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192 saw his children perish one by one under cruel treatment; he saw his wife sold into slavery, though he did not see her die—as I did—of a broken heart, and he suffered all the torments that ingenuity could devise before his spirit was set free."

Giovanni said this slowly and very gently, but two bright red spots on his pale careworn cheeks showed that he spoke with strong emotion.

"Well, well," returned Omar, with a sinister smile, "that gives him all the better chance in the next life; for, according to the faith of you Christians, his sufferings here go to make weight in the matter of his salvation. Is it not so?"

"Men who call themselves Christians," said the Padre, "do not all hold the same faith. There are those who appear to me to wrest Scripture to their own destruction; they find in one part thereof a description of true faith as distinguished from a dead, false, or spurious faith, which reveals its worthlessness by the absence of 'works,' and, founding on that, they refuse to accept the other portion of Scripture which saith that 'by the works of the law shall no man living be justified.' I, with many others, hold that there is no merit in our simply suffering. The sufferings and the obedience of Jesus Christ in our stead is all the merit on which we rest our hopes of salvation."

"It may be so, Giovanni," returned Omar