than your poet, Violet."

"Yes, and when he was an old man--Paul, I mean--he said, `I have fought
the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith.'"

"And is there not something about armour?" asked Frank, who was not very
sure of his Bible knowledge.

"Yes. `Put ye on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand
in the evil day, and having done all to stand.' That is Paul, too."

"Yes," said Jem, slowly. "That was to be put on against the wiles of
the devil. `Ye wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers; against the rulers of the darkness of this
world; against spiritual wickedness in high places.'"

Frank uttered an exclamation.

"They needed armour, I think."

"Not more than we do now, my boy. We have the same enemies," said his
aunt.

It was her way at such times to let the conversation flow on according
to the pleasure of the young people, only she put in a word now and then
as it was needed for counsel or restraint.

"It sounds awful, don't it?" said Jem, who was always amused when his
cousin received as a new thought something that the rest of them had
been familiar with all their lives. "And that isn't all. What is that
about `the law in our members warring against the law in our minds?'
What with one thing and what with another, you stand a chance to get
fighting enough."

His mother put her hand on his arm.

"But, mamma, this thought of life's being a battle-field, makes one
afraid," said Violet.

"It need not, dear, one who takes `the whole armour.'"

"But what is the armour?" said Frank. "I don't understand."

Violet opened the Bible and read that part of the sixth chapter of
Ephesians where the armour is spoken of; and the boys discussed it piece
by piece. David, who had scarcely spoken before, had most to say now,
telling the others about the weapons and the armour used by the
ancients, and about their mode of carrying on war. For David had been
reading Latin and Greek with his father for a good while, and the rest
listened with interest. They wandered away from the subject sometimes,
or rather in the interest with which they discussed the deeds of ancient
warriors, they were in danger of forgetting "the whole armour," and the
weapons which are "not carnal but spiritual," and the warfare they were
to wage by means of these, till a word from the mother brought them back
again.

"`And having done all to stand,'" said