"At college he was the best fellow going. He was full of fun and gaiety, and scorned the idea of living like a recluse, or not using 'God's good gifts' to the full. At first he meant no harm, and was sure he could keep straight; but there was a gradual change in him. He began to keep later hours; he was tempted into more company than he had time or money for; he was ridiculed at first for his moderation, but soon threw away all caution, and took as much as he felt inclined. "True, he suffered for it bitterly. There were days of wretchedness and anguish, days in which he cursed himself for his folly; but the insatiable longing came over him again, and once more he fell into it. "My boy, what his parents and friends suffered for him no tongue can tell. "His companions laughed at him as a good joke; where they could stop short, he had fallen. "After a while he did not care to see his friends, and I lost sight of him. By a seeming accident, I was visiting a patient in a lodging-house in the West End, and was asked by the landlady to step in and see another lodger, who was very ill. "I did so; and there I found a dying man, this college friend of whom I have been telling you. "He was dozing, and I sat down by his side. "Presently he opened his eyes. 'You, Arundel?' he said, feebly stretching out his hand and holding mine in his weak grasp. 'Yes; you were right, and I was wrong.' "'It is not too late,' I said to him. "'No;' he answered. 'I am like the thief on the cross; I have looked and lived. I am like the prodigal son, who, when he had spent all, came to himself and went to his father.' "Then, my boy, I bent down and kissed him; kissed that poor worn-out, prematurely old face, which I had loved in our youthful days; and we wept together such tears as men weep. "He told me, when we could say anything, that while he had laid on this death-bed, words spoken to him long ago, entreaties long disregarded, Scripture despised and trampled on, had come up before him, and had stared him in the face. "He told me how despair had held him in its awful grip, and then how one night he had, as it were, seen a battle, in which One had come out victorious—One mighty to save. This One had agonized for his lost soul. This One had even died for his lost soul; and now came to him with the signs of victory in His blood-stained hands, and said to him, 'I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.' "Then, Arthur, he told me he had believed that conquering One. "He knew how degraded, helpless, wicked, he himself was, but here was One who said, 'No one shall pluck thee out of My hand;' and he laid his sin-sick soul in the hand of Jesus, and rested his weary head on the heart of Jesus, and was forgiven. "This morning, my boy, he has gone to be with that Saviour who bought him; no longer defiled, miserable, sinful; but washed, renewed, victorious, through Him who died for him."