part of the Epistle to the Romans were greasy and stained with oft
perusal. But there was a more remarkable feature about the Bible
than this--its margin was filled with a number of pen-and-ink
notes! figures and calculations of money advanced and interest
drawn and due; his clever, sarcastic wife calling this his
'reference Bible,' and sometimes telling him he was 'mighty i' th'
Scriptures' when his own interest was concerned.

He laid down the Bible and took up his ledger. Ah! how he knew
that book!--to him actually and literally a book of life. He knew
its every page, and every name that headed those pages. True,
Moses knew the generations of the patriarchs, the names of the
sons of Jacob, the chronologies of the Chronicles, but he knew the
families of Rehoboth better. These latter were engraved on the
palms of his hands, and written with corroding ink on the fleshly
tables of his heart. As he turned over the well-thumbed pages he
made many mental calculations, sometimes smiling and sometimes
sighing as his eye fell on an irreclaimable debt. Then, taking up
his pencil, he entered an account on the fly-sheet of the Bible,
and seemed satisfied when he discovered that his illness would not
involve him in the loss which he had anticipated; and smiling the
smile of selfish gain, he closed his eyes and slept.

Poor Moses Fletcher! For with all his riches he was poor--if being
a pauper in the sight of Heaven is to be poor. How he had lived to
make money, and, having made it, how terrible was the cost! Old
Mr. Morell once told him that the angels reversed his balance year
by year, writing in invisible ink against his material profits his
moral and spiritual depreciation. And yet there was one redeeming
feature in the character of Moses--he loved his dog. 'Captain,' as