“They had no right to threaten her!”
“Did they threaten her? If they did, they were wrong.—And yet I don’t know! In any case they did for her the very best thing that could be done! For they did get her, you tell me, to confess—and so cast from her the horror of carrying about in her secret heart the knowledge of an unforgiven crime! Christians of all denominations hold, I presume, that, to be forgiven, a sin must be confessed!”
“Yes, to God—that is enough! No mere man has a right to know the sins of his neighbour!”
“Not even the man against whom the sin was committed?”
“Suppose the sin has never come abroad, but remains hidden in the heart, is a man bound to confess it? Is he, for instance, bound to tell his neighbour that he used to hate him, and in his heart wish him evil?”
“The time micht come whan to confess even that would ease a man’s hert! but in sic a case, the man’s first duty, it seems to me, would be to watch for an opportunity o’ doin that neebour a kin’ness. That would be the deid blow to his hatred! But where a man has done an act o’ injustice, a wrang to his neebour, he has no ch’ice, it seems to me, but confess it: that neebour is the one from whom first he has to ask and receive forgiveness; and that neebour alone can lift the burden o’ ’t aff o’ him! Besides, the confession may be but fair, to haud the blame frae bein laid at the door o’ some innocent man!—And the author o’ nae offence can affoord to forget,” ended the soutar, “hoo the Lord said, ‘There’s naething happit-up, but maun come to the licht’!”
It seems to me that nothing could have led the minister so near the presentation of his own false position, except the will of God working in him to set him free. He continued, driven by an impulse he neither understood nor suspected—
“Suppose the thing not known, however, or likely to be known, and that the man’s confession, instead of serving any good end, would only destroy his reputation and usefulness, bring bitter grief upon those who loved him, and nothing but shame to the one he had wronged—what would you say then?—You will please to remember, Mr. MacLear, that I am putting an entirely imaginary case, for the sake of argument only!”
“Eh, but I doobt—I doobt yer imaiginary case!” murmured the soutar to himself, hardly daring even to think his thought clearly, lest somehow it might reveal itself.
“In that case,” he replied, “it seems to me the offender wad hae to cast aboot him for ane fit to be trustit, and to him reveal the haill affair, that he may get his help to see and do what’s richt: it maks an unco differ to luik at a thing throuw anither man’s een, i’ the supposed licht o’ anither man’s conscience! The wrang dune may hae caused mair evil, that is, mair injustice, nor the man himsel kens! And what’s the reputation ye speak o’, or what’s the eesefu’ness o’ sic a man? Can it be worth onything? Isna his hoose a lee? isna it biggit upo the san’? What kin’ o’ a usefulness can that be that has hypocrisy for its fundation? Awa wi’ ’t! Lat him cry oot to a’ the warl’, ‘I’m a heepocrit! I’m a worm, and no man!’ Lat him cry oot to his makker, ‘I’m a beast afore thee! Mak a man o’ me’!”