The man who would shudder at the idea of a rough word
of the description commonly called swearing, will not even have a
twinge of conscience after a whole morning of ill tempered sullenness,
capricious scolding, villainously unfair animadversion, or surly
cross grained treatment generally of wife and children! Such a man
will omit neither family worship nor a sneer at his neighbour. He
will neither milk his cow on the first day of the week without a
Sabbath mask on his face, nor remove it while he waters the milk
for his customers. Yet he may not be an absolute hypocrite. What
can be done for him, however, hell itself may have to determine.
Notwithstanding their spiritual experiences, it was, for instance,
no easier to get them to pay their debts than heretofore. Of course
there were, and had always been, thoroughly honest men and women
amongst them; but there were others who took prominent part in
their observances, who seemed to have no remotest suspicion that
religion had anything to do with money or money's worth--not to
know that God cared whether a child of his met his obligations or
not. Such fulfilled the injunction to owe nothing by acknowledging
nothing. One man, when pressed, gave as a reason for his refusal,
that Christ had paid all his debts. Possibly this contemptible
state of feeling had been fostered by an old superstition that it
was unlucky to pay up everything, whence they had always been in
the habit of leaving at least a few shillings of their shop bills
to be carried forward to the settlement after the next fishing
season.
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