“Well, it’s a relief to my mind to hear you say so,” replied Mary, laughing, “for I felt quite guilty whenever I looked at that book, feeling as if I had by some incomprehensible accident taken it from the one who really deserved it.”

Mary had as yet known but few temptations.  Her life had been so calm and sheltered, that she had had no experience of contrary winds, and her natural disposition was so equable, that she had very little consciously to struggle against.  Perhaps her chief temptation lay in a tendency to placid contemplative Christianity, without sufficient active interest in others; and Lucy’s opposite qualities acted as a counteracting stimulus, while Mary’s peaceful spirit of trusting faith calmed and soothed Lucy’s rather impatient disposition.  Thus in all true loving Christian companionship we may help each other on, making up what is lacking in one another by mutual edification.

One warm Sunday evening, after a very sultry day, Lucy and Amy were sitting together in Mrs. Browne’s verandah.  Mary had just left them, having walked home with Lucy from the evening service, and they had been discussing the sermon, which had been chiefly on sin and its hatefulness in the sight of God, as well as upon the fountain opened to remove it.  After she was gone, they had sat for some time in silence, watching the fireflies glancing in and out of the dark trees.  Suddenly Amy said, “Lucy, do you expect to go to heaven when you die, for sure?”

“I am quite sure there is nothing to prevent my going there,” said Lucy, “for I know Jesus is able and willing to take me there.”

“Shall I go there when I die, Lucy?” she asked, with a solemn earnestness that went to her cousin’s heart.

“Why should you not, dear Amy, when Jesus died that you might?”

“But ‘God will not look upon sin,’ the Bible says, and I have a sinful heart; I feel it,” replied the child.

“Well, why should Jesus have died for you if you had not?  It was just to take away sin that Jesus came to suffer.”

“But it isn’t taken away; I know it’s there,” persisted Amy, who had evidently been distressing herself with the question how a heart, sinful on earth, could be fit for the pure atmosphere of heaven.

Lucy explained, to the best of her knowledge and ability, that while sin still clings to our mortal natures, Jesus has broken its power for ever, and taken away its condemnation, so that when we receive Him into our hearts by faith, God no longer looks upon us as sinful and rebellious children, but as reconciled through the blood of Christ.  And the same blood will also purify our hearts; and when soul and body are for ever separated, the last stain of sin will be taken away from the ransomed spirit.

Amy listened, and seemed satisfied,—­at least she never recurred to the subject; and, so far as Lucy knew, it was the last time that any perplexing doubts clouded the sunshine of her happy, childlike faith.