‘UNOPENED PARCELS. 133 here, too ;” saying which I pushed the volume into his hand. He took it and read, and as he did so a strange feeling seized me of how near the distant past, of which I had not thought for so long, had come tothe present. It was like having that other evening over again, only I was conscious of under- standing so much better and caring so much more now. Certainly I had not grown into my teens without a change. But I sat on the same seat, in the same place, and the same voice spoke at my side: “This is the true elixir of hope for poor weak humanity, Honor, if one could but administer it where it is needed. Men need to be saved from self-contempt as well as guilt, or they easily drop from fallibility to recklessness ; and no argument could be so effectual as this—that sin repented of may be the stepping-stone to a more stable holi- ness than the untried innocence even of another Adam, were that to be had. May be is all I dare to say, remember. Whether it shall be rests © with each individual himself. It is a great truth, and I wish I could spread faith in it to the four quarters of the globe— :