How mean it would sound--what a reproach to _the cause_, that the congregational minister had run up a bill with a church-butcher which he was unable to pay! It was the shame--the shame he could not bear! Ought he to have been subjected to it?
A humbler and better mood slowly dawned with unconscious change, and he began to ponder with himself wherein he had been misusing the money given him: either he had been misusing it, or God had not given him enough, seeing it would not reach the end of his needs; but he could think only of the poor he had fed, and the child he had adopted, and surely God would overlook those points of extravagance.

Still, if he had not the means, he had not the right to do such things.

It might not in itself be wrong, but in respect of him it was as dishonest as if he had spent the money on himself--not to mention that it was a thwarting of the counsel of God, who, if He had meant them to be so aided, would have sent him the money to spend upon them honestly.

His one excuse was that he could not have foreseen how soon his income was going to shrink to a third.

In future he would withhold his hand.