“I hope not, your reverence!”

“Away with delusive hopes, they war against the soul.  I tell you those curses that came from a tongue set on fire of hell have placed you under the ban of Heaven.  Are you not this Hawes’s brother, his brother every way—­two unforgiven sinners?”

“Yes, sir,” said Robinson, truckling, “of course I know I am a great sinner, a desperate sinner, not worthy to be in your reverence’s company.  But I hope,” he added, with sudden sincerity and spirit, “you don’t think I am such an out-and-out scoundrel as that Hawes.”

“Mr. Hawes would tell me you are the scoundrel and he a zealous servant of morality and order; but these comparisons are out of place.  I am now deferring not to the world’s judgment but to a higher, in whose eye Mr. Hawes and you stand on a level—­two unforgiven sinners; if not forgiven you will both perish everlastingly, and to be forgiven you must forgive.  God is very forgiving—­He forgives the best of us a thousand vile offenses.  But He never forgives unconditionally.  His terms are our repentance and our forgiveness of those who offend us one-millionth part as deeply as we offend Him.  Therefore in praying against Hawes you have prayed against yourself.  Give me your slate.  No; take it yourself.  Write—­”

Robinson took his pencil with alacrity.  He wrote a beautiful hand, and wanted to show off this accomplishment to his reverence.

“Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that trespass against us.’”

“It is down, sir.”

“Now particularize.”

“Particularize, your reverence?”

“Write under ‘us’ ‘our’ and ‘we,’ ‘me’,’ my’ and ‘I’; respectively.”

“All right, sir.”

“Now under ‘them’ write ‘Mr. Hawes.’”

“Ugh!  Yes, your reverence, ‘Mr. Hawes.’”

“And under the last four words write, ‘his cruelty to me.’”

This was wormwood to Mr. Robinson. “‘His cruelty to me!’”

“Now read your work out.”

“‘Forgive me my sins as I forgive Mr. Hawes his cruelty to me.’”

“Now ponder over those words.  Keep them before your eye here, and try at least and bow your stubborn heart to them.  Fall on them and be broken, or they will fall on you and grind you to powder.”  He concluded in a terrible tone; then, seeing Robinson abashed, more from a notion he was in a rage with him than from any deeper sentiment, he bade him farewell kindly as ever.

“I know,” said he, “I have given you a hard task.  We can all gabble the Lord’s Prayer, but how few have ever prayed it!  But at least try, my poor soul, and I will set you an example.  I will pray for my brother Robinson and my brother Hawes, and I shall pray for them all the more warmly that at present one is a blaspheming thief and the other a pitiless blockhead.”

The next day being Sunday, Mr. Eden preached two sermons that many will remember all their lives.  The first was against theft and all the shades of dishonesty.  I give a few of his topics.  The dry bones he covered with flesh and blood and beauty.  The tendency of theft was to destroy all moral and social good.  For were it once to prevail so far as to make property insecure, industry would lose heart, enterprise and frugality be crushed, and at last the honest turn thieves in self-defense.  Nearly every act of theft had a baneful influence on the person robbed.