and penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh!" he exclaimed,
clasping his hands and looking up, "I was thankful, only yesterday,
that I could remember this unhappy son when he was an innocent
child. But what a comfort it is, now, to think that even God
himself has that remembrance of him!"

Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrank, like a murderer.

"Ah!" feebly moaned the man upon the bed. "The waste since then,
the waste of life since then!"

"But he was a child once," said the old man. "He played with
children. Before he lay down on his bed at night, and fell into
his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor mother's knee.
I have seen him do it, many a time; and seen her lay his head upon
her breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her and me, to
think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our hopes and plans
for him were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, that
nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better than the
fathers upon earth! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by the
errors of Thy children! take this wanderer back! Not as he is, but
as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often seemed to
cry to us!"

As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, for whom he
made the supplication, laid his sinking head against him for
support and comfort, as if he were indeed the child of whom he
spoke.

When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the silence that