sake he turned again to his loom; love
taught him thrift and industry. For the child's sake he bought books
and hived knowledge; love made a scholar of him. For the child's sake
he planted vines, roses and all sweet flowers; love made him an
artist. For the child's sake he bought carpets for the bare floors and
pictures for the wall; love had made him generous. For the child's
sake he knelt one night and recited her prayer; love would fain make
him a Christian. But he hated men, and could not forget their
ingratitude. One day a rich man's carriage stopped before his cottage.
The lord of the mansion told a strange story--how this beautiful girl
of eighteen was his daughter. In that hour the girl, tall and
beautiful, turned away from palace, lands, position, and, for the love
she bore him, put her arms around Silas Marner and refused to leave
him. Then something in him gave way, and Silas Marner wept. Then
confidence in man and God was his again. Love had destroyed avarice
and purged away his sin. For love is a civilizer; it makes saints out
of savages. As an armor of ice melts before the sun, so all vice and
iniquity disappear in the presence of an overmastering affection.

It remains for us to consider that the absence of an enthusiastic
devotion to integrity and the law of God explains the moral disasters
and shipwrecks that have increased the tears and sorrows of mankind.
Recently the people of this land opened their morning papers only to
be deeply shocked by a rehearsal of grievous disasters, not all of
which were physical. It seems that an awful cyclone had swept through
a Western community, twisting the orchards, destroying houses and
barns, and leaving behind a swath wide and black with destruction. In
addition, the foreign news told of a volcano whose crater had suddenly
poured forth a river of lurid lava, which, sweeping down the mountain
side, consumed the homes of the flying multitude. But the saddest
disaster was reserved to the last. It told of the shame and sorrow,
from which there is no recovery, that had befallen the parents and
friends of three young men, hitherto held in high honor. It seems that
for many years these men had been honored by their friends, and
trusted by the banks in which they were employed. But in a dark hour
they determined to cease to be gentlemen, preferring, rather, to join
the ranks of thieves. Despising every principle of honor, the gold
which employers committed to their care