Perhaps you will say, now Dick will be more careful, or he must be a very foolish fellow. The Bible tells us, that “the sow that was washed is turned again to her wallowing in the mire,” (2 Peter ii. 22.) and Dick returned to his wicked ways, as I am going to tell you.
One Saturdays afternoon, as he was setting up the ninepins in the skittle ground, he saw some of his companions passing by, and they beckoned him. Dick made a false excuse to join them, and promised to go with them the next day to a wake in a neighbouring village, where there would be rope-dancing, wild beasts, and a puppet-show.
He thought of the horsewhip: but such is the power of sin over the heart that is led captive by Satan at his will, that neither punishment nor suffering can keep back those who are not restrained by the grace of God.
The next morning at day-break Dick and his companions set of to the village.
“But,” my readers will say, “how could this be--the next day was Sunday.”
What I am telling you about happened in a country where the people did not keep holy the Sabbath-day, not even in an outward manner, and where God’s holy day is despised, there can be but little of true religion. But although most of the people in that country profaned the Lord’s day and did not love the Saviour, still there were some few among them who were his children, and who both loved and served him.
You may suppose that neither Maud, nor her daughter Jenny, nor old Joseph the basket-maker, wished to go to this wake. On the contrary; in the morning when they saw their neighbours preparing to go, they felt more strongly than ever, that the pleasures which a Christian enjoys, are more pure and more lasting, than the foolish empty enjoyments of those who despise God and his holy word.
Dick spent the day in all sorts of tricks; he pilfered gingerbread and cakes from the stalls that he might have something to eat, and I am sorry to say he stole half-a-crown from a little girl who wanted to get it changed, and set some dogs to fight; in a word, he committed all sorts of roguery.
When night came, most of the people had left the fair. One of Dick’s companions said to him, “It is late, let us go home.” “Presently,” answered Dick; “I have been playing at pitch and toss for more than an hour and have lost almost all my money, I must go on a little longer and win some of it back again.”