"Why not take the pledge, again, Jonas?" said his wife, for the first time she had urged that recourse upon him.
"You have heard my reasons given for that, over and over again."
"I know I have. But they never satisfied me."
"You would not have me add the sin of a double violation of a solemn pledge to my already overburdened conscience?"
"No, Jonas. Heaven forbid!"
"The fear of that restrains me. I dare not again take it."
"Do you not deeply repent of your first violation?" the wife asked, after a few moments of earnest thought. "Heaven knows how deeply."
"And Heaven, that perceives and knows the depth and sincerity of that repentance, accepts it according to its quality. And just so far as Heaven accepts the sincere offering of a repentant heart, conscious of its own weakness, and mourning over its derelictions, is strength given for combat in future temptations. The bruised reed he will not break, nor quench the smoking flax. Hope, then, dear husband! you are not cast off—you are not rejected by Heaven."
"O, Jane, if I could feel the truth of what you. say, how happy I should be!—For the idea of sinking again into that hopeless, abandoned, wretched condition, out of which this severe affliction has lifted me, as by the hair of the head, is appalling!" was the reply, to his wife's earnest appeal.
"Trust me, dear husband,—there is truth in what I say. He who came down to man's lowest, and almost lost condition, that he might raise him up, and sustain him against the assaults of his worst enemies, has felt in his own body all the temptations that ever can assail his children, and not only felt them, but successfully resisted and conquered them; so that, there is no state, however low, in which there is an earnest desire to rise out of evil, to which he does not again come down, and in which he does not again successfully contend with the powers of darkness. Look to Him, then, again, in a fixed resolution to put away the evils into which you have fallen, and you must, you will be sustained!"