The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1868-05-15

expression calmed his heart and made
him happy again. Many visitor to
hisstudiowishedt to purchase that lovely
face; but, though poor, and often want
ing money to buy food and clothes, he
would not sell his good angel, as he
called this portrait
SO the years went on Oftentimes as
he looked up TO the face on the glowing
canvas he wondered what had become
of that boy.
GLOW | should like to see how he
looks now! Iwonder if should know
him: Is he good man, true, or wick
ed and abandoned Or has he died
and gone to Il better land?"
One day the artist was strolling down
one of the fine walks of the city, when
he beheld man whose face and mien
were so vicious, so depraved, so almost
tiend-like, that he involuntarily stop
ped and gazed at him.
"What spectacle? l should like to
paint that figure, and hang it in my
studio opposite the angel-boy," said the
artist to himself.
The young man asked the painter for
money, for he was beggar as well as
thief
"Come to my room, and let me paint
your portrait, and will give you all
you ask" said the artist
The young man followed the painter
and set for sketch. When it was
finished, and he had received a few
coins for his trouble, he turned to go;
but his eye rested upon the picture of
the boy he looked at it, turned pale,
and then burst into tears.
"What troubles you, man?' said the
painter. 1t was long before the young
| man couid speak. he sOnbed aloud,
and seemed pierced with agony.
At last he pointed up to the picture
on the wall, and in broken tones which
seemed to come from broken heart,
he said:
"Twenty years ago you asked me to
come up here and sit for pict ure, and
the angel face is that portrait. Behold
me now, a ruined man $50 bloated, so
hideous that women and children turn
away their faces from me; so fiend-like
that you want my picture to show how
ugly man could look. All! IseenOW
what vice and crime have done for
me.n
The artist was amazed. He could
not believe his own eyes and ears.
GLOW did this happen?" he asked.
The young man told his sad and
dreadful story how, being an only son,
and very beautiful, his parents petted
and spoiled him; how he went with
bad boys and learned all their bad hab-
its and vices and came to love them !;
how, having plenty of money, he was
enticed to wicked places till all was
/ lost, and then, unable to work and a
shamed to beg, he began to steal, was
caught, and imprisoned with the worst
criminals; came out still more de-
/ praVed to commit worse crimes than
before; how every bad deed he per-
formed seemed to drive him TO COM
NIT worse one, till it seemed to him
he could not stop till brought to the
gallows.
1t was a fearful tale, and brought
tears into the artists eyes. He be-
sought the young man to stop, offered
to help him, and tried his best to save
him. But alas it was too late. Dis
ease, contracted by dissipation, soon
prostratPd the young man, and he
! died before he could reform. The
painter hung his portrait opposite
that of the beautiful boy and when
visitors asked him why he allowed
such a hideous looking face to be there,
he told them the story, saying as he
closed, "between the angel and the de-
mon there is only twenty years OF
vice"
! The lesson of his tale is in the tale it
self. You who read it can tell what it
is. Think of it often, and heed it al
ways.