nse and purify
your heart from all traces of sin and sorrow in its blessed waters, just
as you bathe your face in this spring, that you would feel happier and
better."

"Yes," said Annie, slowly and thoughtfully, as if a new idea was passing
through her mind.

"Well then, I will tell you how. I have felt just as you do now. When I
was a girl I was a restless, idle creature; useless to others, and a
burden to myself. Of course I was unhappy, miserable. It was in vain
that I went to school with such a discontented mind. I had a harder
lesson to learn than any that my teacher could learn me. God grant you
may not have to learn it in the same way that I did! I learned it by
experience; a sorrowful way that is to learn anything, although it is
slow and sure; you may be pretty certain that you never will forget it.
I have found out, by experience, that the only way that we can live and
be happy, is by loving and serving others, just as the blessed Jesus
did; and if you will try it you will find it so."

"Oh," said Annie, "I am a little girl. What good can I do? If I was the
Lord Jesus, I would go about doing good; then I would cast out devils,
and heal the sick, and raise the dead."

"Yes, yes; I know you are yet but a 'wee thing,' and have much to learn;
but 'the race is not always to the swift and the battle to the strong;'
it isn't the tallest men and the oldest heads that do the most good in
the world. But I'll tell you what _you can_ do, if you can't work
miracles; though there's many a devil cast out in these days of sin and
sorrow, that men know not of; those who struggle and strive with the
Evil One, and thrust him out of the doors of their heart, do not sound a
trumpet before them in the streets, for they are true followers of the
dear Lamb of God. That same old spirit of selfishness that tempted Eve
in the garden of Eden has gone through the world like a creeping, wily
serpent ever since. It has wound itself round and round our hearts, coil
upon coil, until we scarce seem to have any heart at all. It is this
that troubles you, and you must cast it out; you must forget your own
interest, and learn everybody to love you; then you can't help loving
everybody, and you will be happy. Oh, it will be hard, very hard, to do
this; you will stop, and perhaps turn back; but when it is the darkest
you must take the gentle hand that our dear brother, the Lord Jesus,
stretches out to you, and he will lead you safely to the ve