But I have been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden." "Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men's private affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannot have learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices.

But in my Master's work, I am called to be busy in season and out of season; and, conscious as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incur your contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for being silent." "In the name of the devil!" said the young man impatiently, "say what you have to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concern you have with me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives, of which you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant." "You are about," said Butler, "to violate one of your country's wisest laws--you are about, which is much more dreadful, to violate a law, which God himself has implanted within our nature, and written as it were, in the table of our hearts, to which every thrill of our nerves is responsive." "And what is the law you speak of ?" said the stranger, in a hollow and somewhat disturbed accent.
"Thou shalt do no murder," said Butler, with a deep and solemn voice.
The young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled.

Butler perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it up.

"Think," he said, "young man," laying his hand kindly upon the stranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, to kill or be killed.

Think what it is to rush uncalled into the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature.