Had not the "cares of this world" been made the chief concern--the
physical and material well-being of her family made far more prominent
than the development of a life hid with Christ in God? Had not the
very smoothness and prosperity of her life, and her self-complacency
in her own good management, been a snare to her? Her husband, good and
kind as he was, was, she knew, wholly engrossed with the things of
this life; and her boys--steadier, she often thought with pride, than
half the boys of the neighbourhood--had never yet been made to feel
that they were not their own, but bought with the price of a
Saviour's blood. Such higher knowledge as Bessie had was due to Miss
Preston, for, like many mothers, she had not scrupled to devolve her
own responsibilities on the Sunday-school teachers, and thought her
duty done when she had seen her children, neatly dressed, set off to
school on Sunday afternoon. And the little ones she had just left
asleep--had she earnestly commended them to the Lord, and tried to
teach them such simple truths about their Saviour as their infant
minds could receive?

All these thoughts came crowding into her mind, as they sometimes will
when the voice of the Spirit can find an entrance into our usually
closed hearts; and she shrank from the thought of the account she
should have to give of the responsibilities abused, the trust
unfulfilled. Happily, she did not forget that "if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins;" and that quiet hour
of meditation, and confession, and humble resolve was one of the most
profitable seasons Mrs. Ford had ever known. For God, unlike man, can
work without as well as with outward instrumentality.

When the others returned from church, it was with some surprise that
Mrs. Ford heard from Bessie the words of the text.