But I
dinna believe that ever man did sae. But even than, I dinna ken.'
'I did a' for him that I kent hoo to do,' said Mrs. Falconer,
reflectingly. 'Nicht an' mornin' an' aften midday prayin' for an'
wi' him.'
'Maybe ye scunnert him at it, grannie.'
She gave a stifled cry of despair.
'Dinna say that, laddie, or ye'll drive me oot o' my min'. God
forgie me, gin that be true. I deserve hell mair nor my Anerew.'
'But, ye see, grannie, supposin' it war sae, that wadna be laid to
your accoont, seein' ye did the best ye kent. Nor wad it be
forgotten to him. It wad mak a hantle difference to his sin; it wad
be a great excuse for him. An' jist think, gin it be fair for ae
human being to influence anither a' 'at they can, and that's nae
interferin' wi' their free wull--it's impossible to measure what God
cud do wi' his speerit winnin' at them frae a' sides, and able to
put sic thouchts an' sic pictures into them as we canna think. It
wad a' be true that he tellt them, and the trowth can never be a
meddlin' wi' the free wull.'
Mrs. Falconer made no reply, but evidently went on thinking.
She was, though not a great reader, yet a good reader. Any book
that was devout and thoughtful she read gladly. Through some one or
other of this sort she must have been instructed concerning free
will, for I do not think such notions could have formed any portion
of the religious teaching she had heard. Men in that part of
Scotland then believed that the free will of man was only exercised
in rejecting--never in accepting the truth; and that men were saved
by the gift of the Spirit, given to some and not to others,
according to the free will of God, in the exercise of which no
reason appreciable by men, or having anything to do with their
notions of love or justice, had any share.
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