“It’s like the little black-and-white rabbit,—all comes of my going to the —— circus,” said Dick at length, with another oath. He didn’t mean to add that: it slipped out before he thought.
“Yes, it is like. Folks, as well as rabbits, need a good and wise Master,” said Aunty McFane, very soberly. “Do you know who is your master, Dicky?”
Dick moved uneasily. Ever since the day he was hurt, that great, all-seeing Eye had seemed to be looking straight into his naughty heart, and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
“I—suppose—it’s—God, if He’s everybody’s,” he said, in a low voice.
“Oh no! God hasn’t any servants only those who choose to obey him. It was Satan who told you to go to the circus, and coaxed you off gunning on the Sabbath, and put those dreadful words in your mouth just now. God’s commandments are very different. You know what they are, of course, Dicky?”
“The ten commandments? Grandpa used to tell me, but I—why, I keep most all of them, I guess. I don’t make ‘graven images.’”
“I don’t suppose you do yet, sonny, as the men do who worship their big stores and houses; but if we love anything better than we love God, it’s an idol, an’ I’m afraid you’ve got one idol named Self. And then there’s ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain,’”—Dick dropped his head,—“and this, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’”
A little lower drooped the red face.
“Honor thy father and mother.”
“I’m all right there,” cried Dick, suddenly straightening. “I never call my father the ‘old man,’ as some boys do, nor make as if I was too big to mind mother.”