ATKINS AND THE PRIEST, 487

&. C. Will Atkins, prithee, what: education had you? What
was your father ?

W. A. A better man than ever I shall be. Sir, my father was
a clergyman.

&. C. What education did he give you?

W. A. He would have taught me well, sir; but I despised all
education, instruction, or correction, like a beast as I was.

A. C. It’s true Solomon says, “ He that despiseth reproof is
brutish.”

W. A. Ay, sir, I was brutish indeed—I murdered my father.
For God’s sake, sir, talk no more about that, me murdered my
poor father.

Pr. Ha! a murderer!

[Here the priest started (for I interpreted every word as he spoke it)
and looked pale. It seems he believed that Will had really killed
his own father.]

R. C. No, no, sir; I do not understand him so.— Will Atkins,
explain yourself. You did not kill your father, did you, with
your own hand ?

W. A. No, sir; I did not cut his throat, but I cut the thread of
his comforts, and shortened his days. I broke his heart by the:
most ungrateful, unnatural return for the most tender, affectionate
treatment that ever father gave or child could receive. ’

&. C. Well, I did not ask you about your father to extort this
confession ; I pray God give you repentance for it, and forgive
you that and all your other sins. But I asked you because I see
that though you have not much learning, yet you are not so igno-
rant as some are in things that are good; that you have known
more of religion a great deal than you have practised.

W. A. Though you, sir, did not extort the confession that I
made about my father, conscience does ; and whenever we come to
look back upon our lives, the sins against our indulgent parents
are certainly the first that touch us. The wounds they make lie
the deepest, and the weight they leave will lie heaviest upon the
mind, of all the sins we can commit.

R. C. You talk too feelingly and sensibly for me, Atkins.
I cannot bear it.