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Dyceworthy stretched out his hand with his favorite pulpit
gesture. "Think of the roasting and burning,--the scorching and
withering of souls! Imagine, if you can, the hopeless, bitter, eternal
damnation," and here he smacked his lips as though he were tasting
something excellent,--"from which there is no escape! . . . for which
there shall be no remedy!"
"It is a gloomy picture," said Thelma, with a quiet sparkle in her eye.
"I am sorry,--for _you_. But I am happier,--my faith teaches of
purgatory--there is always a little hope!"
"There is none! there is none!" exclaimed the minister rising in
excitement from his seat, and swaying ponderously to and fro as he
gesticulated with hands and head. "You are doomed,--doomed! There is no
middle course between hell and heaven. It must be one thing or the
other; God deals not in half-measures! Pause, oh pause, ere you decide
to fall! Even at the latest hour the Lord desires to save your
soul,--the Lord yearns for your redemption, and maketh me to yearn also.


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