WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?
'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one lives it—to not many is it known; and seize it where you will, it is interesting.'—Goethe.
'Successful.—Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or intended.'—Webster's Dictionary.
PART SECOND.
'I have been young and now I am old, and I bear my testimony that I have never found thorough, pervading, enduring morality with any but such as feared God—not in the modern sense, but in the old child-like way. And only with such, too, have I found a rejoicing in life—a hearty, victorious cheerfulness, of so distinguished a kind that no other is to be compared with it.'—Jacobi.
CHAPTER I.
The first part of this narrative naturally closes with the termination of our hero's career at Burnsville, and his establishing himself as a resident of New York.
Up to this period, he has had no great difficulty in making his conduct consistent with his religious professions. He certainly has striven with a species of conscientiousness to do so, and we repeat, he has achieved his object.
Now, however, he is embarking on a very different sea from the quiet, placid waters of his village life. Here, Hiram Meeker, you will encounter many and frequent temptations to do wrong. For you are soon to commence on your "own account," and then you must prepare for that mortal struggle, in which none, without the grace of God to aid them, can come off victors.