pent
centuries in elaborating.

This learned stranger was exemplary, as regarded, at least, the
outward forms of a religious life, and, early after his arrival, had
chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young
divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was
considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a
heaven-ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labor for the
ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds for the now feeble New
England Church, as the early Fathers had achieved for the infancy of
the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health of Mr.
Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. By those best acquainted with
his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted
for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of
parochial duty, and, more than all, by the fasts and vigils of which
he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this
earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some
declared, that, if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was
cause enough, that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden
by his feet. He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic
humility, avowed his belief, that, if Providence should see fit to
remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its
humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as
to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact.
His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a
certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on
any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his
heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain.

Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the prospect
that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when Roger
Chillingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the
scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down, as it were, out of
the sky, or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery,
which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be
a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs, and the
blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from
the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was
valueless to common eyes. He was heard