OCTOBER 5.-The somebody was his daughter Katherine, as usual. Baby was asleep in my lap and I reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of Shakespeare which had done long service as an ornament to the table, but which nobody ever read on account of the small print. The battle then began thus: Father.-"I regret to see that worldly author in your hands, my daughter." Daughter-a little mischievously.-"Why, were you wanting to talk, father? "No, I am too feeble to talk to-day. My pulse is very weak." "Let me read aloud to you, then." "Not from that profane book." "It would do you good. You never take any recreation. Do let me read a little." Father gets nervous. "Recreation is a snare. I must keep my soul ever fixed on divine things." "But can you?" "No, alas, no. It is my grief and shame that I do not." "But if you would indulge yourself in a little harmless mirth now and then, your mind would get rested and you would return to divine things with fresh zeal. Why should not the mind have its seasons of rest as well as the body?" "We shall have time to rest in heaven. Our business here on earth is to be sober and vigilant because of our adversary; not to be reading plays." "I don't make reading plays my business, dear father. I make it my rest and amusement." "Christians do not need amusement; they find rest, refreshment, all they want, in God." "Do you, father?" "Alas, no. He seems a great way off." "To me He seems very near. So near that He can see every thought of my heart. Dear father, it is your disease that makes everything so unreal to you. God is really so near, really loves us so; is so sorry for us! And it seems hard, when you are so good, and so intent on pleasing Him, that you get no comfort out of Him." "I am not good, my daughter I am a vile worm of the dust." "Well, God is good, at any rate, and He would never have sent His Son to die for you if He did not love you." So then I began to sing. Father likes to hear me sing, and the sweet sense I had that all I had been saying was true and more than true, made me sing with joyful heart. I hope it is not a mere miserable presumption that makes me dare to talk so to poor father. Of course, he is ten times better than I am, and knows ten times as much, but his disease, whatever it is, keeps his mind befogged. I mean to begin now to pray that light may shine into his soul. It would be delightful to see the peace of God shining in that pale, stern face.