The blessed Holy Spirit is always longing to have us come to Christ and walk in his holy and happy ways. He watches for an opportunity to speak to us, and does speak, again and again, inclining us to give up sin and choose holiness, offering us, if we will do so, all the help we need. But he will not _force_ us to obey his gentle call. If we _will_ not listen and obey, he lets us go off on our self-chosen path, ceases to speak audibly to us, and patiently waits for another and more propitious season. Bertie Sanderson, that June Sunday, greatly "grieved the Spirit." But not so did Etta Mountjoy. This young lady, ever since that first Wednesday when she attended her sister's tea-party, had thought more seriously than she had ever thought before. The duty of being a Christian had come home to her during Eunice's talk and prayer, and at the same time she had felt that she was not, and had never tried to be, one. She had seen this still more clearly during the subsequent meetings, from which her duty to her own class would not permit her to be absent. Dishonesty and hypocrisy were not Etta's vices; she could not pretend to be what she was not, and yet she could not shake off the impression that she _ought_ to give herself to Christ and openly confess his name. She tried to put the subject out of her thoughts; but still, as she listened, day by day, she grew more and more dissatisfied with herself, her own character, her aims in life. The preparation of her Sunday-school lessons became a dreaded task, for it was impossible to minutely consider the shells of sacred things and not at the same time take cognizance of the spiritual kernels which they envelop, and these spiritual realities made her uncomfortable and more and more dissatisfied with herself. This Sunday's sermon had gone to the very quick of Etta's conscience, painting as with a finger of light what she ought to be and what she was. God had made her for his own temple and dwelling-place; made her fair, outside and within; endowed her with intellectual and spiritual gifts, and with wealth, station, and influence, giving her opportunities for culture and usefulness far greater than most of those who surrounded her. It was not chance or accident, but God, who had given her all this, and he demanded, as he had a right to demand, in return, her love, her obedience, her service. Had she given him these? Never once in her whole life. She had set up upon his altar in the midst of his beautiful temple the idol of self-pleasing, and never in her whole seventeen years had she acted from any other motive than to please herself. It was sacrilege, it was idolatry, it was dishonesty; and so were all the actions which had come from such a corrupt source.