It was a warm, sultry Sabbath morning; not a breath of air played over the heated roofs of the great, swarming city. Ruth sat in her little, close attic, leaning her head upon her hand, weary, languid and dejected. Life seemed to her scarce worth the pains to keep its little flame flickering. A dull pain was in her temples, a heavy weight upon her heart. Other Sabbaths, _happy_ Sabbaths, came up to her remembrance; earth looked so dark to her now, heaven so distant, God's ways so inscrutable. Hark to the Sabbath-bell! Ruth took little Nettie by the hand, and led her slowly to church. Other families, _unbroken_ families, passed her on their way; families whose sunny thresholds the destroying angel had never crossed. Oh why the joy to them, the pain to her? Sadly she entered the church, and took her accustomed seat amid the worshippers. The man of God opened the holy book. Sweet and clear fell upon Ruth's troubled ear these blessed words: "There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God." The bliss, the joy of heaven was pictured; life,--mysterious, crooked, unfathomable life, made clear to the eye of faith; sorrow, pain, suffering, ignominy even, made sweet for His sake, who suffered all for us. Ruth weeps! weeps that her faith was for an instant o'erclouded; weeps that she shrank from breasting the foaming waves at the bidding of Him who said, "It is I, be not afraid." And she, who came there fluttering with a broken wing, went away singing, soaring. Oh man of God! pressed down with many cares, anxious and troubled, sowing but not reaping, fearing to bring in no sheaves for the harvest, be of good courage. The arrow shot at a venture may to thine eye fall aimless; but in the Book of Life shalt thou read many an answer to the wrestling prayer, heard in thy closet by God alone. CHAPTER LXI. "Fine day, Mr. Ellet," said a country clergyman to Ruth's father, as he sat comfortably ensconced in his counting-room. "I don't see but you look as young as you did when I saw you five years ago. Life has gone smoothly with you; you have been remarkably prospered in business, Mr. Ellet." "Yes, yes," said the old gentleman, who was inordinately fond of talking of himself; "yes, yes, I may say that, though I came into Massachusetts a-foot, with a loaf of bread and a sixpence, and now,--well, not to boast, I own this house, and the land attached, beside my country-seat, and have a nice little sum stowed away in the bank for a rainy day; yes, Providence has smiled on my enterprise; my affairs are, as you say, in a _very_ prosperous condition. I hope religion flourishes in your church, brother Clark." "Dead--dead--dead, as the valley of dry bones," replied Mr. Clark with a groan. "I have been trying to 'get up a revival;' but Satan reigns--Satan reigns, and the right arm of the church seems paralysed. Sometimes I think the stumbling-block is the avaricious and money-grabbing spirit of its professors."