The visiting clergyman, addressing his host said: "Bishop Albertson, I
think I have never told you the particulars of my great affliction. The
illness of your secretary, and seeing the specimen of his penmanship,
brings back to my recollection the darkest providence that has ever come
into my life."

"No, Bishop," said his brother minister, kindly, "you have not. But
sorrow passes few of us by in this world. We all suffer, some grievously.
I did not suspect, however, that such had been your lot."

"Yes," was the reply, after a moment's silence, "mine has been a heavy
cross. A little more than a year ago my son, just entering upon the
summer vacation, went off with two friends on a yachting trip. They were
near Land's End when a hurricane struck and wrecked the boat; they were
all lost, the yacht never having been seen again; and once this
afternoon, when the door of your secretary's room was opened for a
moment, I heard his delirious cry, and his voice sounded strangely like
that of my own lost boy. Possibly, I, too, should have gone up to see
him, but after that I could not--I could not." He paused and then added:
"O, it was my profoundest wish that Eddie might some day take my place,
and be the comfort of my old age."

That evening's sermon will never be forgotten by the large congregation
which came to hear the eminent English divine. "Thou destroyest the hopes
of man" was the text.

Two days later the Bishop of Durham returned to his home, and although he
had enjoyed seeing the classmate of his early years, the affliction in
Bishop Albertson's home had reminded him of his own sad loss, so that