“Spared! For what, sir? To drag on a wretched life as a felon, and to live and die, no one knows how or cares, and then to lie in a felon’s grave in a distant land! Here my body would at least have soon rested beside my friends and relatives. My sufferings would have been short, and I think I should have been happy. Oh, sir! pray forgive my poor broken heart; it will give utterance to the language of lamentation. Oh! that cruel judge! He might have let me die, especially as the bitterness of death had already passed over me. But he was angry and displeased at me for speaking, though he asked me if I had anything to say! So he resolved that I should suffer the most excruciating torture by killing me by inches in a foreign land! Is this mercy, Mr. Sharp?”
“You look upon this in an unchristian and too gloomy a light. You here attribute motives to your judge of a very improper kind; such as I am fully persuaded never entered his mind, and never were inmates of his breast. I am persuaded his thoughts toward you were those of pity as well as mercy, and that your change of sentence was meant for your good and that of others. You have no right to judge of his motives in so unchristian a light.”
“My dear sir, again I say, pardon my speech. I speak as I feel. Perhaps, with your help, I may feel differently, but I should then speak differently. Could you, or this gentleman, feel as I do, and were either of you placed in my situation, you would think and argue very differently to what you now do. You sit there, both of you, at liberty to move from this place to the happy associations of kindred, friends, and home. I grant you, a return to their society sweetens life, and teaches you to bear your earthly visitations, whatever they may be, patiently. But let me ask you how you would, either of you, like now to be afflicted with a long, lingering, painful, bodily disease, which permitted you only a few moments’ rest, and those troubled and broken, and disturbed by horrid dreams; that, when you awoke each day, it was only to a sense of increased pain? How would you like years of such increased agony? Tell me, would you not prefer a happier, shorter, and speedier termination of your sufferings than that long distant one which must come at last after years of weariness and pain? Yet you find fault with me because I would rather die now than live many years in all the horrors of slavery, and then die without a friend near me!”
“Still I think you wrong, Margaret. You seem to argue as if we had a choice of our own in these matters, and forget that it must be God’s will, and not our own, to which we must submit.”
“Is it God’s will, or is it man’s will, that I should lead a life of misery?”
“This question almost makes me think you impious, Margaret. It is God’s will that you should live, and I hope for some good: at all events, it is for some wise purpose of His own, either that you may become an instrument of His righteousness or mercy in His hands, or that you may be an example to others. As to the misery you talk of, that will depend much upon your own future individual conduct and character. I have heard that some receive pardon in that country for their good conduct, and they settle in the land; and instead of being slaves, they become useful members of society.”
“That may perhaps be the case with some, sir; but I am looking at my own present state, and I cannot believe that my judge had any such mercy in his view when he changed my sentence from present momentary suffering to such future wretchedness.”
“Of that you can know nothing, neither ought you to take your present state as any other than that of God’s decree by His agent, the judge. How can you ascertain the motives of any man’s heart? I do firmly believe that your judge decided most mercifully and righteously in your case. He might really think that if you were removed from this country, you might be instrumental in doing much good. He might hope that, under different circumstances of life, from the very natural force of your character taking another bias, you might become a blessing to yourself and others.”
“And so, because I yielded to temptation when I had so many good friends around me, he would throw me into the very midst of temptation, where I have not one friend to help me. Oh! Mr. Sharp, would it not be far better to choose present release, when such kind friends are near me, than future death, when no comforter or friend can be near?”
“And is not your God near you, Margaret, in every place, unless you drive Him away by your wickedness? But how can you tell that He may not raise up some benevolent friend to help you in that country to which you are going? I hope for the best. At all events, you must cherish better feelings towards your judge than those you now possess, or your state will be dreadful indeed wherever you may be. You seem to have forgotten all the Christian lessons which your dear mistress and I have taken such pains to teach you.”