of your whole course, or your joy will be like the "hope of the
hypocrite, but for a moment." "Be ye holy, for I am holy," is the
divine command.

How strange that a truly loving heart could enter upon such a task as
that which Mr. Allen now commenced--the work of loosing a trusting
nature from its only safe moorings, leaving it to drift without a
compass or a guiding star upon a sea abounding with fearful rocks and
angry breakers. But such is the hatred of the natural heart to the
humbling doctrine of the cross and salvation alone through Him who was
crucified upon it.

Clara was fond of reading, and her husband took care to place in her
way certain fascinating writers, then quite popular, whose frequent
merry flashes and sarcastic allusions to the "orthodoxy" tended more
surely than serious reasoning would have done to make her think
lightly of the faith in which she had been trained. The old-fashioned
Bible was skilfully tortured out of its plainest meaning by these
so-called reformers, or utterly ignored where it could not be
distorted to suit their views. What their opinions of its inspiration
were could never be clearly seen by others, if, indeed, they had ever
given such a trifling matter any consideration whatever. Instead of
the sure foundation which has Jesus Christ for its corner-stone, and a
religion which teaches faith, humility, self-denial, earnest labor for
souls, and all lowly virtues, they profess to throw wide open the
doors of a "broad church," which should gather in all mankind as
brothers, which should teach them the dignity and excellence of
humanity, and give every one a free pass at last on the swift train
over the celestial railway. In their great harvest-field they claimed
the tares to be as valuable as the wheat, and never gave thought to