Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/333

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THE EXTREME PENALTY
323

ever have done much credit to the most musical school in England, and now only one of them would be able to go about saying that he had ever been there!

Unless . . . and there was no telling from Heriot's voice.

It was the same unaffected, manly voice which had appealed to Jan on his very first night in hall; the prayers were the same, a characteristic selection only used in that house; but whereas a few phrases had struck Jan even on that occasion, now he knew them all off by heart, but listened with no less care in order to remember them if possible at the ends of the earth.

"O Lord, Who knowest our peculiar temptations here, help us by Thy Holy Spirit to struggle against them. Save us from being ashamed of Thee and of our duty. Save us from the base and degrading fear of one another. . . ." Jan hoped he had stood up sufficiently to the other old choices in the Eleven; he could not help an ungodly feeling that he had; but he had been very down on his luck earlier in the term.

"Grant, Lord, that we may always remember that our bodies are the temple of the living God, and that we may not pollute them by evil thoughts or evil words. . . . Give us grace never to approve or by consent to sanction in others what our consciences tell us is wrong, but to reprove it either by word or by silence. Let us never ourselves act the part of tempter to others, never place a stumbling-block in our brother's way, or offend any of our companions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

Well, he had never played the tempter or placed stumbling-blocks, whatever else he had done; it was not for that that he would have to go; but he was not so sure about evil winds. He had said some things, sometimes, which might have earned him his now imminent fate, if