As it will be with the day of the Lord, so it often is with the day of trouble. It comes "as a snare." Frequently, like the stag in the fable, we are looking for it in the very quarter from which it never proceeds. It steals upon us from another direction--suddenly, swiftly, "as a thief in the night." But the children of the kingdom are "not in darkness, that that day should overtake them as a thief." They sleep, but their hearts wake; and there is light in their dwellings. Let the angels of death or of sorrow come when they will, they are ready to meet them. To the watchful and sober souls the Master's messengers are never messengers of wrath. Ay, though they come with dark garments and veiled faces, they bring some token of Him who sends them. The garments "smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia;" the glory of celestial love shines through the veil. When Helen opened her eyes and looked round upon them all, they knew that there was death in her face. They knew it even before the doctor arrived, and told them the hard truth. She might linger a day or two perhaps, just long enough for a leave-taking, and then she must set forth on her lonely journey. But how were they to tell her that she must go? "What did the doctor say?" she asked, faintly, after a long, long silence. The day was breaking then, but they were still gathered round her bed--still waiting and watching with that new, calm patience that is born of great sorrow. "Nelly," said the farmer, bending his head down to hers, "'The Master is come, and calleth for thee.' The call is sudden, my dear, very sudden. But it's the Master's voice that speaks." First there was a startled, distressed look, but it passed away like a cloud. The brown eyes were full of eager inquiry. "Must it be?" she whispered. "Ah, I see it must! Oh, I'm not ready--not nearly ready. There's so much to be forgiven; if I could only know that He forgives me, I wouldn't want to stay." "Nelly!" answered the farmer in a clearer tone, "the Lord has got love and pardon for all those who want it. It's only from those that don't want it that He turns away. His blood has washed out the sins of that great multitude whom no man can number, and it will cleanse you too. Do you think He ever expects to find any of His children who don't need washing? Ay, the darker they are in their own eyes, the fairer they seem in His!" As Rhoda listened to her father's words, and to her cousin's low replies, she began to realize that poor, weak Helen had felt herself to be a sinner for many a day. She had felt it, and had tried to forget it. But this was not the first time that she had heard the Master's call, and yearned to follow Him. Yet the weakness of the flesh had prevailed again and again, and her feet had gone on stumbling on the dark mountains. They would never stumble any more. The great King had come Himself to guide them over the golden pavement to the mansion prepared in His Father's house.