Peanuts, cigars, a pack of cards, and a bowie-knife! Imagine yourself,
teacher, to be seated before your orderly and courteous class of boys
next Sunday morning and find them transformed into beings represented by
such surroundings as these! It was Mrs. Partridge's experience. How
fascinating that story is! That one incorrigible boy, the one with the
bowie-knife, the one who would make no answer to her questions, show no
interest in her stories, ignore her very presence and go on with his
horrible mischief, until it even came to a stabbing affray right there
in the class-room!

Imagine her meeting that boy ten years afterward, when he was not only a
man, but a gentleman; not only that, but a Christian and not only that,
but a working Christian, superintending a mission Sunday-school, giving
his best energies and his best time to work like that! Think of being
told by him that the determination to amount to something was taken that
morning, ten years before, when he seemed not to be listening nor
caring! What is ten years of Christian work when we can hope for such
results as that!

Flossy had forgotten her charge; her face was all aglow; so was her
heart. She knew more about Christian work than she did an hour before.
She had learned that we must take the step that plainly comes next to be
taken, no matter for the darkness of the day and the apparent gloom of
the future. _Work_ is ours; _results_ are God's. This life business is
divided. Partnership with God. Nothing but _the work_ to do; so that it
is done to the utmost limit of our best, the responsibility is the
Lord's. That was blessed! She could dare to try.

Meantime the boy. He had listened in utmost silence, and with eyes that