"What you design is none," he said solemnly. "Your death will atone nothing. It is by living only that you can atone!"
"How?"
"By repentance! This is the grand--the only sovereign atonement which the spirit of man can ever make. There is no other mode provided in nature. The laws, which would take your life, would deprive you of the means of atonement. This is due to G.o.d; it can be performed only by living and suffering. Life is a duty because it is an ordeal. You must preserve life, as a sacred trust, for this reason. Even if you were a felon--one wilfully resolving and coldly executing crime--you were yet bound to preserve life! Throw it away, and though you comply with the demand of social laws, you forfeit the only chance of making atonement to those which are far superior. Rather pray that life may be spared you. It was with this merciful purpose that G.o.d not only permitted Cain to live, but commanded that none should slay him. You must live for this!"
"Yet I slew HER!"
He did with me as he pleased. Three days after beheld us on our way to the rich empire of Texas--its plains, rich but barren--unstocked, wild-running to waste with its tangled weeds--needing, imploring the vigorous hand of cultivation. Even such, at that moment, was my heart!
Rich in fertile affections, yet gone to waste; waiting, craving, praying for the hand of the cultivator!--Yet who now was that cultivator?
To this question the words of Kingsley, which were those of truth and wisdom, were a sufficient answer; and evermore an echo arose as from the bottom of my soul; and my lips repeated it to my own ears only; and but one word was spoken; and that word was--"ATONEMENT!"
THE END