Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/395

 be nearly empty. His face was buried in his hands, and a pot of untasted beer stood at his elbow. Poor Stumps! Conscience had been remarkably busy with him on the voyage home. He would have given worlds to have got back to Bombay, return the ill-gotten bags, and confess his guilt, but it was too late—too late!

There is something very awful in these words, too late! We read of and hear them often, and we use them sometimes, lightly it may be, but it is only when they can be used by ourselves with reference to something very serious, that we have a glimmering of their terrible significance. There is a proverb, "It is never too late to mend," which is misleading. When the dream of life is over, and the doom is fixed, it is too late to mend. No doubt the proverb is meant to refer to our condition while this life lasts, but even here it is misleading. When the murderer withdraws the knife and gazes, it may be, horror-struck at the expressionless face of his victim, it is too late. He cannot mend the severed thread of life. When the reckless drunkard draws near the end of his career, and looks in the mirror, and starts to see the wreck of his former self, it is too late. Health will never more return. Not too late, blessed be God, for the salvation of the soul, but too late for the recovery of all that was held dear in the life of earth.