Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/282

278 his solitary cell, the next all had vanished, and the sharp spring of more than a hundred locks was their vesper-tone, their sad "good-night."

Among the trains of thought that these scenes excited, was the consciousness, that each of these fallen beings had once a mother, to whom his infancy was inexpressibly dear. When she pressed his velvet lip to hers, or lulled him to rest upon her bosom, surely, her visions of delight had no imagery like this. Yet, could we read the secret soul of the erring tenants of this abode, might we not discover some maternal precept still maintaining a place in their memory? Perhaps striving to neutralize the black and bitter elements of evil?

Among the inmates of this institution, is one who has plunged into many varieties of sin, and been a wanderer over the face of the earth. Retribution met him in appalling forms, disgrace and suffering became his portion, but he passed through all with a hardened mind. Nothing, he affirms, in his whole life, has ever made him feel serious, but the last words of his mother. When a boy of twelve years old, he was summoned to her bed, to receive her dying counsel. In feeble and tender tones, she told him that she was about to leave him, and earnestly enjoined him to seek the Saviour, to take care of his soul, and to meet her in heaven. She continued clasping his hand, until her own was cold in death. For nearly half a century afterwards, this miserable being was pressing on