"But what do Quakers believe? My nurse told me the other day that they were atheists, and did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," said Audrey, drawing her chair a little closer to Bessie's in the dimly-lighted room. "Many have slandered us thus, not knowing aught concerning us," replied Bessie in an eager tone, for somehow, although this girl was in the world and partook of its ways, Bessie felt drawn towards her; and so she added, "We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came down from heaven to die for us. We believe, too, that the life He gave for us must be in us, or we can never be saved." "Then you believe as we do, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin?" interrupted Audrey, who was anxious to find out some points of agreement between her own faith and that of the Quakers, since her beloved aunt was a Quaker. "Yes, perhaps that is it," answered Bessie slowly. "Only we say that Christ must be the inner life of every man, and that this life we must be careful to cultivate, in order to be saved from darkness and evil." "But—but if you believe all that, why should you not come to church as I do?" said Audrey eagerly. "It is what my father teaches in his sermons. Won't you go with me on Sunday and hear him preach?" asked Audrey eagerly. "Go to a steeple-house!" exclaimed Bessie, in a tone of horror. "Nay, verily, for my father would curse me, an he thought I had forgotten what he had taught me." "You call a church a steeple-house, and think it such a dreadful place," said Audrey, in a tone of wondering amazement. "Why should you speak of it in this way? It is God's house." But Bessie shook her head to this. "Nay, nay, it cannot be that," she said decidedly. "Only we who have the life of Christ within us can be the house of God. Your steeple-house, with its forms and ceremonies, makes men forget this true life within them. This light that God only can put into the soul of man can alone be a house of God. That is why my father hated steeple-houses, because they made men forget God, he said." But Audrey shook her head. "Thou art quite mistaken, Bessie," she said. "It is a help to me to go to church and join in the prayers. I can understand what you mean, I think; and it may be that some do think only of the church, and not of God or our Lord Jesus Christ, when they are there, but they might do the same in your Quaker meeting-house as well as at church." "But there is nothing at our meeting-house to make us forget we go to listen to the voice of the Spirit, either in ourselves or spoken by the mouth of one of our brethren, as he is moved to speak at the time, either for our warning or our encouragement. We have no words written down in a book to be repeated over and over again, whether we like them or not. Nay, verily; such things are not for Quakers, who have learned the power of sin, and the power of God also!"