And when he writes, “Aunt Lucy may feel as if her prayers were being answered,” it seems to me as if I had nothing but unbelief to remember. It is the mighty hand of God, if he is saved! He goes into temptation, but he goes hopeful, and longing to prove himself a “good soldier of the Cross.” And now he needs to be followed with faith and prayer more than ever. It seems to me as if this were realizing for the first time, what “conversion” means; that it is a reality, and not a term which custom has made mere cant. He speaks of himself in a free, simple way, as _I_ never could have spoken; and yet it _is_ genuine. Oh, if it might unloose more hearts and tongues!
May 23. ... I am so glad to be _needed_, as I seem to be now, by several of my friends: my thoughts, my care, my suggestions seem of some value. It is a woman’s want, and I feel a woman’s gratification in being allowed to think a little for others. For a great school like this, I never feel that I can do much; I want to know just the especial need of somebody that I can help.
So human nature goes: absorbed by petty miseries quite as much as by grand and beautiful ideas; who would think, sometimes, that such as we could be immortal beings?
I have felt myself growing very skeptical for a little while, of late. A cold thrill creeps insidiously through me when I go among people; there is so little apparent reality in human lives, loves, friendships. “All seek their own;” and when there is a gleam of unselfishness, it is but a passing gleam. And, worst of all, when I am with those whose lives are pitched in a low key, I find myself taking it for granted that it is life.
June 7. Two trials came to me this week, trials to patience which I seldom have, yet both very trifling. One came from a selfish woman, who _would_ misunderstand me, and imagine that I was troubling her, when I was trying to do just the opposite; this I must bear in silence, for it is a case when doing and letting alone are accounted alike grievous. Another was from the whims of school-girls, which they would persevere in, though to their own serious discomfort. How to meet such things with simple meekness, and not with a desire to let people suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, is something, which, old as I am, I have not yet learned. The constant frets of this kind that some have to bear, I have been saved from; people are generally too generous and thoughtful of me. How miserable some families must be! and what a wretched life it must be, just to be left to the indulgence of one’s own foolish and selfish whims!
