In the
value, or even the reality, of these two things he would never
believe till within a few days of his end; and then all at once he
seemed to open his heart to a conviction of their existence and
worth. The remembrance of this strange change now comforts my poor
father greatly. I myself, with painful, mournful joy, heard him
praying softly in his dying moments; and to the last prayer which my
father offered up at his bedside he added, "Amen." How unusual that
word appeared from his lips, of course you, who did not know him,
cannot conceive. Akin to this alteration was that in his feelings
towards his relations--all the bitterness seemed gone.
'When the struggle was over, and a marble calm began to succeed the
last dread agony, I felt, as I had never felt before, that there was
peace and forgiveness for him in Heaven. All his errors--to speak
plainly, all his vices--seemed nothing to me in that moment: every
wrong he had done, every pain he had caused, vanished; his sufferings
only were remembered; the wrench to the natural affections only was
left. If man can thus experience total oblivion of his fellow's
imperfections, how much more can the Eternal Being, who made man,
forgive His creature?
'Had his sins been scarlet in their dye, I believe now they are white
as wool.
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