It was a cold and dreary walk. The rain had turned to snow or fine sleet, which the wind blew furiously, driving it with blinding force into his face, and but for the street lamps he would have lost his way. He arrived at the church wet and cold, and well-nigh out of breath, to find but a bare half dozen besides the pastor. Even he seemed surprised to see the boy on such a night, and so expressed himself as he shook hands with him. "I had no good excuse for not coming," the lad answered, simply. Mr. Carleton smiled as he looked down into that earnest face, and said: "There are a good many nearer the meeting house than you, who have evidently regarded this storm as sufficient excuse for not coming." Then to himself: "God surely has not bestowed such an unflinching regard for duty upon this lad without having some special work for him to do; he must be helped to something better than running a jack in the Black Forge Mills." But he little knew how that little prayer meeting, even as one a few months before, was, by the blessing of God, going to become an important factor in changing the whole current of the lad's life. He read the sixth chapter of Second Corinthians for the Scripture lesson of the evening, and talked briefly upon the words of the seventeenth verse: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord." "Paul, in this chapter," he said, "is showing the Corinthian Christians that there is no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, or between the believer and the unbeliever. The Christian cannot contract worldly friendships, nor enter into any connection with unbelievers which requires much familiar intercourse, lest he be tempted to join with the unbeliever in his wicked principles and practices. As the privileges conferred upon the Jews obliged them to withhold themselves from all heathen intercourse, and from the pollution of every unclean thing, so, the apostle argues, the followers of Christ, on account of the special favors and blessings they have received, are much more under obligations to keep themselves separate from all impure associations and unholy practices. He then, to enforce his argument, quoted these words: 'Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.'"