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city lay behind him, and his eye might dwell, undisturbed by crowded roofs and wreaths of smoke, on the long chain of rocks that guarded the river on either side as it ran onward to the sea. Golden and red they rose before him, with purple shadows softening their rugged outlines, and ivy garlands hanging from every crevice, and innumerable bird-wings hovering round their heads.

He was startled from his reverie by the words, not heard for the first time, but suddenly awaking his attention: "In a few hours she will sail." And he turned to watch the stir on board a large vessel which was in preparation for departure. She was a noble vessel; a winged figure adorned the prow, one hand outstretched as if pointing to a new world, and the uplifted eyes full of hope and enterprise. As Berthold gazed upon her, thoughts of unknown lands, thoughts of unseen beauty, crowded upon him; of mighty mountains rising from green valleys upward in snowy ranges to meet the clouds; of rivers broad-breasted as the sea, and waterfalls shaking the air with perpetual thunder; of forest flowers making ladders of blazing blossoms between the earth and the boughs where bright-plumed birds were building; of sea beaches glittering with coral and shells, and green lawns strewn with the golden fruit of the lemon groves; onward and onward over the far seas his fancy flew in dreams of beauty and enterprise and freedom.

Freedom!

What was that sound of clanking chains?

A crowd was making its way down one of the narrow streets that led to the river side, and Berthold heard the tramping of unequal steps as young and old, strong and feeble, made their way towards him, but blended with the irregular sound was the timed, heavy foot-fall of marching men, and the harsh clank of chains. As they drew nearer he saw that the crowd was surrounding a band of convicts who were on their way to the harbour. Young and strong men were among that band, to only a few belonged the haggard, wizen look that is left by long converse with evil. Most of them were men who looked as if many ties should have bound them to the great brotherhood of men ; the ties of work as self-helpers and fellow-helpers, the ties of love as husbands and fathers, and now they were going forth with every tie that had ever bound them for good or for evil broken, except that which lay in their dread fellowship of guilt and condemnation, of shame and exile. Like death in life they passed through the sunlight, not looking upward in prayer nor onward in hope, and regardless of the

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pitying or inquisitive gaze of those who followed them. And that fair ship, which would ere long be spreading her white wings on the ocean, was to bear the heavy freight of those guilty, hopeless hearts. Who would bid her GOD speed! or give her welcome at her journey's end? 'Oh my boy! my own boy, my own!" cried a voice from among the bystanders, a voice thin and weak with sorrow as much as with age, but passionate in the tones with which she called the convict boy her own, repeating the words again and again, as if in them were some strong bond which no power could rend.

"My own, my darling, you shall come back to me ! I will hold on to life, though my heart is nigh broken, for one more sight of you. I will not die till they bring you back to me, my own boy, my own!"

He was the youngest of that band, almost a boy he might have been in years, but his sullen face wore a look which showed that youth and innocence had parted with him long ago, and for ever.

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"He will come back to me," said the weeping mother, turning from one to another in the crowd, though her appeals found no answer from Her figure was bent and feeble, her face which might once have been fair seemed aged by a new and sudden sorrow; yet there was life and hope in her very restlessness and loud spoken sorrow; but no life, no hope, was betokened by the bowed down figure of the woman beside her. No life, no hope, no regard for the many eyes that saw her woe, as with her forehead resting on her arms, she crouched against the rough stone wall beside which the convicts had halted, waiting the signal for departure. She called none by name, she never raised her head for one glance of recognition; once the elder woman laid her hand pityingly upon her dull uncovered hair, brown hair that looked as if the sunlight had gone from it though time had not turned it gray, but she shrank cowering from the touch of the well known hand.

"Her husband is among them," said one of the bystanders, and another added in answer to a new inquiry, "Never! he will never return, he goes for life."

Never! that was the death knell reverberating round her, shutting out all other sounds.

"It was her husband that led the other astray, poor lad!" said a Iman who had marked the two women, "and taught him to break a poor widowed mother's heart," added another. "He cared little enough for his own children, and what wonder that he brought another's child to ruin !" “There are many as bad as both left behind," laughed

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a third, and so the reproaches and scoffing words passed mercilessly over the stricken women like the rude breakers over the wreck of a stranded bark.

At length there was a lull, and all eyes turned with sudden change of expression towards one man who had newly joined the convict group. At the sight of him the old woman eagerly pressed forward, asking the assurance which each time repeated, gave strength to her terrified heart. 'My boy will come back to me; there is hope for him. They told me he should not go for life."

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"Hope for him, and hope for all," the stranger answered, and raising his voice, he bade all that cared to hear him, listen to the few words which he must speak before he left his country. For not unaided, uncared for, would those sinful souls go forth into exile; one brave in purpose and loving in heart would bear them company, one hallowed by the blessing of Him who had opened the ears of the deaf, and healed the diseased, and raised the dead to life, and who now called His servant to do even greater works than those for spirits deaf, diseased, and lifeless.

Beautiful he seemed in his early manhood, standing between that row of sullen motionless faces, and the ever varying countenances of the restless crowd. But what words could wake those or bind these even for a moment. His bright searching eye, searching for good, not evil, rested for a moment on all and then solemnly and in tranquil tones he spoke. He spoke of the sorrowing hearts that some were leaving behind, of the deserted homes and the blasted hopes; he spoke of some who left neither home nor loving hearts, whose past was a dark page of evil, whose future seemed a blank only to be filled by despair; of the stern finger of equity pointing at them as traitors to their country's good, of their fellow-men who looked on them as outcasts from among them; "and yet," he cried in a voice that soared like a bird's flight out of the darkness of an open grave, "GOD holds out to you the great gift of life in token that you are not outcasts from Him. He suffers nothing to cumber the ground; not the ripe corn, for when the harvest is come immediately He putteth in the sickle; not the dead tree, for the axe is laid to the root of it, and therefore each hour, each day He yields to your life, He sends as a token of His long-suffering mercy, as a messenger, saying, 'To-day return to Him, ye that have forsaken Him; and ye that have never known Him, come unto Him!' Oh, guilty, hopeless brothers, I believe that each one of you may work

good deeds in His service, each one of you may fight for Him the great battle against the evil one. I believe that some of you in after years may return to your native land to be a blessing to your fellowmen, and I believe that some who will return no more may be found hereafter in the land of heaven."

Victory of Faith, that overcomes the world, and the prince of the world! Faith not in GOD only, but faith in our fellow-men. Faith that will not be daunted by the cry, too late! only a little sooner,-" if Thou hadst been here"--but though they are bound in the graveclothes of sin, though they are corrupt and removed from the sight of men, yet they will go forth to raise up the lifeless spirits and lead them back to life and light! "I believe!" Like a breeze suddenly lifting the drought-stricken boughs, that sound, which rang as with a coming triumph, stirred the hearts of the hearers. Eyes were raised quivering with light, hardened features relaxed, and now and then a deep sigh broke the silence. For silent were all the mocking voices, silent too the utterances of pity and despair; captivity, exile, and shame was still the just portion of the guilty, but he who stood among them like the angel of man's better nature had cheered them and beckoned them forward, pointing to a hope beyond.

As the evening shadows were beginning to fall on the river, Berthold watched the convict ship passing on her way to the open sea, and then turning backward to the city he followed two figures clinging together,―the bereaved mother and the desolate wife, and from the lips of both he heard murmurs of love and pity and pardon. The sound of their feeble voices lingered long on his ear after their forms were lost in the darkness, mingled with the music of that voice which bore witness to the LORD and Giver of life in the presence of sin and despair.

Month after month passed away, and Berthold still dwelt in the city. In his spirit was springing up, like a living well, the wondrous grace that draws all hearts around it, even the sympathy that rejoices with the rejoicing and mourns with the mourning, and while he humbly thought he was but learning from others he lived amongst them as the minister of Him whose name, as long as sorrow remains to claim it, is called the Comforter.

All the pent up anguish of overladen hearts he poured out in strains that had power to give the long denied luxury of tears. All pure

aspirations were winged by his notes; and even spirits, long bound to the service of sin and self, paused on their dread downward path, hearing a voice from far off heights calling to them. The joyful too learnt to tune their gladness to the grand exultation of his songs, and to remember that joy as well as sorrow is a messenger from GOD, one weaning the soul from earth and the other pointing to heaven.

Many of his days were passed in the house of a poet friend, a man whose life in the eyes of most men was rich, and fair, and smooth, for who would guess a rough and thorny path lay between the sweet order of garden flowers? Few knew that the sunny lawns sloping down to the river's edge, the chestnut trees with their silver blossoms and golden autumn leaves, the thickets of fruit-laden boughs, the flowers both rare and well known that wove with bright succession a crown for every year, were for him all haunted by the memory of a hope that had died a cruel death.

Years ago his home within and without had been prepared, silently but not the less joyfully, for the coming of the fair girl bride whose growth he had watched like the growth of the leaves in spring. This flower was planted for the sake of the eager look with which she had listened to his tales of the distant land where it was no stranger; that, for the sake of the spring day when she had sung with the birds in the woodlands, and gathered like blossoms by handfuls. Books, pictures, and all fair creations of art within his doors, had too for her sake been thoughtfully chosen and hopefully loved. And within a few weeks of his long looked for joy, her heart had fled from him to another; her acquaintance of a few days, his friend of many years: so love and friendship lay dead at his feet, both in one day.

And what had been his life since? bitterness, coldness, cursing of his home treasures, and desertion of his home? Far otherwise! For one year he mourned as one so bereaved might mourn, and then his gates were opened wide to all who turned gratefully from the noise or gloom of the city. Pale faces wandered among his roses and caught something of their bloom, and anxious brows grew smooth, and troubled eyes clear, while they gazed on sculptured marble forms calm in the grandeur of their perfect beauty, or on the painter's work in fair far off lands which they might never reach.

Sweetest flowers and fruits from that garden found their way to the homes of the sick and poor; and not to the poor only, for the giver was rich in all things, and had learnt that the rich have their privations;

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