juring God.
Either they try to persuade themselves that He means not what He says
when He threatens: or else they shut their hearts up close, and then
fancy that His heart is shut up too. My dear, He did not tarry to offer
to be your Father, until you came and asked Him for it. `He _first_
loved you.' Child, what dost thou know of the Lord Jesus Christ?"

Ah, what did she know? For Gatty lived in a dreary time, when religion
was at one of its lowest ebb-tides, and had sunk almost to the level of
heathen morality. If Gatty had been required to give definitions of the
greatest words in the language, and had really done it from the bottom
of her heart, according to her own honest belief, the list would have
run much in this way:--

"God.--The Great First Cause of all things, who has nothing to do with
anything now, but will, at some remote period, punish murderers,
thieves, and very wicked people.

"Christ.--A supernaturally good man, who was crucified seventeen hundred
years ago.

"Heaven.--A delightful place, where everybody is happy, to which all
respectable people will go, when they can't help it any longer.

"Bible.--A good book read in church; intensely dry, as good books always
are no concern of mine.

"Salvation, peace, holiness, and the like.--Words in the Prayer-Book.

"Faith, hope, love, etcetera.--Duties, which of course we all perform,
and therefore don't need to trouble ourselves about them.

"Prayer.--An incantation, to be repeated morning and evening, if you
wish to avert ill luck during the day."

These were Gatty's views--if she could be said to have any. How
different from those of Mrs Dorothy Jennings! To her, God was the
Creator, from whom, and by whom, and to whom, were all things: the
Fountain of Mercy, who had so loved the world as to give His
only-begotten Son for its salvation: the Father who, having loved her
before the world was, cared for everything, however insignificant, which
concerned her welfare. Christ was the Friend who sticketh closer than a
brother--the Lamb who had been slain for her, the High Priest who was
touched with every feeling of human infirmity. Heaven was the home
which her Father had prepared for her. The Bible was the means whereby
her Father talked with her; and prayer the means whereby she talked with
Him. Salvation was her condition; holiness, her aim; faith, love,
peace, the very breath she drew. While, in Gatty's eyes, all this was
unknown and u