than anything else, it is a firm and unfaltering belief in the "main
chance." He has made up his mind to be rich, and his highest ideal of
existence may be expressed in four words--_getting on in life_. To this
object, he is ready to sacrifice time, talent, energy and every faculty,
which he possesses. Nay, he will go farther; he will spend honor,
conscience and manhood, in an eager search for gold. He will change his
heart into a ledger on which he will write _tare_ and _tret_, loss and
gain, exchange and barter, and he will succeed, as worldly men count
success. He will add house to house; he will encompass the means of
luxury; his purse will be plethoric but, oh, how poverty stricken his
soul will be. Costly viands will please his taste, but unappeased hunger
will gnaw at his soul. Amid the blasts of winter he will have the warmth
of Calcutta in his home; and the health of the ocean and the breezes of
the mountains shall fan his brow, amid the heats of summer, but there
will be a coolness in his soul that no breath of summer can ever dispel;
a fever in his spirit that no frozen confection can ever allay; he shall
be rich in lands and houses, but fear of loss and a sense of poverty
will poison the fountains of his life; and unless he repent, he shall go
out into the eternities a pauper and a bankrupt.

Paul Clifford, whom we have also introduced to you, was the only son of
a widow, whose young life had been overshadowed by the curse of
intemperance. Her husband, a man of splendid abilities and magnificent
culture, had fallen a victim to the wine cup. With true womanly devotion
she had clung to him in the darkest hours, until death had broken his
hold in life, and he was laid away the wreck of his former self in a
drunkard's grave. Gathering up the remains of what had been an ample
fortune, she installed herself in an humble and unpretending home in the
suburbs of the city of B., and there with loving solicitude she had
watched over and superintended the education of her only son. He was a