The Iron Rule

from him, dated in a Southern city, where he spoke of having just arrived from South America.

m; and with pain he remembered many acts of harshness that now seemed to have in them too much of the element of severity. At the term of the Court, which was held soon after Andrew went away, the Grand Jury failed to obtain sufficient evidence to justify the finding of a bill against him, and released the security given for his appearance at Court. This fact, with a previous questioning of the policem

mental depression, which continued so long that her friends began to fear for her reason. Not until after the lapse of a year, when she received the above-mentioned letter from her son, did her mind attain to anything like its former state. The knowledge that he was yet, alive, that he thought of her, and still cherished her memory, gave a new impulse to her fainting spirit, and a quicker motion to the circle of life. There was yet room to hope for him. But

and fifth years. In the meantime, there had been many changes in Mr. Howland's family. Mary had married against her father's wishes, an

to admit of this. From earliest infancy there is a reaction against arbitrary power; and, those who are wise, have long since discovered that it is a much easier task to lead than force the young into right ways. Those who would truly govern children, must first learn to govern themselves. Let a parent break his own imperious will before he tries to break the will of his child; and he will be far more successful in the work he essays. to perform. But not so had Mr. Howland learned his duty in life. Without being, aware of the fact, he was a domestic tyrant

ely attached to Mary. The great defect appertaining to him, was the fact that he was not a church member. Mr. Howland did not look past the veil of a profession, to see if there was in the ground work of the young man's character a basis of right principles-the

en after he saw that a marriage was inevitable. The consequence was, as has been mentioned, that Markland, who possessed an independent spirit, would not go to the house of his father-in-law; and Mary, resenting the wanton attacks that had been made upon her husband's fee

s, gain the ends he had in view. Cold in his temperament, he was generally able to control himself in a way to deceive his father as to the real mot

that lay concealed beneath an external of propriety, put on especially for his father's eyes. The mother, too, saw beneath

onism that marked the intercourse of the other children. To her mother, as she grew up, she proved a source of comfort;

made to feel sensibly the fact, that the number who grow rich rapidly are as one to a hundred compared with those who succeed as the result of small beginnings united with long continued and untiring application. Long before Edward reached his twenty-first year, he had so fully imbibed the spirit of the atmosphere in which he breathed, that his mind was made up to go into business for himself as soon as he attained his majority. This idea Mr. Howland sought to discourage in his son; but Edward never gave it up. Soon after he was twenty-one, an offer to go into a business, that promis

calculating their profits at an exceedingly high range. It is not surprising that, by the end of the first year, they required a little more capital to help them

badly crippled as to be obliged to call his creditors together, and solicit a reduction and extension of the claims they had against him. To Mr. Howland, this was a crushing blow. He was not only a man who strictly regarded honesty in his dealings, but he was proud of his honesty, and in his pride, had often been harsh in his judgment of others when in circumstances similar to those in which he was now placed. To be forced to ask of his creditors both a reduction and an extension, humiliated him to a degree, that for a time, alm

esence again, until yo

ings, Edward left the city; and it was the opinion of many tha

st were estranged from him; and in spite of all his efforts to push the conviction