He could give hundreds of dollars in aid of missions to convert the heathen, and to bring in the islands of the sea, as means of hastening the expected time; but was not ready, as a surer means to this end, to repress a single selfish impulse of his nature.
The conversation was still further prolonged, with but slight change in the subject.

At parting with his neighbour, Markland found himself more disturbed than before.

A sun ray had streamed suddenly into the darkened chambers of his mind, disturbing the night birds there, and dimly revealing an inner world of disorder, from which his eyes vainly sought to turn themselves.

If the mental disease from which he was suffering had its origin in the causes indicated by Mr.Allison, there seemed little hope of a cure in his case.

How was he, who all his life long had regarded himself, and those who were of his own flesh and blood, as only to be thought of and cared for, to forget himself, and seek, as the higher end of his existence, the good of others?
The thought created no quicker heart-beat--threw no warmer tint on the ideal future toward which his eyes of late had so fondly turned themselves.