Till you can do this, you do nothing.

Till you are Christ's after this whole-hearted fashion you are not mine as I wish to see you, -- you are not mine for ever, -- my boy -- my dear Winthrop -- " she said, again putting her arm round him and bowing her face to his breast.
Did he ever forget the moment her head lay there?
the moment when his arms held the dearest earthly thing life ever had for him?
It was a quiet moment; she was not crying; no tears had been dropped at all throughout their conversation; and when she raised her face it was to kiss him quietly, -- but twice, on his lips and on his cheek, -- and bid him good night.

But his soul was full of one meaning, as he shut his little bedroom door, -- that that face should never be paler or more care-worn for anything of his doing; -- that he would give up anything, he would never go from home, sooner than grieve her heart in a feather's weight; nay, that rather than grieve her, he would _become a Christian_..