ined, with the lights all out, he fought as for
a kingdom. Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own
disgrace, rail the louder against God or destiny. Most men, when they
repent, oblige their friends to share the bitterness of that repentance.
But he had held an inquest and passed sentence: _mene, mene_; and
condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given trouble enough; had
earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right to murmur.

Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of strength;
but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength was gone that had
betrayed him--"for our strength is weakness"--he began to blossom and
bring forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore
thrown down before the great deliverer. We

"in the vast cathedral leave him;
God accept him,
Christ receive him!"

IV

If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and the
irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the dead, these
foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up to glorify the
difficult but not desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the
heroes of defeat.

I see the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; pause,
with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A
pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and
an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a
reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example;
and, in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of
the dead. For this proud man was one of those who prospered in the
valley of humiliation;--of whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had
the hard hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you,
that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls
here, and have in this place found the words of life."

IV

A COLLEGE MAGAZINE

I

All through my boyhood and youth I was known and pointed out for the
pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end,
which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one
to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I
saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either
read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note
down the features of the scene or commemora