And it has nothing to do
with her if I haven't thought as much about the Lord as I ought to have.
It's the first place I've been in where there was time for religion."
This answer seemed to satisfy Fred.
"Where used you to go?"
"My people--father and mother--belonged to the Brethren."
"To the Close or the Open?"
"I don't remember; I was only a little child at the time."
"I'm a Plymouth Brother."
"Well, that is strange."
"Remember that it is only through belief in our Lord, in the sacrifice of
the Cross, that we can be saved."
"Yes, I believe that."
The avowal seemed to have brought them strangely near to each other, and
on the following Sunday Fred took Esther to meeting, and introduced her as
one who had strayed, but who had never ceased to be one of them.
She had not been to meeting since she was a little child; and the bare
room and bare dogma, in such immediate accordance with her own
nature--were they not associated with memories of home, of father and
mother, of all that had gone?--touched her with a human delight that
seemed to reach to the roots of her nature. It was Fred who preached; and
he spoke of the second coming of Christ, when the faithful would be
carried away in clouds of glory, of the rapine and carnage to which the
world would be delivered up before final absorption in everlasting hell;
and a sensation of dreadful awe passed over the listening faces; a young
girl who sat with closed eyes put out her hand to assure herself that
Esther was still there--that she had not been carried away in glory.
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