y on the train? I happened to be
her seat-mate in the car-thin face, slight little figure--a commonplace
girl, whom I took at first to be not more than twenty, but from the
lines about her large eyes she was probably nearer forty. She had in
her lap a book, which she conned from time to time, and seemed to be
committing verses to memory as she looked out the window. At last I
ventured to ask what literature it was that interested her so much, when
she turned and frankly entered into conversation. It was a little Advent
song-book. She liked to read it on the train, and hum over the tunes.
Yes, she was a good deal on the cars; early every morning she rode
thirty miles to her work, and thirty miles back every evening. Her work
was that of clerk and copyist in a freight office, and she earned nine
dollars a week, on which she supported herself and her mother. It was
hard work, but she did not mind it much. Her mother was quite feeble.
She was an Adventist. 'And you?' I asked. 'Oh, yes; I am. I've been
an Adventist twenty years, and I've been perfectly happy ever since
I joined--perfectly,' she added, turning her plain face, now radiant,
towards me. 'Are you one?' she asked, presently. 'Not an immediate
Adventist,' I was obliged to confess. 'I thought you might be, there
are so many now, more and more.' I learned that in our little city there
were two Advent societies; there had been a split on account of some
difference in the meaning of original sin. 'And you are not discouraged
by the repeated failure of the predictions of the end of the world?' I
asked. 'No. Why should we be? We don't fix any certain day now, but
all the signs show that it is very near. We are all free to think as
we like. Most of our members now think it will be next year.'--'I
hope not!' I exclaimed. 'Why?' she asked, turning to me with a look of
surprise. 'Are you afraid?' I evaded by saying that I supposed the good
had nothing to fear. 'Then you must be an Adventist, you have so much
sympathy.'--'I shouldn't like to have the world come to an end next
year, because there are so many interesting problems, and I want to see
how they will be worked out.'--'How can you want to put it off'--and
there was for the first time a little note of fanaticism in her
voice--'when there is so much poverty and hard work? It is such a hard
world, and so much suffering and sin. And it could all be ended in a
moment. How can you want it to go on?' The train approached the