"That is not my question," said the minister, smiling. "Happiness is not a thing that comes and goes with the weather, or the crops, or the state of the market;--nor even with the life and death and affection of those we love." "I thought it did"--said Diana rather faintly. "In that case it would be a changeable, insecure thing; and being that, it would cease to be happiness." "Yes. I thought human happiness was changeable and uncertain." "Do you not feel that such conditions would spoil it? No; God loves us better than that." "But, Mr. Masters," said Diana in some surprise, "nobody in this world can be sure of keeping what he likes?" "Except one thing." "What can that be?" "Did you never see anybody who was happy independent of circumstances?" Diana reflected. "I think Mother Bartlett is." "I think so too." "But she is the only person of whom that is true in all Pleasant Valley." "How comes she to be an exception?" Diana reflected again, but this time without finding an answer. "Isn't it, that she has set her heart on what cannot fail her nor be insufficient for her?" "Religion, you mean." "I do not mean religion." "What then?" Diana asked in new surprise. "I mean--Christ." "But--isn't that the same thing?" "Not exactly. Christ is a person." "Yes--but"-- "And _he_ it is that can make happy those who know him. Do you remember he said, 'He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst'?" Looking up at the speaker and following his words, they somehow struck Diana rather hard. Her lip suddenly trembled, and she looked down. "You do not understand it," said the minister, "but you must believe it. Poor hungry lamb, seeking pasture where there is none,--where it is withered,--come to Christ!" "Do you mean," said Diana, struggling for voice and self-command, but unable to look up, for the minister's hand was on her shoulder and his words had been very tenderly spoken,--"do you mean, that when everything _is_ withered, he can make it green again?" The minister answered in the words of David, which were the words of the Lord: "'He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springeth out of the earth by clear shining after rain.'" Diana bent her head lower. Could such refreshment and renewal of her own wasted nature ever come to pass? She did not believe it; yet perhaps there was life yet at the roots of the grass which scented the rain. The words swept over as the breath of the south wind. "'The light of a morning without clouds'"--she repeated when she could speak. "Christ is all that, to those who know him," the minister said. "Then I do not know him," said Diana. "Did you think you did?" "But how _can_ one know him, Mr. Masters?" "There is only one way. It is said, 'God, who created the light out of darkness, hath _shined in our hearts_, to give the light of the glory of the knowledge of Christ.'" "How?"