“Nothing is impossible to him that believes,” said the deacon, finding his tongue for a moment.

“Oh, I believe; there was no trouble about that:  ’the devils also believe,’—­you remember that passage, I suppose?  Finally, I began to watch Sam closely, to see if perhaps he wasn’t as much of a hypocrite, on the sly, as some other people I know.  He can’t make much money on the terms he has with Larry, no matter how much work reaches the shop.  I’ve passed his shop scores of times, early and late, and found him always at work, except once or twice when I’ve seen him on his knees.  I’ve hung about his wretched home nights, to see if he did not sneak out on thieving expeditions; I’ve asked store-keepers what he bought, and have found that his family lived on the plainest food.  That man is a Christian, deacon.  When I heard that he was to make an exhortation at the meeting, I went there to listen—­only for that purpose.  But as he talked I could not help recalling his mean, little, insignificant face as I’d seen it again and again when I was a younger man, dropping into justices’ courts for a chance to get practice at pleading, and he was up for fighting or stealing.  It was the same face:  nothing can ever make his forehead any higher or broader, or put a chin where nature left one off.  But the expression of countenance was so different—­so honest, so good—­that I got from it my first clear idea of what was possible to the man who took our Saviour for a model of daily life.  It took such hold of me that when the pastor asked those who wanted the prayers of God’s people to rise, I was on my feet in an instant; I couldn’t keep my seat.”

“Then you do admit that there are some God’s people besides Sam Kimper?” sneered the deacon.

“I never doubted it,” replied the lawyer.

“Oh, well,” said the deacon, “if you’ll go on, now you’ve begun, you’ll see you’ve only made a beginning.  By the way, have you got that Bittles mortgage ready yet?”

“No,” said the lawyer, “and I won’t have it ready, either.  To draw a mortgage in that way, so the property will fall into your hands quickly and Bittles will lose everything, is simple rascality, and I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“It’s all right if he’s willing to sign it, isn’t it?” asked the deacon, with an ugly frown.  “His signature is put on by his own free will, isn’t it?”

“You know perfectly well, Deacon Quickset,” said the lawyer, “that fellows like Bittles will sign anything without looking at it, if they can get a little money to put into some new notion.  A man’s home should be the most jealously guarded bit of property in the world:  I’m not going to deceive any man into losing it.”

“I didn’t suppose,” said the deacon, “that getting religious would take away your respect for the law, and make you above the law.”

“It doesn’t:  it makes me resolve that the law shan’t be used for purposes of the devil.”