"But they must have had a great deal to endure before that happy consummation," sighed Evelyn. "Oh, I think we can never be thankful enough that we live in these better times!"
"So do I," said Grace. "How very dreadful it must be to fall into the hands of savages and meet with a death so awful and sudden! I wish I knew that they were all Christians and ready for heaven."
"I can echo that wish," said Grandma Elsie, in tones full of sadness; "but I very much fear that they were not. Some we may hope were, but it is said, on what seems good authority, that Mrs. Helm, in telling of that terrible scene near the Sand Hills, spoke of the terror of Dr. Van Voorhees. He had been wounded badly, and his horse shot under him, when he asked her, 'Do you think they will take our lives?' and then spoke of offering a large ransom for his. She advised him not to think of that, but of inevitable death. 'Oh, I cannot die! I am not fit to die!' he exclaimed. 'If I had only a short time to prepare for it—death is awful!'"
"'Look at that man! at least he dies like a soldier,' she said, pointing to Ensign Ronan. 'Yes,' gasped the doctor, 'but he has no terror of the future—he is an unbeliever.'
"Just then Mrs. Helm's struggle with the young Indian who attempted to tomahawk her began, and directly afterward she saw the dead body of Van Voorhees."
"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" exclaimed Grace, tears starting to her eyes. "One would think that, in such circumstances as theirs had been for months, every man and woman would have been careful to make sure work for eternity."
"Yes, but Satan is ever tempting men to delay, and perhaps more souls are, in Christian lands, lost through procrastination than from any other cause," sighed Grandma Elsie. "'Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.'"
There was a moment of silence, broken by Evelyn.
"I remember when I was a very little girl, papa used to talk to me about being a Christian, and that once I answered him, 'I would, papa, if I only knew how,' and he said, 'It is very simple, daughter; just to believe in the Lord Jesus, take him for your Saviour, and give yourself to him—soul and body, time, talents, influence—all that you have or ever shall have, to be his forever, trusting in him with all your heart, sure that he meant all that he said in speaking to Nicodemus—'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' And that other, 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' Those two texts seem to me to make the way very simple and plain."