So strong, fearless and beautiful was his soul that it shone
through the frail compass of his body with an unfaltering light. No one
had ever doubted the goodness and splendour of the man's character. Men
might call his body old and feeble and past the work that it was still
called upon to perform. They might speak of him as guileless, as too
innocent of this world's slippery ways, as trusting where no child of six
years of age would have trusted; these things might have been, and were,
said, but no man, woman, nor child, looking upon him, hesitated to realise
that here was some one who had walked and talked with God and in whom
there was no shadow of deceit nor evil thought. Old Glasgow Parmiter, the
lawyer, the wickedest old man Polchester had ever known, said once of him,
"If there's a hell, I suppose I'm going to it, and I'm sure I don't care.
There may be one and there may not. I know there's a heaven. Purcell lives
there."
His voice, which was soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer
which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm.
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