st their garments before Him, when He rode into
Jerusalem," Sylvie said presently.

"Yes; that is the way He must come into his kingdom, and lead us
with Him. We are to give up our old ways, and the selfish things we
lived in once, and not think about our own raiment any more. He will
give it to us, as He gives it to the lilies; and the glory of it
will be something that we could not in any way spin for our selves.
And by and by it will come to be full and right, all through; we
shall be clothed with his righteousness. What is righteousness but
rightness?"

"I thought it only meant goodness. That we hadn't any goodness of
our own; that we mustn't trust in it, you know?"

"But that his, by faith, is to cover us? That is the old
letter-doctrine, which men didn't look through to see how graciously
true it is, and how it gives them all things. For it _is things_
they want, all the time; realities, of experience and having. They
talk about an abstract 'justification by faith,' and struggle for an
abstract experience; not seeing how good God is to tell them plainly
that his 'justifying' is _setting everything right_ for them, and
round them, and in them: his _rightness_ is sufficient for them;
they need not go about, worrying, to establish their own. The minute
they give up their wrongness, and fall into its line, it works for
them as no working of their own could do. God doesn't forgive a soul
ideally, and leave it a mere clean, naked consciousness; He brings
forth the best robe and puts it on; a ring for the hand, and shoes
for the feet. People try painfully to achieve a ghostly sort of
regeneration that strips them and leaves them half dead. The Lord
heals and binds up, and puts his own garment upon us; He _knows_
that we have _need_," Miss Kirkbright repeated, earnestly.
"Salvation is a real having; not an escape without anything, as
people run for their lives from fire or flood."

Sylvie had listened with a shining face.

"You get it all from that one word,--'raiment.' Your words--the
words you find out, Miss Kirkbright--are living things."

"Yes, words _are_ living things," Miss Kirkbright answered. "God
does not give us anything dead. But the life of them is his spirit,
and his spirit is an instant breath. You can take them as if they
were dead, if you do not inspire. Men who wrote these words,
inspired. We talk about their _being_ inspired, as if it were a
passive thing; and quarrel about it, and forget to bre