heir power. Because they had nothing else but their beloved gold to
exchange for the costly products of the East, those merchants did not
scruple even to send to Moors and Saracens for slaves these poor youthful
victims who had so delivered themselves up. The Ships were filled with
many Christian children, who were thus borne by the wind and sea, as it
were, into a region of utter doubt and evil--having cause almost to regard
all old beliefs as falsehood, and all men as pitiless and unfriendly. It
is sad, my children, to think how true these things were; that so many
fair young maidens, who had been their fathers' and mothers' pride, were
forced to brook the will of Turkish lords, growing up forgetful of that
faith, which became to them as an early, foolish vision; that so many once
happy boys should wear away their lives in bondage beneath that very air
which they had fancied holier than their own. Yet these had all issued
forth in joyous expectation, filled with the hope of heaven. For so it is
always on this earth, that happiness and goodness are really to be derived
for us human beings through the commonest things. Not far away, nor in any
thing which we cannot easily do, but nearer and nearer every day to home,
and what we are concerned with, is the Joy, the Peace which glimmers out
of every living thing. When you hear of God and heaven, you ought not to
think of these as having any meaning separated from direct, unhesitating,
simple life--since God is in every growing leaf about us, no less than in
the sky; and there is a part of heaven revealed in each right action of
this day, in each smile of approval from your parents, and in all
temperate earthly joys. Had these unhappy children continued but at home,
believing like children that what was good for those older than they was
good for themselves also,--looking through their parents at life and
death, the necessities of home would have ever drawn round them a line of
certainty, sufficient even amidst that unfavourable ancient time. But as
it was, they were plunged all at once into a state of complete
helplessness, where yesterday had no connexion with today's work, where
there was nothing to remind them of their former selves, only that their
wish to wander forth to fairer scenes now exchanged for a sick
heart-longing after Home, in which many pined away. However, there was One
of the captive youths at Tunis to whom this Thought of the spot he had so
foolishly left