e to do save look back upon it, an almost overwhelming sense
of his worthlessness came upon him, and he was filled with wonder that
God could love him at all.

But that He did love him, and for His Son's sake had accepted him, he
never for a moment doubted. Now that he was restored to health and
strength, he did not seek to forget those feelings, nor would he allow
his convictions of great obligations Godward to lead him nowhere. He
resolved to do some definite work for his Divine Master, and to seize
the first opportunity that presented itself.

His friendship with Frank passed into a deeper, stronger phase than
ever before. It might with much truth have been said of them as it was
of two friends of old, that the soul of Bert was knit with the soul of
Frank, and that Bert loved him as his own soul. They had so much in
common now, and they found it so delightful to strengthen one another's
hands in the Lord by talking together of His goodness.

There was one matter that troubled Frank deeply, and that formed the
subject of many a long and earnest conversation. His father was a man
about whose lack of religion there could be no doubt. He was a big,
bluff, and rather coarse-grained man, not over-scrupulous in business,
but upon the whole as honest and trustworthy as the bulk of humanity. By
dint of sheer hard work and shrewdness he had risen to a position of
wealth and importance, and, as self-made men are apt to do, laid much
more stress upon what he owed to himself than upon what he owed to his
Creator. In his own rough way, that is to say in somewhat the same
fashion as we may suppose a lion loves his whelp, he loved the only
child the wife long since dead had left him. He was determined that he
should lack nothing that was worth having, and in nothing did Mr. Bowser
show his shrewdness more clearly than in fully appreciating the
advantage it was to Frank to be the chosen friend and constant companion
of Lawyer Lloyd's son. He had manifested his satisfaction at the
intimacy by having Frank make Bert handsome presents at Christmas time,
and in other ways. In all this, however, his only thought had been for
Frank. He made no attempt to cultivate intimate relations with the
Lloyds on his own account. He thought them both too refined, and too
religious for him, and accordingly declined so far as he civilly could,
Mr. Lloyd's overtures toward a better acquaintance.

Such a man was Frank's father; and now that the boy's h