In the chÂteau at Nyon Jean De La FlÉchÈre was keeping his tenth birthday (September 12th, 1739) Away in old England the Lord of the Manor of Leytonstone, Essex, was giving his first caresses to a tiny baby girl, later to be known as little Mary Bosanquet, and forty years later still as the wife of the saintly John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.

Mary was but a four-year-old baby when she received her first definite conviction that God hears and answers prayer She was a timid little maiden, and the greatest comfort she had in the world was the fact that she possessed a real Father in Heaven, strong, mighty, and willing to protect and help her Sunday evenings in Forest House—­as the Bosanquet mansion was called—­were devoted to the children On those occasions Mary’s father taught her sister and herself the Church catechism. At five years old his youngest daughter asked questions concerning true Christians according to the Word of God, which might well have encouraged evasion on the part of her parent She reasoned out everything told her; but her eager and earnest questions being so constantly put carelessly by, gave her childish mind the impression that the Bible did not mean all it said, therefore a sensible person would make due allowance for its threatenings.

As this thought began to take well hold of Mary, a Methodist girl entered the household as nurse, whose conversations with the children were a great enlightenment to them both.

In a year or two the nurse left them, but not before she had implanted in little Mary’s mind the truth that it was not being united to any church or people which would save her, but that she must be converted through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the fruits of believing in Him as a personal Saviour would be power to love and serve God with a holy heart That was excellent, but it had not been so explained to the child that she could understand the process either of “faith” or of “conversion.” The result was perplexity.

Not a few children in bygone days have had to suffer long Sunday afternoon agonies over the harrowing pictures of Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs,” this being then considered a profitable and bracing Sabbatic “exercise” for hundreds of sensitive little ones whose dreams were haunted, and whose waking hours in the dark were rendered terrific by vivid imaginings of racked, tortured, and burning saints Mary was one of these Yet so troubled was her little heart over the ungrasped subject of faith that one day, while gazing upon these fearful pictures, she exclaimed to herself, “Oh! oh! I do think it would be easier to burn than to believe!”

Mary seems to have been busy with these thoughts for nearly two years She had not passed her eighth birthday when we find her sitting by herself for “a good think,” and wondering “What can it mean to have faith in Jesus?”

Vexed with the mystery of the subject, her childish soul rose in rebellion against God for having chosen so hard a way into salvation, and she exclaimed aloud—­

“Oh, if I had to die a martyr, I could do it; or give away all I have, I could do that; or when I grow up to have to be a servant, that would be easy; but I shall never, never, never know how to believe!”

Two lines of an old hymn drifted instantly through her mind—­

Who on Jesus relies, without money or price,
The pearl of forgiveness and holiness buys.

It was the light she needed. The Spirit of Love had taken pity upon the little girl From that moment the plan of salvation was clear to her, and she cried out—­

“I do, I do rely on Jesus; yes, I do rely on Jesus; and God counts me righteous for all He has done and suffered, and hath forgiven all my sins!”

She felt that a great weight had been lifted from her heart Before this it seemed that everything in the world was easier than to believe, now it appeared the simplest plan God could have devised. Had there been but a kindly and understanding person near to whom Mary could talk freely, she might have been a happy, trusting little Soldier of Jesus from that hour, but there was no one to help her into the sunshine of a child’s daily faith and love and service, and religion became to her rather a subject for morbid thought Terribly afraid of sin, not understanding temptation, wholly uninstructed how to get victory over her temper and other failings, she grew discouraged, and feared she had sadly grieved God With all this shut up in her soul, perhaps it was no wonder that her mother should sometimes exclaim: “That girl is the most perverse creature that ever lived; I cannot think what has come to her.”

CHAPTER III.