rk for Jesus nowadays."

"You didn't mend my dress and iron it, and curl my hair, and fix my
sash, for him, did you?"

"Yes; every little thing."

"Why, I don't see how. I thought you did them for me."

"I did, Julia, to please you and make you happy; but Jesus says that
that is just the same as doing it for him."

Julia's next question was very searching:

"But, Ester, I thought you had been a member of the church a good
many years. Sadie said so. Didn't you ever try to do things for Jesus
before?"

A burning blush of genuine shame mantled Ester's face, but she
answered quickly:

"No; I don't think I ever really did."

Julia eyed her for a moment with a look of grave wonderment, then
suddenly stood on tiptoe to return the kiss, as she said:

"Well, I think it is nice, anyway. If Jesus likes to have you be so
kind and take so much trouble for me, why then he must love me, and I
mean to thank him this very night when I say my prayers."

And as Ester rested for a moment in the arm-chair on the piazza, and
watched her little brother and sister move briskly off, she hummed
again those two lines that had been making unconscious music in her
heart all day:

"Content to fill a _little_ space
If Thou be glorified."

CHAPTER XXIII.

CROSSES.

The large church was _very_ full; there seemed not to be another space
for a human being. People who were not much given to frequenting the
house of God on a week-day evening, had certainly been drawn thither
at this time. Sadie Ried sat beside Ester in their mother's pew, and
Harry Arnett, with a sober look on his boyish face, sat bolt upright
in the end of the pew, while even Dr. Douglass leaned forward with
graceful nonchalance from the seat behind them, and now and then
addressed a word to Sadie.

These people had been listening to such a sermon as is very seldom
heard--that blessed man of God whose name is dear to hundreds and
thousands of people, whose hair is whitened with the frosts of many
a year spent in the Master's service, whose voice and brain and heart
are yet strong, and powerful, and "mighty through God," the Rev. Mr.
Parker, had been speaking to them, and his theme had been the soul,
and his text had been: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world and lose his own soul?"

I hope I am writing for many who have had the honor of hearing that
appeal fresh from the great brain and greater heart of Mr. Parker.
Such will underst