But I felt only high exultation in my certainty
of eternal life. Although death was divided from me by a hair's
breadth, and I was acutely conscious of the fact, it gave me no
sensation but joy. I suppose I could have hung there no longer
than five seconds, but in that time I lived a whole age of
delight. But my body asserted itself, and with a desperate
gymnastic effort I regained the boom. How I furled the sail I
don't know, but I sang at the utmost pitch of my voice praises to
God that went pealing out over the dark waste of waters."[172]
[172] Op. cit., London, 1901, p. 230.
The annals of martyrdom are of course the signal field of triumph
for religious imperturbability. Let me cite as an example the
statement of a humble sufferer, persecuted as a Huguenot under
Louis XIV:--
"They shut all the doors," Blanche Gamond writes, "and I saw six
women, each with a bunch of willow rods as thick as the hand
could hold, and a yard long. He gave me the order, 'Undress
yourself,' which I did. He said, 'You are leaving on your shift;
you must take it off.' They had so little patience that they
took it off themselves, and I was naked from the waist up.
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