The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-08-25
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUSION.


After many days, when time suficed
for the people to arrange their thoughts
in reference to the foregoing scene,
there was more than one account of
what had been witnessed on the scaffOld.
Most of the spectators testified to hav-
ing seen ON the breast of the unhappy
minister a scarlet letter-the very sem
blance of that worn by Hester Prynne-
imprinted in the flesh. AS regarded it's
origin, there were various explanations,
all of which must necessarily have been
cOnjectural Some affirmed that the
Reverend Mr.. Dimmesdale, on the very
day when Hester Prynne first wore her
ignoninious badge, had begun a course
of penaCe, which he afterward in so
many futile methods followed out, by
inficting hideous torture on himself
Others contended that the stigma had
not been produced until long time
subsequent, when old Roger Chilling
worth, being a potent necromancer, had
caused it to appear through the agency
of magic and poisonous drugs. Others,
again-and those best able to appreciate
the minister's peculiar sensibility and
the wonderful operation of his spirit
upon the body-whispere their belief
that the awful symbol was the effect of
the ever active tooth of remorse, gnaw-
ing from the inmost heart Outwardly,
and at last manifesting heavens dread
full Judgment by the visible presence of
the letter. The reader may choose
among these theories. We have thrown
all the light we could acquire upon the
portent, and would gladly. now that it
has done its Office, erase its deep print
out of our own brain, where long medi-
tation has fixed it in very undesirable
distinctness
1t is singular, nevertheless, that certain
persons, who were spectators of the whole
scene and professed never once to have
removed their eyes from the Reverend
Mr.. Dimmesdale, denied that there was
any mark whatever on his breast more
than on a newborn infants. Neither,
by their report, had his dying words ac-
knowledged nor even remotely implied
any, the slightest, connection on his part
with the guilt for which Hester Prynne
had so long worn the scarlet letter.
According to these highly respectable
witnesses, the minister, conscious that
he was dying-conscious also that the
reverence of the multitude placed him
already among saints and angels-had
desired, by yielding up his breath in the
arms of that fallen woman, to express to
the world how utterly nugatory is the
choicest of mans own righteousness.
After exhausting life in his efforts for
mankind's spiritual good, he had made
the manner of his death a parable, in
order to impress on his admirers the
mighty and mournful lesson that, in
the view of infinite purity we are sin
ners all alike. 1t was to teach them
that the hottest among US has but at
tanned so far above his fellows as to dis
Germ more clearly the mercy which looks
down and repudiate more utterly the
phantom of human merit, which would
look aspiringly upward. Without dis
putting a truth so momentous, we must
be allowed to consider this version of
Mr.. Dimmesdale's story as only an in
stance of that stubborn fidelity with
which a mans friends-and especially a
clergyman's-win sometimes uphold his
character, when proofs, clear as the
midday sunshine on the scarlet letter,
establish him a false and sin stained
creature of the dust.
The authority which we have chiefly
followed manuscript of old date,
drawn up from the verbal testimony of
individuals, some of whom had known
Hester Prynne, while others had heard
the tale from contemporary Witnesses
fully confirms the view taken in the
foregoing pages. Among many morals
which press upon Us from the poor min
ister's miserable experience we put only
this into a sentence: BE true! Be
trueI Be true! Show freely to the
world, if not your worst. yet some trait
whereby the worst may be inferred!'
At old Roger Chillingworth's decease
(which took place within the year,, and
by his last viii and testament, of which
Governor BelIingham and the Reverend
Mr.. Wilson were executors, he be-
queathed a very considerable amount OF
property. both here and IN England, to
little Pearl, the daughter of Hester
PrZnne.