“I have always thought that the Bible is such a convincing book that it finally converts nearly all the children of men,--I hope all of them,--though the church to which I belong does not cheerfully accept my opinion. The Bible is only in dispute because a new set of men are coming on all the time, who have also to be convinced and saved. Its promises are so magnificent that no one can read them all his life and fail to put himself in the way of their fulfilment; therefore there is no excuse for referring to the disagreeable subject I have just mentioned. You may as well look on the bright side of religion as on the bright side of anything else, and you know we are always having maxims of this kind thrown at us. This is the religion the present pastor of Fairview believes in, and this is the religion he will teach, though I have not taught much of it to-day, for I have not mentioned the subject at all until now. But I only came in to say I was glad to see you, and will go out again,” he said, rising. “I am becoming very worldly of late, for I have been thinking all day of how the potatoes and corn I ploughed last week are getting on rather than of sermons, and I am so sleepy now that you perhaps noticed me blinking. I am also forgetting a great deal of my theology in the hunger which constantly besets me, and if I raise nothing at all this year I will feel well repaid for my work by the good health I have enjoyed. When you return home express my thanks to your father for his sermon.” As he went out I thought if he was not a remarkable preacher he was certainly a good man. His respectable wife followed, and as she had not said a word I thought we should not miss her company. “I was just saying to Miss Shepherd,” Jo said, coming over to me, “that you and I have been fast friends since you were born. When I was a very little fellow and Ned only a baby he loved me, and was happier with me than with anyone else. It seems queer that anyone should live to be seventeen years old and have no other intimate friend than his sister’s boy.” He addressed the remark to Mateel, but she did not seem sure whether it was queer or not; she was never certain of anything, like her father.