“It was simple justice.  He could not have done otherwise.  Blake had not only wronged him, but he had violated the laws and to the laws he was bound to give him up.”

“Give up a poor, erring young man, to the stern, unbending, unfeeling laws!  No one is bound to do that.  It is cruel, and no one is under the necessity of being cruel.”

“It is simply just, Mr. May, as I view it.  And, further, really more just to give up the culprit to the law he has knowingly and wilfully violated, than to let him escape its penalties.”

Mr. May shook his head.

“I certainly cannot see the charity of locking up a young man for three or four years in prison, and utterly and forever disgracing him.”

“It is great evil to steal?” said the neighbor.

“O, certainly—­a great sin.”

“And the law made for its punishment is just?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Do you think that it really injuries a thief to lock him up in prison, and prevent him from trespassing on the property of his neighbors?”

“That I suppose depends upon circumstances.  If——­”

“No, but my friend, we must fix the principle yea or nay.  The law that punishes theft is a good law—­you admit that—­very well.  If the law is good. it must be because its effect is good.  A thief, will, under such law, he really more benefitted by feeling its force than in escaping the penalty annexed to its infringement.  No distinction can or ought to be made.  The man who, in, a sane mind, deliberately takes the property of another, should be punished by the law which forbids stealing.  It will have at least one good effect, if none others and that will be to make him less willing to run similar risk, and thus leave to his neighbor the peaceable possession of his goods.”

“Punishment, if ever administered, should look to the good of the offender.  But, what good disgracing and imprisoning a young man who has all along borne a fair character, is going to have, is more than I can tell.  Blake won’t be able to hold up his head among respectable people when his term has expired.”

“And will, in consequence, lose his power of injuring the honest and unsuspecting.  He will be viewed in his own true light, and be cast off as unworthy by a community whose confidence he has most shamefully abused.”

“And so you will give an erring brother no chance for his life?”

“O yes.  Every chance.  But it would not be kindness to wink at his errors and leave him free to continue in the practice of them, to his own and others’ injury.  Having forfeited his right to the confidence of this community by trespassing upon it, let him pay the penalty of that trespass.  It will be to him, doubtless, a salutary lesson.  A few years of confinement in a prison will give him time for reflection and repentance; whereas, impunity in an evil course could only have strengthened his evil purposes.  When he has paid the just penalty of his crime, let him go into another part of the country, and among strangers live a virtuous life, the sure reward of which is peace.”