"Then I am dying," said Sir Roger, solemnly.
"I am afraid you are," answered the clergyman. "To deceive you would be a crime: your surgeon has himself told me that human skill can do nothing for you."
Sir Roger Millington drew his hand over his eyes, and groaned heavily; but after a brief pause he withdrew the white colourless fingers again; and looking steadfastly at the clergyman, said, "It is a terrible thing to die, sir; more terrible than I thought. I have fought in more than one battle, sir, and have had my single affairs too; but I never found out how terrible a thing death is till I came to lie here, and see life flow away from me drop by drop."
"Because in no other case had you time for thought," answered Dr. Edwards; "but, believe me, oh! believe me, that the very time for thought which you seem to regard as an evil, is the greatest mercy of Heaven. Few, even of the very best of us, if any, can keep his heart and mind in such a condition of preparation, as to be ready to pass from this state of mortal sin into life eternal, and to the immediate presence of a pure and perfect Being, who, though he is merciful, is likewise just, and will by no means leave the impenitent transgressor unpunished. No man, my dear sir, when he has years and days before him, should trust to the efficacy of a deathbed repentance--a moment which perhaps may not be granted to him; but when a man has gone on in thoughtless neglect, through the vigour of careless existence, and unexpectedly finds himself at the end of life with only a few short hours between him and that judgment-seat, where nothing can be concealed and nothing palliated, he may then take unto himself the blessed hope that repentance never comes too late, that our Saviour himself showed upon the cross that the last hour, the very last minute, of human life may yet obtain forgiveness of all the offences of the past, by evincing true repentance, founded on true faith."
"But how can I show either true repentance or true faith?" exclaimed the dying man, with a peevish movement of the hand. "All I can do is, to say I am very sorry for everything I have done wrong; and that I believe the religion in which I was educated to be the true one--although I have thought very little about it, since I was a boy at school. But it is no use! it is no use talking!" he added, seeing the clergyman about to reply; "I have done many a thing, especially lately, that cannot be forgiven--for which I shall never forgive myself; and so, how can I expect God to forgive them, who is better than I am, and who never knew what it was to be tempted as I have been?"
"You can expect God to forgive them, because he is better than you are, and because we have an intercessor at his throne, who has known what it is to be tempted, even as we are; because we have a mediator in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was rendered subject to temptation a thousand-fold more terrible than any that we can endure, in order that he might obtain forgiveness for even the greatest of sinners, who truly repents him of the evil he has done. Indeed, indeed, you greatly err in your ideas of God's mercy. But we had better, I think be left alone;" and he made a sign to the nurse, who immediately retired into the anteroom.
"I am sure," said the wounded man, feeling, in some degree, the effect of such consolatory hopes--"I am sure I do most sincerely repent of some things that I have done within this last week, and indeed all that I have done throughout the course of my life that is evil; and I do think, now that it is too late to mend it, that if I had taken a different course, and acted in another manner on many occasions, I should not only have been more comfortable now, but a happier man altogether."
"Doubt it not! doubt it not!" said the clergyman. "Those that sow in sin shall reap in bitterness: but still have good hope: the very conviction of the magnitude of your sins which you seem to entertain, is the first great step to sincere repentance; and sincere repentance once obtained, the atonement is already prepared in heaven--the abundance of God's mercy is ready to blot out our iniquity from before his sight."
"Ah, but there are many things very heavy on my heart and my conscience!" said the other. "Tell me, Doctor Edwards, tell me," he added, in a gloomy and anxious tone, "tell me, can a man who has said that and done that, which can take away the life of another upon a false charge, hope to be saved?"
The clergyman half started from his seat; and the other, sinking down again on the bed from which he had partially raised himself, exclaimed bitterly--"I see how it is! I see how it is--no hope for me--and so I will die as I have lived, boldly, without thinking about it."