It is one thing to see a sophistry, and another to take to pieces the filmy threads of which it is composed. ... the most difficult thing in the word is to convince an ignorant person that he has been foolish and illogical in his argument. You may prove this to an intelligent mind that is accustomed to reason, and to weight the merits of questions, but it is a rare thing to find an uncultured brain that can follow you closely enough to be convinced of his own folly.

There goes one, he said to himself, who thinks she is willing to be led, but, on the contrary, she wants to lead. She is saved, but not subdued. I wonder what means the great Master will have to use to lead her to rest in his hands, knowing no way but his?

These verses of Flossy's mean something, surely. What DO they mean, is the question left for us to decide. After all, Ruth, I agree with you; it is a question that must be left to our judgment and common sense; only we are bound to strengthen our common sense and confirm our judgments in the light of the lamp that is promised as a guide to our feet.

... she was miserably unhappy; an awakened conscience toyed with, is a very fruitful source of misery.

The pastor spoke a few words, tenderly, solemnly pointing the mourners to One who alone could sustain, earnestly urging those who knew nothing of the love of Christ to take refuse now in his open arms and find rest there.

But alas, alas! not a single word could he say about the soul that had gone out from that silent body before them; gone to live forever. Was it possible for those holding such belief as theirs to have a shadow of hoe that the end of such a life as his had been could be bright?

Not one of those who understood anything about this matter dared for an instant to hope it. They understood the awful solemn silence of the minister. There was nothing for that grave but silence. Hope for the living, and he pointed them earnestly to the source of all hope; but for the dead, silence.

What an awfully solemn task to conduct such funeral services. The pastor may not read the comforting words: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,” because before them lies one who did not die in the Lord, and common sense tells the most thoughtless that if those are blessed who die in the Lords there must be a reverse side to the picture, else no sense to the statement. So the verse must be passed by. It is too late to help the dead, and it need not tear the hearts of the living. ... All the long line of tender helpful verses, glowing with light for the coming morning, shining with immortality and unending union must be passed by; for each and every one of them have a clause which shows unmistakably that the immortality is glorious only under certain conditions, and in this case they have not been met.