Some time after this, falling into ill-health, he was sent at great expense to a more favourable climate; and then I think his perplexities were thickest.  When he thought of all the other young men of singular promise, upright, good, the prop of families, who must remain at home to die, and with all their possibilities be lost to life and mankind; and how he, by one more unmerited favour, was chosen out from all these others to survive; he felt as if there were no life, no labour, no devotion of soul and body, that could repay and justify these partialities.  A religious lady, to whom he communicated these reflections, could see no force in them whatever.  ‘It was God’s will,’ said she.  But he knew it was by God’s will that Joan of Arc was burnt at Rouen, which cleared neither Bedford nor Bishop Cauchon; and again, by God’s will that Christ was crucified outside Jerusalem, which excused neither the rancour of the priests nor the timidity of Pilate.  He knew, moreover, that although the possibility of this favour he was now enjoying issued from his circumstances, its acceptance was the act of his own will; and he had accepted it greedily, longing for rest and sunshine.  And hence this allegation of God’s providence did little to relieve his scruples.  I promise you he had a very troubled mind.  And I would not laugh if I were you, though while he was thus making mountains out of what you think molehills, he were still (as perhaps he was) contentedly practising many other things that to you seem black as hell.  Every man is his own judge and mountain-guide through life.  There is an old story of a mote and a beam, apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of some consideration.  I should, if I were you, give some consideration to these scruples of his, and if I were he, I should do the like by yours; for it is not unlikely that there may be something under both.  In the meantime you must hear how my friend acted.  Like many invalids, he supposed that he would die.  Now, should he die, he saw no means of repaying this huge loan which, by the hands of his father, mankind had advanced him for his sickness.  In that case it would be lost money.  So he determined that the advance should be as small as possible; and, so long as he continued to doubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, and grudged himself all but necessaries.  But so soon as he began to perceive a change for the better, he felt justified in spending more freely, to speed and brighten his return to health, and trusted in the future to lend a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury, had lent a help to him.

I do not say but that my friend was a little too curious and partial in his view; nor thought too much of himself and too little of his parents; but I do say that here are some scruples which tormented my friend in his youth, and still, perhaps, at odd times give him a prick in the midst of his enjoyments, and which after all have some foundation in justice, and point, in their confused way, to some more honourable honesty within the reach of man.  And at least, is not this an unusual gloss upon the eighth commandment?  And what sort of comfort, guidance, or illumination did that precept afford my friend throughout these contentions?  ’Thou shalt not steal.’  With all my heart!  But am I stealing?