"Yes: He has promised He will, and He always keeps His word.”

"I'm sure I'm glad of it," said Kit in her matterof-fact way; "because I don't have any help only what you give me. I can't go to church and Sunday school, like the others."

"If you could, my dear, if you had all the human helps in the world, you would need God's help just as much. The most learned man in the world needs it just as much as you do. Now, see here; I have something else for you. Here is a card with the Lord's Prayer printed on it in nice plain letters; I want you to take it and learn it, so you can say it with the others. It is in your Testament too."

"Is it called the Lord's Prayer because He made it?" asked Kit.

"Yes, for that very reason."

"Here is something else printed on the card, 'The Apostles' Creed,'" said Kit, spelling out the word with some trouble. "What is that?"

"That is what all Christians believe, a kind of summing-up of all the truths of the Bible," answered Miss Armstrong. "Learn that too. Suppose you read it over to me."

"I have heard that somewhere, I know," said Kit when she had finished reading the Creed. "Seems to me it was in a church out West, but I can't tell exactly. I guess it was in the Indian church. But, Miss Armstrong, I shall have to learn these in school, I guess.'

"Very well; we will make time for them. Now I must not keep poor Selina waiting any longer. Good-night, my dear, and God bless you!"

CHAPTER IV.

STRANGERS.

"ARE you tired of waiting, Selina?" asked Miss Armstrong as she locked the schoolhouse door, and put the key into her basket. "You need not have staid. I don't believe I should be so stupid as to lose my way twice."

"I liked to," said Selina with a great effort: "it is pleasanter than walking home alone. But I think it is too bad to keep you after school so."

"Oh, I am used to that," answered Miss Armstrong, smiling. "I usually get 'kept after school' oftener than my scholars do. I am pleased when the girls come to me with questions. I am very much interested in poor Kitty; I hope to be able to do something for her."

"They must be an ignorant, low set," said Selina. "Fancy any one not knowing that the New Testament is a part of the Bible!"

"A good deal more than half the people in the world are in the same condition, including various kings, nobles, and others of unquestionable gentility," said Miss Armstrong. "I have met with many

such cases in the city; but I was surprised, I confess, to find one here."

"Oh, well! Phin Mallory has not always lived here. He has lived out West, and in all sorts of wild places," replied Selina, jealous for the reputation of the neighborhood. "If he had grown up in Oldham, I dare say he would have been different."

"I think it altogether probable that one might find people who have grown up in Oldham whose cases are still more remarkable," said Miss Armstrong, "though such cases are so common that their peculiarity does not strike you unless you consider the matter." "I don't know what you mean," said Selina. "I am thinking of people who have been brought up to know a great deal about both the Old and New Testaments, who are carefully instructed in the Bible, and profess to believe it, and who yet behave as if there were no such thing."

Selina blushed. She knew very well that this was very much her own case. "Do you think that is so much more strange?" said she.

that a

"Which would be the more remarkable, man should walk off a precipice in the dark, or that he should do so in the daytime with his eyes open?" asked Miss Armstrong.

"That he should do it in the daytime, of course," replied Selina; "but that is different."

"It is a fair illustration, I think," said Miss Armstrong. "A man professes to believe that there is no salvation for any one who does not accept the Lord Jesus for his Saviour, and give himself up to Him; and yet he does neither."

"I don't understand what people mean by that," said Selina, "I mean, by what they call a saving faith."

"A saving faith, as distinguished from a merely historic faith, is a faith that leads to action. To give you a homely illustration: Mr. Bassett, here in the mill, believes that school will open at nine o'clock to-morrow; that is, if he thinks of it at all. But it makes no practical difference to him: he will not rise an hour earlier, or make any change in his arrangements, on that account. But to me it is, so to speak, the central fact of my day; and all my plans are made in reference to it. So a man has a kind of belief in the Saviour; that is, he believes that there was such a person, and that He did the works ascribed to Him: but he does not make any alteration in his life on that account. But let that man be once waked up to the truth that he is a lost sinner, with no hope of deliverance except in this same Saviour, and he will not rest till he has made that Saviour his own."

"Then all people want is, to be waked up," said Selina. "If that is the case, I wonder true Christians don't talk to people about such things more than they do."

"It is, no doubt, a duty grievously neglected," said Miss Armstrong; "but it is not all, by any means. People go on in sin, not because they don't know. any better, but because they love sin. They know, that, if they become really Christians, they must do many things which they don't like to do, and give up many things they don't like to give up; and they

The

cannot make up their minds to such a course. cross looks very hard and heavy, and they don't like to meddle with it."

"Some people say there is nothing but joy in the life of a true Christian," observed Selina.

"The life of a true Christian must be very unlike that of his Master, then,” replied Miss Armstrong. "The very sight and thought of so many going the broad way to destruction must hinder any true Chris tian from being perfectly happy at all times. 'The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.' But, Selina, how is it with you. You ought not to need any arousing on this sub ject."

"One may sometimes have too much of a good thing," said Selina lightly; and then, willing to dismiss the subject, she exclaimed, "I wonder whose carriage this is coming up the hill! I am sure it does not belong about here."

"It is Mrs. Van Zandt's," said Miss Armstrong with an expression of pleasure. "She wrote me that she meant to drive over from Oldbury." As she spoke, the carriage came up to them and stopped; and the coachman, touching his hat, asked Selina if they were in the right road to the Van Zandt mansion.

"You are right so far, but you must turn to the left by that red house," said Selina. She looked round for Miss Armstrong, and saw that she was already at the carriage window, exchanging greetings with the persons within. One was an old lady with beautiful white hair put up in puffs under a shady