It was very plain that she was to serve her Savior in the music lesson as indeed she does.  For she goes into every house as a missionary.  She carries the spirit of Christ in her heart.  His joy is radiant in her face.  She preaches the Gospel in houses where neighborhood prayer-meetings cannot be held, in households which tract-distributors never enter.  The street that needs Gospel visitation most is Fifth avenue.  That is in her district.  And, nobly, though unconsciously, she fulfils her mission.  More than one person I have heard say, “If to be a Christian is to be like Mrs. Bridgeman, I wish I were one.”  Our pastor preaches no such effective sermons as does she by her gentleness, her geniality, her patience, her long suffering with joyfulness.  And when the Sabbath comes, her voice, though it leads the service of song in a fashionable city church, expresses the ardor of her Christian heart, and is fraught with quite as true devotion as the prayers of her pastor.

Something like this Jennie told her as we walked along from church; and she left us comforted.  And I was a little comforted too.  It is very clear, is it not, that we are not all drones who are not at work in the church.  There are other fields than the Sabbath-school.

Do I carry Christ into my law office, and into the court-room, as Mrs. Bridgeman does into the parlor and the chair?  That is the first point to be settled.  The other comes up afterward.  But it does persist in coming up.  It is not settled yet.  Will it hurt my Sunday to take that class for an hour?  I doubt it.

I must talk it over with Jennie and see what she really thinks about it.

CHAPTER VII.

The Field is the World.

Last evening before I had found an opportunity to talk it over with Jennie, Dr. Argure and Deacon Goodsole called.  I suspect the deacon’s conscience had been quickened even more than mine respecting my duty to that mission class by Mr. Minging’s address.  For I have noticed that our consciences are apt to be quickened by sermons and addresses more respecting our neighbors’ duties even than respecting our own.

Dr. Argure had come down the day before from Newtown to attend the city mission meeting.  He is a very learned man.  At least I suppose he is, for everybody says so.  He is at all events a very sonorous man.  He has a large vocabulary of large words, and there are a great many people who cannot distinguish between great words and great thoughts.  I do not mean to impugn his intellectual capital when I say that he does a very large credit business.  In sailing on lake Superior you can sometimes see the rocky bottom 30 or 40 feet below the surface—­the water is so clear.  You never can see the bottom of Dr. Argure’s sermons.  Perhaps it is because they are so deep; I sometimes think it is because they are so muddy.  Still he really is an able man, and knows the books, and knows how to