"Why no, I suppose not, Mrs. Arundel."
"And if you sowed a good seed, would you expect it, after a time, to come up and bear bad fruit?"
"No, I suppose not," still answered the boy.
"Well, that is just what the Bible says, 'God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.' If you sow now unholy thoughts and deeds, they will bear terrible fruit in your after life.
"I believe there is not a sin you commit now which will not, even in this life, find you out. I knew a boy who told me what his feelings were once, when he thought himself drowning. He was bathing, and the weeds suddenly wrapped round him, and in an instant pulled him under. As he sank, everything he had done in his life flashed across him in a moment of time. He saw deeds, which he had fancied harmless, in their true light, and he told me the instantaneous review was an awful thing.
"He did not drown; for the bottom of the pond was close under him, though he did not know it; but it serves as an illustration of what I mean.
"Would it not be safer, wiser, dear Frank, to obey God now, that you may reap life everlasting? You know it says, 'Thou shalt cast all my sins behind Thy back.'"
"You don't know how difficult it is, Mrs. Arundel," he answered in a smothered voice.
"Perhaps not wholly, dear, but I can guess and understand a great deal; our hearts are all the same, Frank, and I know what a hard fight it must be for you. But you will not be sorry in the end. The soldier who is victorious in the hottest battle gains the most laurels. There is always Christ, who will conquer for you, if you commit it to Him. He is the Captain of the Lord's host."
Mrs. Arundel said all this with extreme gentleness, but with a firm persuasion of its truth. The boy felt this, even while he still indulged his angry sullenness.