But she thought
herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some
ascetic of the middle ages--so do extremes meet! It was "carnal," she
considered. She had as yet no right to have any "spiritual affection" for
us. We were still "children of wrath and of the devil,"--not yet "convinced
of sin," "converted, born again." She had no more spiritual bond with us,
she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even
pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject.
For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical
sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided
from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers
alter that? If He had chosen us, He would call us in His own good time:
and, if not,--. Only again and again, as I afterwards discovered from a
journal of hers, she used to beseech God with agonized tears to set her
mind at rest by revealing to her His will towards us. For that comfort she
could at least rationally pray. But she received no answer.
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