whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die!”

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces,

the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so

that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all

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flashes away. Twenty-Three.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the

peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he

looked sublime and prophetic.

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axea

womanhad asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long

before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were

inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were

prophetic, they would have been these:

“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Jurymen,

the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the

destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument,

before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and

a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to

be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long, long

years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of

which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for

itself and wearing out.

“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful,

prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more.

I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see

her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to

all men in his healing office, and at peace; I see the good old man,

so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he

has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.

“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts

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of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman,

weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her

husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly

bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred

in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my

name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once

was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made

illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it,

faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men,

bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and

golden hair, to this placethen fair to look upon, with not a trace

of this day’s disfigurementand I hear him tell the child my story,

with a tender and a faltering voice.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is

a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

The End