While yet it was in my
power to return to those parents whom I deserted in my boyhood, I
thought not of repentance; and now that they must be but too surely lost
to me, my yearning towards them is of no avail. Of my brother, from
whom I parted in a moment of childish jealousy and anger, and whose
pardon and love I would give up even my ambition to acquire, I have
never yet discovered a trace. Atonement to those whom I injured in
early life is a privilege denied to the prayers of my age. From my
parents and my brother I departed unblest, and unforgiven by them I feel
that I am doomed to die! My life has been careless, useless, godless,
passing from rapine and violence to luxury and indolence, and leading me
to the marriage which I exulted in when I last saw you, but which I now
feel was unworthy alike in its motives and its results. But blessed and
thrice blessed by that last calamity of my wicked existence, for it
opened my eyes to the truth--it made a Christian of me while I was yet
alive!'
'Is it thus that the Christian can view his afflictions? I would, then,
that I were a Christian like you!' murmured the landholder, in low,
earnest tones.
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