CHAPTER XLVIII.



It was now my only consideration how to die like a Christian, and
with proper fortitude. I felt, indeed, a strong temptation to avoid
the scaffold by committing suicide, but overcame it. What merit is
there in refusing to die by the hand of the executioner, and yet to
fall by one's own? To save one's honour? But is it not childish to
suppose that there can be more honour in cheating the executioner,
than in not doing this, when it is clear that we must die. Even had
I not been a Christian, upon serious reflection, suicide would have
appeared to me both ridiculous and useless, if not criminal in a
high degree.

"If the term of life be expired," continued I, "am I not fortunate
in being permitted to collect my thoughts and purify my conscience
with penitence and prayer becoming a man in affliction. In popular
estimation, the being led to the scaffold is the worst part of
death; in the opinion of the wise, is not this far preferable to the
thousand deaths which daily occur by disease, attended by general
prostration of intellect, without power to raise the thoughts from
the lowest state of physical exhaustion."

I felt the justice of this reasoning, and lost all feeling of
anxiety or terror at the idea of a public execution. I reflected
deeply on the sacraments calculated to support me under such an
appalling trial, and I felt disposed to receive them in a right