th! "Murdered,"
he said, with set lips and rigid face. "Just murdered! That is the
proper term. Why could they not be hung like other murderers? Was it
because their crime was committed by degrees, instead of at one fatal
blow?" He could not trust himself to stand looking on that still face,
and pursue these thoughts further. He turned quickly away, and
mechanically opened the family Bible, in hope of something to steady
his fierce, almost frightful, thoughts. He opened to the family
record--saw the familiar name Benjamin Phillips--born Nov. 17th, 18--.
The date was familiar too--the date of his own birthday--year, month,
even day. How strange the coincidence! Pliny's birthday too--he had long
known that; now here were the trio. Three young men launched upon life
in the same day of time! How _very_ different must have been the
circumstances of each! He glanced about the pleasant room; he could
imagine with what lavish love and tender care this young man's early
years had been surrounded--he knew something of the high hopes which had
centered in him. He knew all about the elegance and grandeur of Pliny's
home--he had vivid memories of the horrors of his own. Now here they
were, Pliny struggling wildly with his disordered brain--this
one--where? Who had made them to differ? Was this the repeatal of the
old, old sentence: "The iniquities of the fathers shall be visited upon
the children?" But then what a father had _his_ been to him, and yet how
full of signal blessing and wonderful success had his life been! Then
sounding sweetly through his brain came the sentence: "When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Had the
gracious Lord, then, come to him, and thrice filled what a father's
place should have been? And was he but showing these fathers, who had
dared to take the responsibility upon themselves, and while they fed and
petted and loved the poor bodies, starved and seared the souls, what
_their_ love, when put in defiance to _His_, could do? Being utterly
deserted of human love, had it been better for him than this misguided,
unsanctified, distorted love had been to these two young men? Aye; for
they had kept the parents' place--assumed the responsibilities, and yet
ignored the most solemn of them all. Moved by a powerful,
all-controlling emotion, Theodore sank on his knees beside the silent
form, and cried out in an agony of prayer--"Oh, _my_ Father, thou hast
taken this soul away beyond