union
service; the holy awe would of necessity fade away; the hymns and
prayers be exchanged for the harsh wrangle and barter of a work-day
world; temptation was awaiting many of those new church members in
unexpected places, and the evil nature within, not yet wholly subdued by
divine grace, would make the pathway of holiness a very narrow one,
along which untrained feet would often stumble. But the memory of this
hour would always be, to those who cherished it, a shield against
temptation, a counter-charm against the wiles of the evil one; and since
the Saviour whom they had that day openly avouched to be their Lord and
God had promised "never to leave or to forsake them," only victory could
follow those who confided entirely in him.

"Tessa," said Katie, when the two girls were alone together that
afternoon, "I didn't know you were going to join the church till this
morning. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Well, you see I didn't make up my mind till yesterday afternoon. Then I
went to Miss Etta, and she took me to Mr. Morven, and he took my name
and encouraged me to come."

"What made you think of it?"

"You first. I didn't see how you could be so gentle and patient when
everybody was condemning you and thinking evil of you. Then I watched
you at your work, and saw how faithful you were, whether any one saw you
or not, just as if you felt that God was looking at you, and you wanted
to please him."

"So I did. I took for my text, in the mill, the verse: 'In all thy ways
acknowledge him.'"

"Then," continued Tessa, "when you wanted me to give up reading those
novels I was real mad at first. I thought you had no right to find fault
with what I did, and that it was very mean in you, who had a comfortable
home and a mother and two brothers, to want to take away the only
pleasure from me who had nothing. But when you talked with me so
sweetly, and when you asked me to come and live with you, and your
mother took in the stranger that no one knew anything about and treated
me just like one of her own children, I knew that you did it just out of
kindness, and I tried to see what made you so kind."

"I don't think I'm kind," said Katie, "but I do want to be."

"The only reason I went to Sunday-school and church with you,"
continued her friend, "was to find out what it was that made you so
different from the other girls, and there I heard all about Jesus, so
different from what the priests used to say at home. There