WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? What a reproof the words were to me that night! Oh, how unlike I had been to Him! His words were always true; He always spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for was He not the Truth itself ? I had indeed lost sight of my Lord’s footsteps, and had gone astray from the right path. How should I find my way back again? It is so easy to go wrong, and so hard to find our way back into the straight road.
I got into bed, but I could not sleep. I tossed about on my pillow, and my head was hot and aching. I had not been so unhappy for many months as I was that night. The other girls fell asleep directly. I listened to their quiet breathing, and oh, how I wished that I was like them, and had nothing on my mind to keep me awake! I felt that I had sinned against God, and grieved my best Friend. I could not expect Him to help me or to bless me now, whilst this sin was unconfessed and unforgiven.
At last I could bear it no longer. I jumped out of bed, and knelt down, and told God all about it, and asked Him to forgive me. I thought of that text, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ I prayed very earnestly that He would cleanse me in His precious blood, and take away the sin which was so much troubling me.
Then I rose from my knees, and waited for Mademoiselle to come upstairs. I felt that I could not go to sleep till I had confessed to her about the letter.
The clock had struck ten, so I thought she would soon be coming upstairs, to go to bed. She sleeps in a room on our landing, so I should be able to speak to her as she passed my door. I opened it a little way that might hear her coming up, and then I sat down on my bed to wait and listen.
Oh, what a long time it seemed to me before she came I heard the clock on the landing ticking in a very solemn voice, but that was the only sound to be heard in the house.
Then the clock struck half-past ten, and a few minutes afterwards I heard the dining-room door shut, and then there was a step on the stairs.
I knew it was Mademoiselle. I had been longing for her to come, and yet, now that she was so near, I trembled all over, and felt very much tempted to get into bed, and not to tell her of the letter until the next morning.
But again my motto helped me.
The Lord Jesus always did what was right, whatever the consequences might be.
With a prayer to Him for help, I stole in my nightgown to the bedroom door, I do not think Mademoiselle would have seen me if I had not spoken. She was going quickly across the landing to her own room, when I called to her.
‘Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, please stop,’ I said.
She started and turned round. ‘Who is it calls me? You, Olive Stewart! Why are you not asleep? Are you ill? What is the matter? What do you want with me?’
‘Please, Mademoiselle,’ I began, and then I stopped, I felt so frightened.
‘Well, be quick!’ she said impatiently. ‘What is it? You will get your death of the cold, child, out on this landing. What do you want with me?’
‘Please, Mademoiselle,’ I said, bursting into tears, ‘it is about your letter.’
‘My letter!’ she repeated in an angry voice; ‘and what about it, I should like to know ? You never posted it, I suppose. Well, I will never trust you anymore! I will not. I am surprised you should be so careless, and then to tell me yourself you had posted it! I am altogether ashamed of you, Olive Stewart. Well, give me the letter; I will post it myself in the morning.’
‘I have not got it, Mademoiselle,’ I said.
‘You have lost it!’ she exclaimed, before I could say more. ‘Do not tell me you have lost it!’
‘Oh no, Mademoiselle!’ I said quickly ; ‘it is quite safe; I forgot it this morning, but I posted it as I came home. Oh, Mademoiselle, I am so sorry!’
‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘it cannot be helped. I am glad it is not lost. But why did you keep awake to tell me, child?’
‘Because I could not rest, Mademoiselle,’ I said, ‘I was so unhappy. I felt I had not told you what was true, and I could not have gone to sleep till I had confessed it to you,’
‘Well,’ she said ‘we will say no more about it; you will be more careful next time. Get into bed now, and go to sleep,’
I obeyed her with a very thankful heart. How wonderfully God had helped me! I knelt down and thanked Him before I got into bed, and then I fell asleep with a light heart.
I remember that it was the morning after that monthly holiday that I got a nice long letter from Melville. He told me all about his school, and his school friends, and the grand games they had, and about the examination which was getting near, and how he hoped not only to get a prize, but to get his remove into a higher form.
‘I know mother will be pleased if I do,’ said Melville, ‘and she would be pleased if she knew that I often think of her motto, “What would Jesus do?” And it has made me change my mind lots of times, when I am going to do something wrong. There was one of our fellows wanted me to do something for him the other day. He is a jolly sort of fellow, and it was awfully hard work to tell him I couldn’t do it. But I knew it would be wrong, and I told him so, and the motto made me stick to it. Don’t you think mother would be glad of that?’
And then Melville told me that they have a motto text every year for the school. The doctor preaches on it the first Sunday of the year, and then they sing in the school chapel the hymn which is printed on the card, below the text. This motto card is hung up in every dormitory, and in all the classrooms, and the boys’ studies, and in the master’s private rooms too.
I will copy Melville’s motto hymn here, for I think it is very much like my own motto, and it will be a great help to me to remember it.
Even Christ Pleased Not Himself
‘When Jesus left His throne on high,
And came to live on earth and die,
His words, His acts, His looks, we find
Always unselfish, always kind.
Jesus, my Lord, oh, may I be,
Each day, each moment, more like Thee.
Though He was often very sad,
Ale tried to make all others glad;
He went about from day to day,
Shedding bright sunshine on His way.
Jesus, my Lord, oh, may I be,
Each day, each moment, more like Thee.
He never thought the way too long
To seek a lost sheep going wrong ;
He listened to its faintest call,
Nor thought about Himself at all,
Jesus, my Lord, oh, may I be,
Each day, each moment, more like Thee.
Where’er He was, by day, by night,
His Father’s will was His delight;
And He, with truth, could ever say,
I do what pleases Him alway,
Jesus, my Lord, oh, may I be,
Noon day, each moment, more like Thee.’