An immeasurable line of neighbors and friends closed the procession, whose tears and sighs, an ample testimony of the worth of the deceased, solemnized the burial instead of tolling bells and funereal music, which the rigor of the new church government denied to heretics. The corpse had now reached the grave. The bearers sat it down and removed the lid of the coffin, and a loud lament filled the air at the sight of the martyr. The kiss of the angel of death had removed all traces of her late sufferings from her countenance. With softly closed eyes, and a heavenly smile upon her lips, she lay, as if awaiting that blessed morning whose aurora seemed already dawning upon her spiritual vision. With outward composure the widower approached the coffin, clasped the folded hands of the pale corpse, murmured, 'Farewell, thou true one; soon shall we meet again,'--and silently retired. The weeping children now rushed forward, but the clergyman, Beer, directed the servants to lead them back. He then stepped to the coffin, requested the audience to be silent, and with a loud voice addressed them as follows: ''Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!' These words of Christ, with which he prayed for his persecutors, were the last words I heard from the blessed being whose earthly remains we are now about to consign to the grave. My anger was inflamed by the atrocities which were daily committed in our city under the mantle of religion, and I prayed that the avenging fire of God's wrath might descend and consume our tormentors. This deceased saint checked my imprecation by calling to my mind the divine prayer of our holy Savior, and with a chastened and humble spirit I repeated after her: 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.' 'And so must you henceforth pray, my hearers. Of the men who now by divine permission pursue and persecute us, by far the greater number are acting not from inveterate cruelty but under the influence of a mistaken sense of religious duty, and desire to lead us back to that path which they deem the only safe one; and this desire is not censurable. 'But that they seek, by means of persecution and torture, to compel us to receive what they hold to be the true faith,--that they would bind the immortal spirit with earthly chains, when the word of God cannot be bound or confined,--therein lies their error. It therefore becomes us as christians to forgive them; 'they know not what they do.' 'Even that terrible man whose barbarity has destroyed this blessed martyr to our faith, knew not, as we charitably hope, what he did,--and therefore will we not curse him, but pray to God that he will purify his heart and enlighten his mind.