“I hope so, my friend:  I’ve tried to do my duty.”

“Ay, ay,” put in Cap; “intention is half the battle; and though you would have done better had you hove-to in the offing and sent a craft in to feel how the land lay, things might have turned out differently:  no one here doubts that you meant all for the best, and no one anywhere else, I should think, from what I’ve seen of this world and read of t’other.”

“I did; yes.  I meant all for the best.”

“Father!  Oh, my beloved father!”

“Magnet is taken aback by this blow, Master Pathfinder, and can say or do but little to carry her father over the shoals; so we must try all the harder to serve him a friendly turn ourselves.”

“Did you speak, Mabel?” Dunham asked, turning his eyes in the direction of his daughter, for he was already too feeble to turn his body.

“Yes, father; rely on nothing you have done yourself for mercy and salvation; trust altogether in the blessed mediation of the Son of God!”

“The chaplain has told us something like this, brother.  The dear child may be right.”

“Ay, ay, that’s doctrine, out of question.  He will be our Judge, and keeps the log-book of our acts, and will foot them all up at the last day, and then say who has done well and who has done ill.  I do believe Mabel is right; but then you need not be concerned, as no doubt the account has been fairly kept.”

“Uncle! —­ Dearest father! this is a vain illusion!  Oh, place all your trust in the mediation of our Holy Redeemer!  Have you not often felt your own insufficiency to effect your own wishes in the commonest things?  And how can you imagine yourself, by your own acts, equal to raise up a frail and sinful nature sufficiently to be received into the presence of perfect purity?  There is no hope for any but in the mediation of Christ!”

“This is what the Moravians used to tell us,” said Pathfinder to Cap in a low voice; “rely on it, Mabel is right.”

“Right enough, friend Pathfinder, in the distances, but wrong in the course.  I’m afraid the child will get the Sergeant adrift, at the very moment when we had him in the best of the water and in the plainest part of the channel.”

“Leave it to Mabel, leave it to Mabel; she knows better than any of us, and can do no harm.”

“I have heard this before,” Dunham at length replied.  “Ah, Mabel! it is strange for the parent to lean on the child at a moment like this!”

“Put your trust in God, father; lean on His holy and compassionate Son.  Pray, dearest, dearest father; pray for His omnipotent support.”

“I am not used to prayer.  Brother, Pathfinder —­ Jasper, can you help me to words?”