e, you have the substance of Martha's sad
story. I believe it was absolutely true. I was deeply moved, by her
abject misery and humiliation. A great wave of tender sympathy, swelled
in my heart; blotting out all thoughts of self. I gave her back her
engagement, and bade her go free; free to marry whomsoever her heart had
chosen; assured of my forgiveness, and of my wish for her future
happiness. I need not repeat her grateful thanks. From this time
forward, our lives were widely separated.

"During the long tedious months that followed, I was going through a
bitter, humiliating experience. I strove by every effort to so interest
myself in my church work, that I might forget my griefs and my
disappointments. In this, I failed utterly. I found to my amazement,
that I did not possess a thorough belief or confidence, in the efficacy
of the atonement, the very ground work of the entire scheme of Christian
salvation. Without this belief, I could not hope to do effective work in
the ministry. No doubt, this was the cause of my lack of interest in my
pastoral duties; the one thing, during this time of trials, which most
disturbed my mental equilibrium, and added to the intensity of my
sufferings. My growing antipathy towards all kinds of church work, daily
increased the mental tension, caused by anxious seasons of watching,
praying, and fighting, against the farther dominancy of this monstrous
antipathy. All opposing efforts proved useless. With each succeeding
week, my Sunday services became more burdensome, more perfunctory, more
unsatisfactory, more self-accusing. At last, in self defense, the church
trustees proposed my taking a year's vacation, for recuperation.

"This welcome respite, I gladly accepted. My vacation, is now nearly
finished. I cannot go back to my church. I do not wish to go. I realize,
that I am wholly unfitted for its duties. I feel, that I have made life
a failure! In fact, Fillmore, you see before you in your friend George
Gaylord, a man who is aimlessly drifting on the sea of life, like a ship
without a rudder. A man not yet thirty, without a home, without
ambition, hope or purpose! Possibly, I may be in the clutches of some
approaching attack of nervous prostration, I hope not, I am sure!

"You must pardon my prolixity, Fillmore. I will now give you the reason
for my present visit to Solaris. After my mother became very ill, some
weeks before her death, she received a letter from Caroline Houghton, a