onflicting doctrines, "grace"
and "works": "if it be true, as so many of our learned brethren teach,
that nothing good that one can do merits salvation, then it seems to me
that, in accordance with every principle of justice, nothing bad that
one can do ought to merit damnation. Therefore, why should not I do the
thing that pleaseth me best, whether it be good or bad? If I'm one of
the 'elect,' nothing will keep me out of heaven, anyway."

"If you're of the elect, Betsy, you won't ever want to be wicked,"
Henry said gravely, speaking for the first time.

"Then, I fear I'm not of the elect."

"Oh, yes, I hope you are--only you're not yet converted. When you are,
you'll see things differently." Henry was of a devout, reverent
temperament, with a vivid imagination in spite of his quiet,
self-contained manner. He had been greatly stirred by what he had seen
and heard during the last ten days.

"But, Henry," began Betsy, argumentatively, "if I'm among the chosen at
all, I'm as much chosen now as I will ever be; for I'm a sheep, not a
goat--'Once a sheep, always a sheep,' you know."

"Well, sis," teasingly interrupted John Calvin, "if you're a sheep,
you're surely one of the black ones; and it'll take a mighty heap o'
scrubbin', I tell you, to get you white."

"And you," rejoined his sister, playfully, "I fear must be a
goat--judging by the way you're always butting in, and interrupting
serious converse."

"Oh," answered John Calvin, lightly, "I ain't bad enough to be classed
with the goats, nor good enough to be a sheep, even a black one. That
other parable about the wheatfield fits my case better. I reckon I'm
just one of those useless tares."

His sister retorted: "The parable also declares that 'he who sows the
tares is the devil,' and I hardly believe you are prepared to call your
parents the devil, although they put you into the church by having you
baptized in infancy." Then, resuming her conversation with Henry, she
said, "If I am of the elect at all, Henry, I am elected already, before
conversion, am I not?"

"To be sure," Henry replied. "God chose his people before the
foundation of the world."

"Bosh!" exclaimed Susan, impatiently. "You don't know what God was
doing before the foundation of the world, and I doubt if any of those
wise brethren up at the camp do, either."

"Besides," added the irrepressible John Calvin, "the catechism says
we're made of the dust of the earth; and before the foundation o