There may occasionally be an individual, who from station, distempered
mind, or the encouragement of chimerical ideas of glory, quits the
theatre of life with at least the appearance of pleasure in his
triumphs. If such there be in reality, if this rapture of departing
glory be anything more than the deception of a distempered excitement,
the subject of its exhibition is to be greatly pitied. To the Christian,
dying in peace with both God and man, can it alone be ceded in the eye
of reason, to pour out his existence with a smile on his quivering lip.
And the warrior, who falls in the very arms of victory, after passing a
life devoted to the world; even, if he sees kingdoms hang suspended on
his success, may smile indeed, may utter sentiments full of loyalty and
zeal, may be the admiration of the world, and what is his reward? a
deathless name, and an existence of misery, which knows no termination.
Christianity alone can make us good soldiers in any cause, for he who
knows how to live, is always the least afraid to die.
Pendennyss and his companions pushed their way over the ground occupied
before the battle by the enemy; descended into and through that little
valley, in which yet lay, in undistinguished confusion, masses of the
dead and dying of either side; and again over the ridge, on which could
be marked the situation of those gallant squares which had so long
resisted the efforts of the horse and artillery by the groups of bodies,
fallen where they had bravely stood, until even the callous Harmer
sickened with the sight of a waste of life that he had but a few hours
before exultingly contributed to increase.
Appeals to their feelings as they rode through the field had been
frequent, and their progress was much retarded by attempts to contribute
to the ease of a wounded or a dying man; but as the courier constantly
urged speed, as the only means of securing the object of their ride,
these halts were reluctantly abandoned.
It was ten o'clock before they reached the farm-house, where, in the
midst of hundreds of his countrymen, lay the former lover of Jane.
As the subject of his confession must be anticipated by the reader, we
will give a short relation of his life, and of those acts which more
materially affect our history.
Henry Egerton had been turned early on the world, hundreds of his
countrymen, without any principle to counteract the arts of infidelity,
or resist the temptations of life. His father held a situation under
government, and was devoted to his rise in the diplomatic line. His
mother was a woman of fashion, who lived for effect and idle competition
with her sisters in weakness and folly. All he learnt in his father's
house was selfishness, from the example of one, and a love of high life
and its extravagance from the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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