The Necklace

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  “SHE WAS one of those pretty, charming young ladies, born, as if through an error of destiny, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known, appreciated, loved, and married by a man either rich or distinguished; and she allowed herself to marry a petty clerk in the office of the Board of Education. . . .  She had neither frocks nor jewels, nothing. And she loved only those things. She felt that she was made for them. She had such a desire to please, to be sought after, to be clever, and courted.” —THE NECKLACE Guy de Maupassant    France, 1884 (pic by Grok) Read this short story here:  https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-necklace

The Weight of Sin

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A flippant youth once asked a preacher, "You say that people carry a weight of sin. I feel nothing. How heavy is sin? It is ten pounds? Eighty pounds?"

The preacher replied, "If you laid a four hundred pound weight on a corpse, would it feel the load?"

The youth replied, "It would feel nothing, because it is dead."

The preacher concluded, "That spirit, too, is indeed dead which feels no load of sin or is indifferent to its burden and flippant about its presence."

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