"Your remarks are correct in theory, my friend," replied Alfred, "but they cannot be put into practice. Sooner can the Mississippi river be drained of its waters than the inexorable Past be obliterated from the mind of man. It must ever remain in his memory, and though at times it may lie dormant, the slightest event will be all that is necessary to awake it into life. The cares of the present may deprive it of active participation in the mind; anxiety for the future may prevent the mind of man from actively recurring to it, but it still remains indelibly imprinted on the memory, and though a century of years should pass, and the changes of Time render the Present opposite to the Past, the latter can never be forgotten. Think not that coming years can render me oblivious to my present affliction. They may make dull the agony I now feel, and perchance I will then wear as bright a smile as I did in years ago, but the remembrance of my wife and child will never be blunted; no, nor shall a shade cross over my heart, and dim the affection I had for them, while living, and for their memory now that they are in the grave." Alfred was right. The words of Harry were a theory which sounds well enough for advice, but which can never be placed into practice. The Past! who can forget it? The Present, with its load of cares; with its hours of happiness and prosperity; with its doubts and anxieties, is not sufficiently powerful to extinguish remembrance of the Past. The Future, to which we all look for the accomplishment of our designs--the achievement of our ambitious purposes--cannot remove the Past. Both combined are unequal to the task, and the daily life of man proves it so. The Past! what a train of thought does it suggest! Aye, the Past, with its pleasures and misfortunes. It haunts our consciences, and is ever before our eyes. The murderer, though safely concealed from the world, and who may have escaped punishment by man for years, still has the Past to confront and harass his mind. Penitence and prayer may lighten, but can never remove it. Surrounded though he be with health and happiness, the demon of the Past will confront him ever, and make his life wretched. Oh, what a fearful thing is that same Past, we hear spoken of lightly by those whose lives have been along a smooth and flowery track over the same, and unmarked by a single adversity or crime. A single deviation from the path of honor, integrity and virtue, and as years roll on the memory of those past hours will cause bitter self-reproach, for it will be irremovable. So with past happiness as it is with misery and crime. The beggar can never forget his past joys in contemplating the present or hoping for the future, but it must ever remain a source of never-failing regret and the fountain of unhealable wounds.