gave him into God’s hands, and prayed for God’s care and guidance.  And through all these years my constant prayer for my boy has been, ’Lead him where Thou wilt, Oh God, only let him not fall out of Thy hands; When this heavy trial came, which was almost beyond my strength to bear, I did not lose my faith that the God to whom I had given him, would not let my Dieterich be lost.  If the hard lessons of life have begun for Dietrich, he must learn them thoroughly; and if his sins are to be purged away, he must suffer in the process.  And though I suffer too, it is God’s will; I have had much schooling in my life, and have learned much and gained much from it.  Do not feel so hardly against Dietrich because he has not written to us.  Perhaps he has written, and the letter has gone astray.  I look for a letter every day, but if he does not write, we may be sure that he is in great trouble, poor boy!  He knows how we feel toward him, and if he has gone into evil ways we must pity him the more and pray God to bring him back into the right path again.  As to Jost, I think as you do, that he is to blame for our poor boy’s troubles.  He led him astray and then played him false.  Jost is a poor lost sheep who has wandered far from the fold.  He has no one to care for him, no one to lead him back again.  He is alone in the world.  Should not we pray that he may be shown the wickedness of his ways, that his conscience may be awakened and that he may repent and his soul be saved?”

Veronica had listened attentively to all that Gertrude had said.  After a silence she said thoughtfully,

“Mother, are you made happy by this faith in God?”

And without a moment’s hesitation came the answer;

“I know of nothing that can make us so happy as this faith—­the strong confidence in our hearts that our Father in Heaven orders and watches over our lives, and that everything which happens to us is for our good, if we obey him and hold fast to him.  I do not know much, Veronica; I have not read nearly as much as lame Sabina, or as you have, and you understand things far better than I do; but it seems to me that you would have gained more from your reading, if you had tried to find something in the books, which you could use to help you in your trouble, and not merely to find out something new about what other people do and how they live.”

“If you learned from these books that our Lord Jesus Christ first taught the lesson that all men are equal in the sight of God, and that one soul is of as much worth as another before Him, then it must have been told there too, how our Savior brought us the glad tidings that we have a Father in Heaven, who loves His children and who will bless them if they put their trust in Him.  Our Savior shows us the way to our Heavenly Father, and will help us to overcome all the difficulties that stand in our path.  He speaks to us with a tenderness beyond that of any other friend, and bids us lay our burdens upon Him and He will help us to bear them.”