The young man waits the end of this colloquy with a smile on his countenance.  “I have no doubt I can work your son’s reform-perhaps make him an honor to the family—­”

“He honor the family!” she interrupts, twitches the shawl about her shoulders, and permits herself to get into a state of general excitement.  “I should like to see one who has disgraced the family as much as he has think of honoring it—­”

“Through kindness and forbearance, Madam, a great deal may be done,” the young man replies.

Now, you are very provoking, young man-very.  Let other people alone; go your way home, and study your Bible.”  And with this the old lady calls Rebecca, the decrepit slave who opened the door, and directs her to show the young man out.  “There now!” she says testily, turning to the marked page of her Milton.

The young man contemplates her for a few moments, but, having no alternative, leaves reluctantly.

On reaching the stoop he encounters the tall, handsome figure of a man, whose face is radiant with smiles, and his features ornamented with neatly-combed Saxon hair and beard, and who taps the old negress under the chin playfully, as she says, “Missus will be right glad to see you, Mr. Snivel-that she will.”  And he bustles his way laughing into the presence of the old lady, as if he had news of great importance for her.

CHAPTER IV.

A few reflections on the cure of vice.

Disappointed, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his mission, the young man muses over the next best course to pursue.  He has the inebriate’s welfare at heart; he knows there is no state of degradation so low that the victim cannot, under proper care, be reclaimed from it; and he feels duty calling loudly to him not to stand trembling on the brink, but to enter the abode of the victim, and struggle to make clean the polluted.  Vice, he says to himself, is not entailed in the heart; and if you would modify and correct the feelings inclined to evil, you must first feed the body, then stimulate the ambition; and when you have got the ambition right, seek a knowledge of the heart, and apply to it those mild and judicious remedies which soften its action, and give life to new thoughts and a higher state of existence.  Once create the vine of moral rectitude, and its branches will soon get where they can take care of themselves.  But to give the vine creation in poor soil, your watching must exhibit forbearance, and your care a delicate hand.  The stubbornly-inclined nature, when coupled with ignorance, is that in which vice takes deepest root, as it is, when educated, that against which vice is least effectual.  To think of changing the natural inclination of such natures with punishment, or harsh correctives, is as useless as would be an attempt to stop the ebbing and flowing of the tide.