t he not to like to do so? and
if so, will not reason teach him to like to do what he ought? I can
conceive with rapture the pride, the honour, the affection with
which, when the Fixed Period had come, I could have led my father
into the college, there to enjoy for twelve months that preparation
for euthanasia which no cares for this world would be allowed to
disturb. All the existing ideas of the grave would be absent. There
would be no further struggles to prolong the time of misery which
nature had herself produced. That temptation to the young to begrudge
to the old the costly comforts which they could not earn would be no
longer fostered. It would be a pride for the young man to feel that
his parent's name had been enrolled to all coming time in the bright
books of the college which was to be established for the Fixed
Period. I have a son of my own, and I have carefully educated him to
look forward to the day in which he shall deposit me there as the
proudest of his life. Circumstances, as I shall relate in this story,
have somewhat interfered with him; but he will, I trust, yet come
back to the right way of thinking. That I shall never spend that last
happy year within the walls of the college, is to me, from a selfish
point of view, the saddest part of England's reassuming our island as
a colony.

My readers will perceive that I am an enthusiast. But there are
reforms so great that a man cannot but be enthusiastic when he has
received into his very soul the truth of any human improvement. Alas
me! I shall never live to see carried out the glory of this measure
to which I have devoted the best years of my existence. The college,
which has been built under my auspices as a preparation for the happy
departure, is to be made a Chamber of Commerce. Those aged men who
were awaiting, as I verily believe, in impatience the coming day of
their perfected dignity, have been turned loose in the world, and
allowed to grovel again with mundane thoughts amidst the idleness of
years that are useless. Our bridges, our railways, our Government are
not provided for. Our young men are again becoming torpid beneath
the weight imposed upon them. I was, in truth, wrong to think that
so great a reform could be brought to perfection within the days of
the first reformers. A divine idea has to be made common to men's
minds by frequent ventilation before it will be seen to be fit
for humanity. Did not the first Christians all suffer affli