ody in his garden.

He was found guilty at the official trial, through the testimony of
many witnesses, as well as through his own confession. He was
condemned to death, and the sentence was carried out in the presence
of several thousand people on the little hill known as Ravenshill,
here in the field of Aalsoe.

The condemned man had asked that I might visit him in his prison. I
must state that I have never given the holy sacrament to a better
prepared or more truly repentant Christian. He was calm to the last,
full of remorse for his great sin. On the field of death he spoke to
the people in words of great wisdom and power, preaching to the text
from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, chap. ii., verse 6: "He hath
despised the priest in the indignation of his anger." He spoke of his
violence and of its terrible results, and of his deep remorse. He
exhorted his hearers to let his sin and his fate be an example to
them, and a warning not to give way to anger. Then he commended his
soul to the Lord, removed his upper garments, bound up his eyes with
his own hand, then folded his hands in prayer. When I had spoken the
words, "Brother, be of good cheer. This day shalt thou be with thy
Saviour in Paradise," his head fell by the ax.

The one thing that made death bitter for him was the thought of his
children. The son had been sent for from Copenhagen, but as we
afterwards learned, he had been absent from the city, and therefore
did not arrive until shortly after his father had paid the penalty for
his crime.

I took the daughter into my home, where she was brought, half
fainting, after they had led her father from the prison. She had been
tending him lovingly all the days of his trial. What made even greater
sorrow for the poor girl, and for the district judge who spoke the
sentence, was that these two young people had solemnly plighted their
troth but a few short weeks before, in the rectory of Veilbye. The son
arrived just as the body of the executed criminal was brought into my
house. It had been permitted to us to bury the body with Christian
rites, if we could do it in secret. The young man threw himself over
the lifeless body. Then, clasping his sister in his arms, the two wept
together in silence for some while. At midnight we held a quiet
service over the remains of the Rector of Veilbye, and the body was
buried near the door of Aalsoe church. A simple stone, upon which I
have carved a cross, still stands to remind