with His own glory in their happiness as the
end in view; that the Lord Jesus Christ must be to a man "the chiefest
among ten thousand, and altogether lovely," else He is to him nothing at
all, and that he could be convinced of all these truths only by the Holy
Spirit.
It were vain to attempt to tell all that this good man said to the
unhappy miner, but certain it is that from that time forth David became
himself again--and yet not himself. The desire to wrestle and fight and
race returned in a new form. He began to wrestle with principalities
and powers, to fight the good fight of faith, and to run the race set
before him in the gospel. The old hearty smile and laugh and cheery
disposition also returned, and the hopeful spirit, and so much of the
old robust health and strength, that it seemed as if none of the evil
effects of the ruptured blood-vessel remained. So David Trevarrow went,
as of old, daily to the mine. It is true that riches did not flow in
upon him any faster than before, but he did not mind that much, for he
had discovered another mine, in which he toiled at nights after the
day's toil was over, and whence he extracted treasure of greater value
than copper or tin, or even gold--treasure which he scattered in a
Sabbath school with liberal hand, and found himself all the richer for
his prodigality.
Occasionally, after prolonged labour in confined and bad air, a faint
trace of the old complaint showed itself when he reached the top of the
ladders, but he was not now depressed by that circumstance as he used to
be. He was past his prime at the period of which we write, and a
confirmed bachelor.
To return from this digression: David Trevarrow made up his mind, as we
have said, to "go on," and, being a man of resolute purpose, he went on;
seized his hammer and chisel, and continued perseveringly to smite the
flinty rock, surrounded by thick darkness, which was not dispelled but
only rendered visible by the feeble light of the tallow candle that
flared at his side.
Over his head rolled the billows of the Atlantic; the whistling wind
howled among the wild cliffs of the Cornish coast, but they did not
break the deep silence of the miner's place of midnight toil. Heaven's
artillery was rending the sky, and causing the hearts of men to beat
slow with awe. The great boulders ground the pebbles into sand as they
crashed to and fro above him, but he heard them not--or if he did, the
sound reached him
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