_"]
The meal? ah, that was making a pudding in some wild eddy of the
Bounding Brook far below.
"No matter what a man believes, provided he's sincere," cried poor Jack,
thoroughly drenched and humbled. "It's the biggest lie the devil ever
got up."
"It _does_ matter. _Being right_ is the main thing. Sincerity doesn't
save a fellow from the tremendous consequences of being wrong. It can't
get him out of trouble. He's obliged to endure it, no matter how
sincere he had been.
"Didn't I honestly believe I was on the right road, when I was like
going to perdition all the time?"
The experience of that night completely and forever cured poor Jack of a
common error which has brought many a poor soul into the wild surges of
unbelief and irreligion.
SIX THINGS BEHIND
"Rufus," said his mother, "did you mail the letter I gave you last
evening?"
"Oh, mother, I forgot it! I meant to, but just then I had to go and get
some new shoe strings, so it went out of my mind."
"Didn't I speak of those strings yesterday?"
"Yes; but just then father called me to ask if I had weeded the pansy
bed the night before."
"And had you?"
"No, mother, I was just writing the letter you said must go to
grandma--"
"I thought you were to write that on Saturday.
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