commenced. It musthave led to your utter destruction. Think what you would have becomeold Sass Gange as your counsellor and guide. You will have much that ispainful to go through--from that you cannot escape; but thank our lovingFather in heaven for it. Far better is it to suffer a light afflictionhere for a short season, than to be eternally cast out. Never--let meentreat you--again utter the impious threat of rushing into the presenceof your Maker; but turn to Him with a penitent heart, seekingforgiveness for all your sins through the one only way He hasappointed--faith in our crucified Saviour: and oh! believe me, He willnot deny you, for He has promised to receive all who thus come to Him.He has said, `Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white assnow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' Textupon text I might bring forward to prove God's readiness to forgive thegreatest of sinners. Trust Him. Throw yourself upon His mercy. Do notfear what man can do to you. Submit willingly to any punishment thejust laws of our country may demand you should suffer. Not thatimprisonment or any other punishment you may receive can atone for thesin you have committed in God's sight--not if you were to refund everyfarthing of the sum you stole. As the blood of Jesus Christ cleansethfrom all sin, so through that precious blood alone can the slightest aswell as the deepest shade of sin be washed away. I say this now, Emery,in case I should be prevented from speaking again to you on the subject.Reflect, too, on the condition in which you would have been placed hadyou committed this crime a few years ago, for then an ignominious deathon the scaffold would have been your inevitable doom, and bless God thatyou will now be spared to prove the sincerity of your repentance in somenew sphere of life."
Happy would it be for criminals if they had, when placed as Emery Dulmannow was, faithful friends like Lance Loughton to speak to them. Emerynow and then, as Lance was addressing him, looked up, but again turnedaside his head with an expression of scorn on his lips. Lance, however,was too true a Christian, and too sincerely desirous of benefiting hisformer acquaintance, to be defeated in his efforts to do so. Again andagain he spoke to him so lovingly and gently that at length Emery burstinto tears. "I wish that I had listened to you long ago, when youwarned me of my folly, and it would not have come to this," heexclaimed. "I will plead guilty at once, and throw myself on the mercyof my employer whom I have robbed."
"I do not know whether he will be inclined to treat you mercifully. Itmay be considered necessary, as a warning to others, to punish youseverely," answered Lance. "But, my dear Emery, I am very sure that ourFather in heaven, whom you have far more grievously offended, will, ifyou come to Him in His own appointed way, through faith in the GreatSacrifice, with sincere repentance, not only abundantly pardon you, butwill inflict no punishment, because the punishment justly your due hasbeen already borne by the Just and Holy One when He died on the Crossfor sinners."
The officer, looking at his watch, interrupted Lance by saying that itwas time to start. Emery was conveyed to the station, and in a shorttime they were on their way back to London.
The officer made inquiries at the different stations, and at lengthdiscovered the one at which Gange had left the train. He sent to Londonfor another officer to follow on his track.
Emery was conveyed to prison. He was tried, convicted, and sent to gaolfor twelve months' imprisonment. Old Sass, however, was too cunning tobe caught, and got off to sea.
Lance obtained leave frequently to visit his unhappy schoolfellow, who,now left to his own reflections, listened to him attentively when withgentle words he impressed on him the truths he had hitherto derided.Before he left the prison Emery became thoroughly and deeply convincedthat he was an utterly lost sinner, and that so he would have been, hadhe not been guilty of the crime for which he was suffering, or thecountless others he had committed which his memory conjured up. Oftenhad he cried, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" That prayer had beenheard, and he now knew that God is merciful, and that He has given goodproof of His mercy by sending Jesus, the pure and sinless One, to sufferon the cross for every one who will trust to that sufficient atonementwhich He thus made for sin.
"God as a Sovereign with free grace offers pardon to rebellious man,"said Lance. "He leaves us with loving gratitude to accept it, and if wereject His mercy, justly to suffer the consequence of that rejection,and to be cast out for ever from His presence."
"I see it!--I understand!--I do accept His gracious offer, and fromhenceforth, and with the aid of His Holy Spirit, will seek to obey andserve Him," said Emery. "And I feel thankful that all this has comeupon me, for I might never otherwise have learned to know Him in whom Ican now place all my trust and love."
At the end of Emery's term of imprisonment, with the help of MrGaisford, Lance was able to procure him a passage to Australia, where hehad in the meantime learned that his father had obtained a situation oftrust, and would be able to find employment for his son.
Lance went on as he had begun, and as soon as he was out of his articleshis loving and faithful Maddie became his wife, his mother having thehappiness of seeing him the partner of his former employer before shewas called to her rest.
He heard frequently from Emery, who, ever thankful for the mercies shownhim by his heavenly Father, continued with steady industry to labour inthe humble situation he had obtained.
A decrepit beggar one day came to Lance's door with a piteous tale ofthe miseries he had endured, and Lance, ever ready to relieve distress,visited him at the wretched lodging where a few days afterwards he laydying. He there learned that the unhappy man was Sass Gange. Lancetold him that he knew him. Sass inquired for Emery.
"I'm thankful I did not help to bring him to the gallows," he murmured."The way I tempted the lad has laid heavier on my conscience thananything I ever did, and I've done a good many things I don't like tothink about."
Lance endeavoured to place the gospel before the old man, but his heartwas hard, his mind dull. In a few days he died.
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The End.
BOOK II--ALONE ON AN ISLAND.
CHAPTER I.
The _Wolf_, a letter-of-marque of twenty guns, commanded by CaptainDeason, sailing from Liverpool, lay becalmed on the glass-like surfaceof the Pacific. The sun struck down with intense heat on the deck,compelling the crew to seek such shade as the bulwarks or sailsafforded. Some were engaged in mending sails, twisting yarns, knotting,splicing, or in similar occupations; others sat in groups between theguns, talking together in low voices, or lay fast asleep out of sight inthe shade. The officers listlessly paced the deck, or stood leaningover the bulwarks, casting their eyes round the horizon in the hopes ofseeing signs of a coming breeze. Their countenances betrayed ill-humourand dissatisfaction; and if they spoke to each other, it was in gruff,surly tones. They had had a long course of ill luck, as they called it,having taken no prizes of value. The crew, too, had for some timeexhibited a discontented and mutinous spirit, which Captain Deason, fromhis bad temper, was ill fitted to quell. While he vexed and insultedthe officers, they bullied and tyrannised over the men. The crew,though often quarrelling among themselves, were united in the commonhatred to their superiors, till that little floating world became aperfect pandemonium.
Among those who paced her deck, anxiously looking out for a breeze, wasHumphry Gurton, a fine lad of fifteen, who had joined the _Wolf_ as amidshipman. This was his first trip to sea. He had intended to enterthe Navy, but just as he was about to do so his father, a merchant atLiverpool, failed, and, broken-hearted at his losses, soon afterwardsdied, leaving his wife and only son but scantily provided for.
Tenderly had that wife, though suffering herself from a fatal disease,watched over him in his sickness, and Humphry had often sat by hisfather's bedside while his mother was reading from God's Word, andlistened as with tender earnestness she explained the simple plan ofsalvation to his father. She had shown him from the Bible that all menare by nature sinful, and incapable, by anything they ca
n do, of makingthemselves fit to enter a pure and holy heaven, however respectable orexcellent they may be in the sight of their fellow-men, and that theonly way the best of human beings can come to God is by imitating thepublican in the parable, and acknowledging themselves worthless, outcastsinners, and seeking to be reconciled to Him according to the one way Hehas appointed--through a living faith in the all-atoning sacrifice ofHis dear Son. Humphry had heard his father exclaim, "I believe thatJesus died for me; O Lord, help my unbelief! I have no merits of myown; I trust to Him, and Him alone." He had witnessed the joy which hadlighted up his mother's countenance as she pressed his father's hand,and bending down, whispered, "We shall be parted but for a short time;and, oh! may our loving Father grant that this our son may too bebrought to love the Saviour, and join us when he is summoned to leavethis world of