g, for a moment.

"I wish you would tell me a little more about what we were talking of,"
she said with some effort.

"Do you feel your want of the helmet?" he said gravely.

"I feel that I haven't it," said Eleanor.

"What is it that you are conscious of wanting?"

She hesitated; it was a home question; and very unaccustomed to speak
of her secret thoughts and feelings to any one, especially on religious
subjects, which however had never occupied her before, Eleanor was
hardly ready to answer. Yet in the tones of the question there was a
certain quiet assurance and simplicity before which she yielded.

"I felt--a little while ago--when I was sick--that I was not exactly
safe."

Eleanor spoke, hesitating between every few words, looking down, and
falling her voice at the end. So she did not see the keen intentness of
the look that was fixed upon her.

"You felt that there was something wanting between you and God?"

"I believe so."

His accent was as deliberately clear as her's was hesitating. Every
word went into Eleanor's soul.

"Then you can understand now, that when one can say, joyfully, 'I know
that my Redeemer liveth';--when he is no vague abstraction, but felt to
be a _Redeemer;_--when one can say assuredly, he is _my_ Redeemer; I
know he has bought back my soul from sin and from the punishment of
sin, which is death; I feel I am forgiven; and I know he liveth--my
Redeemer--and according to his promise lives to deliver me from every
evil and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom;--do you see, now,
that one who can say this has on his head the covering of an infinite
protection--an infinite shelter from both danger and fear?--a helmet,
placed on his head by his Lord's own hand, and of such heavenly temper
that no blows can break through it."

Eleanor was a little time silent, with downcast eyes.

"You do not mean to say, that this protection is against _all_ evil; do
you? sickness and pain are evils are they not?"

"Not to him."

"Not to him?"

"No. The evil of them is gone. They can do him no harm; if they come,
they will do good. He that wears this helmet has absolutely no evil to
fear. All things shall work good to him. There shall no evil happen to
the just. Blessed be the Lord, who only doeth wondrous things!"

Eleanor stood silenced, humbled, convinced; till she recollected she
must not stand there so, and she lifted her eyes to bid good-night.
Then the face she met gave a new tur