"Believe me, sir," said Dr. Barlow, "it is better to find it out now than at a still later period. One good quality can never be made to supply the absence of another. There are no substitutes in this warfare. Nor can all the good qualities put together, if we could suppose them to unite in one man, and to exist without religion, stand proxy for the death of Christ. If they could so exist, it would be in the degree only, and not in the perfection required by that law which said, do _this and live_. So kind a neighbor as you are, so honest a gentleman, so generous a master, as you are allowed to be, I can not, sir, think without pain of your losing the reward of such valuable qualities, by your placing your hope of eternal happiness in the exercise of them. Believe me, Mr. Flam, it is easier for a compassionate man, if he be not religious, to 'give all his goods to the poor,' than to bring every thought, 'nay than to bring _any_ thought' into captivity to the obedience of Christ! But be assured, if we give ever so much with our hands, while we withhold our hearts from God, though we may do much good to others, we do none to ourselves." "Why surely," said Mr. Flam, "you don't mean to insinuate that I should be in a safer state if I never did a kind thing?" "Quite the contrary," replied Dr. Barlow, "but I could wish to see your good actions exalted, by springing from a higher principle, I mean the love of God; ennobled by being practiced to a higher end, and purified by your renouncing all self-complacency in the performance." "But is there not less danger, sir," said Mr. Flam, "in being somewhat proud of what one really _does_, than in doing nothing? And is it not more excusable to be a little satisfied with what one really _is_, than in hypocritically pretending to be what one is _not_?" "I must repeat," returned Dr. Barlow, "that I can not exactly decide on the question of relative enormity between two opposite sins. I can not pronounce which is the best of two states so very bad." "Why now, Doctor," said Mr. Flam, "what particular sin can you charge me with?" "I erect not myself into an accuser," replied Dr. Barlow; "but permit me to ask you, sir, from what motive is it that you avoid any wrong practice? Is there any one sin from which you abstain through the fear of offending your Maker?" "As to that," replied Mr. Flam, "I can't say I ever considered about the motive of the thing. I thought it was quite enough not to do it. Well but, Doctor, since we are gone so far in the catechism, what duty to my neighbor can you convict me of omitting?"