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. Brother, don't count on it! I was only too aware that I had racked up quite a number of sins lately: Sinful pride. Intemperance. Greed. Lechery. Adultery. Doubt. And others.
Worse yet, I felt no contrition for the very worst of these.
If the record did not show that Margrethe was saved and listed for Heaven, then I had no interest in going there myself. God help me, that was the truth.
I worried about Margrethe's immortal soul.
She could not claim the second chance of all pre-Christian Era souls. She had been born into the Lutheran Church, not my church but ancestor to my church, ancestor to Al Protestant churches, the first fruit of the Diet of Worms. (When I was a lad in Sunday school, 'Diet of Worms' inspired mind pictures quite foreign to theology!)
The only way Margrethe could be saved would be by renouncing her heresy and seeking to be born again. But she must do this herself; I could not do it for her.
The most. I could possibly do would be to urge her to seek salvation. But I would have to do it most carefully. One does not persuade a butterfly to light on one's hand by brandishing a sword. Margrethe was not a heathen ignorant of Christ and needing only to be instructed. No, she had been born into Christianity and had rejected it, eyes open. She could cite Scripture as readily as I could at some time she had studied the Book most diligently, far more than most laymen
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