the master and the bottle his slave, but in three years’ time they changed places.  When too late, his parents discovered that the college had sent back to them a ripe scholar, a trained athlete and a drunkard.  The mother tried to save her son, but failing in every effort, her heart broke and she died with Tom’s name on her lips.  The father, weighed down under the dead sorrow and the living trouble, vainly strove to rescue his son, and was found one night in the attitude of prayer, kneeling by the side of the bed where his wife’s broken heart a few months before had ceased to beat.  He died praying for his boy!

One evening as the sun was setting, a man stood leaning against the fence along one of the streets of a certain city.  His clothes were ragged, his hands and face unwashed, his hair uncombed and his eyes bleared; he looked more like a wild beast hunted and hungry, than a human being.  It was Tom.  The boys gathered about him, and made him the object of their fun and ridicule.  At first he seemed not to notice them, but suddenly he cried out:  “Cease your laughter until you know what you are laughing at.  Let me talk to my master while you listen.”

He pulled a bottle from his pocket, held it up, and looking at it with deep hatred flashing from his reddened eyes, he said: 

“I was once your master; now I am your slave.  In my strength you deceived me; in my weakness you mock me.  You have burned my brain, blistered my body, blasted my hopes, bitten my soul and broken my will.  You have taken my money, destroyed my home, stolen my good name, and robbed me of every friend I ever had.  You killed my mother, slew my father, sent me out into the world a worthless vagabond, until I find myself a son without parents, a man without friends, a wanderer without a home, a human being without sympathy, and a pauper without bread.  Deceiver, mocker, robber, murderer—­I hate you!  Oh, for one hour of my old-time strength, that I might slay you!  Oh, for one friend and some power to free me from this slavery!”

The laugh had ceased and the boys stood gazing on him with awe.  A young lady and gentleman had joined the company just as Tom began this terrible arraignment of his master, and as he ceased, the young lady stepped up to him and earnestly said:  “You have one friend and there is one power that can break your chains and set you free.”

Tom gazed at her a moment and then said: 

“Who is my friend?”

“The King is your friend,” she answered.

“And pray, who are you?” said Tom.

“One of the King’s Daughters,” was the reply “and ‘In His Name’ I tell you He has power to set you free.”

“Free, free did you say?  But, you mock me.  A girl with as white a hand and as fair a face as yours, delivered me to my master.”

“Then, in the name of the King whose daughter am I, even Jesus Christ the Lord, let the hand of another girl lead you to Him who came to break the chains of the captive and set the prisoner free.”