Having finished this part of his subject, he drew a striking parallel between the ancient Israel and the multitudes of human beings in every age, who, instead of loving and serving the living God with all their soul, are continually setting up for themselves earthly idols of every variety, which fill up His place in their hearts, and exclude Him from their thoughts.  Wealth, splendour, position, power, fame, pleasure,—­even man’s highest earthly blessing, human love itself,—­were set up and worshipped, as if they contained for their worshipper the highest end and happiness of his soul.  What was the cause of all the broken hearts and blighted lives from which is continually ascending such a wailing symphony of sorrow without hope?  What but the perverse determination of the heart to find repose elsewhere than in its true resting-place,—­to set up the very blessings which flow from the hand of its God in the place of the Giver?

Then, in a few touching, earnest words, he showed how God must often, in mercy to the soul, send severe judgments and afflictions to bring the wanderers back to their “Help;” and of the depths of compassion, of love, of tenderness, of healing, of purest happiness, which were to be found in that divine Helper, who hath said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Never had Lucy heard the speaker more impressive, and she thanked God in her heart her cousin should have been brought to listen to truths which she had probably never before heard with any real understanding of them.  Sophy sat back in a corner of the seat, her head resting on her hand, and her face hidden in her thick black veil.  She remained almost motionless until the sermon was concluded, and then they silently left the church, Lucy not daring to speak to her.

Before they reached home, however, Sophy suddenly broke the silence by saying, in a low, agitated voice: 

“Lucy, you seem to be what people call a Christian.  Can you say, from your own heart and experience, that you believe all that is true about Christ giving such peace and comfort in trouble?”

Lucy replied, earnestly and sincerely, that she could,—­that she had felt that peace and comfort when sorrow had been sent her.

“And how does it come? how do you get it?” Sophy asked.

“I don’t know any other way, Sophy dear, than by going to Him and believing His own words.  They often seem to come straight from Him, as a message of comfort.”

Nothing more was said, but from that time Sophy’s Bible was often in her hands.  Its study, indeed, took the place of her other self-chosen labours, and she read it with an attention and interest it had never awakened before.  That she did not study it in vain, seemed evident in her softened, gentler manner, in the more peaceful expression of her countenance, and in the quiet thoughtfulness which she began to show for others.  She would sometimes ask Lucy what she thought about a passage of Scripture in which she was interested, and the few words she said about it would give her cousin a clue to the working of her mind.  But her habitual reserve had not yet worn off, and Lucy did not venture to trespass upon it.