One of the duties of the writer during the first days of his
clerkship was to “lock up.” One morning in the very first week
of his employment he found the door unlocked and a policeman
standing guard. Had he forgotten to lock that door? A hasty
survey revealed that nothing had been taken away, and the
policeman was dismissed. Should he confess the delinquency?
It was almost sure dismissal. But he resolved to make a clean
breast of it, and when his employer came in later he told all
the circumstances, and bravely admitted that he must have failed
to lock the door. While making this confession, the policeman
walked in, to report finding the door unlocked. But his report
had been forestalled, and, with an injunction to be more careful
in future, the matter was dismissed. The confession forestalling
that report was all that saved dismissal. But that confession
won the confidence of his employer, and won a higher trust and
esteem than existed before. This is one of the first lessons to
learn. Confess instantly a fault, a loss, a mistake, and it is
half retrieved.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
(518)
See FALSEHOOD.
* * * * *
Among the hard-working Labrador fishermen was a rich man who
had opprest them, but whom they believed to be strong enough to
defy them. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, who is
also a magistrate, went to the offender and told him that he
must confess his sin and pay back to the fishermen a thousand
dollars. He curst the missionary. At the next church service,
the doctor announced that a sinful man would confess his sin
that night. They couldn’t believe that the rich sinner would
yield. At the evening service, Dr. Grenfell asked them to keep
their seats while he went after the sinner. He found the man at
a brother’s house on his knees in prayer, with all the family.
“Prayer,” said the doctor, “is a good thing in its place, but it
doesn’t ‘go’ here. Come with me.”
He meekly went, and was led up the aisle, where all could see
him, and, after the doctor had described the great sin of which
he was guilty, he asked, “Did you do this thing?” “I did.” “You
are an evil man of whom the people should beware?” “I am.” “You
deserve the punishment of man and God?” “I do.”
At the end of it all the doctor told the man that the good God
would forgive him if he should ask in true faith and repentance,
but that the people, being human, could not. For a whole year,
he charged the people, they must not speak to that man; but if,
at the end of that time, he had shown an honest disposition to
mend his ways, they might take him to their hearts.
The man finally paid the money and fled the place.
(519)