HIM THE TRUTH."

Then the mother said:

"I HAD TAUGHT HIM, ALL HIS LITTLE LIFE, WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE TRUTH,
AND IN HIS BELIEVING FAITH BOTH OF US WERE HAPPY. NOW HE IS DEAD,--AND
LOST; AND I AM MISERABLE. OUR FAITH CAME DOWN TO US THROUGH CENTURIES
OF BELIEVING ANCESTORS; WHAT RIGHT HAD YOU, OR ANY ONE, TO DISTURB IT?
WHERE WAS YOUR HONOR, WHERE WAS YOUR SHAME?"

Y.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death!

O.M. He thought so himself, and said so.

Y.M. Ah--you see, HIS CONSCIENCE WAS AWAKENED!

O.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It PAINED him to see the mother
suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought HIM pain. It did
not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the boy,
for he was absorbed in providing PLEASURE for himself, then. Providing
it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.

Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of AWAKENED CONSCIENCE.
That awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of
trouble again. A cure like that is a PERMANENT cure.

O.M. Pardon--I had not finished the story. We are creatures of OUTSIDE
INFLUENCES--we originate NOTHING within. Whenever we take a new line of
thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is
ALWAYS suggested from the OUTSIDE. Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel
that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy's religion and made him
come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy's
sake and the mother's. Finally he found himself examining it. From that
moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a
believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy
of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no
rest, no peace. He MUST have rest and peace--it is the law of nature.
There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving
imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country
ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home
and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken
hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here
was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the
other boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his
foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy in
his last moments reproached him and said:

"I BELIEVED, AND WAS HAPPY IN IT; YOU