"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father."
This is the last word which can be said. Nothing can go beyond it,
and at times it is the only ground which we feel does not shake under
our feet. All life is summed up, and due account is taken of it,
according to its degree. Mrs. Butts' Calvinism, however, hardly took
the usual dogmatic form. She was too simple to penetrate the depths
of metaphysical theology, and she never would have dared to set down
any of her fellow creatures as irrevocably lost. She adapted the
Calvinistic creed to something which suited her. For example, she
fully understood what St. Paul means when he tells the Thessalonians
that BECAUSE they were called, THEREFORE they were to stand fast.
She thought with Paul that being called; having a duty plainly laid
upon her; being bidden as if by a general to do something, she OUGHT
to stand fast; and she stood fast, supported against all pressure by
the consciousness of fulfilling the special orders of One who was her
superior. There is no doubt that this dogma of a personal calling is
a great consolation, and it is a great truth. Looking at the masses
of humanity, driven this way and that way, the Christian teaching is
apt to be forgotten that for each individual soul there is a vocation
as real as if that soul were alone upon the planet.
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