offered, without a moment’s hesitation.  So, not content with doing well in a safe path, I must step aside, and try my strength at climbing more rapidly, even though danger threatened on the left and on the right; even though I dragged others down in my hot and perilous scramble upwards.  I lost my footing—­I stumbled—­I fell, crashing down to the very bottom of the hill, half way up which I had gone so safely ere the greedy fiend took possession of me.”

“And have not been really hurt by the fall,” I remarked.

“I have suffered pain—­terrible pain; for I am of a sensitive nature,” he replied.  “But in the convulsions of agony, nothing but the outside shell of a false life has been torn away.  The real man is unharmed.  And now that the bitter disappointment and sadness that attend humiliation are over, I can say that my gain is greater than my loss.  I would rather grope in the vale of poverty all my life, and keep my conscience clean, than stand high up among the mountains of prosperity with a taint thereon.

“God knows best,” he added, after a pause, speaking in a more subdued tone.  “And I recognize the hand of His good providence in this wreck of my worldly hopes.  To gain riches at the sacrifice of just principles is to gather up dirt and throw away goodly pearls.”

“How is it with your family?” I asked.  “They must feel the change severely.”

“They did feel it.  But the pain is over with them also.  Poor weak human nature!  My girls were active and industrious at home, and diligent at school, while my circumstances were limited.  But, as money grew more plentiful, and I gave them a larger house to live in, and richer clothes to wear, they wearied of their useful employments, and neglected their studies.  Pride grew apace, and vanity walked hand in hand with pride.  They were less considerate of one another, and less loving to their parents.  If I attempted to restrain their fondness for dress, or check their extravagance, they grew sullen, or used unfilial language.  Like their father, they could not bear prosperity.  But all is changed now.  Misfortune has restored them to a better state of mind.  They emulate each other in service at home; their minds dwell on useful things; they are tender of their mother and considerate of their father.  Home is a sweeter place to us all than it has been for a long time.”

“And so what the world calls misfortune has proved a blessing.”

“Yes.  In permitting my feet to stumble; in letting me fall from the height I had obtained, God dealt with me and mine in infinite love.  We give false names to things.  We call that good which only represents good, which is of the heart and life, and not in external possessions.  He has taken from me the effigy that He may give me the good itself.”

“If all men could find like you,” I said, “a sweet kernel at the centre of misfortune’s bitter nut.”

“All men may find it if they will,” he answered, “for the sweet kernel is there.”