ave been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the
pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with
humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another
direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a
high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.

"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural,
but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that
is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.

Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life,
and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch,
puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which
land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill--some people
call it a bluff--but which religious people of several denominations
call "Sea Cliff Grove."

Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward
Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from
ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may,
to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.

Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an
awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses
dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.

Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of
brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which
blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's
brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees
running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole
bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome,
which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge,
was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle--not the one built without
hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling
affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look
out on the sea from morning till night.

Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man
who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled
about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with
slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.

Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for