We had not been very long in the second-from-the-front pew of the First Baptist church, when Rita, who, at the private suggestion of the matron, I had placed next to me, began to embarrass and disconcert me by her actions, causing the rest of the girls to titter (sometimes audibly) and thus to attract the congregation, also the pastor, so that finally an usher had occasion to whisper to me, admonishing me to retire with her, to which she replied, "I ain't agoing out."

Mortified beyond measure, I let my head sink forward on the back of the pew in front of me. I soon became oblivious of my surroundings, for I was being blest with a wonderful vision.

I saw the Garden of Gethsemane. It was night, and sleeping souls lay all around. One there was who was not sleeping. He was prostrate in agony of prayer. As he wrung his hands, the blood started through his pores, and dripped down upon the ground. Then a light shone around him, a glorious light. Presently he arose, and the place filled suddenly with soldiers who led him away, shouting in triumph as they did so. Quickly the scene changed. Christ was now before the high priests. Again the scene changed. He was passing by a man who was strenuously, indignantly denying that he knew or had had anything to do with the man under arrest. Oh! would that words of mine could picture the suffering, sorrowful countenance, as Jesus gave poor Peter that parting, yearning look. Pilate's hall was soon in sight, and the men in charge of Jesus were mocking and smiting him. It was cold, and scarcely dawn of day. What a throng, as they crowded into the presence of Pilate.

Again the scene changes. The Christ is being mockingly arrayed in a once gorgeous, now old, shabby robe. Soon he is wearily pulled and pushed back to Pilate's hall, where they strip the Son of God in the presence of that howling mob, and beat him, until the blood streams down his poor, lacerated back. Surely that is sufficient; but no! they spit in his face. They press a cruel crown hard down upon his brow. Now Pilate has washed his hands, and the Savior of the world is led away. The soldiers are compelling him to bear some heavy wooden beams in the form of a cross. Oh! can't they see that he is too weak, suffering too much, to be able to carry such a weight? They do not care; but look! he has fainted! Some one is helping him now. God forever bless him! 'Tis Simon the Cyrenean who enjoys that precious privilege. Simon, the cross-bearer.

I can not bear to witness any more. But I must. I must watch to the end.

Oh! the awful thud, thud, THUD, as they hammer the spikes, the cruel spikes into his hands and feet, and he never once cringes. How can he be so courageous?

I am looking up at him now, and he is looking down with such an uninterpretable look on me, and I hear him faintly say: "For you."

"Yes, Lord, I know."

"And now won't you try to love my poor shorn little lambs? 'Tis for them also."

"Yes, dear Lord, I am trying to."

"Would you be willing to lay down your life for little Rita, for the sake of her soul?"

"Blessed Savior, surely that will not be required, but fill me full of love, a great love for her soul and other souls. I promise that with thy help I will do my best, for oh, how I love thee now! how I love thee! and I will do anything thou dost require to prove my love."

Some one is pulling my sleeve. I turn my head to find Rita leaning against me and quietly whispering, "Mother, don't cry; I'll be good. Don't cry."

From that time on the change in Rita was unmistakable, and although she had many hard battles to fight, to lose, and to win, she came out gloriously victorious.

"Who was Rita?" I'll tell you.

Rita was a roguish, fun-loving, childish little woman, twenty-one years old, who neither acted nor looked her age. Her mother had been a waitress in one of the dives of a locality called "The Barbary Coast," San Francisco, where are many low, vile haunts of vice. Her father, she never knew. She was very dark, apparently part Spanish, quite attractive, and rather pretty.

Some time prior to my advent she was brought to the home in a semi-intoxicated condition by one of the Lord's consecrated missionaries. Full of mischief and depravity, she was, from the first, a trouble-maker. From her earliest recollection, her companions had all been of the type with whom her mother associated; therefore it would take time, great and loving patience, and a constant waiting on the Master for her to harmonize perfectly with new environments.

This poor girl had seen no other life, up to within a few weeks of my meeting her, than a life replete with vice from one day's ending to another. Much of the time she had participated. But be it recorded to the credit of her mother that, to the extent of her knowledge, she had guarded her girl from criminal assault as long as she was able to control her, and that, when told of Rita's being in the rescue home, she seemed greatly pleased that at last her daughter had found friends who would do their utmost to help her lead a better life.

Rita had an uncontrollable temper, in consequence of which the entire household was sometimes made to suffer keenly; but she would eventually yield to earnest persuasion, then kneel down and ask forgiveness of God and the family. She was very ambitious to learn to read, being entirely devoid of education. Different members would take it in turn to teach her, and it was a proud day when she could decipher a few words in her Bible. I never shall forget the evening of her first realization of the price Jesus had paid for her. It dawned upon her soul so suddenly, so beautifully, following a mid-week prayer-meeting, in which some of the Christians interested in this work often participated, that a great shout of joy went up, and when we retired that night, some of us were too grateful and too excited to sleep. Oh, how the adversary attacked and tried over and over again to get her back to his territory! He once so well succeeded that we finally deemed it necessary to exchange her into another home. I was the one deputized to take her there, and very soon was introducing myself to Mrs. Elizabeth Kauffman, whose noble work for the erring, in San Francisco and other places, is known to the thousands. After placing Rita under her kind care in the rescue home, then situated on Capp Street near Twenty-first Street, in San Francisco, I returned to my post of duty in Sacramento, little dreaming at that time what an important place I was destined, in the future, to occupy with Sister Kauffman.

Erelong I learned, through correspondence, that my little Rita (who, by the way, was the first one outside of my own family to give me the endearing title of "Mother," which title has clung to me ever since) had found a warm friend in a deaconess whose name I have forgotten, but who took a loving interest in her and greatly aided her, especially from the spiritual point of view.

Rita, with the approval of her guardians, married a Christian young man. Together they are bringing up their little ones to know and love the Savior so precious to them; and, through the daughter's example the mother, so long a wanderer in paths of degradation, was, I have understood, finding purity and peace for her soul. At the time of the earthquake and great fire in San Francisco, Rita and her loved ones, I am told, escaped without so much as the loss of a dish. This remarkable fact proves that God is ever mindful of those who put their entire trust in him and who live as does this precious jewel and her family, on the promises of the ninety first Psalm.