Those doubts
which perplex many a thinking man, and, when formed and uttered, give
many a fond and faithful woman pain so exquisite, had most fortunately
never crossed Kew's mind. His early impressions were such as his mother
had left them, and he came back to her, as she would have him, as a
little child; owning his faults with a hearty humble repentance, and with
a thousand simple confessions, lamenting the errors of his past days. We
have seen him tired and ashamed of the pleasures which he was pursuing,
of the companions who surrounded him, of the brawls and dissipations
which amused him no more; in those hours of danger and doubt, when he had
lain, with death perhaps before him, making up his account of the vain
life which probably he would be called upon to surrender, no wonder this
simple, kindly, modest, and courageous soul thought seriously of the past
and of the future; and prayed, and resolved, if a future were awarded to
him, it should make amends for the days gone by; and surely as the mother
and son read together the beloved assurance of the divine forgiveness,
and of that joy which angels feel in heaven for a sinner repentant, we
may fancy in the happy mother's breast a feeling somewhat akin to that
angelic felicity, a gratitude and joy of all others the loftiest, the
purest, the keenest.
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