I endeavoured to improve the occasion. I exhorted him, for
his soul's sake, and the relief of that which needed it too much, to make
a full and unreserved confession, not only to God, who needed it not, but
to man, who did. I besought him, for the good of all, and as he valued his
soul's health, to detail the particulars of his crime, but _his eye fell_.
That dark enemy, who takes care to leave in the heart just hope enough to
keep despair alive, tongue-tied him; and he would not--even now--at the
eleventh hour--give up the vain imagination, that the case of his
companion might yet be confounded with his, to the escape of both--and
vain it was. It had not been felt advisable, so far as to make him
acquainted with the truth, that this had already been sifted and decided;
and I judged this to be the time. Again and again I urged confession upon
him. I put it to him that this act of justice might now be done for its
own sake, and for that of the cleansing from spot of his stained spirit. I
told him, finally, that it could no longer prejudice him in this world,
where his fate was written and sealed, for that his companion _was
reprieved_. I knew not what I did. Whether the tone of my voice, untutored
in such business, had raised a momentary hope, I know not--but the
revulsion was dreadful.
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