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 e