Thy charities on all.
"Thus 'grave these lessons on thy soul,
Hope, Faith, and Love; and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else were blind."
Notwithstanding the twisted and gnarled branches of this old oak, there was a time, years back, when it was a straight and vigorous young sapling. It was beautiful to behold, and gave promise of becoming a lofty, stalwart tree, under which many might find refreshing shelter. On this thrifty sapling grew an ugly wart, called by some horticulturists jealousy. At first it might have been removed without injury to the tree, but it was not. It grew and grew, diffusing it: poison through all the cellular tissues, until it became deformed, disfigured, and unsightly.
Strange, but true, this process of degeneration had been going on in the character of Mr. Lambert, until, at the time we first knew him, there was only one trait left of his original nature. This was a peculiar, unquenchable tenderness of feeling toward the poor and distressed. Suspicious as he had become of all around him, ever toward the very ones he was trying to save from their own thriftlessness or crime, this one trail urged him on to give relief; and in this way kept alive one of the healthiest avenues to real goodness, even though his charities were often accompanied by a torrent of reproach.
It was this trait, so congenial to Marion Howard, which drew her to him and led her to suppose he was actuated by love to his Divine Master. In this she was mistaken. In his inmost soul Mr. Lambert accused God of having dealt hardly with him, more hardly than he deserved. He had been wounded in the house of his friends. When his heart had been most vulnerable, there it had been pierced. He had never forgiven nor forgotten the blow. Sometimes, when the recollection of all he had been made to suffer came upon him, he hated himself that he did not revenge himself on all mankind. "I owe no man anything," was one of his favorite mottoes; but after he became acquainted with Marion Howard he did not take much comfort from it. How closely after their first meeting he had watched her! How he longed to find her halting! But no, her motions were too transparent. She had genuine love to God as her Father, to Christ as her Saviour, and it was from this love her kindness to all around her sprang. This he had been forced to acknowledge when analyzing her character. It unsettled him and made him more irritable. Sometimes, when he found himself softened under her influence, he would recall all the injuries heaped on him,—injuries that had blasted his happiness forever.