nful 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 tw