Mr World and Miss Church-Member | Page 4

of glory as from untold suns.
In the darker shadows of this same panorama I saw the Broad Highway
with its thronging multitudes. Some, with deliberate step, scrutinizing
the objects along the way; others, in mad haste, rushing on toward an
awful destruction whose wreck and ruin loomed up dimly in the glare
of an eternal burning.
Among the happy pilgrims of the King's Highway was one 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