"Now the symbol of his reward," and lo, there rose up before them the solid wall, built brick by brick. Dr. Vincent's voice was almost husky with feeling, so suddenly had the play of his emotions changed, as he said: "Now we want the foundation."

How did Frank Beard do it with a dull colored crayon and a half-dozen movements of his skillful arm? How can I tell, except that God has given to the arm wondrous skill; but there appeared before that astonished multitude a foundation as of granite, and there rose from it, as if suddenly hewed out before them, a clean-cut solid shaft of gray, imperishable granite. One more dash of the wondrous crayon and the shaft was done—a solid cross!

Prof. Sherwin was sitting, for want of a better position, on the floor of the stand. It was the only available space. He had been looking and enjoying as only men like Prof. Sherwin can; and now, as he watched the outgrowth of this wonderful cross, as the last stroke was given that made it complete, and a sound like a subdued shout of joy and triumph murmured through the crowd, moved as by a sudden mighty impulse that he could not control, his splendid voice burst forth in the glorious words:

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee."

And that great multitude took it up and rolled the tribute of praise down those resounding aisles until people bowed themselves, and some of them wept softly in the very excess of their joy and thanksgiving. It was all so sudden, so unexpected; yet it was so surely the key-note to the Chautauqua heart, and fitted in so aptly with their professions and intentions. They could play for a few minutes—none could do it with better hearts or more utter enjoyment than these same splendid leaders—but how surely their hearts turned back to the main thought, the main work, the main hope, in life and in death.

As for Eurie, she will not be likely to forget that sermon. It almost overpowered her. There came over her such a sudden and eager longing to understand the depths from whence such feeling sprung, to rest her feet on the same foundation, that for the moment her heart gave a great bound and said: "It is worth all the self-denial and all the change of life and plans which it would involve. I almost think I want that rather than anything else." That miserable "almost!" I wonder how many souls it has shipwrecked? The old story. If Eurie had been familiar with her Bible it would surely have reminded her of the foolish listener who said, while he trembled under the truth, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."

Shall I tell you what came in, just then and there, to influence her decision? It was such a miserable little thing—nothing more than the remembrance of certain private parties that were a standing institution among "their set" at home, to meet fortnightly in each other's parlors for a social dance. Not a ball! oh, no, not at all. These young ladies did not attend balls, unless occasionally a charity ball, when a very select party was made up. Simply quiet evenings among special friends, where the special amusement was dancing.

"Dear me!" you say, "I am a Christian, and I don't see anything wrong in dancing. Why, I dance at private parties very often. What was there in that thought that needed to influence her?"

Oh, well, we are not arguing, you know. This is simply a record of matters and things as they occurred at Chautauqua. It can hardly be said to be a story, except as records of real lives of course make stories.

But Eurie was not a Christian, you see; and however foolish it may have been in her she had picked out dancing as one of the amusements not fitting to a Christian profession. It is a queer fact, for the cause of which I do not pretend to account, but if you are curious, and will investigate this subject, you will find that four fifths of the people in this world who are not Christiana have tacitly agreed among themselves that dancing is not an amusement that seems entirely suited to church-members. If you want to get at the reason for this strange prejudice, question some of them. Meantime the fact exists that Eurie felt herself utterly unwilling to give up the leadership of those fortnightly parties, and that the trivial question actually came in then and there, while she stood looking at that picture of the cross; and in proportion as her sudden conviction of desire lost itself in this whirl of intended amusement did her disgust arise at the thought that she had been actually betrayed into listening to another sermon!



CHAPTER XXVI.

"THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM."

Marion went alone to the services the next morning. It was in vain that she assured Eurie that Miss Morris was going to conduct one of the normal classes, and that she had heard her spoken of as unusually sparkling. Eurie shook her head.

"Go and hear her sparkle, then, by all means I won't. Now that's a very inelegant word to use, but it is expressive, and when I use it you may know that I mean it; I am tired of the whole story, and I have been cheated times enough. Look at yesterday! It was a dozen prayer-meetings combined. No, I don't get caught this morning."

"But the subject is one that will not admit of sermonizing and prayer-meetings this morning," Marion pleaded; "I am specially interested in it. It is 'How to win and hold attention.' If there is anything earthly that a ward school-teacher needs to know it is those two items. I expect to get practical help."

"You needn't expect anything earthly; this crowd have nothing to do with matters this side of eternity. As for the subject not admitting of sermonizing, look at the subject of blackboard caricatures. What came of that?"

So she went her way, and Marion, who had seen Miss Morris and had been attracted, looked her up with earnest work in view. She had an ambition to be a power in her school-room. Why should not this subject help her?

The tent was quite full, but she made her way to a corner and secured a seat. Miss Morris was apparently engaged in introducing herself and apologizing for her subject.

"I tried to beg off," she said; "I told them that the subject and I had nothing in common; that I was a primary class teacher, and in that line lay my work. But there is no sort of use in trying to change Dr. Vincent's mind about anything, so I had to submit. But for once in my life I remind myself of Gough. I once overheard him in conversation with a committee on lectures. They were objecting to having him lecture on temperance, and pressing him to name some other subject. 'Choose what subject you please, gentlemen,' he said at last, 'and I'll lecture on it, but remember what I say will be on temperance.' So they have given me this subject and I have engaged to take it, but I want you to remember that what I say will be on primary class-teaching."

By this time Miss Morris had the sympathy of her audience, and had awakened an interest to see how she would follow out her programme, and from first to last she held their attention. Certain thoughts glowed vividly. I don't know who else they influenced, but I knew they roused and startled Marion, and will have much to do with her future methods of teaching.

"Remember," said the speaker, "that you can not live on skim-milk and teach cream!" The thought embodied in that brief and telling sentence was as old as time, and Marion had heard it as long ago as she remembered anything, but it never flashed before her until that moment.

What an illustration! She saw herself teaching her class in botany to analyze the flowers, to classify them, to tell every minute item concerning them, and she taught them nothing to say concerning the Creator. Was this "skim-milk" teaching? She knew so many ways in which, did she but have this belief concerning heaven, and Christ, and the judgment, in her heart, she could impress it upon her scholars. She had aimed to be the very cream of teachers. Was she? She came back from her reverie, or, rather, her self-questioning, to hear Miss Morris say:

"Why, one move of your hand moves all creation! and as surely does one thought of your soul grow and spread and roll through the universe. Why, you can't sit in your room alone, and think a mean thought, or a false thought, or an unchristian thought, without its influencing not only all people around you, not only all people in all the universe, but nations yet unborn must live under the shadow or the glory that the thought involves."

Bold statements these! But Marion could follow her. Intellectually she was thoroughly posted. Had she not herself used the illustration of the tiny stream that simpered through the home meadow and went on, and on, and on, until it helped to surge the beaches of the ocean? But here was a principle involved that reached beyond the ocean, that ignored time, that sought after eternity. Was she following the stream? Could she honestly tell that it might not lead to a judgment that should call her to account for her non-religious influence over her scholars? Marion was growing heavy-hearted; she wanted at least to do no harm in the world if she could do no good. But if all this mountain weight of evidence at Chautauqua proved anything, it proved that she was living a life of infidelity, for the influence of which she was to be called into judgment.

No sort of use to comfort herself with the thought that she talked of her peculiar views to no one; it began to be evident that the things which she did not do were more startling than the things which she did.

On the whole, no comfort came to her troubled soul through this morning session. To herself she seemed precisely where she was when she went into that tent, only perhaps a trifle more impressed with the solemnity of all things.

But, without knowing it, a great stride had been taken in her education. She was not again to be able to say: "I injure no one with my belief; I keep it to myself." "No Man liveth to himself."

The verse came solemnly to her as she went out, as though other than human voice were reminding her of it, and life began to feel like an overwhelming responsibility that she could not assume. When one begins to feel that thought in all its force the next step is to find one who will assume the responsibility for us. She met Ruth on her way up the hill.

"Flossy has deserted me," Ruth explained as they met; "Eurie carried her away to take a walk. Are you going to hear about John Knox? I am interested in him chiefly because of the voice that is to tell of him to-day; I like Dr. Hurlburt."

Marion's only reply was: "I don't see but you come to meeting quite as regularly, now that you are at the hotel, as you did when on the grounds."

Then they went to secure their seats. I am not to attempt to tell you anything about the John Knox lecture; indeed I have given over telling more about the Chautauqua addresses. It is of no sort of use. One only feels like bemoaning a failure after any attempt to repeat such lectures as we heard there. Besides, I am chiefly interested at present in their effect on our girls.

They listened—these two, and enjoyed as people with brains must necessarily have done. But there was more than that to it; there were consequences that will surely be met again at the last great day.

Ruth, as she walked thoughtfully away, said to herself: "That is the way. Live the truth. It is a different day, and the trials and experiences are different, but life must be the same. It is not the day for half-way Christianity nor for idling; I will be an earnest Christian, or I will not dishonor the name and disgrace the memory of such men as Knox by claiming to be of their faith."

While Marion, as she turned her flushed cheeks hastily away from Ruth, not willing to show one who knew nothing about this matter, save that it was expedient to join a church, had gotten one foot set firmly toward the rock.

"The power that enabled that man to live that life was certainly of God," she thought. "It must be true. God must be in communication with some of the souls that have lived. Is he now, and can I be one of them? Oh, I wonder if there are a favored few who have shone out as grand lights in the world and have gone up from the world to their reward? And I wonder if there is no such thing now? If the blundering creatures who call themselves by his name are nothing but miserable imitations of what was once real?

"Such lives as that one can understand; but how can I ever believe that Deacon Cole's life is molded by the same influence, or, indeed, that mine can be? Must I be a Deacon Cole Christian if I am one at all?"

The afternoon clouded over, and a mincing little rain began to fall. Marion stood in the tent door and grumbled over it.

"I wanted to hear that Mr. Hazard," she said; "I rather fancy his face, and I fancy the name of his subject. I had a curiosity to see what he would do with it, and here is this rain to hinder."

Ruth and Flossy had come over for the day, and were waiting in the tent.

"Haven't you been at Chautauqua long enough to catch one of its cardinal rules, never to stay at home for rain?" Flossy said.

Marion looked around at her. She was putting on her rubbers.

"Are you really going?" She asked the question in great surprise. "Why, Flossy, it is going to rain hard!"

"What of it?" said Flossy, lightly. "I have waterproof, and rubbers, and umbrella, and if it gets to be too wet I can run to a tent."

"If you were at home you wouldn't think of going to church. Why, Flossy Shipley, I never knew you to go out in the rain! I thought you were always afraid you would spoil your clothes."

"That was because I had none already spoiled to wear," Flossy answered, cheerily; "but that difficulty is obviated; I have spoiled two dresses since I have been here. This one now is indifferent to the rain, and will be for the future. I have an improvement on that plan, though; I mean to have a rainy-day dress as soon as I get home. Come, it is time we were off."

"I believe I am a dunce," Marion said, slowly. "I think it is going to rain hard; but as I have to go, at home, whether it rains or shines, I suppose I can do it here. But if this were a congregation of respectable city Christians, instead of a set of lunatics, there wouldn't be a dozen out."

They found hundreds out, however. Indeed, it proved to be difficult to secure seats. That address was heard under difficulties. In the first place it would rain; not an out-and-out hearty shower, that would at once set at rest the attempt to hold an out-door meeting, but an exasperating little drizzle, enlivened occasionally by a few smart drops that seemed to hint business. There was a constant putting up of umbrellas and putting them down again. There was a constant fidgeting about, and getting up and sitting down again, to let some of the more nervous ones who had resolved upon a decided rain escape to safer quarters. Half of the people had their heads twisted around to get a peep at the sky, to see what the clouds really did mean, anyway.

Our girls had one of the uncomfortable posts. Arrived late, they had to take what they could get, and it was some distance from the speaker, and their sight and sound were so marred by the constant changes and the whirl of umbrellas that Marion presently lost all patience and gave up the attempt to listen. She would have deserted altogether but for the look of eager attention on Flossy's face. Despite the annoyances, she was evidently hearing and enjoying. It seemed a pity to disturb her and suggest a return to the tent; besides, Marion felt half ashamed to do so.

It was not pleasant to give tacit acknowledgment to the fact that poor little, unintellectual Flossy was much more interested than herself. She gave herself up to an old and favorite employment of hers, that of looking at faces and studying them, when a sudden hush that seemed to be settling over the hither to fidgety audience arrested her attention.

The speaker's voice was full of pathos, and so quiet had the place become that every word of his could be distinctly heard. He was evidently in the midst of a story, the first of which she had not heard. This was the sentence, as her ears took it up:

"Don't cry, father, don't cry! To-night I shall be with Jesus, and I will tell him that you did all you could to bring me there!"

What a tribute for a child to give to a father's love! Flossy, with her cheeks glowing and her eyes shining like stars, quietly wiped away the tears, and in her heart the resolve grew strong to live so that some one, dying, could say of her: "I will tell Jesus that you did all you could to bring me there!"

Do you think that was what the sentence said to Marion? Quick as thought her life flashed back to that old dingy, weather-beaten house, to that pale-faced man, with his patched clothing and his gray hairs straggling over on the coarse pillow. Her father, dying—her one friend, who had been her memory of love and care all these long years, dying—and these were the last words his lips had said:

"Don't cry, little girl—father's dear little girl. I am going to Jesus. I shall be there in a little while. I shall tell him that I tried to have you come!"

Oh, blessed father! How hard he had tried in his feebleness and weakness to teach her the way! How sure he had seemed to feel that she would follow him! And how had she wandered! How far away she was! Oh, blessed Spirit of God, to seek after her all these years, through all the weak and foolish mazes of doubt, and indifference, and declared unbelief—still coming with her down to this afternoon at Chautauqua, and there renewing to her her father's parting word.

She had often and often thought of these words of her father's. In a sense, they had been ever present with her. Just why they should come at this time, bringing such a sense of certainty about them to her very soul that all this was truth, God's solemn, real, unchangeable truth, and force this conviction upon her in such a way that she was moved to say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see," I can not tell.

Why Mr. Hazard was used as the instrument of such a revelation of God to her I can not tell. Perhaps he had prayed that his work at Chautauqua that rainy afternoon might, in some way, be blessed to the help of some struggling soul. Perhaps this was the answer to his prayer—unheard, unseen by him, as many an answer to our pleading is, and yet the answer as surely comes. Who can tell how this may be. I do not know. I know this, that Marion's heart gave a great sobbing cry, as it said:

"Oh, father, father! if your God, if your Christ, will help me, I will—I will try to come."

It was her way of repeating the old cry, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." And I do know that it is written, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." It was fifteen years that the weary father had been resting from his labors, and here were his works following him.

I have heard that Mr. Hazard said, as he folded his papers and came down from the stand that afternoon, "It was useless to try to talk in such a rain, with the prospect of more every minute. The people could not listen. It would have been better to have adjourned. Nothing was accomplished." Much he knew about it, or will know until the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed!



CHAPTER XXVII.

UNFINISHED MUSIC.

Meantime, this day, which was to be so fraught with consequences to Marion, was on Eurie's hands to dispose of as best she could. To be at Chautauqua, and to be bent on having nothing whatever to do with any of the Chautauqua life, was in itself a novel position. The more so as she felt herself quite deserted. The necessity for reporting served Marion as an excuse for attending even those meetings which she did not report; and the others having gone to Mayville to live, this foolish sheep, who was within the fold, and who would not be of it, went wandering whither she would in search of amusement.

After Marion left her she made her way to the museum, and a pleasant hour she spent; one could certainly not desire a more attractive spot. She went hither and thither, handling and admiring the books, the pictures, the maps, the profusion of curiosities, and, at the end of the hour, when the press of visitors became too great to make a longer stay agreeable, she departed well pleased with herself that she had had the wisdom to choose such a pleasant resort instead of a seat in some crowded tent as a listener.

Coming out, she walked down the hill, and on and on, watching the crowds of people who were gathering, and wishing she had a programme that she might see what the special attraction was that seemed to be drawing so many.

At last she reached the wharf. The Assembly steamer was lying at her dock, her jaunty flags flying, and the commotion upon her decks betokening that she was making ready for a voyage. The crowd seemed greater there than at any other point. It would appear that the special attraction was here, after all. She understood it, and pushed nearer, as the ringing notes of song suddenly rose on the air, and she recognized the voices of the Tennesseeans.

This was a great treat; she delighted in hearing them. She allowed herself to be elbowed and jostled by the throng, reaching every moment by judicious pushing a place where she could not only hear but see, and where escape was impossible. The jubilant chorus ceased and one of those weird minor wails, such as their music abounds in, floated tenderly around her.

It was a farewell song, so full of genuine pathos, and so tenderly sung, that it was in vain to try to listen without a swelling of the throat and a sense of sadness. Something in the way that the people pressed nearer to listen suggested to Eurie that it must be designed as a farewell tribute to somebody, and presently Prof. Sherwin mounted a seat that served as a platform and gave them a tender informal farewell address. In every sentence his great, warm heart shone.

"I am going away," he said, "before the blessed season at Chautauqua is concluded. I am going with a sad heart, for I feel that opportunities here for work for the Master have been great, and some of them I have lost. And yet there is light in the sadness, for the work that I can not do will yet be done. I once sat before my organ improvising a thought that was in my heart, trying to give expression to it, and I could not. I knew what I wanted, and I knew it was in my heart, but how to give it expression I did not know. A celebrated organist came up the stairs and stood beside me. I looked around to him. 'Can't you take this tune,' I said, 'just where I leave it, and finish it for me as I have it in my heart to do? I can't give it utterance. Don't you see what I want?'"

"'Perhaps I do,' he said, and he placed his fingers over my fingers, on the same keys that mine were touching, and I slipped out of the seat and back into the shadow, and he slipped into my place, and then the music rolled forth. My tune, only I could not play it. He was doing it for me. So, though I may have failed in my work that I have tried to do here, the great Master is here, and I pray and I hope and I believe that he will put his grand hand upon my unfinished work and in heaven I shall meet it completed.'"

What was there in this to move Eurie to tears? She did not know Prof. Sherwin—that is, she had never been introduced to him—but she had heard him sing, she had heard him pray, she had met him in the walk and asked where the Sunday-school lesson was, and he had in part directed her—directed her in such a way that she had been led to seek further, and in doing so had met Miss Ryder, and in meeting her had been interested ever since in studying a Christian life. Was this one of Prof. Sherwin's unfinished tunes? Would he meet it again in heaven?

A very tender spirit took possession of Eurie—an almost irresistible longing to know more of this influence, or presence, or whatever name it should be called, that so moved hearts, and made the friends of a week say farewell with tears, and yet with hopeful smiles as they spoke in joy and assurance of a future meeting.

Prof. Sherwin and his friends embarked, and the dainty little steamer turned her graceful head toward Mayville, and slipped away over the silver water. Eurie made no attempt to get away from the throng who pressed to the edge of the dock to get the last bow, the last flutter of his handkerchief. She even drew out her own handkerchief and fluttered it after him, and received from him a special bow, and was almost decided to resolve to be present in joy at that other meeting, and to make sure this very day of her title to an inheritance there. Almost!

Going back she met Ruth and Flossy. She seized eagerly upon the latter.

"Come," she said, "you have been to meetings enough, and you haven't taken a single walk with me since we have been here, and think of the promises we made to entertain each other."

Flossy laughed cheerfully.

"We have been entertained, without any effort on our part," she said. Nevertheless she suffered herself to be persuaded to go for a walk, provided Eurie would go to Palestine.

"What nonsense!" Eurie said, disdainfully, when Flossy had explained to her that she had a consuming desire to wander along the banks of the Jordan, and view those ancient cities, historic now. "However, I would just as soon walk in that direction as any other."

There was one other person who, it transpired, would as soon take a walk as do anything else just then. He joined the girls as they turned toward the Palestine road. That was Mr. Evan Roberts.

"Are you going to visit the Holy Land this morning, and may I be of your party?" he asked.

"Yes," Flossy answered, whether to the first question, or to both in one, she did not say. Then she introduced Eurie, and the three walked on together, discussing the morning and the meetings with zest.

"Here we are, on 'Jordan's stormy banks,'" Mr. Roberts said, at last, halting beside the grassy bank. "I suppose there was never a more perfect geographical representation than this."

"Do you really think it has any practical value?" Eurie asked, skeptically. Mr. Roberts looked at her curiously.

"Hasn't it to you?" he said. "Now, to me, it is just brimful of interest and value; that is, as much value as geographical knowledge ever is. I take two views of it. If I never have an actual sight of the sacred land, by studying this miniature of it, I have as full a knowledge as it is possible to get without the actual view, and if I at some future day am permitted to travel there, why—well, you know of course how pleasant it is to be thoroughly posted in regard to the places of interest that you are about to visit; every European traveler understands that."

"But do you suppose it is really an accurate outline?" Eurie said, again, quoting opinions that she had read until she fancied they were her own.

Again Mr. Roberts favored her with that peculiar look from under heavy eyebrows—a look half satirical, half amused.

"Some of the most skilled surveyors and traveled scholars have so reported," he said, carelessly. "And when you add to that the fact that they are Christian men, who have no special reason for getting up a wholesale deception for us, and are supposed to be tolerably reliable on all other subjects, I see no reason to doubt the statement."

On the whole, Eurie had the satisfaction of realizing that she had appeared like a simpleton.

Flossy, meantime, was wandering delightedly along the banks, stopping here and there to read the words on the little white tablets that marked the places of special interest.

"Do you see," she said, turning eagerly, "that these are Bible references on each tablet? Wouldn't it be interesting to know what they selected as the scene to especially mark this place?"

Mr. Roberta swung a camp-chair from his arm, planted it firmly in the ground, and drew a Bible from his pocket.

"Miss Mitchell," he said, "suppose you sit down here in this road, leading from Jerusalem to Bethany, and tell us what is going on just now in Bethany, while Miss Shipley and I supply you with chapter and verse."

"I am not very familiar with the text-book," Eurie said. "If you are really in the village yourselves you might possibly inquire of the inhabitants before I could find the account." But she took the chair and the Bible.

"Look at Matthew xxi. 17, Eurie," Flossy said, stooping over the tablet, and Eurie read:

"'And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.'"

"That was Jesus, wasn't it? Then he went this way, this very road, Eurie, where you are sitting!" It was certainly very fascinating.

"And stopped at the house on which you have your hand, perhaps," Mr. Roberts said, smiling at her eager face.

"That might have been Simon's house, for instance."

"Did he live in Bethany? I don't know anything about these things."

"Eurie, look if you can find anything about him. The next reference is Matthew xxvi."

And again Eurie read:

"'Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper.'"

"The very place!" Flossy said, again. "Oh, I want so much to know what happened then!"

"Won't Miss Mitchell read it to us?" Mr. Roberts said, and he arranged his shawl along the ground for seats. "Since we have really come to Bethany, let us have the full benefit of it. Now, Miss Shipley, take a seat, and we will give ourselves up to the pleasure of being with Jesus in Simon's house, and looking on at the scene."

So they disposed of themselves on the grass, and Eurie, hardly able to restrain a laugh over the novelty of the situation, and yet wonderfully fascinated by the whole scene, read to them the tender story of the loving woman with her sweet-smelling ointment, growing more and more interested, until in the closing verse her voice was full of feeling.

"'Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done be told as a memorial of her.'"

"Think of that!" said Mr. Roberts. "And here are we, eighteen hundred years afterward, sitting here in Bethany and talking of that same woman still! Miss Mitchell, are you going to do something for Christ that shall be talked over a thousand years from now? There is a chance for undying fame."

"Doubtful!" Eurie said, but she did not smile; her face was grave.

"Or, better still, are you going to do such work for Christ that, hundreds of years after, your influence will be silently living and working out its fruit in human hearts?"

"It is altogether more likely that I shall do nothing at all."

"Out of the question," he said, with a grave smile. "Either for or against, every life must be, whether we will it or not. 'He that is not with me is against me,' was the word of the Master himself, and as long as eternity lasts the fruit of the sowing will last."

"That is a fearfully solemn thought," Flossy said, earnestly.

Mr. Roberts turned toward her a face aglow with smiles now.

"And a wondrously precious one," he said, and Flossy answered him in a low tone:

"Yes, I can see that it might be."

Now, the actual fact is, that those three people wandered around that far-away land until the morning vanished and the loud peal of the Chautauqua bells announced the fact that the feast of intellect was over, and it was time for dinner They went from Bethany to Bethel, and from Bethel to Shechem, and they even climbed Mount Hermon's snowy peak, and looked about on the lovely plain below. In every place there was Bible reading, and Eurie was the reader, and it was such a morning that she will remember for all time.

"Pray, who is this Mr. Roberts?" she asked, as they parted company at the foot of the hill. "Where did you make his acquaintance?"

"He is Mrs. Smythe's nephew," Flossy said. "She introduced me to him the other evening."

"The other evening! You seemed to be as well acquainted as though you had spent the summer together."

"Some people have a way of seeming like friends on short acquaintance," Flossy said, with grave face and smiling eyes.

"You two missed a good deal by your folly this morning," Ruth said, as they met at dinner. "We had a grand lecture."

"So had we," answered Eurie, significantly, and that was every word she vouchsafed concerning the trip to Palestine.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

MENTAL PROBLEMS.

"Dr. Deems," said Ruth, looking up from her programme with a thoughtful air. "I wonder if he is a man whom I have any special desire to hear?"

You must constantly remember the entire ignorance of these girls on all names and topics that pertained to the religious world. Ruth knew indeed that the gentleman in question was a New York clergyman; that was as far as her knowledge extended.

"His subject is interesting," Flossy said.

"I don't think it is," said Eurie. "Not to me, anyhow. Nature and I have nothing in common, except to have a good time together if we can get it. She is a miserably disappointed jade, I know. What has she done for us since we have been here except to arrange rainy weather? I'm going to visit his honor the mummy this morning, and from there I am going to the old pyramid; and I advise you to go with me, all of you. Talk about nature when there is an old fellow to see who was acquainted with it thousands of years ago. Nature is too common an affair to be interested in."

"Oh, are you going to the museum?" said Flossy. "Then please get me one of the 'Bliss' singing books, will you? I want to secure one before they are all gone. Girls, don't you each want one of them to take home? The hymns are lovely."

"I don't," said Eurie, "unless he is for sale to go along and sing them. I can't imagine anything tamer than to hear some commonplace voice trying to do those songs that he roars out without any effort at all. What has become of the man?"

"He has gone," said Marion. "Called home suddenly, some one told me. His singing is splendid, isn't it? I don't know but I feel much as you do about the book. Think of having Deacon Miller try to sing, 'Only an armor-bearer!' I don't mind telling you that I felt very much as if I were being lifted right off my feet and carried up somewhere, I hardly know where, when I heard him sing that. I was coming down the hill, away off, you know, by the post-office—no, away above the post-office, and he suddenly burst forth. I stopped to listen, and I could hear every single word as distinctly as I can hear you in this tent."

"Hear!" said Eurie, "I guess you could. I shouldn't be surprised if they heard him over at Mayville, and that is what brings such crowds here every day. Did you ever see anything like the way the people come here, anyhow?"

"I don't feel at all as you do," said Flossy, going back to the question of singing-books. "After we get let down a little, 'Only an armor-bearer' will sound very well even from common singers. It has in it what can't be taken out because a certain voice is lost; and the book is full of other and simpler pieces, and lovely choruses, that people can catch after one hearing."

"Flossy is going home to introduce it into the First Church," Eurie said, gravely.

Flossy's cheeks flushed.

"I had not thought of that," she said, simply; "perhaps we can. In any case get me a couple, Eurie."

The discussion on the morning service ended in a division of the party. Ruth, who had come over early on purpose to attend, was obliged to succumb to a feeling of utter weariness and lie down.

Eurie steadily refused to go to the platform meeting, assuring them that she knew Dr. Deems would be "as dry as a stick; all New York ministers were."

So Flossy and Marion went away together, Marion with her note-book in the hope of getting an item for a newspaper letter that must be written that afternoon.

They were late, and almost abandoned in despair the hope of getting within hearing, until a happy thought suggested a seat on the platform stair at the speaker's back. There was a "crack" there, Marion said, into which they presently crept.

The address was already commenced. Marion listened at first with that indifferent air that a face wears when its owner perforce commences in the middle of a thing, and has to wait his way to a tangible idea of what is being said.

There was not long waiting, however. Her eyes began to dilate and her face to glow; she was almost a worshiper of eloquence, and surely no one ever sat for two hours and listened to a more unbroken flow of rich, glowing words, shining like diamonds, than fell lavishly around the listeners that Friday morning at Chautauqua. But a few minutes and Marion's pencil began to move with speed. This was the thought that had thrilled her:

"First, light; then liberation from chaos; then grass; and then God stopped his work and gazed with delight on the picture he had drawn. Think what a picture it must have been! There was nothing but rocks ground down when God said, 'Earth, grow!' Then straightway the mother power fell down upon the earth, life pulsed in her veins, and the baby shoot of grass sprang up, and the rocky earth wrapped herself in her garment of emerald, and God, stopping his work said, 'Useful, beautiful!'"

When the speaker touched upon the doctrine of the resurrection Marion's pencil paused, and she leaned eagerly forward to get a glimpse of his face. That doctrine had seemed to her doubting heart the strangest, wildest, most hopeless of the Christian theories. If clear light could shine on that, could there not on anything? Her face was aglow with interest not only, but with anxiety.

This morning, for the first time in her life, she could be called an honest doubter. She had fancied herself able to believe any thing of which her reason had been convinced; but she found, to her surprise and dismay, that so fixed had the habit of unbelief become, it seemed impossible to shake it off, and that she needed to be convinced and reconvinced; that her questionings came in on every hand, seized upon the smallest point, and tormented her without mercy. What about this strange story of the resurrection?

As she listened a subdued smile broke over her face—a smile of sarcasm. How very absurdly simple the argument from nature was, how utterly unanswerable! And after the sentence, "Tell me how that wonderful field of waving grain came from the bare kernels of corn, and I will tell you how my blessed baby shall rise an angel," Marion said in tone so distinct that it struck on Flossy's ear like a knell, "What a fool!" Not the speaker, as the dismayed and disappointed Flossy supposed, but herself.

"The measure of every man is his faith," said Dr. Deems. "The greatest thing a human being can do is not to perceive, nor to compare, not to reason, but to believe." And again Marion smiled. If this were true what a pigmy she must be! She began to more than suspect that she was.

"Don't waste time," said the Doctor, "in trying to reconcile science and the Bible. Science wasn't intended to teach religion. The Bible wasn't intended to teach science; but wherever they touch they agree. God sends his servants—scientific men—all abroad through nature to gather facts with which to illustrate the Bible."

Marion began to write again, but it was only in snatches here and there; not that there was not that which she longed to catch, but she could not write it—the sentences just poured forth; and how perfectly aglow with light and beauty they were! This one sentence she presently wrote:

"In the black ink of his power God wrote the Book of nature; in the red ink of his love he wrote the Bible; and all this power is to bring us all to this love. Oh, to rest in arms like these! Are they not strong enough?"

Suddenly Marion closed her book and slipped her pencil into her pocket; she could not write. And although she thrilled through every nerve over the majestic sentences that followed and was carried to a pitch of enthusiasm almost beyond her control, when the jubilant thunder of thousands of voices rang together in the matchless closing words, "Blessing, and glory, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God, forever and ever. Amen." She made no further attempt to write; her heart was full; there rang in it this eager cry, "Oh, to rest in arms like these!" Strong enough? Aye, indeed! Doubts were forever set at rest. The Maker of all nature could be none other than God, and the God of nature was the God of the Bible. It was as clear as the sunlight. Reason was forever satisfied, but there lingered yet the hungering cry, "Oh, to rest in arms like these!"

And Flossy said not a word to her of the resting place. Not because she had not found it strong and safe; not because she did not long to have her friend rest there, but because of that despairing murmur in her heart. "What is the use in saying anything? Had she not heard with her own ears Marion's sneering sentence in the face of the unanswerable arguments that had been presented?" I wonder how often we turn away from harvest fields that are ready for the reader because we mistake for a sneer that which is the admission of a convicted soul?

By afternoon Ruth was rested and ready for meeting; if the truth be known it was her troubled brain which had tired her body and obliged her to rest. She had begun to take up that problem of "Christian work." The platform meeting of the evening before, and, more than anything else, Dr. Niles' address, had fanned her heart into a flame of desire to do something for the Master. But what could she do? She and Flossy had talked it over together after they reached their room at the hotel; in fact they talked away into the night.

"I don't know," Flossy said, with a little laugh, "but I shall have to depend on the 'unconscious influence' which I exert to do my work for me. I don't know of anything which I can actually do. Dr. Niles made a great deal of that."

"Yes," Ruth, said, "but you see, Flossy, the people whose unconscious influence does any good are the ones after all who are moving around trying to do something. I don't feel sure that he lets the unconscious influence of the drones amount to much, unless it is in the wrong scale. Dr. Niles made a good deal of that, you remember."

"Don't you like him ever so much, Ruth?"

"Why, yes," Ruth said again, turning her pillow wearily. "I liked him of course; how could I help it? But, after all, he made me very uncomfortable. I seem to feel as though I must find something to do. I have a great deal of time to make up. I tell you what it is, Flossy, I wish you and I could do something for those two girls. Isn't it strange that they are not interested?"

"But they are not." Flossy said it as positively as if she could see right into their hearts. "I think Marion is worse than ever; and as for Eurie, she won't even go to the meetings, you know."

"I know. Perhaps we would only do harm to try. But what can we do? I am sure I don't see anything. And don't you know how clearly Dr. Niles made it appear that there was a special work for each one?"

So they discussed the question, turning it over and over, and getting almost no light, coming to feel themselves very useless and worthless specks on the sea of life, until late in the night Flossy said:

"I'll tell you what it is, Ruth, we must just ask for work—little bits of work, you know—and then keep our eyes open until it comes. I know of things I can do when I get home."

"So do I," said Ruth, "but I want to begin now."

Silence for a few minutes, and then Flossy asked:

"Ruthie, have you written to Mr. Wayne?"

"No," said Ruth, her cheeks flushing even in the darkness. "I wrote a long letter just before this came to me, but I burned it, and I am glad of it."

Then they went to sleep. But the desire for the work did not fade with the daylight. Flossy had even been tempted to say a humble little word to Marion, but had been deterred by the sound of that sneer of which I told you; and Ruth, lying on her bed, had revolved the subject and sent up many an earnest prayer, and went out to afternoon service resolved upon keeping her eyes very wide open.

The special attraction for the afternoon was a conference of primary class teachers. They were out in full force, and were ready for any questions that might fill the hearts and the mouths of eager learners. Our girls had each their special favorites among these leaders. Ruth found herself attracted and deeply interested in every word that Mrs. Clark uttered. Marion was making a study of both Mrs. Knox and Miss Morris, and found it difficult to tell which attracted her most. Even Eurie was ready for this meeting. She had never been able to shake off the thought of Miss Rider, and her eager enthusiasm in this work, while Flossy had been fascinated and carried away captive by the magnetic voice and manner of Mrs. Partridge.

"She makes me glow," Flossy said, in trying to explain the feeling to the calmer Ruth. "Her life seems to quiver all through me, and make me long to reach after it; to have the same power which she has over the hearts of wild uncared-for children."

And Ruth looked down on the exquisite bit of flesh and blood beside her, and thought of her elegant home and her elegant mother, and of all the softening and enervating influences of her city life, and laughed. How little had she in common with such a work as that to which Mrs. Partridge had given her soul!

Keeping her eyes open, as she had planned to do, this same Flossy saw as she was passing down the aisle the hungry face of one of her boys, as she had mentally called the Arabs with whom her life had brushed on the Sunday morning The word just described it still, a hungry face like one hanging wistfully around the outskirts of a feast in which he had no share. Flossy let go her hold of Ruth's arm and darted toward him.

"How do you do?" she said, in winning voice, before he had even seen her. "I am real glad to see you again. If you will come with me I will get a seat for you. A lady is going to speak this afternoon who has five hundred boys in her class in Sunday-school."

Now the Flossy of two weeks ago, if she could have imagined herself in any such business, would have been utterly disgusted with the result, and gone away with her pretty nose very high.

The boy turned his dirty face toward her and said, calmly:

"What a whopper!"

The experience of a lifetime could not have answered more deftly:

"You come and see. I am almost certain she will tell us about some of them."

Still he stared, and Flossy waited with her pretty face very near to his, and her pretty hand held coaxingly out.

"Come," she said again. And it could not have been more to the boy's surprise than it was to hers that he presently said:

"Well, go ahead. I can send if I don't like it. I'll follow."

And he did.



CHAPTER XXIX.

WAITING.

It required Flossy's eyes and heart both to keep watch of her boy during the progress of that meeting. The novelty of the scene, the strangeness of seeing ladies occupying the speaker's stand, kept him quiet and alert, until Mrs. Partridge, that woman with wonderful power over the forgotten, neglected portion of the world, arrested all his bewildering thoughts and centered them on the strange stories she had to tell.

Did you ever hear her tell that remarkable story of her first attempt at controlling that remarkable class which came under her care, many years ago, in St. Louis? It is full of wonder and pathos and terror and fascination, even to those who are somewhat familiar with such experiences. But Flossy and her boy had never heard, or dreamed of its like. No, I am wrong; the boy had dreamed of scenes just so wild and daring, but even he had not fancied that such people ever found their way to Sunday-schools.

Peanuts, cigars, a pack of cards, and a bowie-knife! Imagine yourself, teacher, to be seated before your orderly and courteous class of boys next Sunday morning and find them transformed into beings represented by such surroundings as these! It was Mrs. Partridge's experience. How fascinating that story is! That one incorrigible boy, the one with the bowie-knife, the one who would make no answer to her questions, show no interest in her stories, ignore her very presence and go on with his horrible mischief, until it even came to a stabbing affray right there in the class-room!

Imagine her meeting that boy ten years afterward, when he was not only a man, but a gentleman; not only that, but a Christian and not only that, but a working Christian, superintending a mission Sunday-school, giving his best energies and his best time to work like that! Think of being told by him that the determination to amount to something was taken that morning, ten years before, when he seemed not to be listening nor caring! What is ten years of Christian work when we can hope for such results as that!

Flossy had forgotten her charge; her face was all aglow; so was her heart. She knew more about Christian work than she did an hour before. She had learned that we must take the step that plainly comes next to be taken, no matter for the darkness of the day and the apparent gloom of the future. Work is ours; results are God's. This life business is divided. Partnership with God. Nothing but the work to do; so that it is done to the utmost limit of our best, the responsibility is the Lord's. That was blessed! She could dare to try.

Meantime the boy. He had listened in utmost silence, and with eyes that never for an instant left the speaker's face! When the spell was broken he drew a long sigh, and this was his mighty conclusion.

"That chap was enough sight meaner than I'd ever be, and yet he got to be some! I'll be blamed if I don't see what can be done in that line!"

A small beginning; so small that on Flossy's face it excited only smiles. She was ignorant, you know. To Mrs. Partridge that sentence would have been worth a wedge of gold. But it is possible that Flossy's first simple little reach after work may have fruit to bear.

It is difficult to begin to tell about that next day at Chautauqua. There was so much crowded into it that it would almost make a little book of itself. The morning was spent by a large class of people in a state of excited unrest and expectancy. The sensible ones by the hundreds, and indeed I suppose I may say by the thousands, went to the morning service, as usual, and heard the children's sermon, delivered by Dr. Newton; and those who did not, and who afterward had the misfortune to fall in with those who did, bemoaned their folly in not doing likewise. On the whole, the children, and those who had brains enough to become children for the time being, were the only comfortable ones at Chautauqua that Saturday morning.

The president was coming! So, apparently, was the rest of the world! Oh, the throngs and throngs that continually arrived! It of itself was a rare and never-to-be-forgotten novelty to those who had never in their lives before seen such a vast army of human beings gathered into a small space, and all perfectly quiet and correct, and even courteous in their deportment.

"Where are the drunken men?" said Marion, looking around curiously on the constantly increasing throng. "We always read of them as being in great crowds."

"Yes, and the people who swear," added Eurie. "I haven't heard an oath this morning, and I have roamed around everywhere. I must say Chautauqua will bear off the palm for getting together a most respectable-looking, well-behaved 'rabble!' That is what I overheard a sour-looking old gentleman, who doesn't approve of having a president—or of letting him come to a religious meeting, I don't know which—say would rush in to-day. It certainly is a remarkably orderly 'rush.' Girls, look at Dr. Vincent! I declare, Chautauqua has paid, just to watch him! He ought to be the president himself. I mean to vote for him when female suffrage comes in. Or a king! Wouldn't he make a grand king? How he would enjoy ordering the subjects and enforcing his laws!"

"All of which he seems able to do now," Marion said. "I don't believe he would thank you for a vote. His realm is large enough, and he seems to have willing subjects."

"He has go-ahead-a-tive-ness." Eurie said. "What is the proper word for that, school-ma'am? Executive ability, that's it. Those are splendid words, and they ought to be added to his name. I tell you what, girls, I wish we could cut him up into seven men, and take him home with us. Seven first-class men made out of him and distributed through the towns about us would make a new order of things."

All this was being said while they were scrambling with the rest of the world down to the auditorium to secure seats, for the grand afternoon had arrived, and people had been advised to be "in their seats as soon after one o'clock as they could make it convenient."

"How soon will that be, I wonder?" Marion said, quoting this sentence from Dr. Vincent's advice given in the morning, and holding up her watch to show that it was five minutes of one.

"It looks to me as though those deluded beings who arrive here at one o'clock will have several hours of patient waiting before they will make it convenient to secure seats. Just stand a minute, girls, and look! It is worth seeing. Away back, just as far as I can see, there is nothing but heads! The aisles are full, and space between the seats, and the office is full, and the people are just pouring down from the hill in a continuous stream. To look that way you wouldn't think that any had got down here yet!"

Now I really wish I had a photograph of that gathering of people to put right in here, on this page! Many of them would have looked much better at this point than they did after four hours of patient waiting. How that crowd did fidget and fix and change position, as far as it was possible to change, when there was not an inch of unoccupied space. How they talked and laughed and sang and grumbled and yawned, and sang again!

It was a tedious waiting. It had its irresistibly comic side. There were those among the Chautauqua girls who could see the comic side of things with very little trouble. The material out of which they made some of their fun might have appeared very meager to orderly, decorous people. But they made it.

What infinite sport they got out of the fidgety lady before them, who could not get herself and her three children seated to her mind! Those ladies who labored so industriously in order that the nation's flags, draping the stand, should float gracefully over the nation's chief, were an almost inexhaustible source of amusement to our girls.

"Look!" said Eurie, "that arrangement doesn't suit; some of the stars are hidden; see them twitch it; it will be down! Now that one has it looped just to her fancy. No! I declare, there it comes down again! The other one twitched it this time; they are not of the same mind. Girls, do look! It is fun to watch them; they work as though the interests of this meeting all turned on a right arrangement of that flag."

By this time the attention of the girls was engaged, and the number of witty remarks that were made at the expense of those flags would no doubt have disconcerted the earnest workers thereat could they have heard them.

The hours waned, and the president did not arrive. The waiters essayed to sing, but to lead such an army of people was a difficult task, especially when there was no one to lead. Such singing!

"We came out ahead, anyhow!" said Flossy, stopping to laugh.

Five or six thousand people had finished their verse, while five or six thousand in the rear were in the third line of it.

"We need Mr. Bliss or Mr. Sherwin or somebody," said Ruth. "What a pity that they have all gone, and Dr. Tourjee hasn't come! I thought he was to be here."

Presently came a singer to their rescue. The girls did not know who he was, but he led well, and the singing became decidedly enjoyable. Suddenly he disappeared, and they went back again into utter confusion. They stopped singing and began to grumble.

"Queer arrangements, anyhow," said a surly-looking man in front. "Why didn't they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of keeping us waiting here with nothing to entertain us?"

"I know it," said Marion, briskly addressing herself to her party. "Dr. Vincent has not used his accustomed foresight. He ought to have known that the presidential party would be three hours late, and filled up the programme with speeches, especially since there has been such a dearth of speech-making during the past two weeks. We are really hungry for an address! I don't know who would have undertaken the task, however, unless they sent for Gabriel or some other celestial. I know I have no desire to listen to a common mortal."

Before them sat a lady absorbed in a book. During the singing she joined heartily, and when Dr. Vincent came, on one of his numerous journeys to try to encourage the crowd with the information that the party waited for had not yet arrived, she looked and listened with the rest, but always with her finger between the leaves, as if the place was too interesting to be lost.

Eurie's curiosity rose to such a pitch that she leaned forward for a peep at the title-page, and drew back suddenly. It was a copy of the Teacher's Bible!

A silence fell upon the company near the front, broken suddenly by an old lady who leaned lovingly toward her chubby-faced grandson, and said:

"Frankie, you must look in a few minutes and you will see the President of the United States."

"That is good news, anyhow," spoke forth a rough-looking, good-natured man near by, and the listeners, who were in that excited state of weariness and waiting that they were ready to laugh or cry as the slightest occasion offered, burst forth into roars of laughter, which rang back among the crowds behind and enticed them to join, though I suppose not twenty of the laughers knew what the joke was, if indeed there was one.

A sudden rush. Some one occupied the stand. A notice.

"A telegram!" said a ringing voice. "For Mrs. C.G. Hammond. Marked—'Death!'"

A sympathetic murmur ran through the great company, as they moved and wedged and fell back, and did almost impossible things, to make a road out of that dense throng of humanity for the one to whom the president had suddenly become an insignificance.

Just then came the "Wyoming Trio." Blessings on them, whoever they are. Nothing ever could have fitted in more splendidly than they did just there and then. And the singing rested and helped them all.

Now a sensation came in the shape of a poem that had been written for the occasion, and was to be learned to sing in greeting to the president. How they rang those jubilant words through those old trees! Tender, touching words, with the Chautauqua key-note quivering all through them.

"Greet him! Let the air around him Benedictions bear; Let the hearts of all the people Circle him with prayer.'

"I wonder if he realizes what a blessed thing it is to be circled with prayer?" said she of the Teacher's Bible, turning a thoughtful face upon the four girls who had attracted her attention.

"I wonder who Mary A. Lathbury is?" said Eurie, reading from the poem. "She is a poet, whoever she is. There isn't a line in this that is simply rhyme. I doubt if the president ever had such a rhythmical tribute as that."

"She is the lady with blue eyes and curls who designs the pictures in that charming child's paper which flutters around here. I have forgotten the name of it, but the pictures are little poems themselves."

This was Flossy's bit of information.

"Which designs them, the blue eyes or the curls?" Marion asked, gravely. And then these four simpletons burst into a merry laugh.

Still the president did not appear. The audience had exhausted their resources and their good humor. Ominous grumblings and cross faces began to predominate. Some darkly hinted that he was not coming at all, and that this was a design to draw the immense crowd together. Nobody believed it, but many were in a mood to pretend that they did.

"I never believed in this thing," said a tall, dark-faced, solemn-featured man, speaking in a voice loud enough to interest the crowd in front "This sensation business I don't believe in. What do we want of the president here! Who cares to see him? I don't like it; I believe it is all wrong, turning a religious meeting upside down for a sensation, and I told them so."

Our friend Marion, you will remember, was gifted with a clear voice and a saucy tongue.

"If he doesn't like it," she said, quickly, "and doesn't want to see the president, why do you suppose he has kept one of the best chairs for four mortal hours? Don't you think that is selfish?"

Which sentence caused ripples of laughter all about them, and quenched the solemn-visaged man.

But it was growing serious, this waiting. It was a great army of people to be kept at rest, and though they had been quiet and decorous enough thus far, it was not to be presumed that they were all people governed by nice shades of propriety. Would the disappointment break forth into any disagreeable demonstrations? Dr. Vincent had done what he could; he had appeared promptly on the arrival of dispatches, and given the latest news that the telegraph and the telescope would send. But what can any mortal man do who has arranged for people to come who do not come, except wait for them with what patience he can command.

At this ominous moment he appeared before them again. Not a notice this time; something which shone in his eyes and quivered in every vein and rang in his trumpet-like voice. This was what he said.



CHAPTER XXX.

SETTLED QUESTIONS.

Dear Friends: I should bear a burden on my conscience, if I did not come to you to-day with the 'old, old story.'

"Over the tent which has been prepared for the President of the United States there glows, done in evergreen, this single word, 'rest.'

"As I pass it, I am reminded of another and a different rest: the rest from every burden, every anxiety, every pain, every sin; who has rested in those everlasting arms? There is coming a day when all this throng of human life gathered here shall wait for the coming of the King. Yea, even the 'King of kings.' Should that time be to-day, who is ready? Do you know his power? Do you know his grace? Do you know his love? Through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, every one of you may have that King for your father; I am commissioned, this day, to bring this invitation to each one of you; 'Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Will you come?———Pardon this interruption—no, I will not ask your pardon: it is never an interruption to bring good news from the King to his subjects. I will not weary you with a long presentation; I have only this message: you are all invited to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved from every possible calamity; you are all invited to come now. I am going to ask the Tennesseeans to sing one of my favorites:

"'Brother, don't stay away; For my Lord says there's room enough, Room enough in the heaven for you.'"

Never were tender words more tenderly sung! Never did they steal out upon the hearts of a more hushed and solemn audience. That matchless word of gospel had touched home. There were those in the crowd who had never realized before that the invitation was for them.

Following the hymn came another, suggested also by Dr. Vincent: "Steal away to Jesus." It is one of the sweetest as well as one of the strangest of African melodies; and as the tender message floated up among the trees, a strange hush settled over the listeners; many tears were quietly wiped away from eyes unused to weeping.

"Now sing 'Almost persuaded,'" said Dr. Vincent, his own voice tremulous with his highly wrought feeling. Many voices took that up. Even the Chautauqua girls sang, all but Eurie. With the sentence:

"Seems now some soul to say, Go, spirit, go thy way; Some more convenient day On thee I'll call."

Flossy tamed her anxious, appealing eyes on Eurie, but she was laughing merrily over the attempt of a feeble old man near her to join in the song, and Flossy whispered sadly to Ruth: "Eurie has not even as much interest as that."

The spell of the message and the music lingered, even after Dr. Vincent had gone again. There was no more grumbling; there was very little laughing; a subdued spirit seemed to brood over the great company.

"We could almost have a revival, right here," said one thoughtful man, looking with searching eyes, up and down the sea of faces.

"I tell you, no grander opportunity was ever more grandly improved than by those few words of Dr. Vincent's. They touched bottom. He will meet those words again with joy, or I am mistaken."

But the waiting was over; suddenly the Chautauqua bells began to peal; strains of martial music, and the roll of drums, mingled with the booming of cannon; and almost before they were aware, even after all their waiting, twenty thousand people stood face to face with their nation's chief.

"When the president's head appears above this platform, I hope it will thunder here," had been Dr. Vincent's suggestion several hours before.

Thunder! That was no comparison! I hope even he was satisfied. Then how that song of greeting rung out; tender still, even in its power: "Let the hearts of all the people circle him with prayer." No better gift for him than that.

After the cheering and the singing, and the very brief speech from the president himself, came the address of welcome by Dr. Fowler of Chicago. His first sentence sent the multitude into another storm of cheers. Said he: "The work that I thought to do, has been done by twenty thousand people." How could they help doing it again after that? Chautauqua had not dropped her colors in this plan of an afternoon given to the president.

The address of welcome from first to last rang with the gospel invitation, "come;" no better word than that even for their chief; "honor to whom honor is due," quoted the speaker, and then followed his graceful tribute, but it closed with a tender, dignified, earnest appeal to the President of the United States to 'rest' in the same refuge, to enlist under the same flag, to be loyal to the same Chief, whom they were met to serve.

"Out of my heart," said he: "as a man who recognizes God as the supreme ruler of us all, I bid you come with us, and we will do you good, for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel."

Poor Eurie! What a place she had chosen if she desired to hear no more preaching. What were all these exercises, but sermons, one after the other, strong warm unanswerable appeals to be loyal to the Great Chief? Certainly Dr. Deems was not the man to forget the Greater in his greeting to the under ruler; nor did he.

"Let me speak to you in closing," said he, "to you and to this assembly, out of my heart. We shall never all stand together again, until that great white throne shall stop in mid heavens, and we shall stand to meet the Chiefest of all chiefs. O men and brethren, shall we not all prepare to meet there? Mr. President, every day prayer is made for you; we are hoping to meet with you in heaven. Brave men who stood beside you in the late war, and have gone on ahead, are hoping to greet you there. May you have a good life, a happy life, a blessed life; and may other tongues more eloquent than mine, more eloquent than even my brother's who preceded me, bid you welcome one day to the general assembly of the first born. Amen and amen."

What could better close the matchless greetings than to have the Tennesseeans circle round their president and sing again that ringing chorus:

"I've been redeemed, Been washed in the blood of the Lamb."

"I don't know what will become of the grumblers," Marion said as they rested in various stages of dishabille, and talked the exciting scenes over. "They have been shamefully left in the lurch; they were going to have this affair a demoralizing dissipation from first to last, unworthy of the spirit of Chautauqua. And if more solemn, or more searching, or more effective preaching could be crowded into an afternoon than has been done here, I should like to be shown how. What do you think of your choice of entertainments, Eurie? You thought it would be safe to attend the president's reception, you remember."

"I don't tell all I think," Eurie answered, and then she went out among the trees.

Truth to tell, Eurie had heard that from which she could not get away. Dr. Vincent's words were still sounding, "you are invited to come to Jesus and be saved; you are invited to come now." There had been nothing to dissipate that impression, everything to deepen it, and the thought that clung and repeated itself to her heart was that plaintive wail:

"Almost persuaded, now to believe."

That was certainly herself; she felt it, knew it; in the face of that knowledge think how solemn the words grew:

"Almost will not prevail, Almost is but to fail; Sad, sad that bitter wail, Almost,—but lost!"

Was that for her, too? In short, Eurie out there alone, among the silent trees, felt and admitted this fact: that the time had actually come to her when this question must be decided, either for or against, and decided forever.

Sunday morning at Chautauqua! A white day. There can be none of all that throng who spent the 15th day of August, 1875, in that sacred place, who remember it without a thrill. A perfect day! Glorious and glowing sunshine everywhere; and beauty, such perfect beauty of lake and grove! The God of nature smiled lovingly on Chautauqua that morning.

Our girls seemed to think that the perfect day required perfection of attire, and it was noticeable that the taste of each settled on spotless white, without color or ornament, other than a spray of leaves and grasses, which one and another of them gathered almost without knowing it, and placed in belt or hair. Outward calm, but inward unrest, at least so far as some were concerned; Marion Wilbur among the number.

It was a very heavy heart that she carried that day. There was no unbelief; that demon was conquered. Instead there was an overpowering, terrible certainty. And now came Satan with the whole of her past life which had turned to sin before her, and hurled it on her poor shrinking shoulders, until she felt almost to faint beneath the load; she lay miserably on her bed, and thought that she would not add to her burden by going to the service, that she knew already too much. But an appeal from Flossy to keep her company, as the others had gone, had the effect of changing her mind.

Armed each with a camp-chair, they made their way to the stand, after the great congregation were seated. A fortunate thought those camp-chairs had been; there was not a vacant seat anywhere.

Marion placed her chair out of sight both of stand and speaker, but within hearing, and gave herself up to her own troubled thoughts, until the opening exercises were concluded and the preacher announced his text: "The place that is called Calvary."

She roused a little and tried to determine whose voice it was, it had a familiar sound, but she could not be sure, and she tried to go back to the useless questionings of her own heart; but she could not. She could never be deaf to eloquence; whoever the speaker was, there was that in his very opening sentences which roused and held her. Whatever he had to say, whether or not it was anything that had to do with her, she must listen. Still the wonderment existed as to which voice it was.

But when he reached the sentences: "Jump the ages! Come down here to Chautauqua Lake to-day, O Son of God! O Son of Man! O Son of Mary! When the prophet of old said, 'He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied,' did he look along the centuries and see the gathered thousands here, who have just sung, 'Tell me the old, old story'? What story? Why, the story of the place that is called Calvary!"—Marion leaned forward and addressed the person next to her.

"Isn't that Dr. Deems?" she said.

"Yes indeed!" was the answer, spoken with enthusiasm.

And Marion drew back, and listened. That sermon! Marion tried to report it, but it was like trying to report the roll of the waves on the Atlantic; she could only listen with beating heart and flushing cheek. Presently she listened with a new interest, for the divisions of the subject were: "God's thought of sin," and "God's thought of mercy." Though the morning was warm, she shivered and drew her wrap closer about her. "God's thought of sin! She was in a mood to comprehend in a measure what a fearful thought it might be.

"Some men," said the speaker, "make light of sin." Yes, she had done it herself. "Where shall we learn what God thinks of it? On Sinai? No. God spoke there in thunder and lightning, till the very hills shook and trembled.

"And what were they doing down below? Dancing around a golden calf! I tell you it is only at Calvary that we can learn God's idea of sin. For at Calvary, because of sin, God the Father surrendered his communion with God the Son, and on Calvary God died! Will God ever forgive sin? Many a one has carried that question around in his soul until it burned there."

Now you can imagine how Marion tried no more to write; thought no more about eloquence; this question, which had become to her the one terrible question of life, was being looked into.

"How will we find out? Go by science into nature, and there's no proof of it; God never forgives what seems to be the mistake of even a reptile!"

I cannot tell you about the rest of that sermon. I took no notes of it; my notes ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence; one cannot write out words that are piercing to their hearts. I doubt if even Marion Wilbur can give you any satisfactory account of the wording of the sentences. And yet Marion Wilbur rose up at its close, with cheeks aglow not only with tears, but smiles; and the question, "Will God ever forgive sin?" she could answer.

There was a place where the burden would roll away. "At the place called Calvary." She knew it, believed it, felt it,—why should she not? She had been there in very deed, that summer morning. He had seen again of the travail of his soul, he was one soul nearer to being satisfied.

There were other matters of interest: those two Bibles, symbol of the Chautauqua pulse,—that were presented to the nation's highest officer; the address which accompanied them—simple, earnest gospel; the hymn they sang,—everything was full of interest. But Marion let it pass by her like the sound of music, and the words in her heart that kept time to it all were the closing words of that sermon:

"Here I could forever stay, Sit and sing my life away. This is more than life to me, Lovely, mournful Calvary."

It was so, all day. She went to the afternoon service; she listened to Dr. Fowler's sermon, not as she had ever listened to one before; the sermon for the first time was for her. When people listen for themselves, there is a difference. She felt fed and strengthened; she joined in the singing as her voice had never joined before; they were singing about her Saviour. Then she went back to her tent.

"I am not going to-night," she said to the girls. "I am full, I want nothing more to-day."

"Preached out, I declare!" said Eurie. "Are you going to write out your report for the paper? I wouldn't, Marion. I would go to the meeting. I am going."

"No," said Marion in answer to the question, and smiling at the thought. How strange it would seem to her to spend this Sabbath evening thus. How many had she so spent!

"I am glad to-morrow is the last day," she said, sinking into a chair; "I want to go home."

And Flossy and Ruth looked at each other, and sighed. How well these girls understood one another! Why can't people be frank and speak so that they can be understood?

Suppose Marion had said: "No, I am not going to write my report, I am going to pray." Suppose she had said; "Yes, I want to go home to practice."



CHAPTER XXXI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

It is a troublesome fact that, even when people are very much interested, and very eager over important themes, commonplace and comparatively trivial duties, will intrude, and insist upon being done at that moment. For instance, our girls were obliged to spend the whole of Monday morning in packing their trunks and satchels, returning their furniture, settling for their tents, and the like; in short, breaking up housekeeping and getting ready to go back to the civilized world. Flossy and Ruth dispatched their part at the hotel promptly and came over to the grounds to help the others. They discussed the meeting while they worked.

"If we hadn't been idiots," Marion said, "we should have attended that normal class and been graduating, this morning, instead of being down here, at work at our trunks and unknown to fame."

"Well, you wouldn't go," Ruth answered. "Don't you know you declared that was too much like work, and you hadn't an idea of learning anything?"

"Oh, yes," said Marion. "I remember a great many things I have said, that I would quite as soon forget."

By dint of eager bustling from one point to another, the work was accomplished by noon, and all the girls were ready for the afternoon service, which all seemed equally eager to attend. When they reached the stand they looked about them in surprise and dismay.

"Everybody is gone!" said Flossy, "only look! There are ever so many unoccupied seats!"

Marion laughed.

"And ever so many that are occupied," she said. "My child, you have been so used to counting audiences by the thousands, that sixteen or seventeen hundred people look rather commonplace to you. However, there are more than that number here, I think."

It soon became a matter of small importance, whether there were few or many, so long as they had the good fortune to be there themselves, and to have the company of Dr. Eben Tourjee.

Now it so happened that among these four girls there were two to whom God had given special gifts: though neither of them had ever considered that there were such things as gifts from God, which they were bound to use in his service.

There was Ruth Erskine, who had capabilities for music in the ends of her fingers, that would have almost entranced the angels. What did she do with her talent? Almost nothing. She hated the sickly sentimentalities which, set to music, find their way into fashionable parlors by the score. She was not in the society that knew of, or craved, the higher, grander kind of music; and because she did, and did not know it, she simply palled of the kind within her reach and let her gift lie waste.

Then there was Marion, whose voice was simply grand, both in power and tone. What had she done with her voice? Sung by the hour to the old father whose tender memory lingered with her to-day; less than nothing with it since; no one knew she could sing; she hated singing in school, she never went anywhere else; so only occasionally could the four walls of her upper back room have testified that there was a talent buried there.

Did Dr. Tourjee travel from Boston to Chautauqua for the purpose of inspiring and educating these two girls. I don't suppose he knew of their existence, but that makes no difference, they are working out his lecture all the same; in fact it is nearly a year since these Chautauqua girls came home, and if you have any sort of desire to know what Chautauqua theories develop into, when put to the test, please keep a sharp lookout for "The Chautauqua Girls at Home."

As the familiar talk on music went on, Ruth, with her eyes aglow, began to plan in her own heart, first what she might do, and presently what she would do. And Marion, at the other end of the seat, went through the same process neither imagining that these same 'doings' would bring them together, and lead to endless other doings. But that is just the way in which life is going on every where, who imagined that what you did yesterday, would lead your neighbor to do what he has done to-day?

"Luther said: 'Next to theology, I place sacred music.'" This was the sentence that started a train of thought for Ruth. After that, she listened in order that she might work.

"Never use an interlude in church, I pray God that I may be forgiven for the fiddle-faddle that I have strummed on organs, in the name of interludes."

This, delighted Marion, she hated interludes. She hated quartette choirs. She had steadily refused to be beguiled into one, by the few who knew that she could sing, so, when Dr. Tourjee said: "Think of the grand old hymn, 'From all that dwell below the skies, let the Creator's praise arise,' being warbled by one voice, a grand chorus of four coming in on the third line!"

Marion was entirely in sympathy with him, and eager for work in the way in which he pointed out. It was an enjoyable afternoon in every respect. But to "our girls" it was much more than that, it was an education. Every one of them got ideas which they were eager to put in practice; and they saw their ways clear to practise them to some purpose. When the service was over, and the audience moved away, a sense of sadness and lonliness began to creep over many, snatches of remark could be heard on all sides.

"Where is Dr. Fowler?"

"Gone: went this morning."

"Where is the Miller party?"

"Oh, they went some time ago."

"When did the president leave?"

"It's all about 'go,'" Eurie said: "Look! How they are crowding down to the boat; and only a stray one now and then coming up from there. Who would have supposed it could make us feel so forlorn? I am glad we are not to be at the morning meeting. I am not sure but I should cry of homesickness. I say, girls, let's go to Palestine."

Which suggestion was greeted with delight, and they immediately went. A great many were of the same mind. Mr. Vanlennep in full Turkish dress, was leading the way, and giving his familiar lecture on the—to him—familiar spots. The girls stood near him by the sea of Galilee, and heard his tender farewell words, and his hope that they would all meet on the other side of Jordon. It was hard to keep back the quiet tears from falling.

They climbed Mount Hermon in silence, and looked over at Mount Lebanon, they came back by the way of Cesarea, and turned aside to take a last look at Joppa, down by the sea. In almost total silence this walk back was accomplished. What was the matter with them all?

Mr. Roberts had joined them, and he and Flossy walked on ahead. But their voices were subdued and their subject—to judge from their faces, quieting, to say the least. Then they all went to take their last supper at Chautauqua. Not one of them grumbled over anything. Indeed, they all agreed that the board had certainly improved very much during the last few days, and that it was really remarkable that such a throng of people could have been served so promptly and courteously, and on the whole, so well, as had been done there. Still, it was strange to have plenty of elbow room, and to see the waiters moving leisurely up and down the long halls; no one in haste, no one kept waiting.

As they rose from table, a gentleman passed through; they had passed each other every day for a week; they had no idea what his name was, and I suppose he knew as little about them. But he paused before them:

"Good-bye," he said. And held out his hand, "I hope we shall all meet at the assembly up there!"

"Good-bye," they answered, and they shook hands. None of them smiled, none of them thought it strange; though they had never been introduced! It was the Chautauqua brotherhood of feeling. But after two weeks of experience and much practice in that line, it was impossible to rid onesself of the feeling that one must hurry down to the stand in order to secure seats; so they hurried, and had a new experience; they were among the first twenty on the ground.

"The audience will be utterly lost to-night in this immense array of seats;" Flossy said in dismay. "Doesn't it feel forlorn?" But they took their seats, and presently came Miss Ryder and seated herself at the piano in the twilight, and the tunes she played were soft and tender and weird.

"Every note says 'goodbye,'" said Ruth, and she gave a little sigh. Presently, the calcium lights began to glow, as usual, and meantime though everybody was supposed to have left; still, the people came from somewhere; and at last, dismayed voices began to say:

"Why! Did you ever see the like! I thought we should surely get good seats to-night? Where do all the people come from."

"Look! Marion," said Eurie. "What would Dr. Harris think of such a congregation as this! They could not get into our church, could they?" But just then the hymn claimed attention:

"My days are gliding swiftly by."

How swiftly these days had glided away. How full they had been! During the prayer that followed, all heads bowed, and the silence that fell upon them made it seem that all hearts joined. Dr. Vincent was the first speaker. His manner and voice had changed. Both were subdued; he looked like a man who had been lifted up for a great mental strain and was gradually letting down again to earth.

"We are coming toward the close," he said. "We are more quiet than we have been here before. Familiar faces and forms that have moved in and out among these trees, for two weeks past, have gone. Only a few hours and we are going; only a few hours and utter silence will fall upon Chautauqua."

"Oh dear!" murmured Eurie, "why will he be so forlorn! I don't see why I need care so much! Who would have supposed I could!"

"Hush!" said Marion, and she surreptitiously wiped away a tear. "A love feast," Dr. Vincent said they were going to have, for that last evening; it was very much like that. The farewell from Canada came next; the speaker said he had been "thawed out," meant to have America annexed to Canada! Indeed they had already been annexed; in heart and soul! "Who's who?" said he, and "what's what? Who knows?" There was just enough of the comical mixed with the pathetic in this address to steady many a tremulous heart.

Dr. Presbry followed in much the same strain, closing, though, with such a tender tribute to some who had been at the assembly the year before, and had since gone to join the assembly that never breaks up, that the tears came to the surface again. But those blessed Tennesseeans just at that point made the grounds ring with the chorus, "Oh jubilee! jubilee! the Christian religion is jubilee!" and followed it with: "I've been a long time in the house of God, and I ain't got weary yet."

By that time our girls looked at each other with faces on which tears and smiles struggled for the mastery.

"Shall we laugh, or cry?" whispered Eurie, and then they giggled outright. But they sobered instantly and sat upright, ready to listen, for the next one who appeared on the platform was Dr. Deems.

He, too, commenced as if the spell of the parting was upon him. "He was too tired," he said, "to make a short speech. Some one asked Walter Scott why he didn't put a certain book of his into one volume instead of five. And he said he hadn't time. It took five weeks to prepare a speech three minutes long. And then he warmed, and grew with his subject until the beautiful thoughts fell around them like pearls. Not only beautiful, but searching.

"No man," said he, "dares to make a careless speech at Chautauqua, there are too many to treasure it up, to plant it again." Of course he knew nothing about those girls, and how much seed they were gathering which they meant to plant; but they gathered it, all the same. He dropped his seeds with lavish hand. This was one that took root in Marion's brain and heart:

"There are so many side influences that are unconscious, that the only safe way for one to do is to let no part of himself ravel, but to keep himself round and thorough, and healthy to the core."

After that, Marion's pencil, on which I have to depend for my notes, gave up in despair. "I couldn't keep track of that man!" she said, when I complained. "There was no more use to try than there would be to count these apple blossoms," for it was this spring, and we were standing in an apple orchard, and a perfect shower of the white, sweet-smelling things came fluttering round our heads. But after he 'calmed down a little,' as she called it, she tried to write again; and I copy this:

"Brethren: This meeting will convert some of the most thoughtful people of this generation: men who come here not knowing by personal experience the power of this thing, men who walk thoughtfully up and down these aisles, looking on, will say: 'There are scholars here, there are men of genius, of great brain power, there are men and women here of every variety of temperament, and attainment, held together for fourteen days by one common bond,' and the perseverance, the solemnity, the hilarity, the freedom, the naturalness, the earnestness of this meeting will so impress them that they will know that there is a miracle holding us, a supernatural strength.

"May I give you to-night one word more of gospel invitation? Come, go with us, you who do not understand this matter for yourselves, go with us, and we will do you good. Will you go to your rooms to-night and make the resolve that shall write your names in God's book of life? The recording angel has a trembling hand this minute, waiting for your answer. Weary one, so young and yet so tired, come, come, come now."

Marion, with cheeks burning, and eyes very bright and earnest, looked around her: Eurie sat next to her, she seemed unmoved, there was no sign of tears to her bright eyes, but she was looking steadily at the speaker.

"Never mind!" Marion said within herself, and there came to her an eager desire to begin her practice, to do something; what if it were utter failure, would the fault be hers?

Following the sudden leading that she had learned no better than to call 'impulse' she said in a quick low whisper: "Eurie, won't you?" And she held her breath for the answer, and could distinctly feel the beating of her own heart. Eurie turned great gray astonished eyes on her friend, and said in a firm quiet voice: "I have. I settled that matter on Saturday. Have you?"

And then those two girls, each with the wonderful surprise ringing music in her heart, were willing to have that meeting over.



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

It was almost over. Dr. Deems sat down amid the hush of hearts, and all the people seemed to feel that no more words were needed. Yet, the next moment, they greeted Frank Beard with joy, and prepared themselves with great satisfaction to listen to what he had to say. Frank Beard was one of Chautauqua's favorites.

People had not the least idea that they could be beguiled into laughter; hearts were too tender for that; yet you should have heard the bursts of mirth that rang there for the next five minutes! Frank Beard was so quaint, so original, so innocent in his originality, so pure and high-toned, even in his fun, and they liked him so much that every heart there responded to his mirth. The roars of laughter reached as high as the music had done, but a little while before.

Yet, when people's hearts are tender, and full, it is strange how near laughter is to tears! Just a sentence from the same lips and the hush fell on them again.

Frank Beard had brought his heart with him to Chautauqua, and he was evidently leaving some of it there. The touching little story of his dream about his mother brought out a flutter of handkerchiefs, and made tear-stained faces. And when he, simply as a child, tenderly as a large-souled man, trustfully as only a Christian can, said his farewell, and told of his joyful hope of meeting them all in the eternal morning, absolute stillness settled over them.

So many last words—one and another came—just a word, just "good-bye," until we meet again; maybe here, next year, maybe there, where good-byes are never heard. Finally came Dr. Vincent, his strong decided voice breaking the spell, and helping them to realize that they ware men and women with work to do:

"Now, my friends," he said, "we really must go home; it is hard to close; I know that, no one knows it better: we have closed a good many times, and it won't stay closed. The last word has been said over and over again. I said it myself, some time ago, and here I am again: we must just stop, never mind the closing; we will ring a hymn, and go away, and next year we will begin right here, where we left it."

But he didn't "stop," and no one wanted him to. His voice grew tender, and his words were solemn. The last words that he would ever speak to many a soul within sound of his voice; it could not be otherwise. You can imagine better than I could tell you what Dr. Vincent's message would be at such a time as that.

Breaking into it, came the shrill sound of the whistle. The Col. Phillips—the last boat for the night—was giving out its warning. The Chautauqua bells began their parting peal. Not even for his own convenience would that marvel of punctuality have the bells tarry a moment behind the hour appointed.

Our girls looked at each other and made signs, and nodded, and began to slip quietly out. They had arranged to spend the night at the Mayville House, and take an early train. Many others were softly and reluctantly moving away. They were very quiet during that last walk down to the wharf. Glorious moonlight was abroad, and the water shone like a sheet of silver.

As they walked, the evening wind brought to them the notes of the last song which the throng at the stand were singing. A clear, ringing, yet tender farewell. It floated sweetly down to them, growing fainter and fainter as the distance lengthened, until, as they stepped on board the boat, they lost its sound. There were many people going the same way, but there was little talking. There are times when people, though they may be very far from unhappiness, have no desire to talk. Once on deck, Marion turned and clasped both of Eurie's hands.

"I have had such a blessed surprise to-night!" she said, with glowing face. "I did not think of such a thing! O Eurie, why didn't you tell me?"

"You cannot begin to be as surprised as I am," Eurie said. "I thought you were miles away from such a thing. Why didn't you tell me?"

Ruth and Flossy were leaning over, watching the play of the water against the boat's side.

"What about those two?" Eurie said, nodding her head toward them.

Marion sighed.

"Ruth is very far from understanding anything about it," she said; "at least the last time I talked with her she knew as little about the Christian life as the veriest heathen so far at least as personal duty was concerned."

"When was that?"

"Why, a week ago; more than a week."

"How long is it since you settled this question for yourself?"

"Since yesterday," Marion said, blushing and laughing. "Eurie, you would do for a cross-questioner."

"And I have been on this side since Saturday,'" Eurie answered, significantly. "A great many things can happen in a week."

At this point, Ruth turned and came towards them. She looked quiet and grave.

"It is a year, isn't it? since we stood here together for the first time," she said. "At least I seem to have had a year of life and experience. Do you know, girls, I have something to tell you: I thought to wait until we reached home, but I have decided to-night that I will not. I am sorry that I have not told you before. Marion, don't you know how like a simpleton I talked, a week ago last Saturday night? I want to tell you that I was a fool; and was talking about that of which I knew nothing at all. I want to assure you that there is a safe place, that I know it now by actual experience, I have gone to the mountain and it is sure and safe; and, oh, girls, I want you both to come so much."