rit,
"is the root of all evil." True, there were many hundreds of estimable
men who, failing, from adverse circumstances, to make a livelihood in
their native lands, sought to better their fortunes in the far west;
but, in too many cases, the gold-fever which raged there soon smote them
down; and men who once regarded gold as the means to an end, came at
last to esteem gold to be the end, and used every means, fair and foul,
to obtain it. Others there were, whose constitutions were proof against
the national disease; whose hearts deemed _love_ to be the highest bliss
of man, and doing good his greatest happiness.

But stilling and destructive though the air of the gold-mines was, there
were a few hardy plants of moral goodness which defied it--and some of
these bloomed in the colony of Little Creek.

The Sabbath morning dawned on Ned Sinton and his friends--the first
Sabbath since they had begun to dig for gold. On that day the miners
rested from their work. Shovel and pick lay quiet in the innumerable
pits that had been dug throughout the valley; no cradle was rocked, no
pan of golden earth was washed. Even reckless men had come to know from
experience, that the Almighty in His goodness had created the Sabbath
for the special benefit of man's _body_ as well as his soul, and that
they wrought better during the six days of the week when they rested on
the seventh.

Unfortunately they believed only what _experience_ taught them; they
kept the Sabbath according to the letter, not according to the spirit;
and although they did not work, they did not refrain from "thinking
their own thoughts and finding their own pleasure," on God's holy day.
Early in the morning they began to wander idly about from hut to hut,
visited frequently the grog-shops, and devoted themselves to gambling,
which occupation materially marred even the physical rest they might
otherwise have enjoyed.

"Comrades," said Ned Sinton, as the party sat inside their tent, round
the napkin on which breakfast was spread, "it is long since we have made
any difference between Saturday and Sunday, and I think it would be good
for us all if we were to begin now. Since quitting San Francisco, the
necessity of pushing forward on our journey has prevented our doing so
hitherto. How far we were right in regarding rapid travelling as being
_necessary_, I won't stop to inquire; but I think it would be well if we
should do a little more than merely rest from wor