n vain; she somehow didn't feel the grace of God
nearly as much as last Sunday when the Presbyterian choir was
singing "Asleep in Jesus," while the sun shone divinely through the
stained-glass window.
She felt cheated and very sad when, at last, the preacher bade the
repentant ones stand up again. Evidently she hadn't repented hard
enough. Very soberly she walked back to the pew and took her place
between grandpa and grandma. They looked rather sober, too; she wondered
if they, also, had had trouble with their souls.
Then Brother Poole bade the repentant sinners to "stand up and testify."
One or two of the older sinners, who had repented before, rose first to
show how this was done. And then some of the younger ones, after being
urged, followed example. Sobbing, they testified as to their depth of
sin and their sense of forgiveness, while Brother Poole intermittently
cut in with staccato exclamations such as "Praise the Lord!" and "My
Redeemer Liveth!"
Missy was eager to see whether grandpa and grandma would stand up and
testify. When neither of them did so, she didn't know whether she was
more disappointed or relieved. Perhaps their silence denoted that their
souls had been born anew quite easily. Or again--! She sighed; her soul,
at all events, had proved a failure.
She was silent on the way home. Grandpa and grandma held her two hands
clasped in theirs and over her head talked quietly. She was too dejected
to pay much attention to what they were saying; caught only scattered,
meaningless phrases: "Of course that kind of frenzy is sincere but--"
"Simple young things--" "No more idea of sin or real repentance--"
But Missy was engrossed with her own dismal thoughts. The blood of the
Lamb had passed her by.
And that night, for the first time in three nights, the grace of God
didn't flow in on the flood of moonlight through her window. She tossed
on her unhallowed pillow in troubled dreams. Once she cried out in
sleep, and grandma came hurrying in with a candle. Grandma sat down
beside her--what was this she was saying about "green-apple pie"? Missy
wished to ask her about it--green-apple pie--green-apple pie--Before she
knew it she was off to sleep again.
It was the next morning while she was still lying in bed, that Missy
made the Great Resolve. That hour is one when big Ideas--all kinds of
unusual thoughts--are very apt to come. When you're not yet entirely
awake; not taken up with trivial, everyday thin
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