cxxi.

Amid the silence of the night, Amid its lonely hours and dreary, When we
Close the aching sight, Musing sadly, lorn and weary, Trusting that
tomorrow's light May reveal a day more cheery;

Amid affliction's darker hour, When no hope beguiles our sadness, When
Death's hurtling tempests lower, And forever shroud our gladness, While
Grief's unrelenting power Goads our stricken hearts to madness;

When from friends beloved we're parted, And from scenes our spirits
love, And are driven, broken-hearted, O'er a heartless world to rove;
When the woes by which we've smarted, Vainly seek to melt or move; When
we trust and are deluded, When we love and are denied, When the schemes
o'er which we brooded Burst like mist on mountain's side, And, from
every hope excluded, We in dark despair abide;

Then, and ever, God sustains us, He whose eye no slumber knows, Who
controls each throb that pains us, And in mercy sends our woes, And by
love severe constrains us To avoid eternal throes.

Happy he whose heart obeys him! Lost and ruined who disown! O if idols
e'er displace him, Tear them from his chosen throne! May our lives and
language praise him! May our hearts be his alone!

He took defeat with a good nature that robbed it of its sting, and made
his political opponents half sorry for having beaten him. He was talked
of for Governor at one time, and he gave as a reason, why he would like
the office that "a great many of his friends were in the State-prison,
and he wanted to use the pardoning power in their behalf." This was a
jest, of course, referring to the fact that as a lawyer much of his
practice was in the criminal courts. He was never suspected of treachery
or dishonor in public or private life. His very ambition was unselfish:
he was always ready to sacrifice himself in a hopeless candidacy if he
could thereby help his party or a friend.

His good nature was tested once while presiding over a party convention
at Sonora for the nomination of candidates for legislative and county
offices. Among the delegates was the eccentric John Vallew, whose mind
was a singular compound of shrewdness and flightiness, and was stored
with the most out-of-the-way scraps of learning, philosophy, and poetry.
Some one proposed Vallew's name as a candidate for the Legislature. He
rose to his feet with a clouded face, and in an angry voice said:

"Mr. President, I am surprised and mortified. I have lived in this
county more than seven y