“Yes; and it has always been so,” he answered, without hesitation.  “It is painful to be under the surgeon’s knife,” he added.  “We shrink back, shivering, at the sight of his instruments.  The flesh is agonized.  But when all is over, and the greedy tumor, or wasting cancer, that was threatening life, is gone, we rejoice and are glad.”

He sighed, and looked sober for a little while, as thought went back, and memory gave too vivid a realization of what had been, and then resumed: 

“I can see now, that what seemed to me, and is still regarded by others as a great misfortune, was the best thing that could have taken place.  I have lost, but I have gained; and the gain is greater than the loss.  It has always been so.  Out of every trouble or disaster that has befallen me in life, I have come with a deep conviction that my feet stumbled because they were turning into paths that would lead my soul astray.  However much I may love myself and the world, however much I may seek my own, below all and above all is the conviction that time is fleeting, and life here but as a span, that if I compass the whole world, and lose my own soul, I have made a fearful exchange.  There are a great many things regarded by business men as allowable.  They are so common in trade, that scarcely one man in a score questions their morality; so common, that I have often found myself drifting into their practice, and abandoning for a time the higher principles in whose guidance there alone is safety.  Misfortune seems to have dogged my steps; but in this pause of my life—­in this state of calmness—­I can see that misfortune is my good; for, not until my feet were turning into ways that lead to death, did I stumble and fall.”

“Are you not too hard in self-judgment?” I said.

“No,” he answered.  “The case stands just here.  You know, I presume, the immediate cause of my recent failure in business.”

“A sudden decline in stocks.”

The color deepened on his cheeks.

“Yes; that is the cause.  Now, years ago, I settled it clearly with my own conscience that stock speculation was wrong; that it was only another name for gambling, in which, instead of rendering service to the community, your gains were, in nearly all cases, measured by another’s loss.  Departing from this just principle of action, I was tempted to invest a large sum of money in a rising stock, that I was sure would continue to advance until it reached a point where, in selling I could realize a net gain of ten thousand dollars.  I was doing well.  I was putting by from two to three thousand dollars every year, and was in a fair way to get rich.  But, as money began to accumulate, I grew more and more eager in its acquirement, and less concerned about the principles underlying every action, until I passed into a temporary state of moral blindness.  I was less scrupulous about securing large advantages in trade, and would take the lion’s share, if opportunity