"I've sometimes thought," continued John Carey, still muttering to himself, "I've sometimes thought that if I ever get well again—and now it's like as I may—I'd turn to God, serve Him as my parents have served Him, and begin what mother calls a pilgrim's life in good earnest. But if I did so—ah! The first steps are those as be so hard to take! If I did so—I must honour and obey my mother, as the Bible tells me I should; I must give up this pleasant plan of starting in business with Brace, I must give up the 'Jolly Ploughboys.' 'Twould be a hard pull—it would!" John rubbed his chin; thinking wearied him, but he could not throw the subject off his mind. "I might give up Dick Brace and the business, but that would not be the worst of it. Dinah Dealtry!" thought John. "She would not look at a mere day-labourer—she would not live in a cottage like this with my mother!" He glanced with something like discontent around him at the humble home in which he had been born. "Dinah has as good as told me that she'd ha' nothing to say to a man who could not offer her a house of her own. If she wouldn't choose to live with mother, mother wouldn't care to live with her; them two could never get on together, they've such different notions and ways." John heaved a sigh of perplexity and vexation. "It seems as if I must choose between the two, for I can't have both—that's clear; and I must choose between the two paths also; I know well enough which is the right one, but—but—how thinking does make one's head ache—and one's heart too for the matter of that!" There are many who, like John Carey, are quite convinced that the pilgrim's path is the right one, the only path which can end in peace; many who are almost persuaded to try it, and who yet shrink back from the sacrifice of what conscience tells them that they must leave behind, if they decide on following the Lord fully in their daily walk through life. It was from this hesitation, from this indecision, so dangerous to the soul, that our Lord would warn His servants when He spoke those solemn words: "If thy hand offend thee (cause to offend) cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell." * Things dear as a hand or an eye must be given up through God's helping Grace, if they keep us back from the narrow way which leads unto life eternal. * Mark ix. 43. John Carey thought long, and thought sadly; his brain grew weary, his mind confused, till at length he could do no more than simply lift up his heart to God, and ask for His Spirit to guide him. The once strong, self-willed man was becoming more like the little child who knows his own weakness, and turns to a parent for help and support.