narrow escape from sudden death made it even more than usually touching and beautiful in her eyes. She had been alone in the arbor for some time, when, hearing a step at her side, she looked up, showing a face all wet with tears.
It was Mr. Travilla who stood beside her.
"In tears, little Elsie! Pray, what may the book be that effects you so?" he asked, sitting down by her side and taking it from her hand. "The Bible, I declare!" he exclaimed in surprise. "What can there be in it that you find so affecting?"
"O Mr. Travilla!" said the little girl, "does it not make your heart ache to read how the Jews abused our dear, dear Saviour? and then to think that it was all because of our sins," she sobbed.
He looked half distressed, half puzzled; it seemed a new idea to him.
"Really, my little Elsie," he said, "you are quite original in your ideas, I suppose I ought to feel unhappy about these things, but indeed the truth is, I have never thought much about them."
"Then you don't love Jesus," she answered, mournfully. "Ah! Mr. Travilla, how sorry I am."
"Why, Elsie, what difference can it make to you whether I love Him or not?"
"Because, Mr. Travilla, the Bible says, 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha,' accursed from God. Oh! sir, think how dreadful! You cannot be saved unless you love Jesus, and believe on Him. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' That is what God says in his word."
She spoke with deep solemnity, the tears trembling in her eyes. He was touched, but for a while sat perfectly silent.
Then he said, with an effort to speak lightly. "Ah, well, my little friend, I certainly intend to repent and believe before I die, but there is time enough yet."
"Mr. Travilla," she said, laying her hand on his arm and looking earnestly into his face, "how do you know that there is time enough yet? don't put it off, I beg of you."
She paused a moment; then asked, "Do you know, Mr. Travilla, how near I came to being killed last night?"
He nodded.
"Well, suppose I had been killed, and had not loved Jesus; where would I be now?"
He put his arm round her, and giving her a kiss, said, "I don't think you would have been in any very bad place, Elsie; a sweet, amiable little girl, who has never harmed any one, would surely not fare very badly in another world."
She shook her head very gravely.
"Ah! Mr. Travilla, you forget the anathema, maranatha; if I had not loved Jesus, and had my sins washed away in His blood, I could not have been saved."
Just at this moment a servant came to tell Elsie that her papa wanted her in the drawing-room, and Mr. Travilla, taking her hand, led her into the house.
They found the company again grouped about the piano, listening to Adelaide's music.
Elsie went directly to her father and stood by his side, putting her hand in his with a gesture of confiding affection.
He smiled down at her, and kept fast hold of it until his sister had risen from the instrument, when putting Elsie in her place, he said, "Now, my daughter, let us have that song."
"Yes, papa," she replied, beginning the prelude at once, "I will do my very best."
And so she did. The song was both well played and well sung, and her father looked proud and happy as the gentlemen expressed their pleasure and asked for another and another.
Thus the clouds which had so suddenly obscured little Elsie's sky, seemed to have vanished as speedily as they had arisen.
Her father again treated her with all his wonted affection, and there even seemed to be a depth of tenderness in his love which it had not known before, for he could not forget how nearly he had lost her.
Chapter Eleventh
"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed good in
thy sight."
—Luke x. 21.
Says the Apostle Paul, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh…. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."
And such, dear reader, is, in greater or less degree, the feeling of every renewed heart; loving Jesus, it would fain have others love Him too; it desires the salvation of all; but for that of its own dear ones it longs and labors and prays; it is like Jacob wrestling with the angel, when he said, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me."
And thus it was with Elsie. She knew now that her father was not a Christian; that he had no real love for Jesus, none of the true fear of God before his eyes. She saw that if he permitted her to read to him from God's word, as he sometimes did, it was not that he felt any pleasure in listening, but only to please her; she had no reason to suppose he ever prayed, and though he went regularly to church, it was because he considered it proper and respectable to do so, and not that he cared to worship God, or to learn His will.
This conviction, which had gradually dawned upon Elsie, until now it amounted to certainty, caused her great grief; she shed many tears over it in secret, and very many and very earnest were the prayers she offered up for her dear father's conversion.
She was sitting on his knee one evening in the drawing-room, while he and several other gentlemen were conversing on the subject of religion. They were discussing the question whether or no a change of heart were necessary to salvation.
The general opinion seemed to be that it was not, and Elsie listened with pain while her father expressed his decided conviction that all who led an honest, upright, moral life, and attended to the outward observances of religion, were quite safe.
"He could see no necessity for a change of heart; he did not believe in the doctrine of total depravity, not he; no indeed, he thought the world much better than many people would have us believe."
Elsie fixed her eyes on his face with a very mournful gaze while he was speaking, but he was busy with his argument and did not notice her.
But one of the guests was just expressing his approval of Mr. Dinsmore's sentiments, when catching sight of Elsie's face, he stopped, remarking, "Your little girl looks as if she had something to say on the subject; what is it, my dear?"
Elsie blushed, hesitated, and looked at her father.
"Yes, speak, my daughter, if you have anything to say," he said encouragingly.
