I had seen so many in my life who made themselves glad with scorning, and laughed at another's shame. What could I do? This life seemed to be closing in upon me with a wall of fire--everywhere there was scorching that made me shrink. The high sunlight made me shrink. And I began to think that my despair was the voice of God telling me to die. But it would take me long to die of hunger. Then I thought of my people, how they had been driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of misery in their wandering--was I the first? And in the wars and troubles when Christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain their children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being false apostates. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to my life; for calamity had closed me in too, and I saw no pathway but to evil. But my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary things in it. 
What could I do? This life seemed to be closing in upon me with a scorching wall of fire that made me shrink.
"I began to think that my despair was the voice of God telling me to die. Then I thought of my people, how they had been driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of misery in their wandering; and in the wars when Christians were cruellest, our fathers had sometimes slain their children and afterward themselves. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to my life; but