was
trembling,--a thing so rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the
circumstances, that he watched her closely, and began to fear that some
nervous paroxysm, or other malady, might have just begun to show itself
in this way upon her.

The minister had in his pocket two notes. One, in the handwriting of
Deacon Soper, was from a member of this congregation, returning thanks
for his preservation through a season of great peril, supposed to be the
exposure which he had shared with others, when standing in the circle
around Dick Veneer. The other was the anonymous one, in a female hand,
which he had received the evening before. He forgot them both. His
thoughts were altogether too much taken up with more important matters.
He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his expurgated form of
supplication, and not a single heart was soothed or lifted, or reminded
that its sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven, borne on the
breath from a human soul that was warm with love.

The people sat down as if relieved when the dreary prayer was finished.
Elsie alone remained standing until her father touched her. Then she sat
down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with a blank, sad look, as if
she had suffered some pain or wrong, but could not give any name or
expression to her vague trouble. She did not tremble any longer, but
remained ominously still, as if she had been frozen where she sat.

--Can a man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, constitute
the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived mainly to make
sure of their own personal welfare in another and future condition of
existence, or they who have worked with all their might for their race,
for their country, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, and left
all personal arrangements concerning themselves to the sole charge of Him
who made them and is responsible to himself for their safe-keeping? Is
an anchorite who has worn the stone floor of his cell into basins with
his knees bent in prayer, more acceptable than the soldier who gives his
life for the maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without thinking
what will specially become of him in a world where there are two or three
million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be cared for? These
are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to those who know that
there are many profoundly selfish persons who are sincerely devout and
perpetually occupied with their own