best he
might.

When he had finished his letter he prepared to go out again. His
landlady brought him some luncheon, but he could not touch it. He went
first to his ragged school, and there the sight of those children of
crime and infamy recalled his little niece to his mind, and made his
heart sink still lower with the fear of what she might become. Never had
he spoken with such feeling to the motley throng that stood about him as
he did that day. Then he had to thread some of the haunts whence those
children came to seek out the miserable parents to whom they had been a
sort of introduction, and never before had he experienced so forcibly
that he was their brother, even theirs, as now that he knew that his
sister's husband was 'a thief and a forger;' he could almost fancy that
they already pointed to him as belonging, at least, to one as degraded
as themselves.

That evening he read prayers and lectured in one of the churches. He
lectured extempore, and it was noted by all his congregation that more
than once his feelings nearly overcame him. They thought and talked of
the fact, when, at a later period, they heard of his family sorrow. But
they all said that his 'word was with power,' and there was many a moist
eye amongst them as he warned them, in language made even more forcible
than usual by the events of the day, against the pleasures and vices of
the world.

After the service many of the school teachers and Scripture-readers met
him in the vestry to have their work allotted, and their word of advice
and encouragement. Again he pressed upon them the subject brought home
to his heart, that of resisting in youth the 'temptations of the world,
the flesh, and the devil.'

His youthful regiment of soldiers talked to one another afterwards of
the earnestness and piety of Him who led them on in their battle against
evil, and prayed to become more like one who was so devoted to 'fighting
that good fight,' which they had enlisted to join in.

Tired and exhausted, Rowland returned to his lodging. He tried to review
the events of the day, but in doing so, fairly broke down. He had been
striving to keep his mind in subjection by beating down his monster
enemy, pride, for the last six years; but he found that he was still
rampant within him. It was not simply the grief for a sister's distress
and a brother-in-law's sin that he felt, but strong personal
mortification. How could he think of self, of the Perrys, of his re