"Now do not jump to hasty and false conclusions from my words; I do not say that your action was right. In the abstract it was decidedly wrong, and for your language there is no other excuse save that an old, bad habit asserted itself at a time when you had lost self-control. I am dealing leniently with you, Egbert, because it is a trick of the adversary to tempt to despair as well as to over-confidence. At the same time I speak sincerely. You are and have been for some time in a morbid state of mind. Let my simple common-sense come to your aid in this emergency. The very conditions under which you have been working at the mill imposed a continuous strain upon your nervous power. You were steadily approaching a point where mere human endurance would give way. Mark, I do not say that you might not have been helped to endure longer, and to endure everything; but mere human nature could not have endured it much longer. It is often wiser to shun certain temptations, if we can, than to meet them. You could not do this; and if, taking into account all the circumstances, you could have tamely submitted to this insult, which was the culmination of long-continued and exasperating injury, I should have doubted whether you possessed the material to make a strong, forceful man. Of course, if you often give way to passion in this manner, you would be little better than a wild beast; but for weeks you had exercised very great forbearance and self-control--for one of your temperament, remarkable self-control--and I respect you for it. We are as truly bound to be just to ourselves as to others. Your action was certainly wrong, and I would be deeply grieved and disappointed if you continued to give way to such ebullitions of passion; but remembering your youth, and all that has happened since spring, and observing plainly that you are in an unhealthful condition of mind and body, I think your course was very natural indeed, and that you have no occasion for such despondency." "Yes," put in Mr. Growther; "and he went away without his breakfast, and it was mighty little he took for lunch; all men are savages when they haven't eaten anything." "Pardon me, Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane gloomily, "all this does not meet the case at all. I had been hoping that I was a Christian; what is more, it seems to me that I had had the feelings and experiences of a Christian." "I have nothing to say against that," said the lady quietly; "I am very glad that you had." "After what has occurred what right have I to think myself a Christian?" "As good a right as multitudes of others." "Now, Mrs. Arnot, that seems to me to be contrary to reason." "It is not contrary to fact. Good people in the Bible, good people in history, and to my personal knowledge, too, have been left to do outrageously wrong things. To err is human; and we are all very human, Egbert." "But I don't feel that I am a Christian any longer," he said sadly.