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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: some debt at play;--or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust; Perhaps
Conscience all this time was engaged at home, talking aloud against petty
larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny crimes as his fortune
and rank of life secured him against all temptation of committing; so that
he lives as merrily;'--(If he was of our church, tho', quoth Dr. Slop, he
could not)--'sleeps as soundly in his bed;--and at last meets death
unconcernedly;--perhaps much more so, than a much better man.'
(All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father,--the
case could not happen in our church.--It happens in ours, however, replied
my father, but too often.--I own, quoth Dr. Slop, (struck a little with my
father's frank acknowledgment)--that a man in the Romish church may live as
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