glass box must have been, for any courage that kept him above his fate.
It was all very vivid, and the more incredible therefore that such
a devilish thing as the death-punishment should still be, and that
governments should keep on surpassing in the anguish they inflict the
atrocity of the cruelest murderers. If the Salem-born Hawthorne ever
visited that church in remembrance of the fact that his people came
from the same parish; if he saw the mortal relic which held me in such
fascination that I could scarcely leave the place even when the glass
box had been locked back to its cupboard, and if the spirits of the
dead sometimes haunt their dust, there must have been a reciprocal
intelligence between the dead and the living that left no emotion of the
supreme hour unimparted.
We visited St. Sepulchre's where the truly sainted Roger Williams was
baptized, and found entrance one day after two failures to penetrate to
its very unattractive interior. We were lighted by stained-glass windows
of geometrical pattern and a sort of calico or gingham effect in their
coloring, to the tablet to Captain John Smith, whose life Pocahontas, in
Virginia, with other ladies in diverse parts of the world, saved,
that we might have one of the most delightful, if not one of the most
credible, of autobiographies. He was of prime colonial interest, of
course, and we were not taken from the thought of him by any charm of
the place; but when we had identified his time-dimmed tablet there was
no more to do at St. Sepulchre's. The church is at the western end of
Old Bailey, and in the dreadful old times when every Friday brought its
batch of doomed men forth from the cells, it was the duty of the bellman
of St. Sepulchre's to pass under the prison walls the night before and
ring his bell, and chant the dismal lines:
“All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near,
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent,
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account