between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked
steadfastly at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter might
have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on
his hands, his teeth were firmly closed and his frame was tremulous at
intervals with a nervous agitation.

"Friend Tobias," inquired the old man, compassionately, "hast thou
found no comfort in these many blessed passages of Scripture?"

"Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct,"
replied Pearson, without lifting his eyes. "Yea; and when I have
hearkened carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended
for another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the book," he added,
in a tone of sullen bitterness; "I have no part in its consolations,
and they do but fret my sorrow the more."

"Nay, feeble brother; be not as one who hath never known the light,"
said the elder Quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. "Art thou he that
wouldst be content to give all and endure all for conscience' sake,
desiring even peculiar trials that thy faith might be purified and thy
heart weaned from worldly desires? And wilt thou sink beneath an
affliction which happens alike to them that have their portion here
below and to them that lay up treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy
burden is yet light."

"It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!" exclaimed Pearson, with
the impatience of a variable spirit. "From my youth upward I have been
a man marked out for wrath, and year by year--yea, day after day--I
have endured sorrows such as others know not in their lifetime. And
now I speak not of the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor