Mrs. Davis, do you point out to him the future he is preparing for
himself?"

"Yes," she said, "I'm tellin' him he'll go to hell all the time; but it
don't do no good. Tom's afraid of hell, though; it's the only thing as
ever did keep him straight. After one o' them sermons of yours, I've
known him swear off as long as two months. I ain't been to church this
long time, till last Sabbath; and I was hopin' I'd hear one of that kind,
all about hell, Mr. Ward, so I could tell Tom, but you didn't preach that
way. Not but what it was good, though," she added, with an evident wish
to be polite.

John's face suddenly flushed. "I--I know I did not, but the love of God
must constrain us, Mrs. Davis, as well as the fear of hell."

Mrs. Davis sighed. Tom's spiritual condition, which had roused a
momentary interest, was forgotten in the thought of her own misery.
"Well, it's awful hard on me," she repeated with a little tremor in her
weak chin.

John looked at her with infinite pity in his eyes. "Yes," he said, "hard
on you, because of the eternal suffering which may come to your husband.
Nothing can be more frightful than to think of such a thing for one we
love. Let us try to save him; pray always, pray without ceasing for his
immortal soul, that he may not slight the day of salvation, and repent
when it is too late to find the mercy of God. Oh, the horror of knowing
that the day of grace has gone forever! 'For my spirit shall not always
strive with man.'"

He went over to the drunken man, and, kneeling down beside him, took one