PAGE 1

UNOPENED PARCELS. 123 here, too; saying which I pushed the volume into his hand. ITe took it and read, and as he did so a strange feeling seized me of how near the distant past, of whichjI had not thought for so long, had come to the present. It was like having that other evening over again, only I was conscious of understanding 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 holiness 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-