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Herr von Kircheisen was at home, enjoying the sight of the money he had won from Gotzkowsky. This day they did not receive him as a counsellor or friend, but more like a delinquent. No one rose to greet him no one offered him a seat! They knew that he came to ask for something. Why, then, should they be polite to him, as he was only a petitioner like all other poor people?
Here, then, was an opportunity of gratifying his resentment in a Christian and constitutional spirit, and with no obstacle in his way but Darby's inveterate piety. This, however, for the sake of truth, he hoped to remove, or so modify, that it would not prevent him from punishing that very disloyal and idolatrous delinquent.
Hypocrisy is generally used as a mask to deceive the world, not to impose on ourselves: for once detect the delinquent in his knavery, and he laughs in your face or glories in his iniquity. This at least happens except where there is a contradiction in the character, and our vices are involuntary and at variance with our convictions.
He whirled his head toward her, stared; then with a flash of intense expression in his eyes burst into a ringing laugh that shook him from head to foot. He flung out his hand and catching hers passed it across his lips without kissing it, and let it go before he regained composure enough to speak. "No! Not a good man! Verily! But hath he no cause to be delinquent?" "No!" she said stubbornly.
He arrested a murderer the very day after his sureties were accepted, and although Charley was by far the smaller and paler of the two, the murderer submitted tamely, and dared not look into Charley's eye. Instead of scolding the delinquent tax-payers, the new sheriff sympathized with them, and the county treasury filled rapidly.
The new spirit must incorporate itself slowly in new habits; and to this end the delinquent must be aided in his efforts by a more or less prolonged absence from the scene of his former temptations. He must be placed in an entirely new and suitable environment, and encouraging pressure must be exerted upon him to acquire new habits of order, diligent application to work, obedience, self-control.
There is something terribly, if pervertedly logical in this reasoning, and although nothing could be farther from the attitude of the ordinary delinquent, it is no doubt more dangerous to the peace and continuance of society; and such was the attitude and the reasoning which rendered the Anarchists so formidable, and which led up to many of their most terrible outrages.
However, it is equally dangerous to stay at home; there are tithing-men to look after the absentees, and any one unnecessarily absent must pay five shillings. He may be put in the stocks or in the wooden cage, if delinquent for a month together. But we must give our attention to the sermon.
It was science which went on preaching these things for the salvation of mankind, and by these means propagating virtue. But above all, it inculcated the great principle of "pardon," which hitherto had been one of the mysteries of religious morality. A few years ago, no one, however pitiful and generous, could have looked upon the delinquent with the same justice and pity as science has done.
She hugged him to her heart in the darkness, all her fears swept away in the immensity of her joy at his recovery. "But, Cinders, how could you? How could you?" was the utmost reproof she could find it in her heart to bestow upon the delinquent.
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