worse terror to him than
Apollyon had been to Christian, for it seemed to his faithlessness that
not even the weapon of All-prayer was equal to his discomfiture; nothing
could render him harmless but the payment of his bill. He began to look
back with something like horror upon the sermons he had preached on
honesty; for how would his inability to pay his debts appear in the eyes
of those who had heard them? Oh! why had he not paid for every thing as
they had it? Then when the time came that he could not pay, they would
only have had to go without, whereas now, there was the bill louring at
the back of the want!

When Miss Drake returned from the chapel, she found her father leaning
on the sun-dial, where she had left him. To all appearance he had not
moved. He knew her step but did not stir.

"Father!" she said.

"It is a hard thing, my child," he responded, still without moving,
"when the valley of Humiliation comes next the river Death, and no land
of Beulah between! I had my good things in my youth, and now I have my
evil things."

She laid her hand on his shoulder lovingly, tenderly, worshipfully, but
did not speak.

"As you see me now, my Dorothy, my God's-gift, you would hardly believe
your father was once a young and popular preacher, ha, ha! Fool that I
was! I thought they prized my preaching, and loved me for what I taught
them. I thought I was somebody! With shame I confess it! Who were they,
or what was their judgment, to fool me in my own concerning myself!
Their praise was indeed a fit rock for me to build my shame upon."

"But, father dear, what is even a sin when it is repented of?"

"A shame forever, my child. Our Lord did not cast out even an apostle
for his conceit and self-sufficiency, but he let him fall."

"He has not let you fall, father?" said Dorothy, with tearful eyes.

"He is bringing my gray hairs with sorrow and shame to the grave, my
child."

"Why, father!" cried the girl, shocked, as she well might be, at his
words, "what have I done to make you say that?"

"Done, my darling! _you_ done? You have done nothing but righteousness
ever since you could do any thing! You have been like a mother to your
old father. It is that bill! that horrid butcher's bill!"

Dorothy burst out laughing through her dismay, and wept and laughed
together for more than a minute ere she could recover herself.

"Father! you dear father! you're too good to live! Why, there are forks
and spoons enough i