A FOKLOBN HOPE. 
189 
cases, will be such as cannot be paid without the for- 
feiture of life.” 
“ I nevertheless am content to pay it ; for it is 
far better to die a martyr than live a degraded and 
suffering criminal.” 
Think well before you decide. Death is a sad 
consummation to one who has no hopes beyond the 
grave; and you are cut off from all hope by the 
horrible pollution which has fallen upon you. Your 
abjuration of the faith transmitted to you from 
your forefathers, and which had rendered you a fa- 
voured object of heavenly communion, was volun- 
tary on your part. You have bowed the knee to 
false gods, and therefore, I fear, can never be for- 
given. Your peril is extreme.” 
The Brahmin had considerable influence with his 
tribe, and resolved to ascertain whether by an applica- 
tion to those heads of it who decided upon all spiritual 
defalcations, he could not obtain a remission of his 
wife’s sentence of excommunication. This influence 
had been occasionally tried ; but the intensity of those 
sufferings adjudged to be undergone as the price of 
rescinding a judgment, always passed with extreme 
severity, was in every case such as left no hopes that 
the penitentiary would survive it : his fears there- 
fore prevailed over his hopes when he appealed to 
that tribunal for a reversal of the decree which had 
doomed a once happy pair to the saddest condition of 
misery. His application, however, was favourably 
heard, and a consultation immediately" took place 
upon the expediency of restoring the degraded wife to 
her original rank among her tribe. 
