n she tossed and turned and sought in
vain for an hour of rest. She was afraid to sleep. How like death this
sleeping was! Who could know, when they gave themselves up to the grasp
of this power, that he was not the very death angel himself in disguise,
and would give them no earthly awakening forever?

What should she do? Believe in religion? Yes. She knew it was true. What
then? What had Marion said? Was that all true? Aye, verily it was; she
knew that, too. Had she not stood side by side with death?

The hours went by and the conflict went on. There was a conflict. Her
conscience knew much more than her tongue had given it credit for
knowing that afternoon. Oh, she had seen Christians who had done more
than join the church! She had imagined that that act might have a
mysterious and gradual change on her tastes and feelings, so that some
time in her life, when she was old, and the seasons for her were over,
she might feel differently about a good many things.

But that hour of waiting for the messenger of death, who, she thought,
had called her, had swept away this film. "It is not teaching in
Sunday-school," said her brain. "It is not tract distributing; it is not
sewing societies for the poor; it is not giving or going. It is _none_
of these things, or _any_ of them, or _all_ of them, as the case may be,
and as they come afterward. But _first_ it is this question: Am I my own
mistress? do I belong to myself or to God? will I do as I please or as
he pleases? will I submit my soul to him, and ask him to keep it and to
show me what to do, or when and where to step?"

The night was utterly spent, and the gray dawn of the early sweet summer
morning was breaking into the grove, and still Ruth lay with wide-open
eyes, and thought. A struggle? Oh dear, yes! Such an one as she had
never imagined. That strong will of hers, which had led not only herself
but others, yield it, submit to other leadership, always to question: Is
this right? can I go here? ought I to say that? What a thing to do! But
it involved that; she knew it, felt it. She might have been blind during
the week past, but she was not deaf.

How they surged over her, the sentences from one and another to whom
she had listened! They were not at play, these great men. What did it
mean but that there was a life hidden away, belonging to Christ? She
felt no love in her heart, no longing for love, such as poor little
Flossy had yearned for. She felt instead that s