that the young creature, so suddenly shorn of her best and dearest, would falter and faint, and utterly fail.  And when, looking on, she saw the triumph of the Christian’s faith, rising even over death, sustained by no human arm, and yet wonderfully, triumphantly sustained, even while she bent for the last time over that which was to have been her earthly all—­looking and wondering, there suddenly fell away from her the stupor of years, and Ester saw with wide, open eyes, and thoroughly awakened soul, that there was a something in this Christian religion that Abbie had and she had not.

And thus it was that she paced her room in that strange agony that was worse than grief, and more sharp than despair.  No use now to try to lull her conscience back to quiet sleep again; that time was past, it was thoroughly and sharply awake; the same All-wise hand which had tenderly freed one soul from its bonds of clay and called it home, had as tenderly and as wisely, with the same stroke, cut the cords that bound this other soul to earth, loosed the scales from her long-closed eyes, broke the sleep that had well-nigh lulled her to ruin; and now heart and brain and conscience were thoroughly and forever awake.

When at last, from sheer exhaustion, she ceased her excited pacing up and down the room and sank into a chair, her heart was not more stilled.  It seemed to her, long after, in thinking of this hour, that it was given to her to see deeper into the recesses of her own depravity than ever mortal had seen before.  She began years back, at that time when she thought she had given her heart to Christ, and reviewed step by step all the weary way, up to this present time; and she found nothing but backslidings, and inconsistencies, and confusion—­denials of her Savior, a closed Bible, a neglected closet, a forgotten cross.  Oh, the bitterness, the unutterable agony of that hour!  Surely Abbie, on her knees struggling with her bleeding heart, and yet feeling all around and underneath her the everlasting arms, knew nothing of desolation such as this.

Fiercer and fiercer waged the warfare, until at last every root of pride, or self-complacence, or self-excuse, was utterly cast out.  Yet did not Satan despair.  Oh, he meant to have this poor sick, weak lamb, if he could get her; no effort should be left unmade.  And when he found that she could be no more coaxed and lulled and petted into peace, he tried that darker, heavier temptation—­tried to stupefy her into absolute despair.  “No,” she said within her heart, “I am not a Christian; I never have been one; I never can be one.  I’ve been a miserable, self-deceived hypocrite all my life.  I have had a name to live, and am dead.  I would not let myself be awakened; I have struggled against it; I have been only too glad to stop myself from thinking about it.  I have been just a miserable stumbling-block, with no excuse to offer; and now I feel myself deserted, justly so.  There can be no rest for such as I. I have no Savior; I have insulted and denied him; I have crucified him again, and now he has left me to myself.”