Shakspeare has said that—­

    “Ofttimes to win us to our harm
    The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
    Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
    In deepest consequence.”

And why should not the same “honest trifles” win us to good.

He then explained to me that eight years previous he was in Burlington, Wisconsin, having wandered far from the fold in which a patient, loving, Christian mother had faithfully tended her flock, teaching them the wisdom of divine truth and loving lessons of duty to God and man.

He had entered a saloon and sat down to a card-table with a congenial companion, when suddenly lifting his eyes a lady stood beside him offering him a little book, and something in the expression of that face riveted his attention and penetrated the depths of his soul, inspiring resolves new and strange.  While years had passed since that time, he had never forgotten the lineaments which had changed the whole tenor of his life.  Both his companion and himself bought books, threw down their cards, and from his own assurance he has never since been tempted to indulge in a game.

The next winter he made his peace with God and became a consistent and steadfast member of the Congregational Church.

The following spring he was married to one who was in every way fitted to minister to his higher impulses and lead him to a holier life, and while he has ever since been actively engaged in every good “word and work,” he is especially engrossed with Sabbath School duties, in which field he has planted many a seed, from which has been reaped richest harvests and fairest fruitage.

Their cozy, little home, is a fair and faithful mirror, reflecting the unostentatious, goodness, purity and love which characterizes every act of their private lives, whose peaceful, even tenor is indicated in the tasteful apartments, pervaded with purity and touched with the delicate tracery of taste.  Fair flowers grace almost every nook of this truly Eden-home, and its bright blooming garden is a fitting type of their lives, blossoming with goodness and fragrant with the incense of holiness.

It is not strange that these dear people seemed to me like loved relations; our meeting like a reunion with some pure spirits with whom my heart had held communion in other days, their voices coming to me like some sweet strain of unforgotten music.

I left them, feeling grateful that my little book had been the humble instrument of so much good, and was happy in the thought that it had been so thoroughly read and discussed in the little Sabbath School, that I had many warm friends in Sycamore.

Before I left he pleadingly besought me never to pass by a saloon in my canvassing tours, for I little knew the good my presence might bring about.  I have faithfully followed his advice, ever buoyed by the hope of some equally happy result, and never having met with an indignity or repulse, this class of people ranking among my most generous patrons.