I was rather ashamed to tell of my ruse, the white lie (though I never knew how any lie could be white), I told in order to gain admittance, but my old friend said that in catching rascals, as in trapping rats, one has to use a little chaff and deception, so I concluded that he did not think any the worse of me for my little trick. Yet I have always hated to lie, it strains me so, and after it I feel a weakness, as if my moral system had been wrenched, so I refrain, that is, as much as possible. M. Le Maistre was as good a listener as I knew him to be a good talker, though these two traits seldom go together. After I had finished by telling him of the apparent remorse of the man—I do not like to write man, as applied to him, as it seems a degradation of that word, neither do I like to use epithets all the time, so will have to let it go—he exclaimed, “Served him right; served him right. Such a scoundrel as that should be put into the public stocks to be jeered at by every beggar who passes, as long as he lives, and after death, we need not say anything of that, for he will have all he deserves. God is not just if he will abate one particle of punishment due to such sinners. I know that some, the church people would censure me for such an expression. “There is a lot of nonsense talked about eternal salvation. Why, they would people heaven with scoundrels, reprobates of earth, suddenly made into saints. There cannot be two laws of God to directly contradict each other. This is what I mean. There is a man of fair education, exemplary in every way, an excellent Christian. I am not making a case, for I knew just such a man. He is seated one evening with his wife and children on a veranda in front of his house. A man for some slight grudge comes, and without a word, shoots, and the father and husband falls dead in the arms of his wife. The criminal is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. The priest has been with him. On the scaffold he tells the crowd that he has repented, believes in Jesus, and is going to be happy among the redeemed. “The church affects to believe him, that all his past has been forgiven, that the blood of Jesus has washed him white as snow, and that he is going straight to become a saint in heaven. “But what about the family? Deprived of their support, guide and best of earthly friends, they are reduced to want and beggary. The mother is crushed to death by her hard toil and care. The boys without education and the training of a father, fall into vice and sin. Their children inherit their defects and so on for generations; aye to the very end. With the family the evil consequences of that man’s crime are eternal. How can we by any torture of justice suppose him to be saved from all the consequences of his sin and to be happy in heaven, while they suffer all the miseries inflicted by his crime while they are upon earth, and an eternal loss and degradation?”