to be learned from the lives of
Christians, it is a bad lookout for us. But God HAS given us one perfect
revelation of Himself, and the Perfect Son can make us see plainly even
when the imperfect sons are holding up to us a distorted likeness of the
Father."

She had spoken quietly, but with the tremulousness of strong feeling,
and, moreover, she was so sensitive that the weight of the hostile
atmosphere oppressed her, and made speaking a great difficulty. When
she had ended, she turned away from the disapproving eyes to the only
sympathetic eyes in the room the dog's. They looked up into hers with
that wistful endeavor to understand the meaning of something beyond
their grasp, which makes the eyes of animals so pathetic.

There was a silence; her use of the adjective "perfect" had been
very trying to all her hearers, who strongly disapproved of the whole
sentence; but then she was so evidently sincere and so thoroughly
lovable that no one liked to give her pain.

Aunt Jean was the only person who thought there was much chance of her
ever returning to the ranks of secularism; she was the only one who
spoke now.

"Well, well," she said, pityingly, "you are but young; you will think
very differently ten years hence."

Erica kept back an angry retort with difficulty, and Raeburn, whose keen
sense of justice was offended, instantly came forward in her defense,
though her words had been like a fresh stab in the old wound.

"That is no argument, Jean," he said quickly. "It is the very unjust
extinguisher which the elders use for the suppression of individuality
in the young."

As he spoke, he readjusted a slide in his microscope, making it plain to
all that he intended the subject to be dropped. He had a wonderful way
of impressing his individuality on others, and the household settled
down once more into the Sabbatical calm which had been broken by a
bigoted Sabbatarian.

Nothing more was heard of Rose, nor did Erica have an opportunity of
talking over the events of that Sunday with her father for some days for
he was exceedingly busy; the long weeks wasted during the summer in
the wearisome libel case having left upon his hands vast arrears
of provincial work. In some of the large iron foundries you may see
hundreds of different machines all kept in action by a forty horse-power
engine; and Raeburn was the great motive-power which gave life to all
the branches of Raeburnites which now stretched throughout the leng