite sure she would not hesitate for a moment. She would smile at the thought of even pausing to choose."

"But, Effie, that's not what we are speaking about. I'm sure that Mrs Grey prayed many and many a time that her son John might be spared to his family. Just think of them, so helpless--and their mother dead, and little Allie blind! And the minister prayed for him too, in the kirk, and all the folk, that so useful a life might be spared. But, for all that, he died, Effie."

"Yes; but, Christie, Mrs Grey never prayed for her son's life except in submission to G.o.d's will. If his death would be for the glory of G.o.d, she prayed to be made submissive to His will, and committed herself and her son's helpless little ones to G.o.d's keeping."

Christie looked at her sister with eyes filled with astonishment.

"You don't mean to say that if Mrs Grey had had her choice she wouldna have had her son spared to her?"

"I mean that if she could have had her choice she would have preferred to leave the matter in G.o.d's hands. She would never have chosen for herself."

"Christie," she added, after a pause, "do you mind the time when our Willie wanted father's knife, and how, rather than vex him, Annie gave it to him? Do you mind all the mischief he did to himself and others?

I suppose some of our prayers are as blind and foolish as Willie's wish was, and that G.o.d shows His loving kindness to us rather by denying than by granting our requests."

"Then what was the use of praying for Mrs Grey's son, since it was G.o.d's will that he should die? What is the use of anybody's praying about anything?"