yield readily to the correcting influence of love. Good impulses,
however, are not principles, and may give way to stronger impulses of
evil. If the influences of his early home had alone followed him, he
would not now be moodily recalling the past as the exiled convict
might watch the shores of his native land recede.

And then, as in his prolonged revery the fire burned low, and the
ruddy coals turned to ashes, the past faded into distance, and his
present life, dull and leaden, rose before him, and from regretful
memories that were not wholly painful he passed to that bitterness of
feeling which ever comes when hope is giving place to despair.

The fire flickered out and died, his head drooped lower and lower,
while the brooding frown upon his brow darkened almost into a scowl.
Outwardly he made a sad picture for a young man in the prime of life,
but to Him who looks at the attitude of the soul, what but unutterable
love kept him from appearing absolutely revolting?

Suddenly, like light breaking into a vault a few notes of prelude were
struck upon the piano in the parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened
by distance sung:

"Rock of ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee,"

How often he had heard the familiar words and music in that same home!
They seemed to crown and complete all the memories of the place, but
they reminded him more clearly than ever before that its most
inseparable associations were holy, hopeful, and suggestive of a faith
that he seemed to have lost as utterly as if it had been a gem dropped