"You know as she's not taken her class for a good long time. We was all very sorry when she gave over, but it seemed as it couldn't be helped, for she was getting weak and worn, and felt that coming to church twice on the Lord's-day was as much as her poor mind and body would bear. But she wants me to tell you how she feels now she's been letting earthly learning get too much hold of her thoughts. Not as there's any harm in getting any sort of good learning, so long as you don't get it in the wrong way. But it seems as this earthly learning had been getting too big a share of Miss Clara's heart. I daresay you all know as she's wonderful clever at her books. Eh, what a sight of prizes she's got! Well, but she'd come to be too fond of her studies; they was becoming a snare to her; she'd made a regular idol of them, and could scarce think of anything else. She'd given them all the time she could spare, and more. And so it kept creeping on. These studies of hers, they'd scarce let her eat or drink, or take any exercise, or read her Bible and pray as she used to do. Ah, how crafty the evil one is in leading us astray! He don't make us jump down into the dark valley at one or two big leaps, but it's just down an incline, like the path as leads from Bill Western's house to the smithy: when you've got to the bottom and look back, you can hardly believe at first as you've come down so low. "Now, you're not to run away with the idea that Miss Clara has forsaken her Saviour, and given up her Bible and prayer. Nothing of the sort! She's a dear child of God, and always has been since I've knowed her; only this learning and these studies have so blocked up her heart, that they've scarce left room for her gracious Saviour. But yet he'd never let her go, and she hadn't altogether forsaken him; only she's been on a wrong course of late, and she sees it now. "Friends have flattered her, and told her what grand things she might do with such a head-piece as hers, and she's been willing to listen to them for a bit. But now the Lord has brought her to see different, and she wants me to tell you what a snare she has found this learning to be. She wants me to tell you from her that she's found it out in her own experience as there's no happiness out of Christ; as head knowledge can never make us happy without heart knowledge of Jesus. "It's all very well wishing to shine in the world and be thought clever, but that's just pleasing self, and can never give us real peace. She's tried it, and she says it's `vanity of vanities.' It's led her away from her duty, and made her neglect helping her dear father and mother in many ways where she might have been useful, just because her head and her heart were full of her books.