I am lonely! often keeping Sad vigils o'er affections dead; Some in the grave's strait chamber sleeping-- Some like bursting bubbles fled! Yet for full love my deep soul longeth-- Gently each seeking tendril bend To Thee--to whom that soul belongeth;-- Loving Redeemer! be my friend. I am guilty! oh how sinning! Against my kind--against my God;-- Hell and corruption ever winning My soul into the downward road. Insanely gloating on pollution-- Quaffing thick lees for pleasures pure-- Rend thou away each fell delusion, Holy Redeemer! be my cure!" "Do you recollect the visit to which he refers?" inquired Ida. "I was with him until late, one night, a week before his death," was the reply; "and our conversation may have inspired the thoughts he has expressed here; but I cannot say with certainty, that it did. If this temper of spirit and heart was habitual to him, what may we not hope?" "If!" exclaimed Ida, sadly. "Doubt is agonizing. It is not consistent with God's mercy that he should be consigned to never ending misery; he whose faults made us love him better; the soul of honor and integrity! I will not believe that so much that was pure and good is quenched in eternal darkness. This thought is with me night and day. What authority have men, his inferiors by nature--hardly his equals in the practice of virtue, to doom him, and hope a happier fate for the themselves?" "Who has done this?" asked Mr. Lacy, sternly. "More than one, in my hearing; and Charley was exasperated to insult a man, a church member, who exhorted him not 'to imitate his example, and thereby meet the same awful punishment.' Charley regrets now, that he spoke rudely to one his senior, and whom he had hitherto respected, but says he, 'a Christian should not forget that he is a man!'" "Nor does he," replied Morton. "From some who cross the river of Death we hear the 'All's Well,' when their feet touch the solid ground; then we may rejoice in the confident assurance that we shall meet them again. As many pass over in timid, as in despairing silence;--timidity, exchanged for rapture, on the bright shore beyond. God only knows the heart--only knows when the doomed oversteps the bounds He has appointed for his mercy; and as we hope for it ourselves, we should tremble at the thought of limiting it by our finite judgments. In this immeasurable love and pity is our trust, Ida; doubts and fearings cannot solve the mystery; we know this, however--'He doth not afflict willingly,' and 'remembereth our feeble frame.' Who pardons a child's faults more than a parent? and 'Our Father' is also _his_. Yet," continued he, "Charley erred in repulsing the warning, kindly, if injudiciously extended. The suffering we experience in our uncertainty as to his condition, should teach us to make our salvation sure, so that when our hour shall come--if a call at midnight, we may not leave those who love us, comfortless."