406 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



me here to perish ? ' he exclaimed, as his old companion 

 rushed past him. The appeal was irresistible ; the poor 

 injured man returned, and raising his wounded enemy 

 he bore him off amid a storm of shot and shell. And he 

 had just reached what seemed to be a place of safety, 

 when he was struck by a chance ball and fell dead under 

 his burden. But his fate seemed an enviable one com- 

 pared with that of the wounded man. He rose for- 

 getful of his wound, and tearing his hair, and flinging 

 himself on the body, he burst out into the most heart- 

 rending lamentations. For two days he refused all 

 sustenance, still calling on his companion, and ever ex- 

 claiming, ' Hast thou died for me who treated thee so bar- 

 barously ! ' and he expired on the third, the victim of min- 

 gled grief and remorse. Do you not perceive, my dear 

 William, that the principle which the story unfolds lies 

 deep in our nature? Nothing so prostrates the pride of man 

 or so stings him to the heart as a return of benefits for 

 injuries of great good for great evil. In the expres- 

 sive language of Scripture, it is heaping live coals on the 

 head, and to blow up these to a tenfold intensity that 

 the hardest heart may melt under them, it is necessary 

 that the injured benefactor, instanced in the story, should 

 die for his enemy. Need I attempt an application, or 

 point out to you with what marvellous, God-like wisdom 

 Christianity appeals to the principle described ? " Perad- 

 venture for a good man/' says the Apostle, " some 

 would even dare to die ; but God commended his love 

 towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ 

 died for us/' 



' I am sorry we should have missed so many oppor- 

 tunities of conversing on this subject ; little can be done 

 for it inthe limits of a letter ; and besides, in the course 

 of conversation, doubts may be stated and cleared which, 



