"I recollect," remarked the young officer, "that there was only one thing about the Garths which you used to regret in old days. They were steady in attendance at church, but they were not communicants then." "Nor are they now," said the vicar, stopping for a moment in his walk. "It is to me a strange, an almost unaccountable thing, that God-fearing, God-serving people such as they, who attend the Lord's house, and prize His Word, should yet, month after month, year after year, turn their backs upon His table." "They brought their children to be baptised," remarked the lieutenant. "Ay, and their grandchild too," added the vicar, resuming his walk; "the Garths would have looked upon themselves as heathen had they neglected the one sacrament ordained by our Lord, while, apparently without any scruple, they constantly neglect the other. I have preached in public, and spoken in private on the subject, but still I am grieved to see three-fourths of my flock leave the church before the communion service begins, and the Garths always amongst them." "Have they ever given a reason for this?" asked Harry. "I doubt whether they have any reason which they could put into words," answered his father. "Garth agrees to everything that I say, will, as he says, 'attend some day, but not yet awhile;' his wife folds her hands, looks down, and says nothing. I suppose that if either of them were to be taken dangerously ill, I should be sent for in haste to administer the communion to the sick; as if they thought that there was some charm in the service to smooth their journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, or that life-long disobedience to their Master's command could be atoned for by one dying attempt to do His bidding when, perhaps, the mind would scarcely have power to grasp the meaning of the service." "Or death may come suddenly, as I have seen it come so often to the strong and the young," observed the naval officer. "How little we can tell whether, when our summons comes, we shall be left one hour for preparation! I remember when I was ashore in one of the West India ports, I ventured to say something to a friend of mine, a young merchant, who was showing me kind hospitality, about his practice of doing business on Sundays. He answered me with perfect good humour, that he was obliged to work hard, for that he had set his heart on scraping up enough to take him home; that he would act very differently when in old England again, there he would take his rest on Sundays, go to church, and attend to his soul." "'Now, I've no time,' added he. "'My friend,' I ventured to observe, 'I often think of a proverb of Zeller—' "'"The Americans say that time is money, the Christian says that time is Grace!"'