ly if man occupies this high rank in the
creation of God he should ever be the true friend and helper of woman
and not, as he too often proves, her falsest friend and basest enemy.

Chapter IV

"Annette," said Mrs. Harcourt one morning early, "I want you to stir
your stumps to-day; I am going to have company this evening and I want
you to help me to get everything in apple pie order."

"Who is coming, grandma?"

"Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Lasette."

"Mrs. Lasette!" Annette's eyes brightened. "I hope she will come; she is
just as sweet as a peach and I do love her ever so much; and who else?"

"Brother Lomax, the minister who preached last Sunday and gave us such a
good sermon."

"Is he coming, too?" Annette opened her eyes with pleased surprise. "Oh,
I hope he will come, he's so nice."

"What do you know about him?"

"Why, grandmother, I understood everything that he said, and I felt that
I wanted to be good just like he told us, and I went and asked aunt
'Liza how people got religion. She had been to camp-meeting and seen
people getting religion, and I wanted her to tell me all about it for I
wanted to get it too."

"What did she tell you?"

"She told me that people went down to the mourner's bench and prayed and
then they would get up and shout and say they had religion, and that was
all she knew about it."

"You went to the wrong one when you went to your aunt 'Liza. And what
did you do after she told you?"

"Why, I went down in the garden and prayed and I got up and shouted, but
I didn't get any religion. I guess I didn't try right."

"I guess you didn't if I judge by your actions. When you get older you
will know more about it."

"But, grandma, Aunt 'Liza is older than I am, why don't she know?"

"Because she don't try; she's got her head too full of dress and dancing
and nonsense."

Grandmother Harcourt did not have very much faith in what she called
children's religion, and here was a human soul crying out in the
darkness; but she did not understand the cry, nor look for the
"perfecting of praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," not
discerning the emotions of that young spirit, she let the opportunity
slip for rightly impressing that young soul. She depended too much on
the church and too little on the training of the home. For while the
church can teach and the school instruct, the home is the place to train
innocent and impressible childhood for useful citizenship on earth and