On the other hand, he would have sacrificed nearly all, if not all, his fortune, to live up to the letter of his given word.

This, though no court would have enforced the agreement he had made, though there was no written record of it, no witness other than himself, the other party, and the Almighty--for Charles Whitney believed in an Almighty God and an old-fashioned hell and a Day of Judgment.

He conducted his religious bookkeeping precisely as he conducted his business bookkeeping, and was confident that he could escape hell as he had escaped the penitentiary..