bring men from high places into the lowest moral scale. This is the
lamentable fault of southern society; and through the want of that
moral bulwark, so protective of society in the New England
States-personal worth-estates are squandered, families brought to
poverty, young men degraded, and persons once happy driven from
those homes they can only look back upon with pain and regret. The
associations of birth, education, and polished society-so much
valued by the southerner-all become as nothing when poverty sets its
seal upon the victim.

And yet, among some classes in the south there exists a religious
sentiment apparently grateful; but what credit for sincerity shall
we accord to it when the result proves that no part of the
organisation itself works for the elevation of a degraded class? How
much this is to be regretted we leave to the reader's
discrimination. The want of a greater effort to make religious
influence predominant has been, and yet is, a source of great evil.
But let us continue our narrative, and beg the reader's indulgence
for having thus transgressed.

Flattered and caressed among gay assemblages, Lorenzo soon found
himself drawn beyond their social pleasantries into deeper and more
alluring excitements. His frequent visits at the saloon and
gambling-tables did not detract, for a time, from the social
position society had conferred upon him.

His parents, instead of restraining, fostered these associations,
prided themselves on his reception, providing means of maintaining
him in this style of living. Vanity and passion led him captive in
their gratifications; they were inseparable from the whirlpool of