a long time. When he recovered, he kept himself drunk for three weeks,
and smashed a number of policemen, and was "put up," just so as to
forget the bright little fellow who had been the pride of his heart.

This great loss, however, must have opened his nature to other
influences. When the deep religious sympathy pervaded the community,
there came over him suddenly one of those Revelations which, in some
form or other, visit most human beings at least once in their lives.
They are almost too deep and intricate to be described in these pages.
The human soul sees itself, for the first time, as reflected in the
mirror of divine purity. It has for the moment a conception of what
Christ is, and what Love means. Singularly enough, the thought and
sentiment which took possession of this ruffian and debauchee and
prize-fighter, and made him as one just cured of leprosy, was the
Platonic conception of Love, and that embodied in the ideal form of
Christianity. Under it he became as a little child; he abandoned his
vices, gave up his associates, and resolved to consecrate his life to
humanity and the service of Him to whom he owed so much. The spirit,
when I first met him, with which he used to encounter his old companions
must have been something like that of the early Christian converts.

Thus, an old boon companion meets him in the street: "Why, Orful, what
the h--ll's this about your bein' converted?"

And the other turns to him with such pent-up feeling bursting forth,
telling him of the new things that have come to him, that the "rough" is
quite melted, and begins a better course of life.

Again, he is going down a narrow street, when he suddenly sees coming up
a bitter enemy. His old fire flames up, but he quenches it, walks to the
other, and, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he takes him by
the hand and tells him "the old story" which is always new, and the two
ruffians forget their feuds and are friends.

Could the old Greek philosopher have seen this imbruted athlete, so
mysteriously and suddenly fired with the ideal of Love till his past
crimes seemed melted in the heat of this great sentiment, and his rough
nature appeared transformed, he would have rejoiced in beholding at
length the living embodiment of an ideal theory for so many ages held
but as the dream of a poetic philosopher.

Gardner was only a modern and striking instance of the natural and
eternal power of Christianity.

We resolved to put