Part 47 (1/2)

'Do what I did. I prayed the Lord Jesus to let me know Him; I prayed and prayed; and at last He came, and gave me what I asked for. And now, I tell you, my life is all sunlight, because He is in it. Don't you know, the Bible calls Him the Sun of righteousness! You only want to see Him.'

'See Him!' echoed the woman. 'There's only one sun I kin see; and that's the one that rises over in the east there and sets where he is goin' to set now,--over the Jersey sh.o.r.e, across the river.'

'But when this other Sun rises in the heart, He never sets any more; and we have nothing to do with darkness any more, when once we know Him.'

'Know Him?' Mrs. Blumenfeld again repeated Esther's words. 'Why, you're speaking of G.o.d, ain't you? You kin know a human critter like yourself; but how kin you know Him?'

'I cannot tell,' said Esther; 'but He will come into your heart and make you know Him. And when once you know Him, then, Mrs. Blumenfeld, you'll not be alone any more, and life will not be dark any more; and you will just grow happier and happier from day to day. And then comes heaven.'

Mrs. Blumenfeld still gazed at her.

'I never heerd no sich talk in all my life!' she said. 'An' that's the way you live now?'

Esther nodded.

'An' all you did was to ask for it?'

'Yes. But of course I studied the Bible, to find out what the Lord says of Himself, and to find out what He tells me to do and to be. For of course I must do His will, if I want Him to hear my prayers. You see that.'

'I expect that means a good deal, don't it?'

'Yes.'

'Mebbe somethin' I wouldn't like to do.'

'You will like to do it, when once you know Him,' Esther said eagerly.

'That makes all the difference. You know, we always love to please anybody that we love.'

The gardener's wife had become very thoughtful. She went along her garden bed, stooping here to strip a decayed leaf from a cabbage, and there to pick up a dry bean that had fallen out of its pod, or to pull out a little weed from among her lettuces.

'I'm much obliged to you,' she said suddenly.

'You see,' said Esther, 'it is as free to you as to me. And why shouldn't we be happy if we can?'

'But there's those commandments! that's what skeers me. You see, I'm a kind o' self-willed woman.'

'It is nothing but joy, when once you know Him.'

'But you say I must _begin_ with doin' what's set down?'

'Certainly; as far as you know; or the Lord will not hear our prayers.'

'Wouldn't it do _after?_' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, raising herself up, and again looking Esther in the face. There was an odd mixture in the expression of her own, half serious, half keenly comic.

'It is not the Lord's way,' said Esther gravely. 'Seek Him and obey Him, and you shall know. But if you cannot trust the Lord's word for so much, there is no doing anything. Without faith it is impossible to please Him.'

'I don't suppose you come here jes' fur to tell me all this,' said Mrs.

Blumenfeld, after again a pause, 'but I'm real obleeged to ye. What's to go in that basket?'