ation," responded Philippa more sadly;
"but as yet I cannot do it."

"Nor will you, though you could try a thousand years," answered Guy.
"That is a manufacture beyond saints and angels, and how then shall you
do it?"

"Who then can do it?"

"God," said Guy, solemnly.

"God hates me," replied Philippa, under her breath. "He hateth all mine
house. For nigh fifty years, He hath sent us sorrow upon sorrow, and
hath crushed us down into the dust of death."

"Poor blindling! is that a proof that He hateth you?" answered Guy more
gently. "Well, it is true at times, when the father sendeth a varlet in
haste to save the child from falling over a precipice, the child--whose
heart is set on some fair flower on the rock below--doth think it cruel.
You are that child; and your trouble is the varlet God hath sent after
you."

"He hath sent His whole meynie, then," said Philippa bitterly.

"Then the child will not come to the Father?" said Guy, softly.

Philippa was silent.

"Is the flower so fair, that you will risk life for it?" pursued the
monk. "Nay, not risk--that is a word implying doubt, and here is none.
So fair, then, that you will throw life away for it? And is the Father
not fair and precious in your eyes, that you are in so little haste to
come to Him? Daughter, what shall it profit you, if you gain the whole
world--and lose your own soul?"

"Father, you are too hard upon me!" cried Philippa in a pained tone, and
resisting with some difficulty a strong inclination to shed tears. "I
would come to God, but I know not how, nor do you tell me. God is afar
off, and hath no leisure nor will to think on me; nor can I presume to
approach Him without the holy saints to intercede for me. I have sought
their intercession hundreds of times. It is not I that am unwilling to
be saved; and you speak to me as if you thought it so. It is God that
will not save me. I have done all I can."

"O fool, and slow of heart to believe!" earnestly answered Guy. "Can it
be God, when He cared so much for you that He sent His blessed Son down
from Heaven to die for your salvation? Beware how you accuse the Lord.
I tell you again, it is not His will that opposeth itself to your
happiness, but your own. You have built up a wall of your own
excellencies that you cannot see God; and then you cry, `He hath hidden
Himself from me.' Pull down your miserable mud walls, and let the light
of Heaven shine in upon you. Christ will s