ur parents still live--incline their hearts to forgive!"

And their pitying God heard their prayer, and brought them in safety to
their childhood's home, and prepared for them pardon and peace of
conscience. For Ellen Buckingham's father had been brought to the brink
of the grave by sudden illness, and the stern old man wept like a child,
when the village pastor, a faithful minister of the Gospel, told him
that the most faultless creed would not avail him if he cherished a
hardened, unforgiving spirit, and exhorted him to pardon and bless his
exiled son and daughter. His iron heart was subdued within him, and when
his wife, whose gentler nature had long since pined for a
reconciliation, joined her entreaties to the commands of religion, then,
like the sudden breaking up of the ice upon a noble river, his feelings
gushed forth beyond control; all coldness and hardness vanished. At this
moment it was that James and Ellen Buckingham arrived: they had come in
the spirit of the Prodigal Son, not thinking themselves worthy to be
called the children of those they had offended; and they were greeted
with the same tenderness and overflowing affection described in the
parable--their confessions of guilt were stopped by kisses and embraces,
and soon they were weeping and recounting their loss, with arms
encircling their long-estranged parents.

When the doctor paid his next visit, he said that a greater physician
than he had interfered, and had administered a new medicine, not very
bitter to take, which threw all his drugs into the shade: it was called
_heart's ease_, and nothing more was wanting to his patient's recovery,
than very tender nursing, and daily applications of the same dose. And
tender nursing indeed did he receive from his daughter Ellen, and
proudly did he lean on the strong arm of his son, when sufficiently
convalescent to venture abroad: it seemed as if the affection,
restrained within their bosoms for so long a time, now gushed forth more
fully and freely than if there had never been a coldness. And thus did
sorrow on one side, and sickness on the other, guided by an overruling
Providence, join together long severed hearts, purify affections too
much fixed upon the earth, and lead all to look upward to Him who ruleth
in the affairs of mankind. Truly, "he doth not afflict _willingly_ nor
grieve the children of men."

At the earnest request of Ellen's parents, her husband agreed to
continue with them, acting in