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changed; that he is changed; that other things about him are changed; and that insuperable barriers now stand in the way of his doing as he did before. It is thus that, in some aspects, degraded power becomes revenged. Truly the sight of a man from whom the Lord has departed is a deplorable thing. One is surprised, awed, shocked, at the change that may come upon a man of strength. The ruins of some palace, some temple, some city, where chaos meets you at every point, amid remnants of strength, of beauty, and of glory, do not so impress the mind. Even if the sun furnace itself were to be quenched, one could scarcely think of it as such a degradation of power as that which is seen when a man is ruined.

It is touching sometimes to see the old man pausing in his walk, and to hear him tell with panting breath that he is not what he once was. The day has been when he could keep pace with you on either hill or plain; but these days are gone. The face is wrinkled now; the step is slow; the voice quivers; the hand shakes; but then the dear old heart is warm with a love and hope that speak of immortality. The lost power, in such a case, neither fills him with shame nor us with fear. The loss of power is not in such a case a loss of dignity. The vital power, the nerve power, the mind power, may not be what they used to be. There may be a dissipation of energy; but we are not haunted with the thought of a degradation of character. One likes to see the aged moving about in their weakness. It touches so many chords in our nature, keeps alive so many memories of childhood when the infant and the old man were companions, and when their mutual ministries hallowed life. We almost tremble at the thought that the severe friction of these times is going to carry us all off before we get old, and that the tottering steps of age shall no longer lend a touching charm to the picture of life. In our cities life is being burned up; energy is being dissipated at a rate that becomes alarming. And there are so many unhallowed methods of dissipating the power that is meant to bless men. Sitting long at their cups, men begin to find out that they cannot use their feet well, nor their hands, nor their tongue, nor even their eyes-seeing things double, as we say. Quietly has power been departing from them during their indulgence. The attempt to go out and shake themselves as before, were it not the attempt of men in ruin, would be laughable enough sometimes. For there is a comical side connected with this loss of power. And it were easy to be witty, satirical, and declamatory over this phase of life; but to be serious, honest, and faithful is more becoming. A man in ruins is not a subject for laughter. This degradation of power will not make

a good man rejoice. It will sadden him. For this form of degraded power is the most painful sight in these isles. It is being mixed up with the darker scenes in our national history. It has become the puzzle of the statesman, the grief of the moralist, the blot of the church, and a burden upon the hearts of all good men. Whatever science may say about transforming and conserving power, there is little in this dissipation of it that can be of any utility to the universe.

But this dissipation of power is seen in the mental condition of multitudes of men. The time was when the mental framework was firmly knit; when every bone was as iron and every sinew as brass; and the grip of that mind was as if a giant's hand were upon you. The power of marshalling arguments and hurling them in fury upon the bristling spears of foemen was the admiration, the envy, the very despair of many who were watching. But silently, gradually, and without suspicion, influences have been at work that leave the consummate thinker a ruin, so that

"From the wreck

Of what he was, by his wild talk alone,
We first collect how great a spirit he had."

Now, when this dissipation of energy may be traced to a trifling with truth, with principle, and with duty; when blindness happens to the mind by the rejection of light, we see how vain is the attempt to recover the old power, how fruitless the purpose to go out and do what has been done before. The shields that are meant to defend men who are erring are plentiful enough in these days. Goethe says that "Truth belongs to man, error to the times." But what are the "times" apart from men? The error is in man. His thoughts wander from the truth, and with the loss of truth power is dissipated.

Every one is familiar with "the dread strife of poor humanity's afflicted will," but every one does not care to remember that very much of this strife has been induced by the very will that is now so weak. When purpose has been weakened by dallying with wrong; when the power of gathering up the whole manhood and pressing it into the discharge of present duty has been frittered away; when a man feels he ought, and yet says he can't, we have an illustration of dissipated moral energy that may well be a warning to men. Weakness of purpose, indecision in action, may, it is true, often arise from disease; and then it has the sympathy of all thoughtful men; but when it is the direct product of wrongdoing, as in many cases it certainly is, we see how the highest

phase of power may be dissipated, and what a surprise comes to a man who cannot go forth and shake the evil from him now as he could in other days. So falls the stately pile into a ruined heap. Like the shipwrecked sailor, beneath whose feet yawn the riven planks that have burst asunder, is the man from whose spirit has departed the moral purpose that held him up in many a rough sea, but who is going down to deeps which no man has bottomed. It is poor consolation that such a man does not die alone, but drags to the dust and the deeper hell those who have at first robbed him of his strength. Everywhere in our cities, even where we would not expect it, men may be found who are trifling with duty, with integrity, with high privilege, and are thus making moral purpose almost an impossibility. They are superinducing upon their nature an incapacity for taking hold of moral questions, or discerning good and evil. With lost integrity there is lost power. The assailants in life would be but a mere mouthful for the man who retained his consciousness of rectitude. Like the Apostle, he could fling the deadly viper from him and remain uninjured by it. But when the locks are shorn, when the spirit is fettered by indolence or passion,-for "the chain of iron and the cord of silk alike are bonds"-there is a dissipation of energy that leaves the man a moral ruin.

With this mental and moral loss comes also the loss of social power. Men who have become passive on the surface of the social stream are often startled at the distance they have been borne away from the old status and influence they enjoyed. The mere struggle for existence to which they have been reduced is an extreme which they never anticipated, and which they could not believe was before them. It has come so silently, so gradually, so unconsciously, and when their higher nature has been asleep on the lap of indolence, or passion, or unconcern, that when the tremendous change is forced upon their attention they cannot believe that it is so. The ambitious monarch, heading victorious armies in past years, dreams that he may again astonish by his brilliant deeds the wondering world. But he forgets the changes that have been going on within him and around him. The lost power has not been accurately estimated, has not in fact been acknowledged at all, and he only learns how weak he has become when, going forth, men push him aside as in their way. His right hand has lost its cunning. His dallying with lack of principle and discipline, makes him a prey to defeat, to disease, to remorse, and despair. To the statesman in past years movement was easy, organization successful, and the facility with which the hand was laid upon the coveted prize

excited admiration. But new occasions arise, new measures are required, new demands are made for superior genius and power of action; and, all unconscious of the change, he imagines he can go forth and do as he had done before. But the power is lost. The old force is not adapted to the new circumstances. Not even convulsive efforts can shake off the weakness and bring about the old strength. Social power is lost. It is the same lesson that is forced upon us by the history of nations. Strong in youth, in rectitude, in high aspiration and aim, a nation has been respected and feared; but pride and haughtiness set in; violated truth and vitiated life bring about a weakness which, in the moment of assault, entails blindness and death. Blotted out from the society of nations, it has a place only on the page that tells of depreciated privilege and dissipated power. Its name is just another among the many symbols of wasted energy.

But the darkness of this thought deepens upon us when we have to think of power lost in Christian experience. And yet this is a very frequent occurrence. Light is sinned away. Love is sinned away. Hallowed mirth and song are chased away from a heart that has become like a dilapidated house whose occupant has abandoned it. There is no music now in what was once to it the sweetest ever mortal lips announced. Blackened into a cinder, the heart has become like a sun gone out. All is changed. Now and again, indeed, even as scientific men imagine that meteors or some such things may dash into the sun and rekindle it for a time, so thoughts rush in upon the soul, and by a few moments' reflection, or by some startling providence, or some stirring sermon, the better nature rises and would go forth as before. But the weakening process has been going on all too surely, though unacknowledged, till men whose faces were wont to shine with reflected light from heaven, darken into formality, hypocrisy, and despair. It is a sad sight this loss of power in Christian experience. It is a thing for angels to weep over, and yet human eyes can be dry about it. Whoever may witness the dissipation of energy when a sun is quenched, will witness nothing so solemn as must be the appearance of a soul from which the Christian light goes. out. For where and when shall that old light be rekindled? Who shall bring back the old tenderness, the old trust, the old love, the old loyalty? Will the locks of spiritual power ever grow again?

R. M.-M.

"To every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

124

FROM GLASGOW TO MISSOURI AND BACK. No. 10.

CHAPTER XXII.

FROM DETROIT TO NIAGARA.

IT had been arranged among our friends that Dr. Morison should stay with Mr. Robertson, his old Kilmarnock friend, during our sojourn in Detroit, and that I should be the guest of Mr. Paton in that city. So the Doctor and I were separated again near midnight on the evening of our arrival, as already described. I found Mr. Paton's residence to be both spacious and elegant, and situated, moreover, pleasantly in the outskirts of the city. Yet, it was not till the Sabbath morning that I was fully able to appreciate my pleasant quarters, having arrived under the cloud of night.

I found my intercourse with Mr. Paton to be very agreeable indeed. He had been brought up in the town of Galston, in Ayrshire, quite in humble life-of which, however, instead of being ashamed he was rather legitimately proud, considering his remarkable progress afterwards. He was one of the many possessors of that perfervidum ingenium Scotorum, which seems to laugh at difficulties, and take pleasure in making gigantic strides. Having pushed his way up to Liverpool, and established himself there in connection with the cotton trade, he foresaw, at the close of the American war, that a good business could be done in the United States in the way of negotiating between the Manchester mill-owners and the disorganised southern plantations. As his excellent wife and family, however, could not endure the tropical heat of a residence near New Orleans, he had fixed his home at Detroit, taking long journeys himself, from time to time, to the distant shores of the Mississippi.

As I was not to be engaged in public till the afternoon, Mr. Paton took me to worship, in the forenoon, in the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit, one of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in the city. Some rain having fallen in the morning, the audience was not so numerous as my friend expected; and, moreover, the minister of the church, the Rev. Mr. Pearson, who has more than a local reputation, happened to be from home. I heard an excellent sermon, nevertheless, from one who bore an honoured name in Detroit, the Rev. Dr. Duffield, of Saginaw city; for his father and grandfather had both been ministers, if I recollect aright, of that very church. Dr. Duffield's text was Mark xi, 27, 28, "And it came to

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