evidently excludes common courtesy from the list of Christian virtues."

"He will not continue many hours," replied Sarah. "It is of no use your seeing him, he knows nobody."

"There is no telling how much or how little persons in his condition do know," replied the rector. "I will pray by him, and for him, if not with him, if you please."

She hesitated a moment, then she said, "Well, there can be no harm in that; but he is past the power of prayer. I think it my duty to tell you, Dr. Bethell, that my father is an unbeliever, an unconverted person. He has never experienced a saving change." She spoke so harshly, so dogmatically, that Dr. Bethell felt repelled in spite of himself.

Do you mean that he denies the faith?" he asked.

"You say

he is an unbeliever! Does he not believe in Christ, the Son of God?"

"He believes, or has believed, what is written in the Gospels; he is not what the world calls an infidel; but he has never known a saving change."

"Can you be sure of that, Miss Lane? Is it safe to assert so much of any person?'

"By their fruits ye shall know them.' I take Scripture for my standard," said Sarah, with gloomy emphasis.

"The same Scripture says, 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.' No one can read the soul of man save God Himself. Let us go to Mr. Lane."

It was quite true; the old man's life was gently but swiftly ebbing away. Dr. Bethell looked on the hard-featured, ashen face. It was sordid no longer, for the majestic impress of death was stamped on every line of it; there was no appearance of suffering on the aged countenance, which was placid as a child's; the eyes were closed, the breathing faint and irregular. And was it, indeed, true that this man knew not and loved not the God to whose presence he was hastening? He knelt down on one side the bed, Sarah on the other. Rhoda listened outside the door, and presently she knelt also. The rector prayed. "Merciful Father, who willest not the death of a sinner, who callest all to Thee, who lovest us every one with a love greater and fuller, and more pitiful than we can comprehend, look down upon this Thy child, and call him to Thyself. If, indeed, he have erred and strayed from Thy ways, if his hope has not been in Thee, if he has never loved Thee, because he has never known Thee-for to know Thee is to love Thee-oh, Thou great World-Father, speak to him now; let him hear Thy voice, let him feel Thy love, for though he has passed from our ministrations, he has not passed from Thee. He is still in Thy hand;

Thou art still his Father, his Saviour. Thou canst redeem his soul, and we believe that Thou wilt! Perhaps, oh, Lord, he has never seen Thy face in the face of Jesus, if not, reveal Thyself to him now! His earthly vision is closed, but do Thou show him the cross of Christ, for every soul that is saved is saved by the atonement of the cross-that atonement which was virtually made before the world began, which can never through all time and through all space lose one atom of its mighty power. And bless us who remain, oh, Father. See! we come to Thee! we are Thy children, for Thou madest us; show us Thy love, and constrain us to love Thee more and more, and to serve Thee better as our days go on. Let us live to Thy glory, let our supremest thoughts ever turn to Thee, and ever rest in Thee, for Thou art the world's refuge and its sole safe resting-place. Oh, Jesus! God made manifest to sinners, hear us, save us, grant us Thy peace. And we thank Thee that in all our griefs and needs we may come to Thee, now and always. And we thank Thee for all Thy infinite love, and for the sure and certain hope of everlasting life which we find in THEE. Amen."

When they rose up Sarah's face was strangely softened. She felt as if she had been with God, pleading with Him as a child pleads with its own father. And yet the God to whom her pastor spake so reverently, yet so lovingly, so confidently, was scarcely the God to whom she had prayed for the last fifteen years. Not at all the God whom she had set before her father when now and then she had thought it her duty "to deal faithfully" with him. Not at all the God she had preached to Rhoda, and to the many young servants who had preceded her. And yet there was but one God— one living and true Lord! And her God was the God of the Bible; she was sure of that.

Sarah Lane would have been a happier and a better woman had she really assured herself of what she assumed as an undoubted fact, but what was really a foregone conclusion. Like many other people of the school to which she belonged she read the Bible according to a certain interpretation of her own, and she built up her creed upon isolated texts. She even, in good faith, quoted texts which had no existence. She held fast to the Athanasian creed, and she firmly professed the doctrine of the Eternal Trinity, as taught by the Established Church of England; but for all that, in her own mind, and in her teaching, she separated God the Father and God the Son, not only in their work, which is, indeed, in many respects distinct, but in their nature and in their thought towards mankind. She had once said to Rhoda, "God out of Christ is a consuming fire.""

"And what is He in Christ ?" asked the girl, seriously. "He is a merciful and forgiving Father."

Next day Rhoda came again. "Please, ma'am, I can't find that text you gave me yesterday, and father says there is no such text." Sarah turned upon her little maid in anger, astonished at her presumption, but Rhoda, undaunted, went on. "How much kinder Jesus Christ must be than God! One might love Him, I fancy, but one never could love God."

Sarah exclaimed in horror. Rhoda's words sounded like blasphemy. "Hush, child!" she cried, "or some awful judgment will fall upon you where you stand. You must love God, or perish everlastingly."

"But if I can't make myself love Him, ma'am? I love some folks because I can't help it, and I'd do anything for them, and I'm sure if I get to know more about Jesus Christ I shall love Him. He do seem so very kind and patient-like-something like one's mother. But God made me, and I never wanted to be made, and He's so hard upon me that I can't love Him, and the hardest part of it all is that He will send me to hell for not doing what I can't do."

"Oh, child!" said Sarah, really anxious for the girl's soul, "it's God in Christ you want."

"Yes, ma'am, and I know that Christ is God. Will it do if I love Christ and try to please Him, and leave the other alone?

"What other?"

"Why Him you call God-the great God that is down upon us when we do anything wrong, and that serves us out like. If I could only get away from Him, and keep to Christ, I think I might do. Oh, I do wish I knew how it really is!"

"Rhoda, you can read the Bible-that contains all truth. That will teach you."

"The Bible muddles me, ma'am; the more I read it the more muddled I am."

And Sarah went away horrified and grieved, little dreaming that she herself had done all the mischief, and so confused Rhoda by her expositions of Scripture that the girl had really mixed up God's Word and her mistress's word till she did not know which was which. And Sarah immediately sought out the text which Rhoda on the strength of her infidel father's authority had said was not in the Bible. Why, she knew where to turn to it as well as she knew where to find her Sunday bonnet! She turned at once to Heb. xii. 29.

She sat confounded!

She had read that passage a hundred times, and never noticed how it had been interpolated in her own mind. Her mother had always warned her that God out of Christ was a consuming fire, and Parson Bunn had said the same thing, so it must be true.

Still, the words as she quoted them were not there.

She felt vexed and humbled, and resolved not to speak to Rhoda again on the subject. But better feelings prevailed.

"I ought to tell the truth," she said to herself; so she went into the back kitchen, where Rhoda was washing up,-Bible in hand. "See, Rhoda," she said, "this is the text; I did not quote it quite literally, but that is what it means.'

Rhoda dried her hands, and read the passage carefully. Then she read the preceding verses, after which she was silent.

"Well, Rhoda ?" said her mistress.

And then the girl burst out, "I do believe it's all right; there is no other. God and Christ is all one. God is in Christ, and Christ is in God, and there is no God out of Christ; there can't be. Didn't He say, 'I and My Father are one?' Oh! it's easy enough to love Him. So, please, ma'am, I'll stick to the God in Christ, because I feel sure He is the only true God, and I should be glad if you wouldn't tell me any more about your God, for I can't believe in Him, and I don't want te; I only get muddled when I think about Him."

"And her God doesn't do her one bit of good," said Rhoda to herself afterwards. "She's just as evil-tempered, and as selfish, and as full of her own conceits as the people that have no religion. But there, that's no concern of mine; if I take up with religion, and I think I must or I shall never be easy or settled, I must see that people don't say the same thing of me. But I do think I've found it out. She shan't worry me with her dreadful, unkind God any longer."

Nevertheless, Rhoda was still worried and perplexed, for Miss Lane would not let her alone, and the morning expositions were continued.

"The Bible's right enough," exclaimed the girl after one of these critical readings; "the Bible would be all right if she'd leave it alone, and not mince it, and hash it, and season it to her own taste." Rhoda was cutting up the cold mutton, which her mistress was about to hash for dinner; hence the culinary simile. And so the girl was exercised in her mind till she listened to Dr. Bethell's prayer. Then her joy was extreme. "I've found Him,” she said to herself, the tears streaming down her cheeks; "I've found God; I asked Him to send me a teacher of His own, and here he is. Yes, this is the God of the Bible, the God in Christ, and that somehow is the same as Christ. I can love Him; I do, yes, I do, and I'll try with all my might to serve Him. That's just what I wanted-a great' World-Father,' and yet a Father that is all my own, too, as much as if He hadn't another human child. Oh, what a good Father He is, and how He bears with one. I've been

provoking, I know. But I'll try to do better, and Jesus will help me. I wouldn't like to vex Him now I know He is my dear Father. Why, I feel as if chains had tumbled off me. I wonder if this is what the Methodises call' getting peace'!"

And when Rhoda, girl-like, felt idle, and inclined to slight her work, she would say to herself, "Come now, Rhoda, that won't do! This is your work, and you must do it as well as you can, or your Father will not be pleased; and if you love Him, you must try to please Him. Perhaps you will have grander work to do some day; but while scouring, and washing-up, and dusting is your work, you must scour, and wash-up, and dust as a Christian should." Rhoda had never heard of "sweeping a room" for Christ's sake, and in His name, or she might have quoted Herbert's famous lines; but she had found out-or rather God had taught her, for without His help, His Divine Spirit, we cannot find out any truth-she had found out the secret clause which "makes drudgery divine."

CHAPTER V.-HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

Old Lane lingered longer than was expected.. He had a wonderful constitution, the doctors said, a most marvellous vitality; or, as the hired nurse who came to help Miss Lane declared, "such as he takes a lot of killing." The end came at last, however, just a week after the seizure, and he gradually ceased to breathe, so gradually that the exact moment of his departure could not be ascertained. And every day Dr. Bethell came and prayed with Sarah by the unconscious form, and Sarah did not like to discourage prayers of any sort, but she could not, in the present instance see the use of them.

"He says much that is truly excellent," she remarked to Nurse Kettle, who was one of Parson Bunn's old flock, "but he is not sound, I am sure he is not."

"He doesn't preach the Gospel," said Mrs. Kettle, gravely, without thinking at all how terrible a charge she was bringing against the rector. "He's legal; he preaches up works and morality," continued Mrs. Kettle; "he's an Arminian, that's what he is!"

"I would not say he does not preach Christ," replied Sarah; "but he puts things so differently; he sets forth new lights; and I hate new lights, I love the old ways."

"And so do I, Miss Lane. I don't want nothing new, I'm too old; I only want to be sure as I'm safe-safe for heaven; but I'm such a sinner."

"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," said Sarah, gently, and even sweetly for her.

But

"Don't I know it? Haven't I known it these fifty years? I'll tell you the truth, Miss Lane, I'm seventy this day, and I'm afraid to die; I am afraid of God. I'm tired of this weary world,