at will put you in the way to find
abiding peace, and an abiding portion at the last."

"Just so, Mis' Nasmyth," said Mr Snow, deprecatingly, and there was a
little of the old twinkle in his eye. "But it does seem as though one
might naturally expect a little help from them that are spoken of as the
lights of the world; now don't it?"

"There's no denying that, but if you must look about you, you needna
surely fix your eyes on such crooked sticks as your Fishes and your
Slowcomes. It's no breach o' charity to say that _they_ dinna adorn the
doctrine. But there are other folk that I could name, that are both
light and salt on the earth."

"Well, yes," admitted Sampson; "since I've seen your folks, I've about
got cured of one thing. I see now there is something in religion with
some folks. Your minister believes as he says, and has a good time,
too. He's a good man."

"You may say that, and you would say it with more emphasis if you had
seen him as I have seen him for the last two twelve-months wading
through deep waters."

"Yes, I expect he's just about what he ought to be. But then, if
religion only changes folks in one case, and fails in ten."

"Man! it never fails!" exclaimed Janet, with kindling eye. "It never
failed yet, and never will fail while the heavens endure. And lad! take
heed to yourself. That's Satan's net spread out to catch your unwary
soul. It may serve your turn now to jeer at professors, as you call
them, and at their misdeeds that are unhappily no' few; but there's a
time coming when it will fail you. It will do to tell the like of me,
but it winna do to tell the Lord in `that day.' You have a stumbling
block in your own proud heart that hinders you more than all the Fishes
and Slowcomes o' them, and you may be angry or no' as you like at me for
telling you."

Sampson opened his eyes.

"But you don't seem to see the thing just as it is exactly. I ain't
jeering at professors or their misdeeds, I'm grieving for myself. If
religion ain't changed them, how can I expect that it will change me;
and I need changing bad enough, as you say."

"If it hasna changed them, they have none of it," said Mrs Nasmyth,
earnestly. "A Christian, and no' a changed man! Is he no' a sleeping
man awakened, a dead man made alive--born again to a new life? Has he
not the Spirit of God abiding in him? And no' changed!--No' that I wish
to judge any man," added she, more gently. "We dinna ken other