And to-day of his goodness he has not remembered my sins, but
treated me as though they were not; and today, as only a good man
can, he goes from my house, no man thinking to laugh except at his
simplicity, even though it were known that I kissed his hand.
God bless you, Sir John, and teach your son to be merciful to women!"
My father was ever so shy of his own kind actions that, when detected
by chance or painfully tracked out in one, he kept always a quotation
ready to justify what pure impulse had prompted. So now, as we
hurried across the deserted Market Strand to catch up with the other
three, he must needs brazen things out with the authority of Bishop
Jeremy Taylor.
"It was a maxim of that excellent divine," said he, "that Christian
censure should never be used to make a sinner desperate; for then he
either sinks under the burden or grows impudent and tramples upon it.
A charitable modest remedy, says he, preserves that which is virtue's
girdle-fear and blushing. Honour, dear lad, is the peculiar
counsellor of well-bred natures, and these are few; but almost in all
men you will find a certain modesty toward sin, and were I a king my
judges should be warned that their duty is to chasten; whereas by
punishing immoderately they can but effect the exact opposite.
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