{"id":629,"date":"2011-12-01T23:03:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T05:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/?p=629"},"modified":"2011-12-01T23:03:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T05:03:45","slug":"you-cant-pray-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/?p=629","title":{"rendered":"You can’t pray a lie"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie \u2014 I found that out.<\/div>\n
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter \u2014 and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking \u2014 thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.<\/div>\n
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It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 “All right, then, I’ll GO to hell” \u2014 and tore it up<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xIrS-a9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}