hey, as in duty
bound, will attempt to capture you. You and your companions may resist;
your weapons may be discharged, and life may be sacrificed. If you
escape the fate of a murderer, you may be transported to distant lands,
away from friends, home, and country, to work for long years; perhaps in
chains among the outcasts of our race, fed on the coarsest food, subject
to the tyranny of brutalised overseers, often themselves convicts; your
ears forced to listen to the foulest language, your eyes to witness the
grossest debauchery, till you yourself become as bad as those with whom
you are compelled to herd; so that, when the time of your punishment is
expired, you will be unfit for freedom; and if you venture to return
home, you will find yourself, wherever you appear, branded with
dishonour, and pointed at as the convict.

"Think, Peter, of the grief and anguish it would cause your poor mother
and me, to see you suffer so dreadful a disgrace--to feel that you
merited it. Think of the shame it would bring on the name of our
family. People would point at your sisters, and say, `Their brother is
a convict!' they would shake their heads as I appeared in the pulpit,
and whisper, `The vicar whose son was transported!' But more than all
(for men's censure matters not if we are guiltless), think how God will
judge you, who have had opportunities of knowing better, who have been
repeatedly warned that you are doing wrong, who are well aware that you
are doing wrong: think how He will judge and condemn you.

"Human laws, of necessity, are framed only to punish all alike, the rich
and educated man as well as the poor and ignorant; but God, who sees
what is in the heart of man, and his means of knowing right from wrong,
will more severely punish those who sin, as you do, with their eyes
open. I am unwilling to employ threats; I would rather appeal to your
better feelings, my boy; but I must, in the first place, take away your
means of following your favourite pursuit; and should you persist in
leading your present wild and idle life, I must adopt such measures as
will effectually prevent you. Give me your gun."

I listened to all that was said in dogged silence. I could not refuse
to give up my dearly-beloved weapon; but I did so with a very bad grace;
and I am sorry to say that my father's words had at that time little or
no effect on my heart. I say at the time, for afterwards, when it was
too late, I thought of them