"O sir!" he [a man who committed a murder in a moment of passion] resumed after a little silence, "to think that nevermore to all eternity shall I be able to think of myself as I used to think!"
"Perhaps you used to think too much of yourself," returned the curate. "For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition, and that is not to know it, but think himself a respectable man. As the event proves, though you would doubtless have laughed at the idea, you were then capable of committing a murder. I have come to see--at least, I think I have--that except a man has God dwelling in him, he may be, or may become, capable of any crime within the compass of human nature."
"I don't know anything about God," said Leopold. "I daresay I thought I did before this happened--before I did it, I mean," he added in correction, "--but I know now that I don't, and never did."
"Ah! Leopold," said the curate, "think, if my coming to you comforts you, what it would be to have Him who made you always with you!"
"Where would be the good? I daresay he might forgive me, if I were to do this and that, but where would be the good of it? It would not take the thing off me one bit."
"Ah! now," said Wingfold, "I fear you are thinking a little about your own disgrace and not only of the bad you have done. Why should you not be ashamed? Would you have the shame taken off you? Nay; you must humbly consent to bear it. Perhaps your shame is the hand of love washing the defilement from off you. Ah, let us keep our shame, and be made clean from the filth!"
"I don't know that I understand you, sir. What do you mean by the defilement? Is it not to have done the deed that is the defilement?"
"Is it not rather to have that in you, a part, or all but a part, of your being, that makes you capable of doing it? If you had resisted and conquered, you would have been clean from it; and now, if you repent and God comes to you, you will yet be clean. Again I say, let us keep our shame and be made clean! Shame is not defilement, though a mean pride persuades men so. On the contrary, the man who is honestly ashamed has begun to be clean."