Long and earnestly did Haldane try to reason his quaint friend out of his despairing views of himself. At last the old man said testily: "Now, look here; you're too new-fledged a saint to instruct a seasoned and experienced old sinner like me. You don't know much about the Lord's ways yet, and I know all about the devil's ways. Because you've got out of his clutches (and I'm mighty glad you have) you needn't make light of him, and take liberties with him as if he was nobody, 'specially when Scripter calls him 'a roarin' lion.' If I was as young as you be, I'd make a dead set to git away from him; but after tryin' more times than you've lived years, I know it ain't no use. I tell you I can't feel as you feel, any more than you can squeeze water out of them old andirons. A-a-h!"
Haldane was silent, feeling that the old man's spiritual condition was too knotty a problem for him to solve.
After a few moments Mr. Growther added, in a voice that he meant to be very solemn and impressive: "But I want you to enjoy your religious feelin's all the same. I will listen to all the Scripter readin' and prayin' you're willin' to do, without makin' any disturbance. Indeed, I think I will enjoy my wittles more, now that an honest grace can be said over 'em. An' when you read the Bible, you needn't read the cussin' parts, if yer don't want to. I'll read 'em to myself hereafter. I'll give you all the leeway that an old curmudgeon like myself kin; and I expect to take a sight o' comfort in seein' you goin' on your way rejoicin'."
And he did seem to take as much interest in the young man's progress and new spiritual experiences as if he alone were the one interested. His efforts to control his irritability and profanity were both odd and pathetic, and Haldane would sometimes hear him swearing softly to himself, with strange contortions of his wrinkled face, when in former times he would have vented his spite in the harshest tones.
Haldane wrote fully to Mrs. Arnot of his visit to his native city and its happy results, and enlarged upon his changed feelings as the proof that he was a changed man.
Her reply was prompt and was filled with the warmest congratulations and expressions of the sincerest sympathy. It also contained these words: "I fear that you are dwelling too largely upon your feelings and experiences, and are giving to them a value they do not possess. Not that I would undervalue them--they are gracious tokens of God's favor; but they are not the grounds of your salvation and acceptance with God."