Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/249

  and then said, smiling: "I am afraid, Harry, that could hardly be. Besides, my dear boy, there is One who can always be with you, and no one can take His place."

"All the same, I wish you could come," said Harry. "When I am here I feel like doing something with my life, but at home I only think of having fun."

"But, Harry," said his aunt, "life is a very sacred and very precious thing, and at all costs, you must make it worthy of Him who gave it to you."

Next morning, when Harry was saying "Farewell" to his aunt, she put her arms round him, and said: "Your mother would have wished you to be a noble man, and you must not disappoint her."

"I will try, auntie," he said, and could say no more.

For the next few weeks the minister and his wife were both busy and anxious. For more than eight years they had labored with their people without much sign of result. Week after week the minister poured into his sermons the strength of his heart and mind, and then gave them to his people with all the fervor of his nature. Week after week his wife, in her women's meetings and in her Bible class, lavished freely upon them the splendid riches of her intellectual and spiritual powers, and together in the homes of the people they wrought and taught. At times it seemed to the minister that they were spending their strength for naught, and at such times he bitterly grudged, not his own toils, but those of his wife. None knew