And then Mrs. Burnham began to desire exceedingly that this girl should pray mightily for her son. More than all things else, more even than that the rags of his outward respectability--as regarded his home--might be preserved to him, did she long for his entire consecration to God. She knew only too well that, despite his strict integrity and his firm adherence to the letter of his faith, the world was gripping him with a mighty hold. She knew, too, how insidiously and how surely Irene's views, and Irene's feelings, and Irene's wishes were slipping in between him and that entirely consecrated life which would hold him safe above all the world's allurements.
It was not that he was markedly different in word or deed from what his early manhood had promised. It was rather that he had not grown, spiritually, with the passing years; and of late years, since his marriage, his mother could detect a backward movement, as of one drifting downstream imperceptibly to himself, and losing force. There were times when she felt almost jealous of the hold which her daughter-in-law had taken upon the heart of this girl who believed as well as prayed.
"You will not forget my Erskine?" she said one day when they had been talking about it.
"Oh, no!" Maybelle said quickly. "No, indeed! How could I, dear Mrs. Burnham, when he is your son, and you asked me to pray for him? I never forget him; but after all, it isn't so important, you know."
"Why not?" The mother was almost indignant. From her standpoint nothing in life seemed quite so important as that Erskine should be the kind of Christian that the Lord wanted.
"Why, because," said the child, wonderingly, "he _belongs_, you know, and--won't the dear Lord take care of his own? But it is different with her,--why, she may not let Him!"
There was the most peculiar emphasis of that word "belongs"; and almost infinite dismay expressed by the last phrase. Maybelle was a literalist. She believed that when the Lord said, "Ye _will not_ come unto me that ye might have life," he meant that it was quite within man's power to refuse it.
But from that hour Ruth's heart was quieter concerning her son, and she prayed in stronger faith. Erskine "belonged" and she could trust the Lord to take care of His own. It seemed strange, but the child was really helping the Christian of mature years. "Except ye become as little children," she repeated to her heart with a grateful smile. Maybelle's faith was as the faith of a little child; that was what made it so strong.