fully labours to induce a miserable death-bed, and thus give one last chance to the poor victim's prospects.
On the other hand, transfer your view to the triumphant end of some miserable wretch, who, whether from misfortune or vice, has had neither peace nor happiness all his life. As the last sands of his glass run out, and his Nemesis draws near, crowds of clergy and other pious people perhaps surround his bed, in order to benefit by the edifying spectacle. Even if the dying wretch be so degraded, as to be utterly indifferent to his position and grand prospects, that only makes these prospects all the surer and brighter, and the surrounding comforters and congratulators all the more pertinacious. On a late occasion, when a dying burglar, worried out of all patience by this sort of thing, at last drew his jemmy from under the pillow, and cracked the skull of his nearest tormentor, a deep but mingled wail ascended from all the company; for while the wretched murderer had thus even added to his accumulated claims upon Nemesis, yet, sad to say, he had also suddenly sent a soul to its account in that happy, duty-doing, and unanxious state, the reversion of which beyond the grave was only too assured. When we gravely argued with these Reds that such incurably vicious wretches deserved rather to be punished, both in this world and the next, they expressed utter horror and amazement at such a view; and asked us, in reply, if people deliberately chose to be miserable instead of happy, hated instead of loved, ugly instead of beautiful.
It so happened that the particular planet we had fallen into correspondence with in this Red system was, like ourselves, the fourth from its sun; and the
