34 Turnaside Cottage.

 

True, she said if I stole the sugar or told her astory
God was angry, but I had little hope of ever pleasing
Him, and, indeed, I think I hardly cared about it ;
why should I, when I did not love Him? But
when I came to learn about Him, of His love and
care for us, of all that Jesus had done for us, and
of the better world above, all my feelings changed.
It was like a new life opening out before me ; there
was some reason for living, and for trying to be good.
That God was a Being to love and not to dread ;
that He loved me instead of perpetually being angry
with me; that He was caring for me; that I might
pray to him now, and go to live with Him some.
day—was not this, coming as news at an age when
I was able to feel the force of it, and from lips whose

 

every word I trusted in, enough to change the whole
aspect of my life? If this was true, why, I
wondered, had I never heard it before? At last I
asked Miss Churchill, “ Does father not know all
this 2” Sheassured me that he did. “ But then,” I
said, “ why did he never talk about it to Nance nor
to me?”

“What we feel most deeply we talk of rarely,”
my lady replied. “It is not usual for people
to talk about death, and Christ, and Heaven, and
other solemn subjects. I talk to you, Reuben,
because I want to teach you about them; but I