tears and sighs with many a parent, many a wanderer, and many an
outcast, who have poured their troubles into my listening ears.

The one cry, ever and always, from both parent and child, has been,
"_If I had only known_, I should have been less heedless, but now it's
too late, too late! O God! forgive me for Christ's sake." Does the bird
with the broken pinion ever soar as high again? Only through Christ,
the precious Redeemer of souls, the Great Physician.

Are we to take warning from the fate of little Rosa--we to whom our
heavenly Father has entrusted the care and keeping of his priceless
jewels until he comes to claim his own? May the Lord help us to learn
and love our lessons; to learn and love them well.




CHAPTER II.

A VISIT TO SACRAMENTO--THE OUTCOME.


At the time of the preceding experience I was the organist of Redding's
Baptist church and also superintendent of its Sunday-school. Aside from
this, there were my household duties--duties never to be neglected, as
some erroneously think, because of drinking in the deep things of God.
Also, there were now many outside calls to rescue or to warn poor,
foolish boys and girls. The heart-aches now commenced in real earnest;
for too many refused to heed, and in many cases the home environments
were of such a nature as to prohibit even an ordinary moral tone, the