"Nothing, sir." "Will you please look again says the disappointed applicant "I came round Cape Horn ; they were to send me letters after I had been out a month and it is now six months since I have heard a word." "I told you, sir, there is nothing here for you ; the next." This time a letter is forth- coming. Stepping aside, with trembling hand the recipient tears it open and begins to read. Mark the pallor that shortly overspreads the countenance, the stiffening of the muscles of the face, the compression of the livid lip, the wave of agony that mantles the features. In a moment the blood which from every part with one accord rushed to the heart to break it, returns, but you can see as the man moves off that he is stricken as with a knife-stab, without the mut- tered " Oh God, she is dead !" The next in line may be as frantic in his joy as the other was desolate in his sorrow. All unconscious of his surroundings, he laughs aloud, kisses the precious missive, and skips and dances like a delighted school girl.
There stands one, a man of middle age, noble look- ing and apparently of decided character, intently perusing some closely written pages. He was and yet is honored by his friends at the east, w^ho say if one only escape with honor it is he. Of the church he was a trusted member, in his family an adored husband and father. So great was his own inward sense of strength and right intention that he scorned the idea of demeanino- himself, and gjave it scarcelv a thought. But like every member of the race, he knew nothino- of himself until he was tried. Cali- fornia opened his eyes, as thousands of others have been opened, and showed him a nature wholly differ- ent from what he supposed himself possessed of. Instead of high religious sentiments and moral purity hitherto enjoyed, he finds himself in the society of harlots, a gambler, an unbeliever. Yet as he reads that letter, written by a tender loving wife whose faith and trust iu him the whole world shall uot shake.
