VI

is,” he said, “I am a defaulter. I have taken money that belonged to my employers. How can I become a Christian without restoring it?” “Have you got the money?” He told me he had not got it all. He had taken about $1,500, and he still had about $900. He said “Could I not take that money and go into business, and make enough to pay them back?” I told him that was a delusion of Satan; that he could not expect to prosper on stolen money; that he should restore all he had, and go and ask his employers to have mercy upon him and forgive him. “But they will put me in prison,” he said: “cannot you give me any help?” “No, you must restore the money before you can expect to get any help from God.” “It is pretty hard,” he said. “Yes, it is hard; but the great mistake was in doing the wrong at first.”

His burden became so heavy that it got to be insupportable. He handed me the money⁠—950 dollars and some cents⁠—and asked me to take it back to his employers. The next evening the two employers and myself met in a side room of the church. I laid the money down, and informed them it was from one