SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.
By Editor
A WEEK or two ago, a young man, belonging to an influential, honorable family, cheated a couple of business firms in a great Western city, by false representations, out of a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The matter was brought before his father, an old man of stern integrity. The young man was his only child. “Gentlemen, I can do nothing,” he said. “I have paid nearly half a million dollars already to make up sums which he has embezzled. He has brought me to beggary. The law must take its course.” He turned away. The road between him and death was short, and it would be dark and hard.11On the same week an elderly woman was seen to throw herself into the Schuylkill River, near Philadelphia. She was rescued with difficulty. She held in her hand a satchel containing gold, notes, and banknotes representing several thousands of dollars. When she recovered her senses, she was asked: "Why did you do this? You were in no danger of want." "No, I had money enough. But I had five children once, four boys and a girl. They all went away. They have not wanted me to visit them, and they do not write to me. I have waited for years, and they have not come back. Folks told me they were doing well, and were fine gentlemen and ladies; but they have forgotten their old mother. I was so lonesome that my head got queer. Indeed, gentlemen, I tried to do all I could for my little children, but when they grew up they were tired of me." No words of ours can add to the force of these two chapters of actual life. Very few sons and daughters are as guilty as these, but how few are wholly free from such guilt! Many a man or woman, who would not take the life of the poorest living creature, kills the souls of those who love them best by years of passive, cold forgetfulness and neglect.—Youth's Companion.