In truth , there is no such thing in man 's nature as a settled and full resolve , either for good or evil , except at the very moment of execution . Let us hope , therefore , that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred unless the act have set its seal upon the thought . Yet , with the slight fancy-work which we have framed , some sad and awful truths are interwoven . Man must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest , since , though his hand be clean , his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity . He must feel that when he shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there . Penitence must kneel and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne , or that golden gate will never open . DR. HEIDEGGER 'S EXPERIMENT . That very singular man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study . There were three white-bearded gentlemen -- Mr. Medbourne , Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne -- and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the widow Wycherly . They were all melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life , and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves . Mr. Medbourne , in the vigor of his age , had been a prosperous merchant , but had lost his all by a frantic speculation , and was now little better than a mendicant . Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years and his health and substance in the pursuit of sinful pleasures which had given birth to a brood of pains , such as the gout and divers other torments of soul and body . Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician , a man of evil fame -- or , at least , had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation and made him obscure instead of infamous . As for the widow Wycherly , tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day , but for a long while past she had lived in deep seclusion on account of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her . It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old gentlemen -- Mr. Medbourne , Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne -- were early lovers of the widow Wycherly , and had once been on the point of cutting each other 's throats for her sake . And before proceeding farther I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves , as is not infrequently the case with old people when worried either by present troubles or woeful recollections . `` My dear old friends , '' said Dr. Heidegger , motioning them to be seated , `` I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I amuse myself here in my study . '' If all stories were true , Dr. Heidegger 's study must have been a very curious place . It was a dim , old-fashioned chamber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust . Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases , the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos , and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos .
Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust XXXXX Hippocrates , with which , according to some authorities , Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice .
Around as by for from of that though till to