To act the gentle part;
For God will turn His love away
From every cruel heart.”
THE RAILROAD.
“For we are sojourners, as were all our fathers.”—Bible.
The cars were crowded. In one corner sat the grey-haired grandfather; by his side, the gay, thoughtless maiden; farther on, the youthful aspirant after the world’s honors; and at his elbow, the stern, thinking business man, intently engaged in reading the morning’s Prices Current, thinking only of Profit and Loss, and the rise and fall of articles for which he trafficked, forgetting, not the almighty dollar, but his immortal soul.
We started. On and on the fire-breathing iron horse drew us along:—now hurrying around the sweeping curves; now ascending some steep acclivity; now rattling through dark, dungeon-like tunnels; anon speeding with almost lightning rapidity over the smoothly laid track.
None seemed to fear. All was happiness and joy. One was thinking of the joyful welcome that awaited him at his happy home; another of the pleasure he expected to meet with from the friends of his childhood, from whom he had been separated many a long year; others were perfectly indifferent—no trouble to cloud their brows, no care to harass their hearts—gazing, with countenances of delight, on the fair fields of nature which stretched out before them, the mirror-like lake, or the cloud-capped mountain that lifted its proud head far above the bustle and confusion of the world.
None thought of danger. None thought that the next moment might find them a mass of bruised and mangled corpses, or struggling for life amid the waves of some roaring river. The engineer was at his post; the conductor would see that no harm should befall them.