“I have paid him a good many hundreds of dollars since I opened my shop here,” said the mechanic, with the manner of one who felt hurt.  “If I am a poor, hard-working man, I try to be honest.  Sometimes I get a little behind hand, as I am new, because people I work for don’t pay up as they should.  It happened twice before when I wasn’t just square with Mr. Gray, and he pressed down very hard upon me, and talked just as you heard him to-day.  He got his money, every dollar of it; and he will get his money now.  I did think, knowing that he had joined the church and made a profession of religion, that he would bear a little patiently with me this time.  That, as he had obtained forgiveness, as alleged, of his sins towards heaven, he would be merciful to his fellow-man.  Ah, well!  These things make us very sceptical about the honesty of men who call themselves religious.  My experience with ‘professors’ has not been very encouraging.  As a general thing I find them quite as greedy for gain as other men.  We outside people of the world get to be very sharp-sighted.  When a man sets himself up to be of better quality than we, and calls himself by a name significant of heavenly virtue, we judge him, naturally, by his own standard, and watch him very closely.  If he remain as hard, as selfish, as exacting, and as eager after money as before, we do not put much faith in his profession, and are very apt to class him with hypocrites.  His praying, and fine talk about faith, and heavenly love, and being washed from all sin, excite in us contempt rather than respect.  We ask for good works, and are never satisfied with anything else.  By their fruits ye shall know them.”

On the next Sunday I saw Mr. Gray in church.  My eyes were on him when he entered.  I noticed that all the lines of his face were drawn down, and that the whole aspect and bearing of the man were solemn and devotional.  He moved to his place with a slow step, his eyes cast to the floor.  On taking his seat, he leaned his head on the pew in front of him, and continued for nearly a minute in prayer.  During the services I heard his voice in the singing; and through the sermon, he maintained the most fixed attention.  It was communion Sabbath; and he remained, after the congregation was dismissed, to join in the holiest act of worship.

“Can this man be indeed self-deceived?” I asked myself, as I walked homeward.  “Can he really believe that heaven is to be gained by pious acts alone?  That every Sabbath evening he can pitch his tent a day’s march nearer heaven, though all the week he have failed in the commonest offices of neighborly love?”

It so happened, that I had many opportunities for observing Mr. Gray, who, after joining the church, became an active worker in some of the public and prominent charities of the day.  He contributed liberally in many cases, and gave a good deal of time to the prosecution of benevolent enterprises, in which men of some position were concerned.  But, when I saw him dispute with a poor gardener who had laid the sods in his yard, about fifty cents, take sixpence off of a weary strawberry woman, or chaffer with his boot-black over an extra shilling, I could not think that it was genuine love for his fellow-men that prompted his ostentatious charities.