emn, or more searching, or
more effective preaching could be crowded into an afternoon than has
been done here, I should like to be shown how. What do you think of your
choice of entertainments, Eurie? You thought it would be safe to attend
the president's reception, you remember."

"I don't tell all I think," Eurie answered, and then she went out among
the trees.

Truth to tell, Eurie had heard that from which she could not get away.
Dr. Vincent's words were still sounding, "you are invited to come to
Jesus and be saved; you are invited to come _now_." There had been
nothing to dissipate that impression, everything to deepen it, and the
thought that clung and repeated itself to her heart was that plaintive
wail:

"Almost persuaded, now to believe."

That was certainly herself; she felt it, knew it; in the face of that
knowledge think how solemn the words grew:

"Almost will not prevail,
Almost is but to fail;
Sad, sad that bitter wail,
Almost,--but lost!"

Was that for her, too? In short, Eurie out there alone, among the silent
trees, felt and admitted this fact: that the time had actually come to
her when this question must be decided, either for or against, and
decided forever.

Sunday morning at Chautauqua! A white day. There can be none of all
that throng who spent the 15th day of August, 1875, in that sacred
place, who remember it without a thrill. A perfect day! Glorious and
glowing sunshine everywhere; and beauty, such perfect beauty of lake and
grove! The God of nature smiled lovingly on Chautauqua that morning.

Our girls seemed to think that the perfect day required perfection of
attire, and it was noticeable that the taste of each settled on spotless
white, without color or ornament, other than a spray of leaves and
grasses, which one and another of them gathered almost without knowing
it, and placed in belt or hair. Outward calm, but inward unrest, at
least so far as some were concerned; Marion Wilbur among the number.

It was a very heavy heart that she carried that day. There was no
unbelief; that demon was conquered. Instead there was an overpowering,
terrible _certainty_. And now came Satan with the whole of her past life
which had turned to sin before her, and hurled it on her poor shrinking
shoulders, until she felt almost to faint beneath the load; she lay
miserably on her bed, and thought that she would not add to her burden
by going to the service, that she knew alr