Mary, think well when I ask you what prospect of happiness there was for me a month since?
Alone in the wide world, with ruined hopes, and a long, long, joyless future stretching gloomily before me.

I was weary of life.

I longed for death, not as a passport to the joys of heaven (for I had never sought or deserved them), but as bringing rest, peace, and oblivion of the past I viewed it only as a long, last, dreamless sleep.

Mary, I was groping my way in what seemed endless night, when suddenly there came a glimmer of light, faint as the first trembling rays of the evening star, and just pierced the darkness in which I wandered.

The Padre came to me, and pointed to the long-forgotten God, and bade me seek him who hath said, come unto me all ye who are weary, and I will give you rest.