cause I
understand their ground and force. Peter would have gone down
hopelessly in the Sea of Galilee if he had depended on himself alone.
Only the divine Saviour, on whom he called and in whom he trusted,
could save him; and so it is in the case of men like Mr. Ridley who try
to walk over the sea of temptation. Peter's despairing cry of 'Save,
Lord, or I perish,' must be theirs also if they would keep from sinking
beneath the angry waters, and no one ever calls sincerely upon God for
help without receiving it. That Mr. Ridley is sincere I have no doubt,
and herein lies my great confidence."

At the end of a week Blanche returned from her wedding-tour, and was
received by her parents with love and tenderness instead of reproaches.
These last, besides being utterly useless, would have pushed the young
husband away from them and out of the reach of any saving influences it
might be in their power to exercise.

The hardest trial now for Mrs. Birtwell was the separation from
Blanche, whose daily visits were a poor substitute for the old constant
and close companionship. If there had not been a cloud in the sky of
her child's future, with its shadow already dimming the brightness of
her young life, the mother's heart would have still felt an aching and
a void, would have been a mourner for love's lost delights and
possessions that could nevermore return. But to all this was added a
fear and, dread that made her soul grow faint when thought cast itself
forward into the coming time.

The Rev. Mr. Brantley Elliott was a wiser and truer man than some who
read him superficially imagined. His churchmanship was sometimes
narrower than his humanity, while the social element in his character,
which was very strong, often led him to forget in mixed companies that
much of what he might say or do would be judged of by the clerical and
not the personal standard, and his acts and words set down at times as
favoring worldliness and self-indulgence. Harm not unfrequently came of
this. But he was a sincere Christian man, deeply impressed with the
sacredness of his calling and earnest in his desire to lead heavenward
the people to whom he ministered.

The case of Mr. Ridley had not only startled and distressed him, but
filled him with a painful concern lest other weak and tempted ones
might have fallen through his unguarded utterance or been bereaved
through his freedom. The declaration of Paul came to him with a new
force: "Wherefore,