table before me,
overpowered.

"The public prosecutor then opened the case, and harrowed up my soul
with the fearful account of the diabolical deed. He almost persuaded me
I was the murderer; so clearly did he reason from appearances. The
witnesses were called; a chain of circumstantial evidence was made out;
all that was awanting in it was, that I had not been seen to do the
deed. Witnesses I had not one. Those whom I could have called could have
said nothing but what they had already said, and it was wrested to my
disadvantage by my own story; for I was a self-convicted liar, and
little better than a thief, in my attempt to appropriate what was not my
own--even in the most favourable construction my able counsel could put
upon my case. The jury, without leaving their box, pronounced me guilty,
without a dissentient voice. The judge put on the fearful black hat upon
his head; and, after a heart-harrowing speech upon my guilt, pronounced
sentence of death upon me. I was to be taken back to the jail, and from
thence to the spot where the murder had been committed, and hung in
chains on the second market-day in October. How I was removed from the
court I cannot tell; neither can I tell what intervened for some hours.
The last thing strongly impressed upon my memory is a burst of
satisfaction in the court, when the sentence was passed upon me, and the
hooting of the crowd without; yet, strange to say, I slept soundly after
the irons were riveted upon my ankles, and awoke to find my doom fixed,
and my days on earth numbered. I became, in a manner, resigned to my
fate. Indeed, save for my parents, I had no other regret in leaving the
world; yet, at times, an anxious wish would steal upon my mind that I
might be saved from my unmerited death. It was the shuddering of nature
at entering upon eternity. The hope never left me that my innocence
would, at one time or another, sooner or later, be made manifest to my
fellow-men--for murder will not hide, nor innocent blood cry from the
earth in vain. The hours flew past with fearful rapidity; the
neighbouring clock seemed never to cease to strike the hour. Night
followed day, and day night, as if there was no interval between; yet
there was a heaviness upon me that bowed me down. My last Sabbath on
earth arrived; the day was spent in devotion--my heart-broken parents,
who now were convinced of my innocence, pouring out their souls with
mine to the Throne of Grace. If ever there was