"'Lois, my bride, my heaven!' he said. 'Oh! pity me, who have tried to
pity all and make all happy, if I cannot myself explain away the cause
of your alarm. I have kept myself lonely these many years, aware that
I was not like other men, but that my heart--no evil monitor to
me--gave a different sound. There is nothing in its beat, my wife, to
make you fear it. Return and lay your head upon it, and you will hear
it say this only, if you listen with faith: _love_!'

"Thus the watch-maker turned superstition to assurance, and the
admonition of his heart was a source of joy instead of fear to the
listener at its side. It ticked a few bright years with constancy, and
was the last benediction of the world to her ere she was ushered into
that peace which passeth understanding.

"At the death of his wife Minuit felt a deeper sense of his
responsibility to time, and the finite uses of it expanded to a
cheerful conception of the infinite. The country round was generally
settled by a religious people, and the many meeting-houses of
different sects had his equal confidence and sympathy. Pursuing his
craft with unwearied diligence, and delighting the homestead with his
violin as of old, a more pensive and wistful expression replaced his
smile, and love withdrawn beckoned him toward it beyond the boundaries
of period. Hard populations, which would not listen to preachers,
heard with delight the amiable warnings of this friendly man, and as
his own generation grew older, a new race dawned to whom he appeared
in the light of a pure-spirited evangelist. 'Improve the time! watch
it! ennoble it! It is a part of the beautiful and perpetual circle of
everlasting duty. It is to the great future only the little disk of a
second-hand, traversed as swiftly, while the great rim of heaven
accepts it as a part of the eternal round!' Such was the burden of his