st have escaped me save on this very scaffold!" I think Dimmesdale has not created the worst sin of the book, even though he inflicted much pain onto himself over guilt and remorse. His confession helped save his soul. Among many morals, which press upon one from the poor minister's miserable experience, one puts only this into a sentence: "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" Roger Chillingworth is the worst sinner of the book, in my opinion. At first glance, Chillingworth seems to be sinned against, not a sinner. His first sin is one against nature and Hester more specifically. It was committed the day he married Hester. He knew she did not love him, and he was not fit to make her a proper husband. He did not wrong her on purpose. Chillingworth does look back and sympathize. "It seemed not so wild a dream, old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was, that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which they presence made there!" Chillingworth's ignorance does not even excuse him. He sinned and knows it: "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay." Hester knows he sinned also. She knew she was very young when she married him. His admittance to persuading her to be with him comes as no surprise to Hester. Chillingworth is a classic case of that sin Hawthorne developed called the "unpardonable sin." For seven years, Chillingworth's purpose is to search out and torment the man who has betrayed him. He has become a leech and sucks the life out of Dimmesdale. Vengeance is what he is obsessed with. In the process of carrying out his own vengeance, he destroys himself. He attempts to play God, and ins...
