what a schoolmaster is. If you had
been under the same schoolmaster as I was when a boy you would have
known. He had a good cane and it was frequently in use. In the
little country district where I went to school, there were two
parties: for the sake of illustration we may call the one the "law"
party and the other the "grace" party. The law party said that boys
could not possibly be controlled without the cane: and they kept a
schoolmaster there who acted on their plan. The struggle went on,
and at last, on one election day, the law party was put out, and the
grace party ruled in their stead. I happened to be at the school at
that time; and I remember we said to each other that we were going
to have a grand time that winter. There would be no more corporal
punishment, and we were going to be ruled by love.

I was one of the first to break the rules of the school. We had a
lady teacher, and she asked me to stay behind. I thought the cane
was coming out again; and I was going to protest against it. I was
quite in a fighting mood. She took me alone. She sat down and began
to talk to me kindly. I thought that was worse than the cane; I did
not like it. I saw that she had not got any cane. She said: "I have
made up my mind that if I cannot control the school by love, I will
give it up. I will have no punishment; and if you love me, try and
keep the rules of the school." I felt something right here in my
throat. I was not one to shed many tears; but they would come--I
could not keep them back. I said to her, "You will have no more
trouble with me;" and she did not. I learned more that winter than
in the other three put together.

That was the difference between law and grace. Christ says, "If you
love Me, keep My commandments." He takes us out from under the law,
and puts us under grace. Grace will break the hardest heart. It was
the love of God that prompted Him to send His only-begotten Son into
the world that He might save it. I suppose the thief had gone
through his trial unsoftened. Probably the law had hardened his
heart. But on the cross no doubt that touching prayer of the
Saviour, "Father, forgive them!" broke his heart, so that he cried,
"Lord, remember me!" He was brought to ask for mercy. I believe
there is no man so far gone but the grace of God will melt his
heart.

It is told of Isaac T. Hopper, the Quaker, that he once encountered
a profane colored man, named Cain, in Philadelphia, and took him
before a