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“Do you think that it really injuries a thief to lock him up in prison, and prevent him from trespassing on the property of his neighbors?”

“That I suppose depends upon circumstances. If—-“

“No, but my friend, we must fix the principle yea or nay. The law that punishes theft is a good law–you admit that–very well. If the law is good. it must be because its effect is good. A thief, will, under such law, he really more benefitted by feeling its force than in escaping the penalty annexed to its infringement. No distinction can or ought to be made. The man who, in, a sane mind, deliberately takes the property of another, should be punished by the law which forbids stealing. It will have at least one good effect, if none others and that will be to make him less willing to run similar risk, and thus leave to his neighbor the peaceable possession of his goods.”

“Punishment, if ever administered, should look to the good of the offender. But, what good disgracing and imprisoning a young man who has all along borne a fair character, is going to have, is more than I can tell. Blake won’t be able to hold up his head among respectable people when his term has expired.”

“And will, in consequence, lose his power of injuring the honest and unsuspecting. He will be viewed in his own true light, and be cast off as unworthy by a community whose confidence he has most shamefully abused.”

“And so you will give an erring brother no chance for his life?”

“O yes. Every chance. But it would not be kindness to wink at his errors and leave him free to continue in the practice of them, to his own and others’ injury. Having forfeited his right to the confidence of this community by trespassing upon it, let him pay the penalty of that trespass. It will be to him, doubtless, a salutary lesson. A few years of confinement in a prison will give him time for reflection and repentance; whereas, impunity in an evil course could only have strengthened his evil purposes. When he has paid the just penalty of his crime, let him go into another part of the country, and among strangers live a virtuous life, the sure reward of which is peace.”

Mr. May shook his head negatively, at these remarks.

“No one errs on the side of kindness,” he said, “while too many, by an opposite course, drive to ruin those whom leniency might have saved.”

A short time after the occurrence of this little interview, Mr. May, on returning home one evening, found his wife in much apparent trouble.

“Has anything gone wrong, Ella?” he asked.

“Would you have believed it?” was Mrs. May’s quick and excited answer. “I caught Jane in my drawer to-day, with a ten dollar bill in her hand which she had just taken out of my pocket book, that was still open.”

“Why, Ella!”

“It is too true! I charged it at once upon her, and she burst into tears, and owned that she was going to take the money and keep it.”

“That accounts, then, for the frequency with which you have missed small sums of money for several months past.”

“Yes. That is all plain enough now. But what shall we do? I cannot think of keeping Jane any longer.”

“Perhaps she will never attempt such a thing again, now that she has been discovered.”

“I cannot trust her. I should never feel safe a moment. To have a thief about the house! Oh, no, That would never answer. She will have to go.”

“Well, Ella, you will have to do what you think best; but you mustn’t be too hard on the poor creature. You mustn’t think of exposing her, and thus blasting her character. It might drive her to ruin.”

“But, is it right for me, knowing what she is, to let her go quietly into another family? It is a serious matter, husband.”