Mr World and Miss Church-Member | Page 4

named Miss Church-Member, who had left the Broad Way of death, and entered, through Christ, into that marvelous light wherein she was now walking. Her tread was in sweet harmony with the footsteps of her Master, and her beautiful face was all aglow with the passion of pure love.
A pilgrim's robe added beauty to her form; a Bible, carried under her arm, gave some evidence of her spiritual character; and a religious emblem, worn over her heart, told that she was a member of some Christian organization.
Miss Church-Member, in traveling her chosen path, tarried at a place called Fellowship which occupied a pleasing site close by the King's Highway. Here one could readily speak and associate with the travelers who moved in gay companies along the Broad Highway.
At this visiting place she met a certain Mr. World--a good, jolly fellow, of corpulent build, who was attired in the fashion of the day, and bore himself with more than usual jauntiness in the presence of Miss Church-Member.
After a pleasing conversation, in which Mr. World plied his Satanic shrewdness and sophistry, he was emboldened to give this brief invitation: "Will you journey a short distance with me on this Broader Way that I may prepare myself, with more facility, to accompany you where you wish, even on a path as narrow as the one you seem to love?"
"Ah, Mr. World," she said, with a tolerant smile, "do you not know that you are walking on the way of danger and death? Why would you have me share your folly? It were a thousand times better for you to join me at once on a path that leads to everlasting happiness. Here you can drink the water of life in abundance, and feed upon angels' food. O, come, Mr. World," she added as she spoke more earnestly, "linger no longer, carry out the resolution which you have already broken repeatedly, and you will never regret so wise an action." Thus did Miss Church-Member urge upon him a course which, in her inimitable missionary spirit, she made really attractive to him. Although he appreciated her genuine earnestness, yet he could not be induced to heed her words.
"You have covered the whole field of my intention," he courteously replied. "I sincerely wish to mend my ways, but there are certain things I must first overcome. How much better I could do this if one like you, in whom I have supreme confidence, would but journey at my side. Will you not do the work of a good missionary and, like Christ, adapt yourself to my level, that I may, by your uplifting influence, be drawn into a nobler life, and even have your companionship as I go up to the Highway of your King?"
Miss Church-Member, being of a sympathetic nature and of strong missionary proclivities, refused to heed her many counselors who feared for her safety, and actually stepped still farther from her wonted path and journeyed at the side of Mr. World with the desire to compass his conversion. But her conscience, at first, troubled her and her feet moved with a suspicious tread.
In this nervous, half confiding and half shrinking mood, she leaned lightly upon his arm, ever turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of her well-meaning friends who still hoped to dissuade her from this ill-advised course.
Mr. World was keenly delighted at her concession and loyalty to him. He seemed to be willing to go to any sacrifice that might add to her comfort or increase her happiness. His many companions could readily see that Miss Church-Member felt "out of place." But she justified her own course by what she was aiming to do.
He saw that her dress of righteousness was in wide contrast with the filthy rags that covered his own soul, and so he preferred to look upon the garments that adorned his outer person, and the gaudy scenes on either side of the way.
I beheld this wide path along a great length, and I shuddered as I saw the masses thereon who were engaged in the frivolities of life as found in the swiftly passing pleasures of sense and sight. The thoughtless throngs were seemingly unconscious that underneath the whole length and breadth of the path there were strata of fire, and they were apparently blind to the sulphurous flames which, here and there, issued from openings into which many an unsuspecting traveler fell.
Sad to relate, of all the moving multitudes there were but few, indeed, who took warning and fled toward the King's Highway. Many, like Miss Church-Member, were walking on the forbidden path for no other reason than some weak apology.
"What mean these lurid openings?" nervously asked Miss Church-Member, for their flames excited her terror. Mr. World replied, with a look of surprise: "Have you never