one law for the rich, and one for the
poor--one for the educated and one for the ignorant. To _all_ there
is but one thing needful. _All_ are to be living to God and their
fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. _All_ must seek first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness--must _deny themselves_, be pure
and chaste and charitable in the fullest and widest sense--all,
'forgetting those things that are behind,' must 'press forward towards
the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God.'

"And now I will add but two things more. Be true through life to each
other, love as only brothers should do, strengthen, warn, encourage
one another, and let who will be against you, let each feel that in
his brother he has a firm and faithful friend who will be so to the
end; and, oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; without
mother or sisters she will doubly need her brothers' love and
tenderness and confidence. I am certain she will seek them, and will
love you and try to make you happy; be sure then that you do not fail
her, and remember, that were she to lose her father and remain
unmarried, she would doubly need protectors. To you, then, I
especially commend her. Oh! my three darling children, be true to
each other, your Father, and your God. May He guide and bless you,
and grant that in a better and happier world I and mine may meet
again.--Your most affectionate mother,

CHRISTINA PONTIFEX."

From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that most mothers
write letters like this shortly before their confinements, and that fifty
per cent. keep them afterwards, as Christina did.

CHAPTER XXVI

The foregoing letter shows how much greater was Christina's anxiety for
the eternal than for the temporal welfare of her sons. One would have
thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oats by this time,
but she had plenty still to sow. To me it seems that those who are happy
in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not,
and that thus in the event of a Resurrection and Day of Judgement, they
will be the most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion.
Perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the reason why Christina
was so anxious for Theobald's earthly happiness, or was it merely due to
a conviction that his eternal welfare was so much a matter of course,
that it only remained to s