been chosen to superintend the proceedings. An increase of salary was included in the new arrangement. David Reynolds read the note calmly. He understood it as an order from which there could be no appeal. He must either do the thing outlined for him or send in his resignation. The latter would mean a return of anxiety for Eva and of idleness for himself. It would mean the abandonment of a certainty in the matter of support for a weary search for work.

Any place where the heart communes with God may be a sanctuary. Any hour may afford a tryst with the unseen friend. The office desk may be an altar.

David Reynolds, his hand shading his eyes, sent his unspoken cry for help to the throne, and then wrote to the man in authority above him these words:

"I regret that I cannot serve this company in any capacity that calls for my work on the Lord's Day. This with me is a matter of principle. My resignation is respectfully placed in your hands."

When this letter was received and read, it was passed from one man to another and finally reached the president. That official rang his bell.

"Tell Mr.

I wish to see him."

"Reynolds is a poor man, I believe," he said when the other appeared.

"Yes, so I fancy."

"This resignation means a struggle to keep his head above water?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Was there not some knowledge of his convictions about Sabbath-keeping before he was asked to violate them ?"

"Yes, but he is very efficient in whatever he undertakes, and few men stand out against what helps their pockets."

"I attend the church Mr. Reynolds attends," said the president, "and my boy is in his Sunday school class. That man could starve, if need were, but he could not

go counter to his principles. Duty controls his whole character. He is a Christian gentleman. My own father would have decided just as he has. This resignation cannot be accepted."

The Lord had interfered for his servant, and the evil he apprehended did not come. The Lord who stood by the three men in the fiery furnace, and by Daniel in the lions' den, is still able to save his own in any crisis. But far too often we temporize. We are of little faith. We do the thing our conscience condemns, and then expect God to bless us and carry us unscathed through days of trial.

But David did not learn of this relief for two days. During this time he said nothing to Eva of the incident. and he refrained, so far as he could, from dwelling on it in his thoughts. He had long observed the morning watch, rising very early that he might have a season of communion with his Father in Heaven before the day with the cares and trials surged in upon him. Promise after promise in these sacred half hours would flash on his mind, as stars gleam out in the twilight sky, and more and more it became a reality to him that whosoever shall commit his way unto the Lord shall have the Lord direct his steps. When a brief note was handed to him saying that his work and pay were to remain as before, and that Sunday labor would not be asked of him, David Reynolds lifted a silent prayer of gratitude to God.

There were two or three odd coincidences about this time. The son of the president, who was in Mr. Reynolds's Bible Class, was at the dinner table when the conversation turned upon Sabbath observance. A consensus of opinion on the part of his father's guests seemed to point to an admission that nobody kept the Lord's Day in the good old fashion of less hurried times. "Puritanism," said one man, "has gone out forever." Said another, "You can't find a man in business whose Sunday principles won't go down before

an increase of salary. A third remarked that it was a pity we had so generally drifted into license, that the American Sabbath was too precious a possession to be thrown out the windows of the republic and trampled under foot.

Then Dick's father told the story of David Reynolds and the stand he had taken.

The next day the boy sought an interview with his pastor.

"I wish to join your church," he said. "I want to be an out-and-out, all-round Christian. I want to follow Jesus Christ as my Sunday school teacher, Mr. Reynolds, does."

Three weeks later a gentleman called on David Reynolds and offered him a position of trust and responsibility such as he had never hoped to have with the handicap of his years. David was not feeble; his vigor was not lessened, but his hair was gray. The man who wanted his services was not deterred by this. He needed a manager who had the firmness to think of duty first in the light of conscience, and his inquiries had satisfied him that in David Reynolds he had found the person he was looking for.

"David!" said Miss Reynolds to her brother one morning.

"Yes, Eva."

"I wish some Saturday afternoon you'd clear out that old secretary. It is so long since you went through the drawers that they may be full of moths and dust.'

“Dear child, moths do not find an old man's letters worth consuming."

"Mice do, David. I have my doubts concerning mice."

"Martha, Martha, you are cumbered with serving." "It is very well to cry 'Martha, Martha,' but, David,

you must look over those drawers and pigeonholes, if only to please me.'

"Very well, I will. I'll do it now."

Eva left the room on errands of her own. Her brother plodded through the task he never cared for— the task of rearranging letters and papers.

Midway in his work he stopped. A velvet case lay closed in a compartment of his desk. He opened it reverently. Opened it to gaze again on the face of a girl, dimpled, sweet, innocent, child-like, with curls clustering around the pure oval of her happy counte

nance.

"Marjorie! I shall meet you again, my love, my love, and on the radiant hills of heaven.”

Eva returned. He did not hear her enter, and she stole softly out again, leaving him with his Marjorie.

A Reparation

HE day was sultry. Waves of heat shimmered over the fields, and not a breath of air stirred the leaves or the still surface of the lake, where often the ripples played like laughing children tossing little white

caps of foam.

She

Ruby Jilwood had sought the uplands for rest. was a busy young woman when at home, and she had only a month's vacation. "Mind, Ruby," her Aunt Lucy had said, as she bade her good-by at the station, "we owe duty to ourselves as well as to our neighbors. Now, don't go on, wearing your little stock of strength away, in doing good to others. Be good to a girl named Ruby, and let strangers shift as best they can."

"That advice does not sound much like my Aunt Lucy," Ruby had answered with a shadowy smile. Her brown eyes filled with tears that did not fall. She felt herself too weary to banter the dear aunt who gazed at her wistfully, gave her a kiss, and was presently standing on the platform alone, watching the swiftly departing train. Ruby was like an own daughter to her aunt, who had mothered her since her babyhood. There was a very great affection between the two, but their means were small. With Enid's father they could say:

Our hoard is little but our hearts are great.

Latterly Aunt Lucy had been afraid that her niece