How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
There was sin among them. One Sunday, when regular service was over, Father James had uncovered sin in the congregation of the righteous. He had uncovered Elisha and Ella Mae. They had been "walking disorderly"; they were in danger of straying from the truth. (1.1.19)
In his preemptive strike against his nephew's sin, Father James decides to tell every single member of the church that he thinks that Elisha and Ella Mae might be tempted soon to commit a sin, and so he nips it in the bud, making them repent for what they haven't even done yet.
Quote #2
He knew that sin was not in their minds—not yet; yet sin was in the flesh; and should they continue with their walking out alone together, their secrets and laughter, and touching of hands, they would surely sin a sin beyond all forgiveness. (1.1.20)
Father James might seem like a wacko, but look closely at his philosophy. For him, sin isn't something you decide to do intellectually. It's a constant temptation that all humans have to deal with because it lives in our flesh; we're born with it, and always susceptible to falling.
Quote #3
He had sinned. In spite of the saints, his mother and his father, the warnings he had heard from his earliest beginnings, he had sinned with his hands a sin that was hard to forgive. In the school lavatory, alone, thinking of the boys, older, bigger, braver, who made bets with each other as to whose urine could arch higher, he had watched in himself a transformation of which he would never dare to speak. (1.1.26)
John's sin—fantasizing about older boys and masturbating—is, for him, unspeakable. He also believes that it is "hard to forgive," but we're not sure for whom. For himself? For God? For his family? Only John knows his own feelings, so it must be a sin that he feels he's committing privately, against God or himself.