th the burden of its great concern:

"Not in your own strength. That is impossible."

His lips dropped apart. He looked at her strangely.

"Not in your own strength, but in God's," she said reverently. "You
have tried your own strength many times, but it has failed as often.
But his strength never fails."

She lifted her finger and pointed to the text on the wall, "Without me
ye can do nothing," then added: "But in him we can do all things.
Trusting in yourself, my friend, you will go forth from here to an
unequal combat, but trusting in him your victory is assured. You shall
go among lions and they will have no power to harm you, and stand in
the very furnace flame of temptation without even the smell of fire
being left upon your garments."

"Ah, ma'am, you are doubtless right in what you say," Mr. Ridley
answered, all the enthusiasm dying out of his countenance. "But I am
not a religious man. I have never trusted in God."

"That is no reason why you should not trust in him now," she answered,
quickly. "All other hope for you is vain, but in God there is safety.
Will you not go to him now?"

There came a quick, nervous rap upon the door; then it was flung open,
and Ethel, with a cry of "Oh, father, my father, my father!" sprang
across the room and threw herself into Mr. Ridley's arms.

With an answering cry of "Oh, Ethel, my child, my child!" Mr. Ridley
drew her to his bosom, clasped her slender form to his heart and laid
his face, over which tears were flowing, down among the thick masses of
her golden hair.

"Let us pray," fell the sweet, solemn voice of the lady manager on the
deep stillness that followed. All knelt, Mr. Ridley with his arm drawn
tightly around his daughter. Then in tender, earnest supplication did
this Christian woman offer her prayers for help.

"Dear Lord and Saviour," she said, in hushed, pleading tones, "whose
love goes yearning after the lost and straying ones, open the eyes of
this man, one of thy sick and suffering children, that he may see the
tender beauty of thy countenance. Touch his heart, that he may feel the
sweetness of thy love. Draw him to come unto thee, and to trust and
confide in thee as his ever-present and unfailing Friend. In thee is
safety, in thee is peace, and nowhere else."

God could answer this prayer through its influence upon the mind of him
for whom it was offered. It was the ladder on which his soul climbed
upward. The thought of God and of his love and