'I have great hopes that they are brought to a better way of life;
and because (repent they never so much) no one is any longer likely
to recognise in these penitents the originals upon whom it was
moulded these many years ago, I am determined to move the statuary to
a place in the S. aisle of our parish church, as a memorial, the
moral whereof I have leave of John and Grace Magor to declare to all
the parish. I choose to defer making it public, in tenderness, while
they live: for all things point as yet to the permanent saving of
their souls. But, as in the course of nature I shall predecease
them, I set the record here in the Parish Register, as its best
place.
'(Signed) Malachi Hichens, B.D.
'21st Jan., 1719.'
"And is that all?" I asked.
"Yes and no," said the Vicar, closing the book. "It is all that Mr.
Hichens has left to help us: and you may or may not connect with it
what I am going to relate of my own experience. . . . The old church,
as you know, was destroyed by fire in the morning hours of Christmas
Day, 1870. Throughout Christmas Eve and for a great part of the
night it had been snowing, but the day broke brilliantly, on a sky
without wind or cloud; and never have my eyes seen anything so
terribly beautiful--ay, so sublime--as the sight which met them at
the lych-gate.
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