Ruth

by Elizabeth Gaskell

when he saw her, he had compassion on her.

don't try my patience too much; you know I've no great stock."

"It is better not to expect or calculate consequences. The longer I live, the more fully I see that. Let us try simply to do right actions, without thinking of the feelings they are to call out in others. We know that no holy or self-denying effort can fall to the ground vain and useless; but the sweep of eternity is large, and God alone knows when the effect is to be produced. We are trying to do right now, and to feel right; don't let us perplex ourselves with endeavouring to map out how she should feel, or how she should show her feelings."

We are both of us great sinners in the eyes of the Most Holy; let us pray for each other.

Why! dear ah me, making a bed may be done after a Christian fashion, I take it, or else what's to come of such as me in heaven, who've had little enough time on earth for clapping ourselves down on our knees for set prayers?

everything may be done in a right way or a wrong; the right way is to do it as well as we can, as in God's sight; the wrong is to do it in a self-seeking spirit, which either leads us to neglect it to follow out some device of our own for our own ends, or to give up too much time and thought to it both before and after the doing.'

she was learning neither to look backwards nor forwards, but to live faithfully and earnestly in the present.

window of Mr Benson's bedroom, and its blossom-laden branches were

"We are not to do evil that good may come,"

It sometimes seems a little strange how, after having earnestly prayed to be delivered from temptation, and having given ourselves with shut eyes into God's hand, from that time every thought, every outward influence, every acknowledged law of life, seems to lead us on from strength to strength. It seems strange sometimes, because we notice the coincidence; but it is the natural, unavoidable consequence of all truth and goodness being one and the same, and therefore carried out in every circumstance, external and internal, of God's creation.

I should not mind his knowing my past sin, compared to the awful corruption it would be if he knew me living now, as you would have me, lost to all fear of God—"

"Whatever may be my doom—God is just—I leave myself in His hands.

all human care and sorrow were swallowed up in the unconscious sense of God's infinity.

The sunset calmed her more than any words, however wise and tender, could have done. It even seemed to give her strength and courage; she did not know how or why, but so it was.

all deeds,

however hidden and long passed by, have their eternal consequences.

appeal to God against such a doom for my child. I appeal to God to help me. I am a mother, and as such I cry to God for help—for help to keep my boy in His pitying sight, and to bring him up in His holy fear.

take my stand with Christ against the world,"

It is to God you answer, not to men.

"The world is not everything, Ruth; nor is the want of men's good opinion and esteem the highest need which man has.

"God's omnipotence did not need our sin."

disturb others with many expressions of her remorse; that the holiest repentance consisted in a quiet and daily sacrifice.