k at any time; yet he claims to be one of the elect, and the church
accepts him as such."

"And, Henry," Betty pursued mischievously, "in spite of your hopeful
view about Sue and me, I, for one, am not under conviction, if every
truly convicted penitent believes himself a 'sinner above all
Galilee'--that's the orthodox phrase, isn't it? I'm not nearly so bad
as Sam Ruddell, nor as Zebuel Simmons, who beats his wife."

"Ah, but my dear little girl," said Barton Stone, who, with Dudley, had
just come up, and had laid his hand gently upon the girl's shoulder,
"you must remember that training and environment are the measure of
guilt or innocence."

"You'll think me a reckless girl, I'm afraid, Brother Stone," Betsy
answered, laughing and coloring. "I shouldn't have made that speech had
I known that you and Mr. Dudley were within hearing. But, nevertheless,
I do not believe that I am the chief of sinners; others who have had
just as good opportunities are as bad as I am, I'm sure."

"Besides, if everybody who gets up in meeting and says he's the chief
of sinners, is really so, there would be more chiefs in this
neighborhood than in all the Indian tribes taken together," put in John
Calvin, pertly, unabashed by the presence of parson and schoolmaster.

"The trouble with so many ministers," said Dudley, as Betty, Susan and
John Calvin strolled away, "is that they seem to think that furnishing
people with doctrine is equivalent to awakening them to conviction and
supplying them with faith."

"Too true," assented Stone rather sadly. "Dogma and doctrine contain
very little of the true essence of faith. But the time is coming when
people will begin to search the Scriptures for themselves; and then,
just as the walls of Jericho fell before the blasts of the trumpets, so
will the whole superstructure of human theology, whose four
corner-stones are bigotry, intolerance, superstition and speculative
doctrine, crumble into nothingness. Even now the walls are beginning to
tremble. When this human-built edifice shall have fallen, and all the
debris shall have been cleared away, then shall arise upon the one true
foundation, Jesus Christ, a glorious structure, pure, consecrated and
untrammeled, the church of the living God."

"Do you really believe," inquired Dudley, "that there will ever be a
union of all the sects of Christendom?"

"A union of sects? Never!" replied Stone, emphatically. "Such a thing
is impossible from the very