Clara.  “Not exactly.  I not only know, but deeply feel, that I am a great sinner; sometimes my sinfulness appears too great to be forgiven.  The trouble with me is procrastination.  I cannot look back to the time when I did not feel that I ought to be a Christian, but I have always put off the subject, thinking I would attend to it another time, and it has been just so for year after year.  Only last week I was sitting alone in my room at twilight, enjoying the quiet loveliness and beauty of the view from my window.  I could not help thinking of Him who had made all things, and had given me the power of enjoying them, besides so many other blessings, and I longed to participate in the feeling which Cowper ascribes to the Christian, and say, ‘My Father made them all.’  Then something seemed to whisper, ’wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?’ ’Now is the accepted time.’  ‘To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.’  But I did harden my heart.  I did not feel willing, like Alice, to give up the pleasures which are inviting me all around, and become a devoted, consistent Christian, for I do not mean to be a half-way Christian, neither one thing or the other.”

Sophia.  “Nearly all these reasons have been my excuse for not becoming a Christian, but another has been, that I do not like to be noticed, and made an object of remark.  My father and mother and friends would be so much pleased, they would be talking of it, and watching me, to see if my piety was real, and I would feel as if I were too conspicuous a person.  Now if we would all at the same time resolve to consecrate ourselves to the Lord, I think each particular case might not be so much noticed.”

“But why should you dread it so much Sophy?” asked Emily.

“I hardly know why” she replied, “but I have always felt so since I was quite a child, but since I have for the first time spoken of it, it seems a much more foolish reason than I had before considered it.”

Alice.  “And I must confess that I am not always so careless and thoughtless on this subject.  When I am really possessing and enjoying the pleasures I have longed for, there seems to be always something more that I need to make me happy.  Fanny Bedford, pious and good as she is, seems always happier than I, and I have often wished that I was such a Christian as she is.”

“Who has not,” exclaimed the other girls; and their praise of her was warm and sincere.

“She is so consistent and religious, and yet so humble, and so full of love to every one, that it is impossible not to love her and the religion she loves so much.  Annie, I have never wished so much that I was a Christian, as when I have thought of her; how much I wish I was like her.”  “There is Fanny in the hall, let us speak to her of what we have been saying,” said Sophia.