attentively to see the effect of his words, "don't you think there
is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so
confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy's doing it, who really
seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth
sense, quite unknown to me; for it's all a maze,--I can't find top, nor
bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it,--it's you can and you can't,
you shall and you sha'n't, you will and you won't,"----

"James!"

"You needn't look at me so. I'm not going to say the rest of it. But,
seriously, it's all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don't touch me, it
don't help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell
me it's because I'm a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not
the things of the Spirit. Well, I _am_ a natural man,--how's a fellow to
help it?"

"Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and
jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don't believe in
anything. I'm afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I _know_ that
can't be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say."

"I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good
Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. _Didn't_ I make him
open his eyes? It's true, too!"

"In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is
accepted of Him," said Mary; "and if there are better Christians than us
among the Mahometans, I am sure I'm glad of it. But, after all, the
great question is, 'Are we Christians ourselves?' Oh, James, if you only
were a real, true, noble Christian!"

"Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sandbars and
rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a
fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of
drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves,
isn't generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend,
anyhow!"

"And don't I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer
for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give
them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, 'I could
wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen'; and he
went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own
salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard
doctrine, but I could feel my way thr