"Then why not reveal it here?" asked Roger Chillingworth,
glancing quietly aside at the minister. "Why should not the
guilty ones sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?"
"They mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his
breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain.
"Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not
only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in
reputation. And ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a
relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren! even as in one
who at last draws free air, after a long stifling with his own
polluted breath. How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched
man--guilty, we will say, of murder--prefer to keep the dead
corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at
once, and let the universe take care of it!"
"Yet some men bury their secrets thus," observed the calm
physician.
"True; there are such men," answered Mr. Dimmesdale. "But not
to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept
silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or--can we not
suppose it?--guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a
zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from
displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men;
because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil
of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own
unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures,
looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all
speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid
themselves."
"These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with
somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture
with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that
rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for
God's service--these holy impulses may or may not coexist in
their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has
unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish
breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them
not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve
their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and
reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential
self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious
friend, that a false show can be better--can be more for God's
glory, or man' welfare--than God's own truth? Trust me, such men
deceive themselves!"
"It may be so," said the young clergyman, indifferently, as
waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or
unseasonable. He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from
any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous
temperament.--"But, now, I would ask of my well-skilled
physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited
by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?"