"But, of course, the next best thing to going to places, and actually seeing people, is to read about them, and find out what the people said and did. I like these verses especially, because they mean us as well as those to whom they were spoken. Look at this verse. I have been all the week over it, and I don't see but I shall have to stay over it all my life. 'Then said Jesus, If ye _continue_ in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.' Just think how far that reaches! All through the words of Jesus. So many of them, so many things to do, and so many _not_ to do; and then not only to begin to follow them, but to _continue_; day after day getting a little farther, and knowing a little more. After all, it's very fascinating work, isn't it? If it _is_ hard, like climbing a mountain, one gets nearer the top all the while; and when you do really reach the top, how splendid it is! Or, doing a hard piece of work, it's so nice to get nearer and nearer to the end of it, and feel that you have done it." One of the boys yawned. It was not so interesting as the description of the miniature Jerusalem. One of them looked sarcastic. This was Rich. "Do you suppose there ever was anybody like that?" he asked, and the most lofty incredulity was in his voice. "Like what?" "Why, that followed out that kind of talk. I know enough about the Bible to know they are mighty scarce. I'd go to Jerusalem on foot to see a real one. Where's the folks, I'd like to know, that live up to half of the things it says in the Bible? Why, they even say it _can't_ be done, and that's why it seems all bosh to me. What was the use of putting it in there if it can't be done?" Here was one who had evidently thought, and thought seriously about these things. Is there a boy of seventeen in our country who has not? Flossy felt timid. How should she answer the sharp, sarcastic words? He had been studying inconsistencies, and had grown bitter. The others looked on curiously; they had a certain kind of pride in Rich. He was their genius who held all the teachers at bay with his ingenious tongue. But Flossy had been at a morning meeting in Chautauqua where there was talk on this very subject. It came back to her now. "As for being _able_ to do it," she said, quickly, "I don't feel sure that we have anything to do with that, until we have convinced ourselves that we have been just as good as we possibly could. Honestly, now, do you think you have been?" "No," said Rich., promptly; "of course not. And, what is more, I never pretended that I was." "Well, I know _I_ haven't been; I am perfectly certain that in a hundred ways I could have done better. Why, there is nothing that I could not have improved upon if I had tried. So by our own confessions what right have you and I to stumble over not being able to be perfect, so long as we have not begun to be as near it as we could?" How was he to answer this?