ficient and commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing- I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.'
'But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark and empty.'
'I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness.'
'Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least.'
'It is what I mean to do,' I answered. St. John continued-
'It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience.
God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get- when our will strains after a path we may not follow- we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste- and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.
'A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world- for the more exciting toils of a literary career- for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; an
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