then Septimius, gathering some branches and twigs, spread them over the
face that was turned upward from the bottom of the pit, into which the sun
gleamed downward, throwing its rays so as almost to touch it. The twigs
partially hid it, but still its white shone through. Then the minister
threw a handful of earth upon it, and, accustomed as he was to burials,
tears fell from his eyes along with the mould.

"It is sad," said he, "this poor young man, coming from opulence, no doubt,
a dear English home, to die here for no end, one of the first-fruits of a
bloody war,--so much privately sacrificed. But let him rest, Septimius. I
am sorry that he fell by your hand, though it involves no shadow of a
crime. But death is a thing too serious not to melt into the nature of a
man like you."

"It does not weigh upon my conscience, I think," said Septimius; "though I
cannot but feel sorrow, and wish my hand were as clean as yesterday. It
is, indeed, a dreadful thing to take human life."

"It is a most serious thing," replied the minister; "but perhaps we are apt
to over-estimate the importance of death at any particular moment. If the
question were whether to die or to live forever, then, indeed, scarcely
anything should justify the putting a fellow-creature to death. But since
it only shortens his earthly life, and brings a little forward a change
which, since God permits it, is, we may conclude, as fit to take place
then as at any other time, it alters the case. I often think that there
are many things that occur to us in our daily life, many unknown crises,
that are more important to us than this mysterious circumstance of death,
which we deem the most important of all. All we understand of it is, that
it takes the dead person away from our knowledge of him, which, while we
live with him, is so very scanty."