child."

He drew her very close to his heart and imprinted a tender kiss upon her
lips as he spoke.

"Yes, papa, it makes me feel very safe to remember that, thinking how
dearly you love me; so that I know you would never let anything harm me
if you could help it," she returned, putting an arm round his neck and
hugging him tight. "Oh I am so glad that the Bible tells us that about
God's love to us!"

"So am I; and that my children have early learned to love and trust in
him.

"'Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life
that now is, and of that which is to come.' That is not a promise that
God's faithful followers shall be rich in this world's goods, but faith
in God's loving care makes life happy even in the midst of poverty and
pain. Riches have not the power to make us happy, but the love of God
has.

"And those who begin to serve God in the morning of life and press
onward and upward all their days, keeping near to Jesus and growing more
and more like him, will be happier in heaven--because of their greater
capacity for the enjoyment of God and holiness--than the saved ones who
sought him late in life, or were less earnest in their endeavors to live
in constant communion with him, and to bear more and more resemblance to
him.

"The Bible speaks of some who are 'scarcely saved,' and of others to
whom 'an entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.'"

"Papa," said Lulu earnestly, "I want to be one of those; I want to live
near to Jesus and grow every day more like him. (Oh I am so little like
him now; sometimes I fear not at all). Won't you help me all you can?"

"I will, my darling," he replied, speaking with emotion. "Every day I
ask wisdom from on high for that very work;--the work of helping you and
all my dear children to be earnest, faithful servants of God."

The talk with her father had done much to quiet Lulu's excitement, and
she fell asleep very soon after laying her head on her pillow.

It was still night when she awoke suddenly with the feeling that
something unusual was going on in the house.

She sat up in the bed and listened. She thought she heard a faint sound
coming from the room below, and slipping from the bed she stole softly
across the floor to the chimney, where there was a hot air flue beside
the open fireplace.

Dropping down on her hands and knees, she put her ear close to the
register