"What effort?" said Tom. "I have scarcely heart for anything. I have disgraced myself forever. Suppose all the consequences of my--doing as I did"--he could not yet call the deed by its name--"were to disappear, I have a blot upon me to all eternity, that nothing can wash out. For there is the fact. I almost think it is not worth while to do anything." "You are altogether wrong about that," returned Mr. Fuller. "It is true that the deed is done, and that that cannot be obliterated. But a living soul may outgrow all stain and all reproach--I do not mean in the judgment of men merely, but in the judgment of God, which is always founded on the actual fact, and always calls things by their right names, and covers no man's sin, although he forgives it and takes it away. A man may abjure his sin so, cast it away from him so utterly, with pure heart and full intent, that, although he did it, it is his no longer. But, Thomas Worboise, if the stain of it were to cleave to you to all eternity, that would be infinitely better than that you should have continued capable of doing the thing. You are more honorable now than you were before. Then you were capable of the crime; now, I trust, you are not. It was far better that, seeing your character was such that you could do it, you should thus be humbled by disgracing yourself, than that you should have gone on holding up a proud head in the world, with such a deceitful hollow of weakness in your heart. It is the kindest thing God can do for his children, sometimes, to let them fall in the mire. You would not hold by your Father's hand; you struggled to pull it away; he let it go, and there you lay. Now that you stretch forth the hand to him again, he will take you, and clean, not your garments only, but your heart, and soul, and consciousness. Pray to your Father, my boy. He will change your humiliation into humility, your shame into purity." "Oh, if he were called anything else than _Father_! I am afraid I hate my father." "I don't wonder. But that is your own fault, too." "How is that, sir? Surely you are making even me out worse than I am." "No. You are afraid of him. As soon as you have ceased to be afraid of him, you will no longer be in danger of hating him." "I can't help being afraid of him."