Wallace accosted the priest with a reverential welcome; and then
turning to Helen, tenderly whispered her, "My Helen! in this moment of
my last on earth, O! engrave on thy heart, that--in the sacred words of
the patriarch of Israel--I remember thee, in the kindness of thy youth!
in the love of thy desolate espousals to me! when thou camest after me
into the wilderness, into a land thou didst not know, and comforted me!
And shalt thou not, my soul's bride, be sacred unto our Lord? the Lord
of the widow and the orphan! To Him I commit thee, in steadfast faith
that He will never forsake thee! Then, O, dearest part of myself, let
not the completion of my fate shake your dependence on the only True
and Just. Rejoice that Wallace has been deemed worthy to die for his
having done his duty. And what is death, my Helen, that we should shun
it, even to rebelling against the Lord of Life? Is it not the door
which opens to us immortality? and in that blest moment who will regret
that he passed through it in the bloom of his years? Come, then,
sister of my soul, and share with thy Wallace the last supper of his
Lord; the pledge of the happy eternity to which, by His grace, I now
ascend!"
Helen, conscience-struck and re-awakened to holy confidence by the
heavenly composure of his manner, obeyed the impulse of his hand, and
they both knelt before the minister of peace.
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