er mother have been at her age. She is
now an outcast--and an adulteress."

The Pastor turned away his face, for in the silence he heard groans, and
the hollow voice again spoke.--

"Through many dismal days and nights have I striven to forgive her, but
never for many hours together have I been enabled to repent my curse.
For on my knees I implored God to curse her--her head--her eyes--her
breast--her body--mind, heart, and soul--and that she might go down a
loathsome leper to the grave."

"Remember what He said to the woman--'Go, and sin no more!'"

"The words have haunted me all up and down the hills--His words and
mine; but mine have always sounded liker justice at last--for my nature
was created human--and human are all the passions that pronounced that
holy or unholy curse!"

"Yet you would not curse her now--were she lying here at your feet--or
if you were standing by her deathbed?"

"Lying here at my feet! Even here--on this very spot--not blasted, but
green through all the year--within the shelter of these two rocks--she
did lie at my feet in her beauty--and as I thought her innocence--my own
happy bride! Hither I brought her to be blest--and blest I was even up
to the measure of my misery. This world is hell to me now--but then it
was heaven!"

"These awful names are of the mysteries beyond the grave."

"Hear me and judge. She was an orphan; all her father's and mother's
relations were dead, but a few who were very poor. I married her, and
secured her life against this heartless and wicked world. That child was
born--and while it grew like a flower--she left it--and its father--me
who loved her beyond light and life, and would have given up both for
her sake."

"And have not yet found heart to forgive her--miserable as she needs
must be--seeing she has been a great sinner!"

"Who forgives? The father his profligate son, or disobedient daughter?
No; he disinherits his firstborn, and suffers him to perish, perhaps by
an ignominious death. He leaves his only daughter to drag out her days
in penury--a widow with orphans. The world may condemn, but is silent;
he goes to church every Sabbath, but no preacher denounces punishment on
the unrelenting, the unforgiving parent. Yet how easily might he have
taken them both back to his heart, and loved them better than ever! But
she poisoned my cup of life when it seemed to overflow with heaven. Had
God dashed it from my lips, I could have borne my doom. But with