Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/177

 There seem to be two distinct sources from which we are permitted to see a beautiful and softening light thrown over the tragical horrors of this dark picture of fanatical persecution. The one is the calm, unwavering constancy, and the unbending fortitude of the sufferer herself—aged even beyond the allotted "threescore years and ten," infirm of health, suffering still from the effects of a recent illness and her long and rigorous confinement—no persecution could break down her trust in God, or her assurance of her own innocence and integrity of heart.

She was urged by her enemies to confess her guilt, and she well knew that only by confession could she hope to save herself from the horrors of an impending and ignominious death; but she repelled them with scorn: "Would you have me belie myself?" and their threats had no power to move her.

No doubt some of her family or friends, seeing her thus in mortal peril, may, in their loving earnestness, have importuned her to the same course; but, if so, she was proof