the
glory of God!"

There were others who went to these parties, hushing their consciences
meantime by the explanation that the social duties were important ones,
and that one whose heart was right could serve God as well having
religious conversation at a party, as she could occupying a seat at a
prayer-meeting. Perhaps they really believed it. What marvel? Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light.

The trouble about the sincerity was, that those same persons were not
unaware of certain sneering remarks that were being made, to the effect
that if church-members could go to parties when there were meetings at
their own church, _they_ could surely be excused from the meetings; and
they could not have been utterly ignorant of the verse that read
plainly, "Let not your good be evil spoken of."

There were still others who compromised matters, taking the meetings for
the first hour of the evening and a party for the next three; and the
lookers-on said, sneeringly, that there was a strife going on between
the soul, the flesh and the devil, and they wondered which would
conquer!

So all these classes flourished and worked in their different ways in
the First Church; just as they always _will_ work, until that day when
the wheat shall be forever separated from the tares. The wonder is why
so many blinded eyes _must_ insist that because there are tares, there
is therefore no wheat. The Lord said, "Let both grow together until the
harvest."

"I don't understand it," Ruth said one day to Marion, as they talked the
work over, and tried to lay plans for future helpfulness. "Why do you
suppose it is that I seem able to do nothing at all? I try with all my
might; my heart is surely in it, and I long with a desire that seems
almost as if it would consume me, to see some fruit of my work, and yet
I don't. What _can_ be the difficulty?"

"I don't know," Marion said, speaking hesitatingly, as one who would
like to say more if she dared. "I don't feel competent to answer that
question, and yet, sometimes, I have feared that you might be trying to
compromise with the Lord."

"I don't understand you; in what way do you mean? I try to do my duty in
every place that I can think of. I am not compromising on any subject,
so far as I know. If I am, I will certainly be grateful to anyone who
will point it out to me."

"I am not sure that it is sufficiently clear to my own mind to be able
to point it out," Marion said, still