PAUL INSTRUCTS CAPTAIN WILLIS. 65

will be satisfied, His love and mercy shown.
He has allowed another to be punished in-
stead of the sinner,’ Paul continued, explaining
to the captain God’s plan of salvation much. in
the same terms as he had already explained it to
me.

_ ‘IT never understood that matter before,’ said
the captain. ‘ But still I do not see how God can
expect us to be as good as you say.’

‘Massa Captain, I do not say dat God expect
us to be good; but still He has a right to demand
that we should be good. He made man pure and
holy and upright, and He gave him free will to act
as he chose; but man disobeyed God and went
away from Him, and forgot Him, and so God has
the right to punish man. But den God is full of
love and mercy, and He does not want to punish
him, but wants him to come back to Him, and so
He has sent His message to man to tell him how’
he may do that. Now as man cannot be good and
pure and holy and do nothing but good, but, on the
contrary, does much harm, he must either accept
God’s plan of “salvation, or be punished. You
have heard, captain, about the thief on the cross,

even when he was dying he put faith in Jesus, and
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