"If there are any in the congregation, who wish for personal religious conversation or instruction, I shall be glad to meet them in the vestry after afternoon service. I will also give notice that the children of the parish will be catechised by me, next Sunday afternoon, after evening prayers." People exchanged looks of surprise, and Master Tubbs looked as if he thought the rector had taken leave of his senses. Mrs. Thorpe's seat was quite near the chancel, and as we waited a little for the crowd to disperse, saw Lady Throckmorton waylay Mr. Cheriton as he descended from the pulpit to the vestry. "Well, Mr. Cheriton, you have given us a fine discourse this morning!" said she, in her light mocking tone. "Pray, do you intend to take a leaf out of Mr. Wesley's book, that you are preaching up faith and love at such a rate? But come, since you have enchanted us all with your eloquence, come home and dine with me?" "Your ladyship must excuse me!" said Mr. Cheriton bowing. "Oh! We are too good to dine out on Sunday any more, I suppose. We shall soon see you mounted on a table and preaching to the ballasters and sailor's women in the Sandgate, or to the Chowdene colliers, like your great apostle of ranters himself." "Madam!" returned Mr. Cheriton. "I wish with all my heart you had never seen me in any worse place!" And bowing again, he passed to the vestry and shut the door. We walked home very silently, and went up to our room almost without speaking a word. When we had laid aside our hoods, I got out my Testament to read the chapter from which the text had been taken. "What did you think of all that?" said Amabel abruptly. "I liked it!" I answered. "It made me happy—happier than ever I was before—to think that the Lord should be my friend, that he should love me and desire my salvation so much as to—" And here I broke down and wept, as though my very soul would dissolve in tears. "Well, why do you cry then?" said Amabel rather tartly. "I don't know, unless it be for joy!" I answered, striving to compose myself. "It seems such a burden lifted off from one's shoulders, to think that one has not to earn one's salvation; that all that which we could not do for ourselves has been done for us, and we have only to take it." "That is what I do not like, and cannot believe!" said Amabel with energy. "It just does away with all merit—don't you see that it does? And makes us all alike miserable beggars. According to what Mr. Cheriton said this morning, the greatest saint that ever spent his life in prayers and penances, is just as much dependent on undeserved mercy, as that poor wretch we saw on Friday."