"There is only one way I know of fulfilling that requisition--I can't help it if it seems absurd to you--to me it is the true and only one, and that is by following closely the footsteps of that One who alone trod the world without being corrupted by its evil." Charlie considered a minute. "Well, after all," he said, "there must be something in it. No amount of reasoning, however sound, would have moved the turgid intellects of those miners. I suppose that as long as minds of that calibre exist, there must also exist a means of influencing them for good, which must of necessity be the extreme antipodes of their own inclinations." "I think I don't understand you very clearly," returned she, "but if you mean, as I think you do, that Christianity is only to be tolerated for what it can do in the way of working on the emotions of those who are altogether governed by them, you are wrong. Its purpose is a far higher one, that of awakening the conscience, and enlightening the darkened understanding of such as these." "And of what use is it to those who are already freed by other means from that benighted condition?" Minnie looked perplexed, and the tears began to gather slowly in her eyes. It pained her to find her knowledge on the subject so limited. "Charlie," she said tremulously, "I am but newly awakened myself out of what you call 'that benighted condition,' through the influence of the Gospel of Christ, and I don't know anything of the other means you talk about. You know I am not much given to thinking, and I have never tried to argue out these matters. I only know what it has done for me." "And what is that?" asked Charlie. "It has saved me from a frivolous, unprofitable life on earth, and a death beyond the grave," replied Minnie, solemnly, "and what it has done for me, it can do for all who are willing." She paused a moment, but as nobody spoke, went on: "I don't imagine that it has the same effect on everybody, it can't, of course, as everybody isn't alike, but it must make a change of some kind, even in people who live the best lives outwardly, before they realize the power of religion, live only half-filled lives, however much work they may do--as Mrs. Browning says--'Nor man, nor nature satisfies whom only _God_ created.'" "That's just where Minnie has us, _I_ think," put in Seymour at this juncture, "If you all feel as I do, you must acknowledge that there is something within us which isn't of a piece with the corruptible part of our nature--something that craves for an object to worship and pour itself out to, and yet nothing on earth is perfect enough to satisfy." "I suppose you mean the soul," observed Ned. "Nay," replied Seymour, "that is what I would call the spirit, and if so, it cannot be of the earth--it must be supernatural. It cannot be a substance, and therefore it cannot be killed or subjected to any of the forms of corruption or extinction to which mundane objects are liable."