the "harvest day." But, alas! calling the tares wheat will not avail
when "the Lord of the harvest" comes and the command is given, "Bind
them in bundles to burn them."

But the form in which the fatal error was clothed was fair and
pleasing, especially so when her husband would

"Lend to the charm of the poet
The music of his voice."

There was one favorite writer who seemed to possess a magic power in
painting every shady nook and mossy wayside spring of the human heart.
No old, gray rock or fathomless shadow of feeling seemed to escape
that observing eye. And there were clear, bold strokes sometimes which
showed a strength not often given to a woman's hand. Through all her
writings ran a thread of light reflected from God's word, though bent
out of its own right line by the prism through which it flowed. Much
was said of the love and tender mercy of God, but the fact that he is
also a just God, and will in nowise clear the guilty, was set aside as
a hard doctrine. The gay scoffer, the one who despises Christ's tender
offers of love and pardon, provided he is amiable and pleasant among
his friends and associates, must not be given over to a just
retribution. God is too loving a Father to see such a lovely scorner
perish. It is "so incongruous" to think of the one with whom we have
had such pleasant converse here being forever lost. The sophistry
gradually wrought its work; the more readily, as poor Clara, in the
whirl of fashion and gaiety, failed to bring it to the test of "the
law and the testimony."

Time rolled on, and Clara was becoming more thoughtful and studious.