the back
part of the store. After they were seated, Lane said:

"Well, Mr. Rowley, I am ready to hear what you have to say."

Mr. Rowley cleared his throat two or three times, and then said, in a
voice that indicated a good deal of inward disturbance:

"I understand that you have been making rather free use of my name of
late."

"Indeed! in what way?" Lane was perfectly self-possessed.

"I am told that you went so far as to call me a hypocrite." The voice
of Rowley trembled.

"I said you were a Sunday Christian," replied Lane.

"What do you mean by that?" was peremptorily demanded.

"A man whose religion is a Sunday affair altogether. One who expects to
get to heaven by pious observances and church-goings on the Sabbath,
without being over-particular as to the morality of his conduct through
the week."

"Morality! do you pretend to say that I am an immoral man?" said
Rowley, with much heat.

"Don't get into a passion!" returned Lane, coolly. "That will not help
us at all in this grave matter."

Rowley quivered in every nerve; but the presence of his two brethren
admonished him that a Christian temper was very necessary to be
maintained on the occasion.

"Do you charge me with want of morality?" he said, with less visible
excitement.

"I do,--that is, according to my code of morality."

"Upon what do you base your code?" asked one of the witnesses of this
rather strange interview.

"On the Bible," replied Lane.

"Indeed!" was answered, with some surprise; "on what part of it?"

"On every part. But more particularly that passage in the New Testament
where the whole of the law and the prophets is condensed in a single
passage, enjoining love to our neighbour as well as God."

Rowley and his friends looked surprised at this remark.

"Explain yourself," said the former, with a knit brow.

"That is easily done. The precept here given, and it comes from the
highest authority, expressly declares, as I understand it, religion to
consist in acting justly toward all men, as well as in pious acts
towards God. If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can
he love God whom he hath not seen?"

"Does our brother Rowley deny that?" asked the men present.

"If a man's life is any index to his faith, I would say that he does,"
replied Mr. Lane.

A deep crimson overspread the face of Mr. Rowley.

"I didn't expect insult when I came here," said he in a trembling voice.

"Nor have I offered any," r