es of the latter might have indicated
the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on his hands, his
teeth were firmly closed, and his frame was tremulous at intervals with
a nervous agitation.

"Friend Tobias," inquired the old man, compassionately, "hast thou found
no comfort in these many blessed passages of Scripture?"

"Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct,"
replied Pearson, without lifting his eyes. "Yea, and when I have
hearkened carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless, and intended
for another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the book," he added, in
a tone of sullen bitterness. "I have no part in its consolations, and
they do but fret my sorrow the more."

"Nay, feeble brother, be not as one who hath never known the light,"
said the elder Quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. "Art thou he that
wouldst be content to give all, and endure all, for conscience' sake;
desiring even peculiar trials, that thy faith might be purified, and thy
heart weaned from worldly desires? And wilt thou sink beneath an
affliction which happens alike to them that have their portion here
below, and to them that lay up treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy
burden is yet light."

"It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!" exclaimed Pearson, with
the impatience of a variable spirit. "From my youth upward I have been a
man marked out for wrath; and year by year, yea, day after day, I have
endured sorrows, such as others know not in their lifetime. And now I
speak not of the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to
ignominy, the ease and plentifulness of all things to danger, want, and
nakedness. All this I could have borne, and counted myself blessed. But
when my heart was desolate with many losses, I fixed it upon the child
of a stranger, and he became dearer to me than all my buried ones; and
now he too must die, as if my love were poison. Verily, I am an
accursed man, and I will lay me down in the dust, and lift up my head no
more."

"Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to rebuke thee; for I also
have had my hours of darkness, wherein I have murmured against the
cross," said the old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in the hope of
distracting his companion's thoughts from his own sorrows. "Even of late
was the light obscured within me, when the men of blood had banished me
on pain of death, and the constables led me onward from village to
village, toward the wildern