“He will—if you leave off, you know, uncle.”
“That’s more than I can promise.”
“If you try, he will help you.”
“How can he? It is a second nature now!”
“He is your first nature. He can help you too by taking away the body and its nature together.”
“You’re a fine comforter! God will help me to be good by taking away my life! A nice encouragement to try! Hadn’t I better kill myself and save him the trouble!”
“It’s not the dying, uncle! no amount of dying would ever make one good. It might only make it less difficult to be good.”
“But I might after all refuse to be good! I feel sure I should! He had better let me alone!”
“God can do more than that to compel us to be good—a great deal more than that! Indeed, uncle, we must repent.”
He said no more for some minutes; then suddenly spoke again.