sition as general manager,
without salary; pay his own expenses, relying on his commissions on
land sales, and that as I had declined to serve on this basis they
had felt compelled to accept his services. As I was obliged to have
a regular income for the support of my family, I acquiesced in the
directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management,
the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very
verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were
blamed for the acts of the guilty. I converted my stock in the M.L.&I.
Co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as I took the
lands at company's schedule values instead of at the cost prices,
while the stock cost me--the full price of $100 per share. Blessed is
he who expecteth nothing, for he alone shall not be disappointed.

Our varying days pass on and on,
Our hopes fade unfulfilled away,
And things which seem the life of life
Are taken from us day by day.

Our little dramas all may fail,
And naught may issue as we planned,
Our costliest ships refuse to sail,
Our firmest castles fall to sand.

But God lives on, and with our woe
Weaves golden threads of joy and peace,
And somewhere we will surely know
From sorrow and pain the glad release.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY.

This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow
than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in
connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while
alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper:
"James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the
news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me
farewell.

My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained
none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what
was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In
the words of Thoreau--"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step
to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my
father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from
earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a
deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life.

The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to