telling less than I felt, when I say that I could scarcely sleep for thinking of my newfound treasures.  You need to remember what it is to dwell in a rough country, isolated and remote from towns, to appreciate my experience.  To me, coming to Whitestown was a translation to Paradise.  It seems extravagant, yet it is true, that I met there those who were dearer than my life and for whom I would have died.  The first warm friendships of youth are the purest and whitest flowers that bloom in the soul.  If these are blighted, it is forever.  Such flowers in any one life can never grow again.

“And this brings me to that sad day when on the play-ground Ray struck at me, and through me at my dear, loving mother.  As he spoke those cruel words the world grew dark about me, the dread fear which I had subdued revived with tenfold power, and upon my heart came the pangs of an indescribable anguish.  Oh, the chill, the death-like chill, that froze the current of my affections as I saw the faces of those I loved averted!

“I went to my room and tried to reflect, but I could not.  The shock was too great.  During the week that followed I was most of the time in my silent room.  I may well call it silent, for the footsteps to which I had been accustomed came no more, and the comrades in whose friendship I had such delight no longer sought my company.  That dreadful week was the turning-point in my life.  As it drew toward its close I realized to some extent what I had been through, as one does who is recovering from a severe illness.  I knew that day and night I had wept and moaned and could see no hope, no ray of light, and that I had at times forgotten my religion and blasphemed.  It is true, my dear friend, that I mocked my God.  Do not judge me hastily in this.  I was without discipline or experience, and I saw that for all sorrow except mine there was a remedy.  Even for sin there is repentance and redemption, and the pains of hell itself may be avoided.  But for my trouble there could be no relief.  The thought that I was accursed from the day of my birth, that no effort, no sacrifice, no act of heroism, on my part could ever redeem me, haunted my soul, and I knew that it must haunt me from that time onward and forever.

“I need hardly tell you, with your insight and knowledge, that these inward struggles led toward a not unusual conclusion.  I allude to the determination to which multitudes of souls have been driven in all ages, to escape the tortures of disgrace.  I turned away from humanity and sought that fearful desert of individual loneliness and isolation which is now more sad and real to me than any outward object can be.  To live in the voiceless solitude and tread the barren sands unfriended is too much for a strong man with all the aids that philosophy can give him.  But when we see one in the first flush of youth, wholly innocent, yet turning his footsteps to the great desert to get away from the scorn of lovers and friends,