"My friends," said the deacon, "I'm one of the very kind of people
Jesus meant when He said the words that our pastor took for his text
to-night; and, for fear that some one mayn't know it, I arise to own up
to it myself. Nobody's stood up for the letter of the law and the plan
of salvation stronger than I, and nobody has taken more pains to dodge
the spirit of it. The scales have fallen from my eyes lately, but I
suppose all of you have been seeing me as I am for a long, long time,
and you've known me for the hypocrite that I now can see I've always
been. I've done a good many things that I oughtn't to have done. I've
told half-truths that were worse than lies. I've 'devoured widows'
houses, and for a pretence made long prayers,' as the gospel says. But
the worst thing I've done, and the thing I feel most sinful about, is
that when an unfortunate fellow-citizen of ours came back to this town
and tried to live a right life I did all I could to discourage him and
make him just like myself. I want right here, encompassed about by a
mighty cloud of witnesses, to confess that I've done that man an awful
wrong, and I'm sorry for it. I've prayed to God to forgive me; but I'm
not going to stop at that. Right here before you all I want to ask that
man himself to forgive me, as I've asked him in private.
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