But he kept firm his purpose, until his eyes involuntarily rested upon the little settle-bed, and recalled the form of the child of his old age, as she sate upon it, pale, emaciated, and broken-hearted.

His mind, as the picture arose before him, involuntarily conceived, and his tongue involuntarily uttered--but in a tone how different from his usual dogmatical precision!--arguments for the course of conduct likely to ensure his child's safety.
"Daughter," he said, "I did not say that your path was free from stumbling--and, questionless, this act may be in the opinion of some a transgression, since he who beareth witness unlawfully, and against his conscience, doth in some sort bear false witness against his neighbour.
Yet in matters of compliance, the guilt lieth not in the compliance sae muckle, as in the mind and conscience of him that doth comply; and, therefore, although my testimony hath not been spared upon public defections, I haena felt freedom to separate mysell from the communion of many who have been clear to hear those ministers who have taken the fatal indulgence because they might get good of them, though I could not." When David had proceeded thus far, his conscience reproved him, that he might be indirectly undermining the purity of his daughter's faith, and smoothing the way for her falling off from strictness of principle.

He, therefore, suddenly stopped, and changed his tone:--"Jeanie, I perceive that our vile affections,--so I call them in respect of doing the will of our Father,--cling too heavily to me in this hour of trying sorrow, to permit me to keep sight of my ain duty, or to airt you to yours.

I will speak nae mair anent this overtrying matter--Jeanie, if ye can, wi' God and gude conscience, speak in favour of this puir unhappy"-- (here his voice faltered)--"She is your sister in the flesh--worthless and castaway as she is, she is the daughter of a saint in heaven, that was a mother to you, Jeanie, in place of your ain--but if ye arena free in conscience to speak for her in the court of judicature, follow your conscience, Jeanie, and let God's will be done." After this adjuration he left the apartment, and his daughter remained in a state of great distress and perplexity.
It would have been no small addition to the sorrows of David Deans, even in this extremity of suffering, had he known that his daughter was applying the casuistical arguments which he had been using, not in the sense of a permission to follow her own opinion on a dubious and disputed point of controversy, but rather as an encouragement to transgress one of those divine commandments which Christians of all sects and denominations unite in holding most sacred.
"Can this be ?" said Jeanie, as the door closed on her father--"Can these be his words that I have heard, or has the Enemy taken his voice and features to give weight unto the counsel which causeth to perish ?--a sister's life, and a father pointing out how to save it!--O God, deliver me!--this is a fearfu' temptation." Roaming from thought to thought, she at one time imagined her father understood the ninth commandment literally, as prohibiting false witness _against_ our neighbour, without extending the denunciation against falsehood uttered _in favour_ of the criminal.

But her clear and unsophisticated power of discriminating between good and evil, instantly rejected an interpretation so limited, and so unworthy of the Author of the law.