With that word came the reverend’s last breath. The crowd was silently still, in a state of shock and awe.
As the days passed, many people spoke of the scarlet letter, just like Hester’s, that they had seen imprinted on the reverend’s breast.
Some thought he had inflicted it upon himself through terrible self-torture. Others thought that Roger Chillingworth had used drugs and magic spells to inflict it upon him. And still othere believed that Heaven had placed it there to punish him for his sin.
Many of the religious authorities defended Reverend Dimmesdale’s character and pronounced that his dying words declared no guilt in the Prynne and her daughter.
They said that the reverend had merely used his last earthly moments to deliver a powerful sermon through him own example. But the moral that stood out from the poor reverend’s miserable experience was ultimately, “Be true”