aby can't walk yet, so she's safe; but
whatever I shall do when she can, I'm sure I don't know! I can't be in
all the places at once where two of them shouldn't be."

Rose could not help laughing.

"Little maid," she said kindly, "thy small shoulders will never hold the
world, nor even thy father's cottage. Hast thou forgot what thou saidst
not an half-hour gone, that God takes care of you all?"

"Oh yes, He takes big care of us," was Cissy's answer. "He'll see that
we have meat and clothes and so forth, and that Father gets work. But
He'll hardly keep Will and Baby out of mischief, will He? Isn't that
too little for Him?"

"The whole world is but a speck, little Cicely, compared with Him. If
He will humble Himself to see thee and me at all, I reckon He is as like
to keep Will out of mischief as to keep him alive. It is the very
greatness of God that _He_ can attend to all the little things in the
world at once. They are all little things to Him. Hast thou not heard
that the Lord Jesus said the very hairs of our heads be numbered?"

"Yea, Sir Thomas read that one eve at Ursula's."

Sir Thomas Tye was the Vicar of Much Bentley.

"Well," said Rose, "and isn't it of more importance to make Will a good
lad than to know how many hairs he's got on his head? Wouldn't thy
father think so?"

"For sure he would," said Cissy earnestly.

"And isn't God thy Father?"

Just as Rose asked that, a tall, dark figure turned out of a lane they
were passing, and joined them. It was growing dusk, but Rose recognised
the Vicar of whom they had just been speaking. Most priests were called
"Sir" in those days.

"Christ bless you, my children!" said the Vicar.

Both Rose and Cissy made low courtesies, for great respect was then paid
to a clergyman. They called them priests, for very few could read the
Bible, which tells us that the only priest is our Lord Jesus Christ. A
priest does not mean the same thing as a clergyman, though too many
people thoughtlessly speak as if it did. A priest is a man who offers a
sacrifice of some living thing to God. So, as Jesus Christ, who offered
Himself, is our sacrifice, and there can never be any other, there
cannot be any priests now. There are a great many texts which tell us
this, but I will only mention one, which you can look out in your Bibles
and learn by heart: the tenth verse of the tenth chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews. It is easy to remember two tens.

Cissy w