“O Gracie, Gracie, it is not that!” Violet said, when emotion would let her speak.  “I valued the bottle as the gift of my dear dead father, but I would rather have lost it a hundred times over than have my darling tell a lie.  It is so wicked, so wicked!  God hates lying.  He says, ’All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.’  ‘He that speaketh lies shall not escape.’  He says that Satan is the father of lies, and that those who are guilty of lying are the children of that wicked one.

“Have you forgotten how God punished Gehazi for lying by making him a leper, and struck Ananias and Sapphira dead for the same sin?  O my darling, my darling, it breaks my heart to think you have both acted and spoken a falsehood!” she cried, clasping the child still closer to her bosom and weeping over her afresh.

Gracie, too, cried bitterly.  “Mamma, mamma,” she said, “will God never forgive me? will He send me to that dreadful place?”

“He will forgive you if you are truly sorry for your sin because it is dishonoring and displeasing to Him, and if you ask Him to pardon you for Jesus’ sake; and He will take away the evil nature that leads you to commit sin, giving you a new and good heart, and take you to heaven when you die.

“But no one can go to heaven who is not first made holy.  The Bible bids us follow ‘holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.’  And Jesus is a Saviour from sin.  ’Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.’  Shall we kneel down now and ask Him to save you from yours?”

“Yes, mamma,” sobbed the child.

Violet’s prayer was short and to the point.  Then she held Gracie for some time in her arms, while they mingled their tears together.

At length, “Gracie dear,” she said, “I believe God has heard our prayer and forgiven you.  I am sure He has if you are truly sorry in your heart and asked with it, and not only with your lips, for forgiveness; but I want you to stay here alone for an hour and think it all over quietly, I mean about your wrongdoing and God’s willingness to forgive for Jesus’ sake, and that we could not have been forgiven and saved from sin and hell if the dear Saviour had not died for us the cruel death of the cross.

“Oh, think what a dreadful thing sin must be that it could not be blotted out except by Jesus suffering and dying in our stead!  And think how great was His love for us, when He was willing to lay down His own life that we might live!”

Then with a kiss of tender motherly love, she went out and left the child alone.

Gracie was sincerely penitent.  She had always been taught that lying was a dreadful sin, and had never before told a direct falsehood; but while in her former home, Mrs. Scrimp’s faulty management, joined to her own natural timidity, had tempted her to occasional slyness and deceit, and from these the descent to positive untruth was easy.