For a long time Mrs. Murray let him go on without seeking to check the hot flow of his words and without a word of reproof. Then, when he had talked himself to silence, she took her Bible and read to him of the servant who, though forgiven, took his fellow-servant by the throat, refusing to forgive. And then she turned over the leaves and read once more: “'God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'”
She closed the book and sat silent, waiting for Ranald to speak.
“I know,” he said, deliberately; “I have read that often through the winter, but it does not help the feeling I have. I think it only makes it worse. There is some one holding my arm, and I want to strike.”
“And do you forget,” said Mrs. Murray, and her voice was almost stern, “and do you forget how, for you, God gave His Son to die?”
Ranald shook his head. “I am far from forgetting that.”
“And are you forgetting the great mercy of God to your father?”
“No, no,” said Ranald; “I often think of that. But when I think of that man, something stirs within me and I cannot see, for the daze before my eyes, and I know that some day I will be at him. I cannot help my feeling.”
“Ranald,” said Mrs. Murray, “have you ever thought how he will need God's mercy like yourself? And have you never thought that perhaps he has never had the way of God's mercy put before him? To you the Lord has given much, to him little. It is a terrible thing to be ungrateful for the mercy of God; and it is a shameful thing. It is unworthy of any true man. How can any one take the fullness of God's mercy and his patience every day, and hold an ungrateful heart?”
She did not spare him, and as Ranald sat and listened, his life and character began to appear to him small and mean and unworthy.
“The Lord means you to be a noble man, Ranald--a man with the heart and purpose to do some good in the world, to be a blessing to his fellows; and it is a poor thing to be so filled up with selfishness as to have no thought of the honor of God or of the good of men. Louis LeNoir has done you a great wrong, but what is that wrong compared with the wrong you have done to Him who loved you to His own death?”
Then she gave him her last word: “When you see Louis LeNoir, think of God's mercy, and remember you are to do him good and not evil.”