"Dr. Douglass, what do you mean?"
"Treason, I suspect, viewed from your standpoint; and therefore it would be much more proper for me not to talk about it."
"But I want you to talk about it. Do you mean to say that you have no faith in any one's religion?"
"How much have you?"
"Dr. Douglass, that is a very Yankee way of answering a question."
"I know; but it is the easiest way of reaching my point; so I repeat: How much faith have you in these Christian professions? or, in other words, how many professing Christians do you know who are particularly improved in your estimation by their professions?"
The old questioning of Sadie's own heart brought before her again! Oh, Christian sister, with whom so many years of her life had been spent, with whom she had been so closely connected, if she could but have turned to you, and remembering your earnest life, your honest endeavors toward the right, your earnest struggles with sin and self; the evident marks of the Lord Jesus all about you; and, remembering this, have quelled the tempter in human form, who stood waiting for a verdict, with a determined—"I have known one"—what might not have been gained for your side that night?
CHAPTER XII.
THREE PEOPLE.
As it was she hesitated, and thought—not of Ester, her life had not been such as to be counted for a moment—of her mother.