Sympathy was at first much extended amongst us to the prisoner.  But it was lessened when we understood that the old gentleman had been ‘converted’ while under Dormant’s roof, and had given the fact that his son was ‘an unbeliever’ as a reason for disinheriting him.  All doubt was set aside when it was divulged, under pressure, by the nurse who attended on the old gentleman, herself one of the ‘saints’, that Dormant had traced the signature to the will by drawing the fingers of the testator over the document when he was already and finally comatose.

My Father, setting aside by a strong effort of will the repugnance which he felt, visited the prisoner in gaol before this final evidence had been extracted.  When he returned he said that Dormant appeared to be enjoying a perfect confidence of heart, and had expressed a sense of his joy and peace in the Lord; my Father regretted that he had not been able to persuade him to admit any error, even of judgement.  But the prisoner’s attitude in the dock, when the facts were proved, and not by him denied, was still more extraordinary.  He could be induced to exhibit no species of remorse, and, to the obvious anger of the judge himself, stated that he had only done his duty as a Christian, in preventing this wealth from coming into the hands of an ungodly man, who would have spent it in the service of the flesh and of the devil.  Sternly reprimanded by the judge, he made the final statement that at that very moment he was conscious of his Lord’s presence, in the dock at his side, whispering to him ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant!’ In this frame of conscience, and with a glowing countenance, he was hurried away to penal servitude.

This was a very painful incident, and it is easy to see how compromising, how cruel, it was in its effect upon our communion; what occasion it gave to our enemies to blaspheme.  No one, in either meeting, could or would raise a voice to defend Mr. Dormant.  We had to bow our heads when we met our enemies in the gate.  The blow fell more heavily on the meeting of which he had been a prominent and communicating member, but it fell on us too, and my Father felt it severely.  For many years he would never mention the man’s name, and he refused all discussion of the incident.

Yet I was never sure, and I am not sure now, that the wretched being was a hypocrite.  There are as many vulgar fanatics as there are distinguished ones, and I am not convinced that Dormant, coarse and narrow as he was, may not have sincerely believed that it was better for the money to be used in religious propaganda than in the pleasures of the world, of which he doubtless formed a very vague idea.  On this affair I meditated much, and it awakened in my mind, for the first time, a doubt whether our exclusive system of ethics was an entirely salutary one, if it could lead the conscience of a believer to tolerate such acts as these, acts which my Father himself had denounced as dishonourable and disgraceful.