As for the missionary, in deference
to his pursuits, his executioners dug him a grave, and buried him
unmutilated on the spot where he had fallen.
CHAPTER XXV.
Brutal alike in deed and word,
With callous heart and hand of strife.
How like a fiend may man be made,
Plying the foul and monstrous trade
Whose harvest-field is human life.
--WHITTIER.
A veil like that of oblivion dropped before the form of the
missionary. The pious persons who had sent him forth to preach to
the heathen, never knew his fate; a disappearance that was so common
to that class of devoted men, as to produce regret rather than
surprise. Even those who took his life felt a respect for him; and,
strange as it may seem, it was to the eloquence of the man who now
would have died to save him, that his death was alone to be
attributed. Peter had awakened fires that he could not quench, and
aroused a spirit that he could not quell. In this respect, he
resembled most of those who, under the guise of reform, or
revolution, in moments of doubt, set in motion a machine that is
found impossible to control, when it is deemed expedient to check
exaggeration by reason.
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