r me. It made me think
of Christ inviting himself into the house of Zaccheus, to save his soul.
I always felt that I must obtain religion wholly of myself; now I feel
that God has begun the work in me. I am sustained and borne on. That
baptism was the most powerful appeal that ever reached my heart. It
seems to me, in its connection with the gospel, like a beautiful
symphony of instrumental music in an anthem, which strives to interpret
the words. It proved an overture to me, indeed, in the best sense. But,
my dear sir, how near we came to losing all this which my wife has
enjoyed."

The door opened, and little Lucy came in with two plates and two silver
knives, and that great red apple which her mother had received a few
days before. "Mother sends her love to you, sir, and begs that you and
father will eat this."

They looked at the apple for a few moments, when the husband said, "I do
not feel like eating it. Do oblige me by taking it home with you."

The pastor took it home with him, placed it on his mantel-piece in his
study, where, for several days, it gave such an odor as to attract the
notice of every one that came in. The hand that sent it to him, in less
than a week had finished its work on earth. The apple then became a
hallowed thing. There it remained till it wilted, grew soft, and finally
turned nearly black.

A little, unceremonious visitant to his father's study would often climb
into the chair near the shelf, and express his wonder, and repeat his
questions, at the seeming mystery,--first, of not eating the apple, and
suffering it to be wasted; and then, of letting it remain when it ought
to be thrown away. It was not long, however, before the apple was buried
in a pot of earth. In due time green shoots appeared. And when the
pastor saw them, he said with himself, "The children of thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee."

How it grew in the pastor's study, a little sacramental emblem of
hallowed scenes, and of infinitely precious truths,--how a place was
selected, and afterwards prepared, for it, near a garden-wall which
separates the wife's little garden from her grave,--and how the husband
came alone, one Sabbath, and joined the church, receiving the seal of
baptism from the same hand that sprinkled the water upon the heads of
his wife and children,--I cannot tell you now, nor, after so long
detention, would you be willing at present to hear.

THE END.