There now, Ellen, you take your little sister and go out into the garden, like a good girl." She lifted the baby down from her chair, and put her hand into that of her elder sister.
"Mrs.Grier," Helen said, speaking quickly, "you say you believe it, but if you had ever lost a child, I am sure you could not." "I have, ma'am,"-- Mrs.Grier's thin lip quivered, and her eyes reddened a little,--"but that can't make any difference in truth; besides, we have the blessed hope that she was an elect infant." It would have been cruel to press the reason for this hope, and Helen listened instead with a breath of relief to what John was saying,--he, at least, did not hold this horrible doctrine.
"No, I agree with your husband," he said.

"True, all children are born in sin, and are despised and abhorred as sinners by God.

Jonathan Edwards, you know, calls them 'vipers,' which of course was a crude and cruel way of stating the truth, that they are sinners.

Yet, through the infinite mercy, they are saved because Christ died, not of themselves; in other words, all infants who die, are elect." Mrs.Grier shook her head.

"I'm for holding to the catechism," she said; and then, with a sharp, thin laugh, she added, "But you're sound on the heathen, I must say." Helen shivered, and it did not escape her hostess, who turned and looked at her with interested curiosity.