"Because you disbelieve their efficacy[20]!" Markheim cried.
"I do not say so," returned the other; "but I look on these things
from a different side, and when the life is done my interest falls.
The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under color of
religion, or to sow tares[21] in the wheat field, as you do, in a
course of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to
his deliverance, he can add but one act of service--to repent, to die
smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous
of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me. Accept
my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please
yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the
night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for
your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your
quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God.
I came but now from such a death-bed, and the room was full of sincere
mourners, listening to the man's last words; and when I looked into
that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it
smiling with hope."
"And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?" asked Markheim. "Do
you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin, and sin,
and sin, and, at last, sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the
thought.
Pages:
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301