Part 43 (1/2)
”I lack wisdom, very much; but it does not seem to come, even though I ask for it. I am sometimes in a great puzzle.”
”About what to do?”
”Yes.”
”You can always find out the first step to be taken. Jesus will be followed step by step. He will not show you but one step at a time, very often. But take that, holding His hand, and He will show you the next.”
”So I came here,” I said.
”And what is the work to be done here? on yourself, or on somebody else?”
”I do not know,” I said. ”I had not thought it was either.
Perhaps I am learning.”
He was silent then, and I sat thinking.
”Mr. Dinwiddie,” I said, ”maybe you can help me.”
”I will gladly, if I can.”
”But it is very difficult for me to put you in possession of the circ.u.mstances - or in the atmosphere of the circ.u.mstances.
I do not know that I can. You know that papa and mamma do not think with me on the subject of religion?”
”Yes.”
”There are other things in which I think differently from them - other things in which we feel apart; and they do not know it. Ought I to let them know it?”
”Your question is as enigmatical as an ancient oracle. I must have a little more light. Do these differences of feeling or opinion touch action? - either yours or theirs?”
”Yes, - both.”
”Then, unless your minds are known to each other, will there not be danger of mistaken action, on the one part or on the other?”
”Telling them would not prevent that danger,” I said.
”They would disregard your views, or you would disregard theirs, - which?”
”I must not disregard theirs,” I said low.
Mr. Dinwiddie was silent awhile. I had a sort of cry in my heart for the old dividing of the waters.
”Miss Daisy,” he said, ”there is one sure rule. Do right; and let consequences break us to pieces, if needs be.”
”But,” said I doubtfully, ”I had questioned what was right; at least I had not been certain that I ought to do anything just now.”
”Of course I am speaking in the dark,” he answered. ”But you can judge whether this matter of division is something that in your father's place you would feel you had a right to know.”
I mused so long after this speech, that I am sure Mr.
Dinwiddie must have felt that he had touched my difficulty. He was perfectly silent. At last I rose up to go home. I do not know what Mr. Dinwiddie saw in me, but he stopped me and took my hand.