arly. He glanced
at his sobbing child, and saw how healthful and intelligent he was.
He glanced over his garden, and orchard, and lawn, and saw how
pleasant was his home. He thought of his circle of friends, his
position in business, his own education and health. He saw how much
he had to make him happy; and all jarred and marred, and cursed by
his miserable fits of irritation; the fever, the plague increasing
daily; becoming his nature, breathing the pestilent atmosphere of
hell over himself and all connected with him.

As he thus thought, his little boy again forgot himself, and strayed
with heedless feet toward his father. Leland dropped his hoe,
reached toward his child. The little fellow threw up his hands, and
writhed his body as if expecting a blow.

"Willie," said the father, in a low, gentle voice. Willie looked up
with half fright, half amazement. "Willie, boy," said the father in
a new tone, which had never passed his lips before, and he felt the
deep, calm power of his own words. "Willie, boy, don't walk on pa's
plants. Go back, and stay there till pa is done."

The child turned as by the irresistible power of the slow-spoken,
gentle words, and walked back and resumed his seat, evidently not
intending to transgress again.

As Leland stood with the words dying on his lips, and his hand
extended, a sudden and singular idea struck him. He felt that he had
just said the most impressive and eloquent thing he had ever said in
his life! He felt that there was a power in his tone and manner
which he had never used before; a power which would affect a judge
or a jury, as it had affected Willie. The curse cursed here too! It
was that hasty, nervous disposition, which gave manner and tone to
his very public speaking; which made his arguments unconvincing, his
pathos unaffecting. It was just that calm, deep, serene feeling and
manner, which was needed at the bar as well as with Willie. Arguing
with that feeling and manner, he felt, would convince irresistibly.
Pleading with that quiet, gentle spirit, he felt would melt, would
affect the hearts as with the very emotion of tears.

Unless you catch the idea, there is no describing it, reader. Leland
was a Christian. All that day he thought upon the whole matter. That
night in the privacy of his office he knelt and repeated the whole
matter before God. For his boy's sake, for his wife's sake, for his
own sake, for his usefulness' sake at the bar, he implored steady
a