Poor Mr
Cowie! There were the girl-eyes, blue, and hazy with tearful questions,
looking up at him hungrily.--O starving little brothers and sisters!
God does love you, and all shall be, and therefore is, well.--But the
minister could not say this, gladly as he would have said it if he
could; and the only result of his efforts to find a suitable reply was
that he lost his temper--not with Annie, but with the doctrine of
election.
"Gang ye hame, Annie, my bairn," said he, talking Scotch now, "and
dinna trouble yer heid about election, and a' that. It's no' a canny
doctrine. No mortal man could ever win at the boddom o' 't. I'm
thinkin' we haena muckle to do w' 't. Gang hame, dawtie, and say yer
prayers to be preserved frae the wiles o' Sawtan. There 's a sixpence
to ye."
His kind heart was sorely grieved that all it could give was money. She
had asked for bread, and he had but a stone, as he thought, to give
her. So he gave it her with shame. He might however have reversed the
words of St Peter, saying, "Spiritual aid I have none, but such as I
have give I thee;" and so offered her the sixpence. But, for my part, I
think the sixpence had more of bread in it than any theology he might
have been expected to have at hand; for, so given, it was the symbol
and the sign of love, which is the heart of the divine theology.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240