"Man of a wild and unreclaimed nature!" commenced Meek Wolfe, in his usual
admonitory and ascetic tones, "the hour of thy existence draws to its end!
Judgment hath had rule; thou hast been weighed in the balances, and art
found wanting. But Christian charity is never weary. We may not resist the
ordinances of Providence, but we may temper the blow to the offender. That
thou art here to die, is a mandate decreed in equity, and rendered awful
by mystery; but further, submission to the will of Heaven doth not exact.
Heathen, thou hast a soul, and it is about to leave its earthly tenement
for the unknown world----"
Until now, the captive had listened with the courtesy of a savage when
unexcited. He had even gazed at the quiet enthusiasm, and singularly
contradictory passions, that shone in the deep lines of the speaker's
face, with some such reverence as he might have manifested at an
exhibition of one of the pretended revelations of a prophet of his tribe.
But when the divine came to touch upon his condition after death, his mind
received a clear, and to him an unerring, clue to the truth.
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