their fellow mortals in some strong hold, under an entire privation of
sustenance; and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, or
grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and
impregnable gates; each succeeding day more haggard, more perfect in the
image of despair; and after awhile appearing each day one fewer, till at
last all have sunk. Now shall we feel it as a _relief_ to turn in thought,
as to a sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of a country,
or from those of such an accursed prison-house, thus pining away, to
behold the different spectacle of national tribes, or any more limited
portion of mankind, on whose _minds_ are displayed the full effects of
knowledge denied; who are under the process of whatever destruction it is,
that spirits can suffer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent
nature, especially from "a famine of the words of the Lord?"

To bring the two to a close comparison, suppose the case, that some of the
persons thus doomed to perish in the tower were in the possession of the
genuine light and consolations of Christianity, perhaps even had actually
been adjudged to this fate, (no extravagant supposition,) for zealously
and persistingly endeavoring the restoration of the purity of that
religion to the deluded community. Let it be supposed that numbers of that
community, having conspired to obtain this ad-judgment, frequented the
precincts of the fortress, to see their victims gradually perishing. It
would be quite in the spirit of the popish superstition, that they should
believe themselves to have done God service, and be accordingly pleased at
the sight of the more and more deathlike aspect of the emaciated
countenances. The while, they might be themselves in the enjoyment of
"fulness of bread," We can imagine them making convivial appointments
within sight of the prison gates, and going from the spectacle to meet at
the banquet. Or they might delay the festivity, in order to have the
additional luxury of knowing that the tragedy was consummated; as Bishop