He was about to stop when Saunders McTavish interrupted:
"Moderator, there'll be no need to proceed by libel, for the accused party has confessed his guilt. But he hasna said anything to the Court about his soul, about his soul and his sin, and his relation to his God. At least, not all he might like to say and we might like to hear. Mebbe he'll have had repentance unto life?"
I waited. Mr. Blake's response came with humble brokenness.
"Please God I have," he said, "and, unworthy though I be, I have a great word for my fellow men this day—a word the unfallen angels could not speak. Oh, my brethren, believe me, I have not been leading a double life. I took the eldership at your hands, I know, saying nothing of the dark blot that soiled the past. My humble hope was that in service I might seek to redeem my life and I remembered One who said to a guilty soul like mine:—'Feed My sheep.' Penitence, and not remorse, I thought, was well pleasing unto God.
"And you will bear me witness that I have tried to warn all, especially the young men, against the first approach of sin. I fell long years ago because I cherished sinful images in my heart till even love went down before them. Since then, God is my witness, I have made it my lifework to drive them forth and to make every thought captive to the Redeeming Christ. My lifework has not been in my foundry, nor in my town, nor in my church—but in my heart, this guilty heart of mine. I have striven to drive out evil thoughts—out, in the blessed name of Jesus. For long, I could not recall my sin without sinning anew. But I had a hope of final victory, and having this, I purified myself even as He is pure.
"It was my daily prayer that God would make me useful, poor and all but sunken wreck as I was, that he would yet make me a danger signal to the young about me—which I am this day. For a wrecked ship does not tell of danger—it swears to the peril that itself has known. And to every young man before me I swear to two things this hour. The first is that your sin will find you out. Be sure of this. All our phrases about lanes that have no turning and the mills of the gods and justice that smites with iron hand, and chickens that come home to roost—all these are only names for God's unsleeping vigilance, all varied statements of the relentlessness of sin.
"The other truth to which I swear is this, that dark and bitter memories of evil may be a blessing to the soul, if we but count that sin our deadly enemy and rest not till we take vengeance of it. It may yet be God's messenger to us, if we lead humble chastened lives, seeking to redeem the past and watching unto prayer. There is no discipline so bitter and so blessed as the discipline of an almost ruined soul. For old sins do not decay and die; they must be nailed upon the cross. It is an awful truth that he who was once filthy is filthy still, but it is still more true, thank God, that there is One whose blood cleanseth from all sin."
He stopped suddenly, and in a moment he was gone. Down that same aisle by which his child had passed, he swiftly walked, his head bowed, his face quivering in pain like one who was being scourged out of the temple. For there are corded whips, knotted by unseen hands.
After the door had closed behind him the Session Clerk arose:
"I move, Moderator," he said, "that Mr. Blake's resignation be laid on the table."