rs, in memory, burdened with a most touching sadness.
What could we have been thinking about? Oh, youth! how blindly selfish
thou art! How unjust in thy thoughtlessness! What would I not give to
have my father back again! This daily toil for bread, those hours of
labor, prolonged often far into the night season--how cheerful would I
be if they ministered to my father's comfort. Ah! if we had been loving
and just to him, we might have had him still. But we were neither
loving nor just. While he gathered with hard toil, we scattered. Daily
we saw him go forth hurried to his business, and nightly we saw him
come home exhausted; and we never put forth a hand to lighten his
burdens; but, to gratify our idle and vain pleasures, laid new ones
upon his stooping shoulders, until, at last, the cruel weight crushed
him to the earth!

My father! Oh, my father! If grief and tearful repentance could have
restored you to our broken circle, long since you would have returned
to us. But tears and repentance are vain. The rest and peace of
eternity is yours!

XII.

THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN.

_IT_ has been said that no man can be a gentleman who is not a
Christian. We take the converse of this proposition, and say that no
man can be a Christian who is not a gentleman.

There is something of a stir among the dry bones at this. A few eyes
look at it in a rebuking way.

"Show me that in the Bible," says one in confident negation of our
proposition.

"Ah, well, friend, we will take your case in illustration of our theme.
You call yourself a Christian?"

"By God's mercy I do."

Answered with an assured manner, as if in no doubt as to your being a
worthy bearer of that name.

"You seem to question my state of acceptance. Who made you a judge?"

Softly, friend. We do not like that gleam in your eyes. Perhaps we had
better stop here. If you cannot bear the probe, let us put on the
bandage again.

"I am not afraid of the probe, sir. Go on."

The name Christian includes all human perfection, does it not?

"Yes, and all God-like perfection in the human soul."

So we understand it. Now the fundamental doctrine of Christian life is
this:--"As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them."

"Faith in Christ is fundamental," you answer.

Unless we believe in God, we cannot obey his precepts. The
understanding must first assent, before the divine life can be brought
into a conformity with divine laws. But we a