awful situation.

"My son," he said, laying his hand upon Anthony's shoulder, "how is it
with you this night? What is God saying to your soul?"

"All is well," replied Anthony. "He is speaking to me words of peace and
comfort."

"Your fellow-men have condemned you--" he paused then added with a deep
sigh, "--and I too, Anthony Hurdlestone, believe you guilty."

"God has not condemned me, good father, and by the light of His glorious
countenance that now shines upon me, shedding joy and peace into my
heart, I am innocent."

"Oh, that I could think you so!"

"Though it has seemed right in the eyes of the All-wise Sovereign of the
universe that I should be pronounced guilty before an earthly bar, I
feel assured that He, in His own good time, will declare my innocence."

"Will that profit you aught, my son, when you are dust?"

"It will rescue my name from infamy, and give me a mournful interest in
the memory of my friends."

"Poor lad, this is but a melancholy consolation; I wish I could believe
you."

"What a monster of depravity you must think me, if you can imagine me
guilty after what I have just said! Is truth so like falsehood, that a
man of your holy calling cannot discern the difference? Do I look like a
guilty man? Do I speak like a guilty man who knows that he has but a few
days to live? If I were the wretch you take me for, should I not be
overwhelmed with grief and despair? Would not the thought of death be
insupportable? Oh! believe one who seeks not to live--who is contented
to die, when I again solemnly declare my innocence."

"I have seen men, Anthony Hurdlestone, who, up to the very hour of their
execution, persisted in the same thing and yet, after all their solemn
protestations, owned at the last moment that their sentence was just,
and that they merited death."

"And I too have merited death," said Anthony mournfully. "God is just."

The chaplain started; though but a few minutes before he had considered
the prisoner guilty, yet it produced a painful feeling in his mind to
hear him declare it.

"Is self-destruction murder?" asked Anthony with an anxious earnest
glance.

"Aye, of the worst kind: for deep ingratitude to God, and contempt of
his laws, are fearfully involved in this unnatural outrage."

"Then my sentence is just," sighed Anthony; "I never raised my hand
against my father's life, but I raised it against my own. God has
punished me for this act of rebellion against His D