A Touching Incident

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1879

A Touching Incident.

THERE is one touching incident of the life of William Wirt. In his younger days he was a victim to that passion for intoxicating drinks which seems to be the bane of the legal profession. Affianced to a beautiful and accomplished young woman, he had broken repeated pledges and amendments, and she, after patiently and kindly enduring his disgraceful habit, at length dismissed him, deeming him incorrigible. Their next meeting after the dismissal was in the public street in the city of Richmond. William Wirt lay drunk and asleep on the sidewalk, on a hot summer day, the rays of the sun pouring down on his uncovered head, and the flies crawling over his swollen features. As the young lady approached him in her walk, her attention was attracted by the spectacle, strange to her eyes, but alas! so common to others who knew the victim, as to excite little remark. She did not at first recognize the sleeper, and was about to hasten on, when she was led by one of those impulses which form the turning points in human lives, to scrutinize his features. What was her emotion when she recognized in him her discarded lover! She drew forth her handkerchief and carefully spread it over his face and hurried away. When Wirt came to himself, he found the handkerchief, and on one corner the initials of the beloved name. With a heart almost breaking with grief and remorse, he made a new vow of reformation. He kept that vow, and married the owner of the handkerchief. Well might he preserve the handkerchief as he did, all his life, guarding it with the jealous care with which Othello kept the Egyptian charmer's gift, and "making it a darling like his precious one."