better."

"Yes," said Annie, slowly and thoughtfully, as if a new idea was passing
through her mind.

"Well then, I will tell you how. I have felt just as you do now. When I
was a girl I was a restless, idle creature; useless to others, and a
burden to myself. Of course I was unhappy, miserable. It was in vain
that I went to school with such a discontented mind. I had a harder
lesson to learn than any that my teacher could learn me. God grant you
may not have to learn it in the same way that I did! I learned it by
experience; a sorrowful way that is to learn anything, although it is
slow and sure; you may be pretty certain that you never will forget it.
I have found out, by experience, that the only way that we can live and
be happy, is by loving and serving others, just as the blessed Jesus
did; and if you will try it you will find it so."

"Oh," said Annie, "I am a little girl. What good can I do? If I was the
Lord Jesus, I would go about doing good; then I would cast out devils,
and heal the sick, and raise the dead."

"Yes, yes; I know you are yet but a 'wee thing,' and have much to learn;
but 'the race is not always to the swift and the battle to the strong;'
it isn't the tallest men and the oldest heads that do the most good in
the world. But I'll tell you what _you can_ do, if you can't work
miracles; though there's many a devil cast out in these days of sin and
sorrow, that men know not of; those who struggle and strive with the
Evil One, and thrust him out of the doors of their heart, do not sound a
trumpet before them in the streets, for they are true followers of the
dear Lamb of God. That same old spirit of selfishness that tempted Eve