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 "Not if they repent, my dear Sir," said Ferdinand; "you will allow it possible, I hope, that a wicked person may, from conviction, repent of his crimes; and if the world is merciless, if no good humane man holds out a hand to help the humble and contrite spirit; if they are shunned, reprobated, and despised, where can they seek for shelter, from the sting of conscience, and the scorn of the world? Desperate, wretched and undone; renounced by the good, they are driven—they are compelled to return to the society of the wicked.—Hopeless, enraged, and disappointed, a hundred to one but they grow more wicked, more abandoned, than in their first career; and are lost, perhaps, body and soul, because the too fastidious, or uncharitable good man, conceives it an abomination to show mercy to the sinner, or stretch forth his hand to drag him from the vortex of vice, into which he is sinking."

"You are right my young monitor," said Mr. d'Allenberg; "I acknowledge my error; your system is consistent with humanity