Page:The last chapter in the life of Guiteau (IA 101648406.nlm.nih.gov).pdf/4

 his mind of false hopes and thus end the pretense, the bravado which had kept him up so long, and, by so doing, give him time to make serious preparation for eternity. And the whole community experienced a relief at this, they felt that the farce had gone far enough; and keen eyes watched for the "weakening," that, often announced, never came. But still sleep came to him as it comes to a child, his digestion was undisturbed, and to all outward appearance, the sunrise, as it came through the window of his cell on the morning of his execution, was to him the same welcome light that it was when he went to enjoy it in Lafayette Park on the morning of the 2d of July, 1881. If, as he said to Dr. Hicks and saying maintained it to the last, "he had done God's service and had nothing One year before, to repent of," he could well be calm. he had written, "Life is a fleeting dream, and it matters little when one goes. A human life is of small value," and now he was confronted by his own statement. But he really meant this when he wrote it, and he accepted it for himself now. It is too late for me to doubt the sincerity of this man's belief; in his egotism he posed before the world, but he was not playing at a farce with the Almighty. In his religious faith he was as terribly in earnest as John Brown, of Osawatomie, but without the intensity of that old man's devotion.

I think he was most fortunate in his spiritual adviser. Dr. Hicks, having lived a stirring life in both hemispheres, and having been brought in contact with all kinds of men, knew human nature thoroughly. He found Guiteau sincere in his religious belief. He did not claim to be an expert in mental pathology, but that he was in the pathology of sin is undoubted, and when this criminal bared his inmost soul at the confessional, and the Dr. was convinced that he told him the truth, he did not make the mistake that so many divines would have made, of asking him to turn infidel to the religious convictions on which his life had been staked. With such blind faith, what chance was there for him to repent as the