nce-stricken, diseased in body--almost spent; and here he
would have died, had not Providence directed the impotent mind of the
imbecile to the spot, and willed it otherwise. I have narrated, as
shortly as I might, the history of my earliest college friend, as I
received it from his brother's lips. There remain but a few words to
say--the pleasantest that I have had to speak of him James Temple did
not die a hardened man. If there be truth in tears, in prayers of
penitence that fall from him who stand upon the borders of eternity--who
can gain nothing by hypocrisy, and may lose by it the priceless treasure
of an immortal soul--if serenity and joy are signs of a repentance
spoken, a forgiveness felt, then Heaven had assuredly been merciful with
the culprit, and had remitted his offences, as Heaven can, and will,
remit the vilest.

I remained in the village of Belton until I saw all that remained of the
schoolfellows deposited in the earth. Their bodies had been easily
obtained--that of the idiot, indeed, before life had quitted it. The
evening that followed their burial, I passed with William Temple. Many a
sad reminiscence occurred to him which he communicated to me without
reserve, many a wanton act of coarse licentiousness, many a warning
unheeded, laughed at, spurned. It is a mournful pleasure for the mind,
as it dwells upon the doings of the departed, to build up its own
theories, and to work out a history of what might have been in happier
circumstances--a useless history of _ifs_. "If my brother had been
looked to when he was young," said William Temple more than once, "he
would have turned out differently. My uncle spoiled him. As a child, he
was never corrected. If he wished for a toy, he had but to scream for
it. If, at school, he had been fortunate enough to contract his
friendships with young men of worth and character, their example would
have won him to rectitude, for he was always a lad easily led." And
again, "If he had but listened to the advice which, when it would have
served him, I did not fail daily and hourly to offer him, he might have
lived for years, and been respected--for many know, I lost no
opportunity to draw him from his course of error." Alas! how vain, how
idle was this talk--how little it could help the clod that was already
crumbling in the earth--the soul already at the judgment-seat; yet with
untiring earnestness the brother persisted in this strain, and with
every new hypothesis foun