sion
of Faith?"

"Yes, those are what I consider the duties of religion, but no one who
has really felt its power, could ever think of them merely as duties."

"You have shown us beyond dispute that you are capable of acting up to
the first proposition. Even I, who know little about it, can see that is
the easier of the two, how about the second?"

"There is only one way I know of fulfilling that requisition--I can't
help it if it seems absurd to you--to me it is the true and only one,
and that is by following closely the footsteps of that One who alone
trod the world without being corrupted by its evil."

Charlie considered a minute.

"Well, after all," he said, "there must be something in it. No amount of
reasoning, however sound, would have moved the turgid intellects of
those miners. I suppose that as long as minds of that calibre exist,
there must also exist a means of influencing them for good, which must
of necessity be the extreme antipodes of their own inclinations."

"I think I don't understand you very clearly," returned she, "but if you
mean, as I think you do, that Christianity is only to be tolerated for
what it can do in the way of working on the emotions of those who are
altogether governed by them, you are wrong. Its purpose is a far higher
one, that of awakening the conscience, and enlightening the darkened
understanding of such as these."

"And of what use is it to those who are already freed by other means
from that benighted condition?"

Minnie looked perplexed, and the tears began to gather slowly in her
eyes. It pained her to find her knowledge on the subject so limited.

"Charlie," she said tremulously, "I am but newly awakened myself out of
what you call 'that benighted condition,' through the influence of the
Gospel of Christ, and I don't know anything of the other means you talk
about. You know I am not much given to thinking, and I have never tried
to argue out these matters. I only know what it has done for me."

"And what is that?" asked Charlie.

"It has saved me from a frivolous, unprofitable life on earth, and a
death beyond the grave," replied Minnie, solemnly, "and what it has done
for me, it can do for all who are willing."

She paused a moment, but as nobody spoke, went on: "I don't imagine that
it has the same effect on everybody, it can't, of course, as everybody
isn't alike, but it must make a change of some kind, even in people who
live the best lives outwardly, bef