“Has it come to this?” he said to himself, as if wondering at his condition.  “Am I become incapable of participating in the happiness of others?  Am I a festering mass of selfishness?  O! once it was not so.  I will resist these thoughts which come from the bottomless pit.  They shall not master me.  They are the temptations of the Evil One.  But can I resist them?  Have I not grieved away the spirit?  Is there place for repentance?  Am I not like Esau, who sought it in vain with many tears?  If he was refused the grace of God, why not I?  Why not I, that I may go to my own place?  Already I feel and know my destiny.  I feel it in the terrible looking for of judgment.  I feel it in that I do not love my neighbor.  If I did, would I not sympathize in his happiness?  Would this wretched self for ever interpose?  I never knew myself before.  I now know the unutterable vileness of my heart.  I would hide it from Thee, my God.  I would hide it from Thy holy angels—­from myself.”

That day, Mr. Armstrong stirred not from the house, as long as the sun remained above the horizon.  The golden sunshine deepened his mental gloom.  Nor to his eyes was it golden.  It was a coppery, unnatural light.  It looked poisonous.  It seemed as if the young leaves of spring ought to wither in its glare.

He heard the laugh of a man in the street, and started as if he had been stung.  It sounded like the mockery of a fiend.  Was the laugh directed at him?  He started, and ran to the window, with a feeling of anger, to see who it was that was triumphing over his misery.  He looked up and down the street, but could see no one.  The disappointment still further irritated him.  Was he to be refused the poor satisfaction of knowing who had wounded him?  Was the assassin to be permitted to stab him in the back?  Was he not to be allowed to defend himself?  He returned and resumed his seat, trembling all over.  Faith’s canary bird was singing, at the top of its voice.  Armstrong turned and looked at it.  The little thing, with fluttering wings and elevated head, and moving a foot, as if beating time, poured out a torrent of melody.  The sounds, its actions, grated on his feelings.  He rose and removed it into another room.

He folded his arms, his head fell upon his chest, and he shut his eyes to exclude the light.  “I am out of harmony with all creation,” he said.  “I am fit for a place where no bird ever sings.  This is the evidence of my doom.  Only the blessed can be in harmony with God’s works.  Heaven is harmony—­the music of his laws.  Evil is discord—­myself am discord.”

Faith had still some influence over him, though even at her entrance he started “like a guilty thing surprised.”  Her presence was a charm to abate the violence of the hurricane.  He could not resist the gentle tones of her voice, and at the spell his calmed spirit trembled into comparative repose.  Armstrong acknowledged it to himself as an augury of good.