"I want you to be just like that to the Lord Christ, Mary. I want you to look out for his will, and find it, and do it. I want you not only to do it, though that is the main thing, when you think of it, but to look for it, that you may do it. I need not say to you that this is not a thing to be _talked_ about much, for you don't do that. You may think me very silent, my love; but I do not talk always when I am inclined, for the fear I might let my feeling out that way, instead of doing something he wants of me with it. And how repulsive and full of offense those generally are who talk most! Our strength ought to go into conduct, not into talk--least of all, into talk about what they call the doctrines of the gospel. The man who does what God tells him, sits at his Father's feet, and looks up in his Father's face; and men had better leave him alone, for he can not greatly mistake his Father, and certainly will not displease him. Look for the lovely will, my child, that you may be its servant, its priest, its sister, its queen, its slave--as Paul calls himself. How that man did glory in his Master!" "I will try, father," returned Mary, with a burst of tears. "I do want to be good. I do want to be one of his slaves, if I may." "_May!_ my child? You are bound to be. You have no choice but choose it. It is what we are made for--freedom, the divine nature, God's life, a grand, pure, open-eyed existence! It is what Christ died for. You must not talk about _may;_ it is all _must._" Mary had never heard her father talk like this, and, notwithstanding the endless interest of his words, it frightened her. An instinctive uneasiness crept up and laid hold of her. The unsealing hand of Death was opening the mouth of a dumb prophet. A pause followed, and he spoke again. "I will tell you one thing now that Jesus says: he is unchangeable; what he says once he says always; and I mention it now, because it may not be long before you are specially called to mind it. It is this: _'Let not your heart be troubled.'_" "But he said that on one particular occasion, and to his disciples--did he not?" said Mary, willing, in her dread, to give the conversation a turn. "Ah, Mary!" said her father, with a smile, "_will_ you let the questioning spirit deafen you to the teaching one? Ask yourself, the first time you are alone, what the disciples were not to be troubled about, and why they were not to be troubled about it.--I am tired, and should like to go to bed." He rose, and stood for a moment in front of the fire, winding his old double-cased silver watch. Mary took from her side the little gold one he had given her, and, as was her custom, handed it to him to wind for her. The next moment he had dropped it on the fender.