Listen to His name,
Martha: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." If you would not go to Him
for mercy when you did not feel your need of it, He was keeping it for
you against this time; saving and treasuring it up for you, "that He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us,
through Christ Jesus." He is waiting to pardon your iniquity, for
Christ's sake. Do you wish to be forgiven now? Do you feel that you are a
sinful girl, Martha?'
'I have thought of nothing else all day long,' whispered Martha; 'I have
helped to kill little Nan by my sins.'
'Yes,' said Miss Anne mournfully; 'if, like Stephen, you had opened your
heart to the gentle teaching of the Holy Spirit, if you had looked to
Jesus, trusted in Him, and followed Him, this grief would not have come
upon you and upon all of us. For Bess would not have persuaded you to
leave your own duties, and little Nan would have been alive still.'
'Oh, I knew I'd killed her!' cried a voice behind them; and, looking
round, Miss Anne saw that the door had been softly opened, and Bess had
crept in unheard.
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