r ever.
Amen."

When Mr. Hardy and George reached the town hall they found a large
crowd gathering, and they had some difficulty in gaining entrance. Mr.
Hardy at once passed up to the platform, where the chairman of the
meeting greeted him and said he would expect him to make some remarks
during the evening. Robert sat down at one end of the platform and
watched the hall fill with people, nearly all well known to him. There
was an unusually large crowd of boys and young men, many of his own
employes from the shops, and a great number of citizens and business
men--a representative audience for the place, brought together under
the influence of the disaster and feeling somewhat the breaking down of
artificial social distinctions in the presence of the grim leveller
Death, who had come so near to them the last few days.

There were the usual opening exercises common to such public
gatherings. Several well-known business men and two or three of the
ministers, including Mr. Jones, made appropriate addresses. The
attention of the great audience was not laboured for, the occasion
itself being enough to throw over the people the spell of subdued
quiet. When the chairman announced that "Mr. Robert Hardy, our
well-known railroad manager, will now address us," there was a movement
of curiosity and some surprise, and many a man leaned forward and
wondered in his heart what the wealthy railroad man would have to say
on such an occasion. He had never appeared as a speaker in public, and
he passed generally in Barton for the cold, selfish, haughty man he had
always been.

Mr. Hardy began in a low, clear tone:

"Men and women of Barton: To-night I am not the man you have known
these twenty-five years that I have been among you. I am, by the grace
of God, a new creature. As I stand here I have no greater desire in my
heart than to say what may prove to be a blessing to all my old
townspeople and to my employes and to these strong young men and boys.
Within a few short days God has shown me the selfishness of a human
being's heart. That heart was my own; and it is with feelings none of
you can ever know that I look into your faces and say these words."

Robert paused a moment as if gathering himself up for the effort that
followed, and the audience, startled with an unexpected emotion by the
strange beginning, thrilled with excitement, as, lifting his arm and
raising his voice, the once cold and proud man, his face and