There was a public transport service which passed from the Persian into later empires. Our Lord then says “When any public officer presses thee into the transport service for a certain way, be prepared to take double the impost.” That is――do not resent public claims upon you, bear the public burdens, and be willing that, as far as you are concerned, they should be double what they are. But how we dislike the rates and taxes! How few there are who take a Christian view of paying them, and are glad, up to their means, to accept the burden which membership in this great nation lays upon them. Something more is our duty than to make barely honest returns for an income tax. “Give to him that asketh thee,” and (in St. Luke) “of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.” Probably most of us know the old sculpture on the back of the screen behind the high altar in our abbey of Westminster. It is one of those in which are represented the traditions about our (almost) patron saint, Edward the Confessor. The king is resting after the labours of the day, and Hugolin, his chamberlain, has brought out the chest of money to pay his various retainers. But he leaves it open while he is out of the way; a scullion comes in, and thinking the king is asleep, twice he carries off treasure out of the chest. While he is enriching himself the third time, the king, who has seen all, quietly observes: “Fly, fellow, as quickly as you can, for Hugolin is coming back, and he will not leave you so much as a half-penny.” Hugolin does come, and, finding out what has occurred, questions the king. The king however will not disclose who has taken the treasure: “He needed it more than we; Edward has surely enough treasure. As Jesus Christ teaches us, worldly property ought to be common to all those who have need of it.”[60] We need not doubt that occasions still occur when even fantastic acts of generosity, such as this, are the things needed to make an impression on hardened or embittered or careless hearts. Every one knows Victor Hugo’s story of the bishop and the convict in _Les Miserables_, and no doubt it represents realities in life and experience. On the whole, however, it is seldom that it would be right to let the thief have his own way. But it is always right to deal very mercifully with first offences and to take trouble to give the offenders a clear fresh chance. And even if the law is let to take its course with a criminal, yet kindness to him while he is suffering his sentence and after it――kindness which does not shrink from taking a great deal of trouble――can produce the same moral impression as a literal application of the divine proverb like King Edward’s. “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.”