flowers were brilliant in one of the plantations within sight. How the world went by!--
Mr. Digby had half forgotten it and everything else, in his musings, when he was aroused, and well nigh startled, by a question from Rotha.
"Mr. Digby--can I help my will?"
He looked down at her. "What do you mean, Rotha?"
"I mean, can I help my will? I asked mother one day, and she said I had better ask you."
Rotha's eyes came up to his face with their query; and whatever it might import, he saw that she was in earnest. Grave and intent the girl's fine dark eyes were, and came up to his eyes with a kind of power of search.
"I do not think I understand you."
"Yes, you do. If I do not like something--do not want to be something--can I help my will?"
"What do you not want to be?" said Mr. Digby, waiving this severe question in mental philosophy.
"Must I tell you?"
"Not if you don't like; but I think it might help me to get at your difficulty, and so to get at the answer you want."
"Mr. Digby, can a person want to do something, and yet not be willing?"
"Yes," said he, in growing surprise.
"Then, can he _help_ not being willing?"
"What is the case in hand, Rotha? I am wholly in the dark. I do not know what you would be at."
To come nearer to the point was not Rotha's wish and had not been her purpose; she hesitated. However, the subject was one which exercised her, and the opportunity of discussing her difficulty with Mr. Digby was very tempting. She hesitated, but she could not let the chance go.
"Mother wishes I would be a Christian," she said low and slowly. "And I wish I could, to please her; but I do not want to. Can I help my will? and I am not willing."
There was a mixture of defiance and desire in this speech which instantly roused the somewhat careless attention of the young man beside her. Anything that touched the decision of any mortal in the great question of everlasting life, awoke his sympathies always to fullest exercise. It was not his way, however, to shew what he felt; and he answered her with the same deliberate calm as hitherto. Nobody would have guessed the quickened pulses with which he spoke.
"Why do you not want to be a Christian, Rotha?"
"I do not know," she answered slowly. "I suppose, I want to be free."
"Go on a little bit, and tell me what you mean by being 'free.'"
"Why--I mean, I suppose,--I _know_ I mean, that I want to do what I like."
"You are taking the wrong way for that."
"Why, I could not do what I liked if I was a Christian, Mr. Digby?"
"A Christian, on the contrary, is the only person in this world, so far as I know, who can do what he likes."
"Why, do you?" said Rotha, looking at him.
"Yes," said he smiling. "Always."
"But I thought--"
"You thought a Christian was a sort of a slave."
"Yes. Or a servant. A servant he is; and a servant is not free. He has laws to mind."
"And you think, by refusing the service you get rid of the laws? That's a mistake. The laws are over you and binding on you, just the same, whether you accept them or not; and you have got to meet the consequences of not obeying them. Did you never think of that?"
"But it is different if I _promised_ to obey them," said Rotha.
"How different?"
"If I promised, I must do it."
"If you do not promise you must take the consequences of not doing it. You cannot get from under the law."
"But how can you do whatever you like, Mr. Digby?"
"There comes in your other mistake," said he. "I can, because I am free. It is you who are the slave."
"I? How, Mr. Digby?"
"You said just now, you wished you could be a Christian, but you could not. Are you free to do what you wish?"
"But can I help my will?"
The gentleman took out of his pocket a slim little New Testament which always went about with him, and put it into Rotha's hands open at a certain place, bidding her read.
"'Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'"
Rotha stopped and looked up at her companion.
"Go on," he bade her; and she read further.
"'They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
"'Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house forever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'"
Rotha looked at the words, after she had done reading.
"Mr. Digby," she said then again, "can I help my will?"
"No," said he, "for you are a poor bond-slave. But see what is written there. What you cannot do, Christ can."
"Why don't he do it, then?" she said defiantly.
"You have not asked him, or wished him to do it."
"But why shouldn't he do it without my asking, or wishing, if he can?"
"It is not his way. He says, 'Ask, and ye shall receive'; but he promises nothing to those who do not apply to him. And the application must be in good earnest too, Rotha; not the form of the thing, but the truth. 'Blessed are they that _hunger and thirst_ after righteousness; for they shall be filled.'"
"Then, if I asked him, could he change my will?"
"He says, he can make you free. It was one thing he came to do; to deliver people from the bondage of sin and the power of Satan."
"The power of Satan!" said Rotha. "I am not under _his_ power!"
"Certainly you are. There are only two parties in the world; two kingdoms; those who do not belong to the one, belong to the other."
"But Mr. Digby," said Rotha, now much exercised, "I hate the devil as much as you do."
"Don't help, Rotha. 'From the power of Satan to God,' is the turn people take when they become Christians."
"What makes you think I am under his power?"
"Because I see you are not under the rule of Christ. And because I see you are doing precisely what Satan would have you do."
"What?" said Rotha.
"Refusing the Lord Jesus Christ, or putting off accepting him."
Rotha was silent. Her breast was heaving, her breath coming thick and short. Mr. Digby's conclusions were very disagreeable to her; but what could she say?
"I can't help my will," she said doggedly.
"You see you are not honest with yourself. You have just learned that there is a remedy for that difficulty."
"But Mr. Digby," said Rotha, "how is it that you can do what you like?"
He smiled down at her, a pleasant, frank smile, which witnessed to the truth of his words and wrought more with Rotha than the words themselves; while the eyes that she admired rested on her with grave penetration.
"There is an old promise the Lord gave his people a great while ago; that in the new covenant which he would make with them in Christ, he would write all his laws in their hearts. He has done that for me."
"You mean--" said Rotha.
"Yes, go on, and say what you think I mean."
"You mean,--that what you like to do, is just what God likes you to do."
"And never anything else, Rotha," he said gravely.
"Well, Mr. Digby," said Rotha slowly, "after all, you have given up yourself."
"And very glad to be rid of that personage."
"But I don't want to give up myself."
"I see."
And there followed a long silence. Mr. Digby did not wish to add anything to his words, and Rotha could not to hers; and they both sat in meditation, until the girl's lighter humour got away from the troublesome subject altogether. Watching her, Mr. Digby saw the pleased play of feature which testified to her being a
gain absorbed in the scene before her; her eye was alive, her lip moved with a coming and going smile.
"It amuses you, does it not?" he said.
"O yes!" Rotha exclaimed with a long breath. "I wish mother could see it."
"She can," said Mr. Digby. "We will have a carriage and take her out. I don't know why I never thought, of it before."
"A carriage? For mother? And bring her here?" said Rotha breathless.
"Yes, to-morrow,