ul to you in any way that I can."

"Thank you, sir, kindly; 'tain't worldly help as I wants from you. I've
earned enough for me and Sally to last us as long as we live; and it's
almost time as I sold the old van, and settled down somewheres for the
rest of my days. But it's just this, sir--I want to do some work for
the Lord, who's been and done so much for Sally and me. Now I could, as
I said just now, sell the old van and settle down; but then I mightn't
be able to do much good, and my old limbs would get stiff for want of my
regular exercise, and I should just be snoozing away the rest of my time
in a big arm-chair. Now I ain't quite used up, nor Sally neither. So I
could keep on the move from place to place, dropping a word for Christ
here, and a word there, where I've been used to drop scores of words for
the devil; and if you'd put me in the way, I could take a lot of
Testaments and other good books with me, and sell 'em instead of the
poisonous trash as I used to carry. Now, what do you advise me?"

"You couldn't do better, old friend," replied Horace; "you would be
showing then your colours, and doing real work for the Master--better
far than you could if you settled down."

"Well, I think so too, sir; and you must know that I've begun to do a
bit for the Lord already, though in a poor sort of way. I used to sell
smuggled goods on the sly, and bad songs and bad books, but I've dropped
all that now. You may look my van through, drawers and cupboards and
all, every corner of it, and you'll not find a scrap of the bad sort
now. Eh! How some of my old customers do stare, and how some on 'em do
jeer, when I tells 'em as I've done selling the old things as they
delight in. But it don't matter. I've made up my mind, and they're
beginning to find that out. They call me an old humbug, and tell me as
Sally and I shall end our days in the Union. But I ain't afeard; it
ain't the likes of them as can send me there, and I know I'm safe in the
Lord's hands."

"That's very true," said Horace; "you'll be taken good care of while you
are in the path of duty, and you will have many a noble opportunity of
helping on the good cause as you go from place to place. Many will get
a word from you which they might not be in the way of hearing otherwise,
and the very fact of such a change in the hearts and lives of your wife
and yourself must tell on the consciences of many who see what you are
now and know what you were