he bitterness, the unutterable agony of that
hour! Surely Abbie, on her knees struggling with her bleeding heart,
and yet feeling all around and underneath her the everlasting arms,
knew nothing of desolation such as this.

Fiercer and fiercer waged the warfare, until at last every root of
pride, or self-complacence, or self-excuse, was utterly cast out. Yet
did not Satan despair. Oh, he meant to have this poor sick, weak lamb,
if he could get her; no effort should be left unmade. And when he
found that she could be no more coaxed and lulled and petted into
peace, he tried that darker, heavier temptation--tried to stupefy her
into absolute despair. "No," she said within her heart, "I am not a
Christian; I never have been one; I never _can_ be one. I've been a
miserable, self-deceived hypocrite all my life. I have had a name
to live, and am dead. I would not let myself be awakened; I have
struggled against it; I have been only too glad to stop myself from
thinking about it. I have been just a miserable stumbling-block, with
no excuse to offer; and now I feel myself deserted, justly so. There
can be no rest for such as I. I have no Savior; I have insulted and
denied him; I have crucified him again, and now he has left me to
myself."

Thus did that father of lies continue to pour into this weary soul the
same old story which he has repeated for so many hundred years, with
the same old foundation: "_I--I--I_." And strange to say, this poor
girl repeated the experience which has so many times been lived,
during these past hundreds of years, in the very face of that other
glorious pronoun, in very defiance, it would seem, to that old,
old explanation: "Surely _he_ hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows." "_He_ was wounded for our transgressions; _he_ was bruised
for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon _him_: and
with _his stripes_ we are healed."

Yes, Ester knew those two verses. She knew yet another which said:
"All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way: _and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all_."

And yet she dared to sit with hopeless, folded hand, with heavy
despairing eyes, and repeat that sentence: "I _have_ no Savior now."
And many a wandering sheep has dared, even in its repenting hour,
to insult the great Shepherd thus. Ester's Bible lay on the window
seat--the large, somewhat worn Bible which Abbie had lent her, to
"mark just as much as