I hope," replied Fantom.
"Where are my spoons?" "Sir, they are gone with the rest of my
wretched booty. But oh, sir! those spoons make so petty an article
in my black account, that I hardly think of them. Murder!
sir--murder is the crime for which I am justly doomed to die. O,
sir, who can abide the anger of an offended God? Who can dwell with
everlasting burnings?" As this was a question which even a
philosopher could not answer, Mr. Fantom was going to steal off,
especially as he now gave up all hope of the spoons; but William
called him back: "Stay, sir, I conjure you, as you will answer it at
the bar of God. You must hear the sins of which you have been the
occasion. You are the cause of my being about to suffer a shameful
death. Yes, sir, you made me a drunkard, a thief, and a murderer."
"How dare you, William," cried Mr. Fantom, with great emotion,
"accuse me of being the cause of such horrid crimes?" "Sir,"
answered the criminal, "from you I learned the principles which lead
to those crimes. By the grace of God I should never have fallen into
sins deserving of the gallows, if I had not overheard you say there
was no hereafter, no judgment, no future reckoning. O, sir, there
_is_ a hell, dreadful, inconceivable, eternal!" Here, through the
excess of anguish, the poor fellow fainted away. Mr. Fantom, who did
not at all relish this scene, said to his friend, "Well, sir, we
will go, if you please, for you see there is nothing to be done."

"Sir," replied Mr. Trueman, mournfully, "you may go if you please,
but I shall stay, for I see there is a great deal to be done."
"What!" rejoined the other, "do you think it possible his life can
be saved?" "No, indeed," said Trueman, "but I hope it possible his
soul may be saved!" "I do not understand these things," said Fantom,
making toward the door. "Nor I, neither," said Trueman, "but as a
fellow-sinner, I am bound to do what I can for this poor man. Do you
go home, Mr. Fantom, and finish your treatise on universal
benevolence, and the blessed effects of philosophy; and, hark ye, be
sure you let the frontispiece of your book represent _William on the
gibbet_; that will be what our minister calls a PRACTICAL
ILLUSTRATION. You know I hate theories; this is _realizing_; this is
PHILOSOPHY made easy to the meanest capacity. This is the precious
fruit which grows on that darling tree, so many slips of which have
been transplanted from that land of liberty of which it is the
nat