"'This man was a scholar in the law; and was already pretty well on in years, when one of his sons, a special favourite with him on account of his fine parts and who was just studying law at the time, at the University, learned to know his Saviour, and turned to Him with all his heart. The instrument of his conversion was a faithful minister, whose preaching he had attended diligently, and with whom he afterwards came into very intimate terms of intercourse. Now when this son's heart was filled with intense love to his Saviour, such as I have seen equalled in few men, nothing was more natural than that he should send longing wishes towards the parents and brothers and sisters whom he loved so tenderly; wishes that they too might learn to know the Saviour; and so, in his letters, he poured his whole heart out, told them without reserve what had gone on in his own heart, and how he was now rejoicing in the certainty that his sins were forgiven and in the sure hope of everlasting life. "Oh that all men were as happy as I!" he cried out in his letters. For a long time he was left without an answer. At last came a letter from his father, it ran thus: "My son, your letters were wont always formerly to be a refreshment and a delight to me; now, on the contrary, they are a vexation and a bitter grief. I see that you are exactly in the way to become like those hypocrites of whom you used to hear me tell. I beg that you will either write as you have been accustomed to do, or not write at all." "'The son answered, "Father, you have always enjoined it upon me to tell the truth; you always impressed it upon me that there is no more contemptible and cowardly being than a liar, for he has not even the spirit to be honest; and now do you want to compel me to be untrue? Either I must write you what is according to my heart; for lie I cannot and will not, neither will I make believe; or I must indeed do as you say and not write at all." This startled the father, for he had in former times said to his friends,--"The lad will not tell a falsehood; he would sooner let his head be taken off;"--and he was honest enough to write to his son, "Well, write what you like; if you are not a hypocrite, you are a fanatic; but you shall tell no lies; there you are right and I was wrong."