"Then you must know, Reuben, why it is that the wicked are suffered to live so long on this earth! People often wonder at the mysterious ways of Providence, when they see a good man prematurely cut off and a wicked man left alive! Why, it isn't mysterious at all to me! The good man was ready to go, and the Lord took him; the bad man was left to his chance of repentance. Reuben, the Lord, who is the most of all offended by sin, spares the sinner a long time to afford him opportunity for repentance! If he wanted to punish the sinner with death in this world, he could strike the sinner dead! But he doesn't do it, and shall we dare to? No! we must bow in humble submission to his awful words--' Vengeance is mine!'" "Hannah, you may be right; I dare say you are; yes, I'll speak plain--I know you are! but it's hard to put up with such! I feel baffled and disappointed, and ready to cry! A man feels ashamed to set down quiet under such mortification!" "Then I'll give you a cure for that! It is the remembrance of the Divine Man and the dignified patience with which he bore the insults of the rabble crowd upon his day of trial! You know what those insults were, and how he bore them! Bow down before his majestic meekness, and pay him the homage of obedience to his command of returning good for evil!" "You're right, Hannah!" said Gray, with a great struggle, in which he conquered his own spirit. "You're altogether right, my girl! So you needn't tell me the name of the wrong-doer! And, indeed, you'd better not; for the temptation to punish him might be too great for my strength, as soon as I am out of your sight and in his!" "Why, Reuben, my lad, I could not tell you if I were inclined to do so. I am sworn to secrecy!" "Sworn to secrecy! that's queer too! Who swore you?" "Poor Nora, who died forgiving all her enemies and at peace with all the world!" "With him too?" "With him most of all! And now, Reuben, I want you to listen to me. I met your ideas of vengeance and argued them upon your own ground, for the sake of convincing you that vengeance is wrong even under the greatest possible provocation, such as you believed that we had all had. But, Reuben, you are much mistaken! We have had no provocation!" said Hannah gravely. "What, no provocation! not in the wrong done to Nora!" "There has been no intentional wrong done to Nora!" "What! no wrong in all that villainy?" "There has been no villainy, Reuben!" "Then if that wasn't villainy, there's none in the world; and never was any in the world, that's all I have got to say!" "Reuben, Nora was married to the father of her child. He loved her dearly, and meant her well. You must believe this, for it is as true as Heaven!" said Hannah solemnly. Reuben pricked up his ears; perhaps he was not sorry to be entirely relieved from the temptation of killing and the danger of hanging.