could not
have improved upon if I had tried. So by our own confessions what right
have you and I to stumble over not being able to be perfect, so long as
we have not begun to be as near it as we could?"

How was he to answer this?

"Oh, well," he said, "I haven't made any pretensions; I'm talking about
those who have."

"That's exactly like myself; and, as nearly as I can see, we both belong
to the class who knew our duty, and had nothing to do with it. Now, I
want to tell you that I have decided not to stand with that class any
longer."

Flossy paused an instant, caught her breath, and a rich flush spread
over her pretty face. This was her first actual "witnessing" outside of
the narrow limits of her intimate three friends who all sympathized.

"I gave myself to this Jesus when I was at Chautauqua," I said to him;
"that I had stood one side, and had nothing to do with his words all my
life; just taken his favors in silence and indifference, but that for
the future I was to belong to him. Now, of course, I don't know how many
times I shall fail, nor how many things I shall fail in. The most I know
is, that I mean to 'continue.' After all, don't you see that the verse
doesn't say, If you are _perfect_, but simply, 'If you continue.' Now,
if I am trying to climb a hill, it makes a difference with my progress,
to be sure, whether I stumble and fall back a few steps now and then.
But for all that I may continue to climb; and if I do I shall be sure to
reach the top. So now my resolution is to 'continue' in his words all
the rest of my life."

She did not ask Rich. to do the same. She said not a word to him about
himself. She said not a personal word to one of them, but every boy
there felt himself asked to join her. More than that, not a boy of them
but respected her. It is wonderful, after all, how rarely in this wicked
world we meet with other than respect in answer to a frank avowal of our
determination to be on the Lord's side. They were all quiet for an
instant; and again Flossy caught a glimpse of Dr. Dennis' face. It
looked perplexity and distrust. Was she telling them a fairy story, or
teaching them a new game of whist?

"Then there is such a grand promise in this lesson," Flossy went on. "I
like it ever so much for that. 'And ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.'"

"Free from what?" asked Rich., abruptly. The very question that Miss
Marion Wilbur had asked in such anxiety. But Flos