I WAS astonished to find that I could commit a crime of such magnitude with so little remorse. It is true, the sin had become, in a measure, necessary to my salvation, and that of my wife; but I was only excited, not burdened with guilt, when I did the deed. I had been traveling very rapidly on the downward road, and in a few weeks I had acquired a facility in crime which enabled me to rob the bank of thirty thousand dollars without considering any thing but the peril of being discovered. Fatal facility, which can only be avoided by those who refrain from taking the first step!
I had deluded myself into the belief that principle was only a worldly sense of honor. Tom Flynn was a man of genuine principle, for his actions were based upon a religious foundation, which alone can vitalize principle. A man may be honest because it is safer or more reputable to be so; but then he would steal if it were not for being found out, and will be as dishonest as fashion or custom will tolerate. When I had leisure to think of the matter, I marvelled that I had fallen so easily; and this was the explanation I made to myself.
Tom Flynn had said as much as this to me, in the way of argument, assuring me it was quite impossible for a man without the love of God and the love of man in his heart—which is the epitome of the whole gospel—to have any genuine principle in his soul. Any thing short of this is mere sentiment, which is blown aside by the rude blast of temptation. The hymn he used to sing so much seemed to tell the whole story:—
“I want a principle within
Of jealous, godly fear;
A sensibility to sin,
A pain to find it near.”
Worldly honor, the fear of discovery, the bubble of reputation, are not enough to keep a man in the path of rectitude. But I will not anticipate the reflections which were forced upon me afterwards. I did not believe I was much worse than the majority of young men. I certainly did not mean to steal when I began to take money from the bank; and even when I found it necessary to flee from the anticipated consequences of my errors, I had a certain undefined expectation of being able to restore all I had taken. The fortune of Aunt Rachel still flitted through my mind as the solution of the difficult problem.
I left the bank struggling to look cool and indifferent. I bowed and spoke to my acquaintances as naturally as possible. In two or three hours more I should be out of the city, perhaps never to see it again. I could not even go down to Springhaven to see my mother—probably I had seen her for the last time on earth. My blood seemed like ice as the thought came to my mind. I reflected upon all she had been to me, all she had done for me. The prayers and the hymns she had taught me in my childhood came back to me as though I had learned them but yesterday. I was amazed at my own folly and wickedness. What a blow I was dealing to that mother! When she heard that her only son had fled from his home, steeped in crime, and covered with shame how she would weep! For days months and years she would groan in bitterness of spirit.
What a wretch, what a villain, what an ingrate I was to strike her in this cruel manner! My sense of worldly honor would have revolted at the thought of giving her even the slightest blow with my hand; but how inconceivably more cruel was the blow I was giving her by my conduct! Could I have sooner realized the anguish which the thought of my mother would cause me, I think it might have saved me.