f I could, but I can't. I lay in bed the morning we set
sail and thought it all over. I thought of my little boy and gal
sleeping in their trundle bed. I thought of the pleadings of my
patient wife, and I resolved to let liquor alone, but I can't do it--I
was the worse for it yesterday. No, I can't abstain,' and his voice
quivered.

"'May be, if you'd try again, wery, wery hard,' persisted Flora, who
did not comprehend how uncontrollable the appetite becomes.

"'No, my little pet--no--none but God Almighty can save me now--I'm in
the breakers.'

"His look of despair moved me to step forward and interpose. Would not
Flora have perished in the deep water, had there been no effort made
to save her? I questioned.

"'You're a brave gal,' said he. 'I saw you go after her; you would
have saved her if you could, and you would save me but you can't.'

"That's true, I replied, but God can. Jesus Christ will bring you
safely out of the breakers, if you will cling to him. You are in great
peril but it is not too late. Never give up the ship.

"Thus I talked until hope began to reanimate him, and he said 'when I
get back to New York I'll try again to give up my dram and be a
Christian.'

"Now--now, there's no time like now, I persisted, and finally he
yielded, and said, 'Now it shall be. I'll put my name to the paper,
and may God Almighty help me.'

"His name, John Hopkins, stands in full upon the pledge; the large
crooked letters bearing traces of the struggle by which he was shaken.

"I am so glad that I ever read the Bible to dear old Mrs. Peters, for
it was there that I learned the lesson, which I so lately taught the
despairing seamen, and nothing can now wrest the sweet knowledge of a
Saviour's love from me. My heart has found refuge in it.

"Do you remember the day that Tom dressed in your blue apron, with a
bunch of keys at his belt and pretended to personate me at the head of
an orphan asylum, how we all laughed? Well, I secretly wished myself
capable of doing good in that way, and you may tell Tom that if I
should ever attempt anything of the kind, I will give him a lucrative
situation as general overseer of the establishment."

Two days later.

"Last evening we arrived at Aspinwall having made the trip from New
York in ten days. This morning we bade adieu to our kind friends of
the steamship, 'Northern Star' and crossed the Isthmus of Panama, a
distance of about twenty miles, by railroad. A fine large steam