Title: Personal Recollections
Author: Charlotte Elizabeth
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8114]
Most recently updated: December 26, 2020
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Tonya Allen,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
CHILDHOOD.—Reasons—Design—Martyrs' prison—Palace garden—Scenery— Music—Study—Politics—A brother—Protestantism—The Bible—Judicious plan
YOUTH.—Private journals—Romance—The drama—Poetical taste—Loss of hearing—Books—A change—Rural life—Stays—Tight-lacing—Ruinous custom—The country
EARLY DAYS.—Idling—Convictions—Anticipating evil—Mischievous errors
—Unreal estimates—Fake views—A parting—Fraternal love
YOUTH.—A grandmother—Unfashionable taste—A bereavement—Changes—
Travels—Punctuality—Ocean scenery—False confidence—A storm—Wonders
of the deep—Recklessness—An Arab steed—A fragment—Escapes—
Housewifery—Nova Scotia—Indians—Cosmopolitanism—Home
IRELAND.—Oxford—Irishmen—The journey—The arrival—An escape—Dublin
—St. John's eve—The dance—Paganism—Trials—Levying distress—
Convictions—Terrors—Awakened conscience—God's teaching—Joy and peace
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.—The church—Socinianism—Temptation—Metaphysics—
Athanasian creed—An epoch—My first tract—A new friend—"Hail Mary"—
Christian communion
KILKENNY.—A new residence—Another snare—Compromise—An apostate—"End of controversy"—The snare broken—Another attack—An argument— Discussion—The result
The dumb boy.—A pupil—Jack's commencement—Inquiry—A dilemma—Dawning
light—Seasonings—A sunbeam—A soul born—A protester—Idolatry—
Faithfulness—Summons—Superstition—National character—Confession—
Infernal machinery
England.—The dumb boy—Jack's adventure—Departure from Ireland—Hannah
More—A carnal politician—Treachery—Afflictions—Jack's progress—
Prayer—Mercies—A soldier—A home—False judgment—Tranquillity
Sandhurst.—A proposal—A snare—An incident—Papal fulmination—Jack's petition—Happy caution—Perseverance—Zeal—Testimonies—A contrast
Separation.—Prejudices—Home—Forebodings—Danger—Trying scenes—
Queries—Awful contrast—Cadets—Retrospections—A visitation—Sympathy
—True feeling
Employment.—Sabbath meetings—Boys—An event—Forgiveness—Prejudices—
The Irish language—St. Giles's—A project—The Irish church
A sunset.—A termination—A sunset—Resignation—The red hand—Joy and peace—True wisdom—Sympathy—Earnestness—A dying protest—Sleeping in Jesus
A removal.—An appeal—Irish schools—Literary labors—Antinomianism—
Conclusion
I have given my best consideration to the arguments by which you support the demand for a few notices of events connected with my personal recollections of the past. That which has chiefly influenced me is the consideration, urged on what I know to be just and reasonable grounds, that when it has pleased God to bring any one before the public in the capacity of an author, that person becomes in some sense public property; having abandoned the privacy from which no one ought to be forced, but which any body may relinquish; and courted the observation of the world at large. Such individuals are talked of during life, and after death become the subject, I may say the prey, of that spirit which reigned in Athens of old, and from which no child of Adam is wholly free—the desire to hear and to tell some new thing. No sooner has the person withdrawn from this mortal stage, than the pen of biography is prepared to record, and a host of curious expectants are marshalled to receive, some fragments at least of private history. I wish I could dissent from your remark, that even godliness itself is too often sought to be made a gain of in such cases. Writers who are themselves wholly unenlightened by spiritual knowledge, and uninfluenced by spiritual feeling, will take up as a good speculation what must to them be a mystery, and wrong the subject of their memorial while they injure the cause in which he labored. Even among those of better understanding in the ways of truth, we do not often meet sound judgment, calm discretion, and refined delicacy, combined with affection for the departed and zeal for the gospel. Private journals are sought out, confidential letters raked together, and a most unseemly exposure made alike of the dead and the living.
This I have always seen and lamented; and being aware that my turn would probably come to be thus exhibited, I have abstained from preserving even the slightest memoranda of events, thoughts, or feelings, that could be laid hold on as a private journal: and I have most distinctly intimated to all those friends who possess any letters of mine, that I shall regard it as a gross breach of confidence, a dishonorable, base, and mercenary proceeding on their part, if ever they permit a sentence addressed by me to them to pass into other hands. Indeed, to such an extent have I felt this, that for many years past I have kept some friends under a solemn pledge, that immediately after my death, they will proclaim my having so guarded my correspondence, in order, if possible, to shame the individuals from a course with regard to me which I have never been inveigled into with regard to others. Looking on epistolary communications as a trust not to be betrayed, I have invariably refused to deliver to the biographers of my departed friends any letters of theirs that I might possess: the first application for them has always been the signal for committing the whole budget to the flames.
This you know; and you say that the very precautions I have used will leave my memory more completely at the mercy of ill-judging or ill- informed survivors, who, in the absence of more authentic information, may draw on their own invention, and do me injustice. This is the plea that has prevailed with me now: the uncertainty of mortal life, with the apprehension that if suddenly removed I shall become the heroine of some strange romance, founded probably on the facts of a life by no means deficient in remarkable incidents, but mixed up with a great deal of fiction; and the consciousness that others may be thereby wounded, whom I would not wish to wound—have decided me to act upon your suggestion, and to draw out a little sketch of such matters as can alone concern the public in any way. Into private domestic History no person possessed of a particle of delicacy can wish to intrude. It is melancholy to witness the prying spirit that some are but too ready to cater to, for filthy lucre's sake: and grievous to reflect that the boasted immunity which makes the cottage of the English peasant, no less than the palace of the English noble, a castle—which so fences his domestic hearth that no man may set foot within his door without his consent, or proclaim an untruth concerning him without being legally compelled to render compensation, should be withdrawn from his grave. I cannot tell you how I have blushed for the living, and kindled with resentment on behalf of the dead, when contemplating the merciless desecration of what may truly be called the sacredness of home, in some biographical notices.
You may therefore expect to find in these sheets a record of that mental and spiritual discipline by which it has pleased the Lord to prepare me for the very humble, yet not very narrow, sphere of literary usefulness in which it was his good purpose to bid me move; with whatever of outward things, passing events, and individual personal adventure, as it is called, may be needful to illustrate the progress. Of living contemporaries I shall of course not speak: of the dead no further than as I would myself be spoken of by them, had I gone first. Public events I shall freely discuss, and hold back nothing that bears on spiritual subjects. Nobody shall ever need to be at the trouble of posthumously searching out and proclaiming my opinions on any topic whatever, apart from personalities. I will not withhold, nor disguise, nor soften them down; and if the charge of egotism be brought, let the accusers lay their hands upon their hearts, and declare that they would not have sanctioned another in performing for me, as a defunct writer, the office which nobody can fulfil half so well, because nobody can do it half so correctly, as myself.
To commence the task, in which I earnestly implore the Father of all mercies and Teacher of all truth to guide me, to guard me from misstatement, to preserve me from self-seeking, and to overrule it to the glory of his great name, I must remind you that my birthplace was Norwich; a fine old town, distinguished for its many antiquities, the beauty of its situation on a rising ground, interspersed with a profusion of rich gardens, and studded with churches to the number of thirty-five, including a majestic cathedral. Many years have elapsed since I last beheld it, and perhaps the march of modern improvement has so changed its features, that were I now to dwell upon my recollections of that cherished home, they would not be recognized. But I cannot forget the early impressions produced on my mind by the peculiarities of the place; nor must they be omitted here. The sphere in which it is my dearest privilege to labor, is the cause of Protestantism; and sometimes when God has blessed my poor efforts to the deliverance of some captive out of the chains of Popish delusion, I have recalled the fact of being born just opposite the dark old gateway of that strong building where the noble martyrs of Mary's day were imprisoned. I have recollected that the house wherein I drew my first breath was visible through the grated window of their prison, and a conspicuous object when its gates unfolded to deliver them to unjust judgment and a cruel death. Are any of the prayers of those glorified saints fulfilled in the poor child who was brought into the world on that particular spot, though at the distance of some ages? The query could not be answered, but the thought has frequently cheered me on. The stern-looking gateway opening on St. Martin's plain, was probably one of the very first objects traced on the retina of my infant eye, when it ranged beyond the inner walls of the nursery; and often, with tottering step, I passed beneath that arch into the splendid garden of our noble episcopal palace; and certainly, if my Protestantism may not be traced to that locality, my taste may; for from all the elaborate display of modern architecture, all the profuse luxuriance and endless variety of modern horticulture, I now turn away, to feast in thought on the recollection of that venerable scene. The palace itself is a fine specimen of the chaste old English style; but the most conspicuous, the most unfading feature, was the cathedral itself, which formed the boundary of one-half of the garden; a mass of sober magnificence, rising in calm repose against the sky, which, to my awe-struck gaze and childish imagination, seemed to rest upon its exquisitely formed spire. Seated on the grass, busying my fingers with the daisies that were permitted to spring around, I have been lost in such imaginings as I suppose not many little children indulge in, while permitting my eyes to rove over the seemingly interminable mass of old grey stone, and then to fall upon the pleasant flowers around me. I loved silence, for nothing that fell on the ear seemed in accordance with what so charmed the eye; and thus a positive evil found entrance in the midst of much enjoyment. I acquired that habit of dreamy excursiveness into imaginary scenes, and among unreal personages, which is alike inimical to rational pursuits and opposed to spiritual- mindedness. To a period so early as the middle of my fourth year I can revert with the most perfect, most vivid recollection of my habitual thoughts and feelings; and at that age, I can unhesitatingly declare, my mind was deeply tinctured with a romance not derived from books, nor from conversation, but arising, as I verily believe, out of the singular adaptation to each other of my natural taste and the scenery amidst which it began to develop itself. Our abode was changed to another part of the city before this period arrived; but the bishop's garden was still our haunt, and my supreme delight.
An immense orchard, shrubbery, and flower-garden were attached to my father's new residence, to which he had removed on account of its proximity to the church of which he was rector. This, too, was an old- fashioned house, mantled with a vine, and straggling out, in irregular buildings, along the slope of the garden. The centre of an immense grass-plot, studded with apple, pear, and plum trees, was occupied by the most gigantic mulberry I ever beheld, the thick trunk of which resembled that of a knotted oak, while in its forest of dark branches nestled a number of owls and hats. Oh, how I loved to lurk beneath its shadow on a summer evening, and await the twilight gloom, that the large owl might come forth and wheel around the tree, and call out his companions with a melancholy hoot; while the smaller bat, dipping lower in his flight, brushed by me, accustomed to my presence. I had entered betimes upon the pernicious study of nursery tales, as they then were, and without having the smallest actual belief in the existence of fairies, goblins, or any such things, I took unutterable delight in surrounding myself with hosts of them, decked out in colors of my own supplying, gorgeous or terrible beyond the conception of my classic authorities. The faculty of realizing whatever I pictured to myself was astonishingly great; and you must admit that the localities in which I was placed were but too favorable to the formation of a character which I have no doubt the enemy was secretly constructing within me, to mislead, by wild, unholy fiction, such as should come within the range of its, influence. To God be all the glory that I am not now pandering with this pen to the most grovelling or the most impious of man's perverted feelings.
But above all other tastes, all other cravings, one passion reigned supreme, and that acme of enjoyment to me was music. This also was met by indulgence as unlimited as its cravings; for not only did my father possess one of the finest voices in the world, and the very highest degree of scientific knowledge, taste, and skill in the management of it, but our house was seldom without an inmate in the person of his most intimate friend and brother clergyman, a son of the celebrated composer Mr. Linley, who was as highly gifted in instrumental as my father was in vocal music. The rich tones of his old harpsichord seem at this moment to fill my ear and swell my heart; while my father's deep, clear, mellow voice breaks in, with some noble recitative or elaborate air of Handel, Haydn, and the rest of a school that may be superseded, but never, never can be equalled by modern composers. Or the harpsichord was relinquished to another hand, and the breath of our friend came forth through the reed of his hautboy in strains of such overpowering melody, that I have hid my face on my mother's lap to weep the feelings that absolutely wrung my little heart with excess of enjoyment. This was not a snare; or, if it might have been made one, the Lord broke it in time, by taking away my hearing. I would not that it had been otherwise, for while a vain imagination was fostered by the habit I have before adverted to, this taste for music and its high gratification most certainly elevated the mind. I do firmly believe that it is a gift from God to man, to be prized, cherished, cultivated. I believe that the man whose bosom yields no response to the concord of sweet sounds, falls short of the standard to which man should aspire as an intellectual being; and though Satan does fearfully pervert this solace of the mind to most vile purposes, still I heartily agree with Martin Luther, that, in the abstract, "the devil hates music."
Before I had completed my sixth year, I came under the rod of discipline which was to fall so long and so perseveringly upon me ere I should "hear the rod and who had appointed it." Enthusiastic in every thing, and already passionately fond of reading, I had eagerly accepted the offer of a dear uncle, a young physician, to teach me French. I loved him, for he was gentle and kind, and very fond of me; and it was a great happiness to trip through the long winding street that separated us, to turn down by the old Bridewell, so celebrated as an architectural curiosity, being built of dark flint stones, exquisitely chiselled into the form of bricks, and which even then I could greatly admire, and to take my seat on my young uncle's knee, in the large hall of his house, where stood a very large and deep-toned organ, some sublime strain from which was to reward my diligence, if I repeated accurately the lesson he had appointed. Thus between love for my uncle, delight in his organ, and a natural inclination to acquire learning, I was stimulated to extraordinary efforts, and met the demand on my energies in a very unsafe way. I placed my French book under my pillow every night, and starting from repose at the earliest break of dawn, strained my sleepy eyes over the page, until, very suddenly, I became totally blind.
This was a grievous blow to my tender parents: the eclipse was so complete that I could not tell whether it was midnight or midnoon, so far as perception of light was concerned, and the case seemed hopeless. It was, however, among the "all things" that God causes to work together for good, while Satan eagerly seeks to use them for evil. It checked my inordinate desire for mere acquirements, which I believe to be a bad tendency, particularly in a female, while it threw me more upon my own resources, such as they were, and gave me a keen relish for the highly intellectual conversation that always prevailed in our home. My father delighted in the society of literary men; and he was himself of a turn so argumentative, so overflowing with rich conversation, so decided in his political views, so alive to passing events, so devotedly and so proudly the Englishman, that with such associates as he gathered about him at his own fireside, I don't see how the little blind girl, whose face was ever turned up towards the unseen speaker, and whose mind opened to every passing remark, could avoid becoming a thinker, a reasoner, a tory, and a patriot. Sometimes a tough disputant crossed our threshold; one of these was Dr. Parr, and brilliant were the flashes resulting from such occasional collision with antagonists of that calibre. I am often charged with the offence of being too political in my writings: the fact is, I write as I think and feel; and what else can you expect from a child reared in such a nursery?
But another consequence of this temporary visitation was an increased passion for music. The severe remedies used for my blindness frequently laid me on the sofa for days together, and then my fond father would bring home with him, after the afternoon service of the cathedral, of which he was also a canon, a party of the young choristers. My godfather would seat himself at the harpsichord; the boys, led by my father, performed the vocal parts; and such feasts of sacred music were served up to me, that I have breathed to my brother in an ecstatic whisper the confession, "I don't want to see; I like music better than seeing."
That brother I have not before named; but that only brother was a second self. Not that he resembled me in any respect, for he was beautiful to a prodigy, and I an ordinary child; he was wholly free from any predilection for learning, being mirthful and volatile in the highest degree; and though he listened when I read to him the mysterious marvels of my favorite nursery books, I doubt whether he ever bestowed an after- thought on any thing therein contained. The brightest, the sweetest, the most sparkling creature that ever lived, he was all joy, all love. I do not remember to have seen him for one moment out of temper or out of spirits for the first sixteen years of his life; and he was to me what the natural sun is to the system. We were never separated; our studies, our plays, our walks, our plans, our hearts were always one. That holy band which the Lord has woven, that inestimable blessing of fraternal love and confidence, was never broken, never loosened between us, from the cradle to his grave; and God forbid that I should say or think that the grave has broken it. If I have not from the outset included that precious brother in my sketch, it was because I should almost as soon have deemed it necessary to include by name my own head or my own heart. He too was musical, and sang sweetly, and I cannot look back on my childhood without confessing that its cup ran over with the profusion of delights that my God poured into it.
About this time, when my sight, after a few months' privation, was fully restored, I first imbibed the strength of Protestantism as deeply as it can be imbibed apart from spiritual understanding, Norwich was infamously conspicuous in persecuting unto death the saints of the Most High, under the sanguinary despotism of popish Mary; and the spot where they suffered, called the Lollard's pit, lies just outside the town, over Bishop's bridge, having a circular excavation against the side of Moushold-hill. This, at least to within a year or two ago, was kept distinct, an opening by the road-side. My father often took us to walk in that direction, and pointed out the pit, and told us that there Mary burnt good people alive for refusing to worship wooden images. I was horror-stricken, and asked many questions, to which he did not always reply so fully as I wished; and one day, having to go out while I was inquiring, he said, "I don't think you can read a word of this book, but you may look at the pictures: it is all about the martyrs." So saying, he placed on a chair the old folio of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, in venerable black-letter, and left me to examine it.
Hours passed and still found me bending over, or rather leaning against that magic book. I could not, it is true, decipher the black-letter, but I found some explanations in Roman type, and devoured them; while every wood-cut was examined with aching eyes and a palpitating heart. Assuredly I took in more of the spirit of John Foxe, even by that imperfect mode of acquaintance, than many do by reading his book through; and when my father next found me at what became my darling study, I looked up at him with burning cheeks and asked, "Papa, may I be a martyr?"
"What do you mean, child?"
"I mean, papa, may I be burned to death for my religion, as these were?
I want to be a martyr."
He smiled, and made me this answer, which I have never forgotten: "Why, Charlotte, if the government ever gives power to the Papists again, as they talk of doing, you may probably live to be a martyr."
I remember the stern pleasure that this reply afforded me; of spiritual knowledge not the least glimmer had ever reached me in any form, yet I knew the Bible most intimately, and loved it with all my heart as the most sacred, the most beautiful of earthly things. Already had its sublimity caught my adoration; and when listening to the lofty language of Isaiah, as read from his stall in the cathedral by my father in Advent, and the early Sundays of the year, while his magnificent voice sent the prophetic denunciations pealing through those vaulted aisles, I had received into my mind, and I think into my heart, that scorn of idolatry which breathes so thrillingly in his inspired page. This I know, that at six years old the foundation of a truly scriptural protest was laid in my character; and to this hour it is my prayer that whenever the Lord calls me hence, he may find his servant not only watching but working against the diabolical iniquity that filled the Lollard's pit with the ashes of his saints.
And now upon that all-important topic the Bible I would remark, that among the most invaluable blessings of my life I remember the judicious conduct of my parents in regard to it. We generally find that precious volume made a book of tasks; sometimes even a book of penalties: the consequence of so doing cannot but be evil. With us it was emphatically a reward book. That identical book is now before me, in its rich red cover, elegantly emblazoned with the royal arms; for it is the very Bible that was placed before queen Charlotte at her coronation in 1761; and which, becoming the perquisite of a prebendary of Westminster, was by his wife presented to my mother, to whom she stood sponser. This royal Bible was highly prized; and it was with special favor that it was opened for us when we had been good, and were deemed worthy of some mark of approval. My father, then, whose voice made music of every thing, would read to us the history of Abel, of Noah, of Moses, of Gideon, or some other of the exquisite narratives of the Old Testament. I do not say that they were made the medium of conveying spiritual instruction; they were unaccompanied by note or comment, written or oral, and merely read as histories, the fact being carefully impressed on our minds that God was the author, and that it would be highly criminal to doubt the truth of any word in that book. * * * The consequences of this early instruction, imparted as an indulgence, I have reason daily to rejoice in: it led me to search for myself the inspired pages; it taught me to expect beauties, and excellences, and high intellectual gratification where God has indeed caused them to abound. As in the natural world we find the nutritious fruit not lying like pebbles on the ground, but hung on graceful trees and shrubs, heralded by fair and fragrant blossoms, embowered in verdant foliage, and itself beautifully shaped and tinted; so has the Lord arranged that the garden where grows the fruit of the tree of life, should abound in all that is most lovely to man's natural perception; and do we not slight this bounteous care for our mind's enjoyment while he makes provision for our soul's sustenance, when we neglect to point these things out to the notice of our children? The word was my delight many a year before it became my counsellor; and when at last the veil was withdrawn from my heart, and Jesus stood revealed as the Alpha and Omega of that blessed book, it was not like gradually furnishing a vacant place with valuable goods, but like letting a flood of day into one already most-richly stored with all that was precious; though, for lack of light whereby to discern their real nature, the gems had been regarded but as common things. My memory was plentifully stored with what it had been, my free choice to study; and when in the progress of this little narrative you learn how mercifully I have been preserved from doctrinal error in its various forms, through that full acquaintance with God's word, you will trace his marvellous workings in thus furnishing my mind, as it were, with an armory of ready weapons, and will be ready to echo with increased earnestness that emphatic declaration, "The Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants;" and not only to echo, but also to act upon it.
Religion, however, did at this early period of my life become a very important concern in my eyes; our mother had taken infinite pains to assure us of one great truth—the omniscience of an omnipresent God—and this I never could for a moment shake off. It influenced us both in a powerful manner, so that if either committed a fault, we never rested until, through mutual exhortation on the ground that God certainly knew it, and would be angry if we added deceit to another error, we had encouraged each other to confession. We then went, hand in hand, to our mother, and the one who stood clear of the offence acknowledged it in the name of the transgressor, while both asked pardon. Never did children more abhor a lie: we spurned its meanness, while trembling at its guilt; and nothing bound us more closely and exclusively together than, the discoveries we were always making of a laxity among other children in this respect. On such occasions we would shrink into a corner by ourselves and whisper, "Do they think God does not hear that?" Self-righteousness, no doubt, existed in a high degree; we were baby Pharisees, rejoicing in the external cleanliness of cup and platter; but I look back with great thankfulness on the mercy that so far restrained us: an habitual regard to truth has carried me safely through many a trial, and, as a means, guarded me from many a snare. It cannot be too early or too strongly inculcated; nor should any effort be considered too great, any difficulty too discouraging, any reprobation too strong, or, I will add, any punishment too severe, when the object in view is to overcome this infamous vice in a child. Once I remember having been led into a lie at the instigation, and through the contrivance of a servant- girl, for whose benefit it was told. Suspicion instantly arose, from my dreadful embarrassment of manner; a strict investigation commenced; the girl told me to face it out, for that nobody else knew of it, and she would not flinch. But my terrors of conscience were insupportable; I could ill bear my father's steady eye fixed on mine, still less the anxious, wondering, incredulous expression of my brother's innocent face, who could not for a moment fancy me guilty. I confessed at once; and with a heavy sigh my father sent to borrow from a neighbor an instrument of chastisement never before needed in his own house. He took me to another room, and said, "Child, it will pain me more to punish you thus, than any blows I can inflict will pain you; but I must do it; you have told a lie—a dreadful sin, and a base, mean, cowardly action. If I let you grow up a liar, you will reproach me for it one day; if I now spared the rod, I should hate the child." I took the punishment in a most extraordinary spirit: I wished every stroke had been a stab; I wept because the pain was not great enough; and I loved my father at that moment better than even I, who almost idolized him, had ever loved him before. I thanked him, and I thank him still; for I never transgressed in that way again. The servant was called, received her wages and a most awful lecture, and was discharged the same hour. Yet, of all these things what sunk deepest into my very soul were the sobs and cries of my fond little brother, and the lamentable tones of his soft voice, pleading through the closed door, "O, papa, don't whip Charlotte. O forgive poor Charlotte."
It is sweet to know we have a Brother indeed who always pleads, and never pleads in vain for the offending child; a Father whose chastisements are not withheld, but administered in tender love; judgment being his strange work, and mercy that wherein he delights, and the peaceable fruits of righteousness the end of his corrections. The event to which I have referred may appear too trivial a thing to record; but it is by neglecting trivial things that we ruin ourselves and our children. The usual mode of training these immortal beings, the plan of leaving them to servants and to themselves, the blind indulgence that passes by, with a slight reprimand only, a wilful offence, and the mischievous misapplication of doctrine that induces some to let nature do her worst, because nothing but grace can effectually suppress her evil workings; all these are faulty in the extreme, and no less presumptuous than foolish: this has produced that "spirit of the age" which, operating in a "pressure from without," is daily forcing us further from the good old paths in which we ought to walk, and in which our forefathers did walk, when they gave better heed than we do to the inspired word, which tells us, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."
Affectionately yours,
I have long been persuaded that there is no such thing as an honest private journal, even where the entries are punctually made under present impressions. There is so much of positive, active evil always at work in the mind, that to give a fair transcript of idle unprofitable thoughts and corrupt imaginings, is out of the question: evil is dealt with in generals, good in particulars, and the balance cannot be fairly struck. Those confessions of indwelling sin that remorse will wring from us, and which perhaps are penned at the moment in perfect sincerity, being unaccompanied with, the specifications that would invest them in their naturally hideous colors, beneath the searching light of God's holy and spiritual law, wear the lovely garb of unfeigned humility. The reader, coming to such self-condemnatory clauses, is struck with admiration at the saintly writer's marvellous self-abasement, only lamenting that he should, in the excess of his lowly-mindedness, have written such, bitter things against himself, at a time when he was grieving, resisting, almost quenching the Holy Spirit within by obstinate transgression.
And if the present, how much more is the past liable to be glossed over? To be faithful here is next to impossible, for Satan helps us to deceive ourselves and instructs us to carry out the deception to others. This consideration might well cause the pen of autobiography to drop from a Christian's hand, did not an earnest desire to glorify God in his merciful dealings, together with the consciousness that to no other could the task he safely delegated, act as a counterpoise to the discouragement. I do desire to magnify the exceeding riches of God's grace to me, if I may do so without increasing the charge of arrogant assumption. I know that among the diversity of gifts which he bestows on his creatures, he granted me a portion of mental energy, a quickness of perception, a liveliness of imagination, an aptitude for expressing the thoughts that were perpetually revolving in my mind, such as to fit me for literary occupation. I know that Satan, to whom such instruments are exceedingly valuable, marked me as one who would, if properly trained to it, do his work effectually within his own sphere; and I am not more sure of my present existence than I am of the fact that he strove to secure me for that purpose, from the first expanding of those faculties which evidently lie exposed to his observation and open to his attacks, as far as God permits him to work. Can I feel all this, and not bless the Lord, who so far baffled these designs, and deigned to appoint my field of labor within the sacred confines of his own vineyard?
The visitation of which I have spoken had a powerful influence on my after-life; it rendered the preservation of my newly-restored sight an object of paramount importance, to which the regular routine of education must needs be sacrificed. A boarding-school had never been thought of for me. My parents loved their children too well to meditate their expulsion from the paternal roof; and the children so well loved their parents and each other that such a separation would have been insupportable to them. Masters we had in the necessary branches of education, and we studied together so far as I was permitted to study; but before it was deemed safe to exercise my eyes with writing apparatus, I had stealthily possessed myself of a patent copy-book, by means of which, tracing the characters as they shone through the paper, I was able to write with tolerable freedom before any one knew that I could join two letters; and I well remember my father's surprise, not unmixed with annoyance, when he accidentally took up a letter which I had been writing to a distant relation, giving a circumstantial account of some domestic calamity which had no existence but in my brain; related with so much pathos too, that my tears had fallen over the slate whereon this my first literary attempt was very neatly traced. He could not forbear laughing; but ended with a grave shake of the head, and a remark to the effect that I was making more haste than good speed.
At this time, seven years of age, I became entangled in a net of dangerous fascination. One evening my brother was taken to the theatre, while I, on account of a cold, had to stay at home. To compensate for this, I was permitted to read the play to him; and that play was, "The Merchant of Venice." I will not dwell upon the effect. I had already become fond of such theatrical spectacles as were considered suitable for children—pantomime and broad farce—and like a child I gazed upon the glitter, and enjoyed the bustle; but now, seated in a corner, all quiet about me, and nothing to interfere with the mental world, I drank a cup of intoxication under which my brain reeled for many a year. The character of Shylock burst upon me, even as Shakspeare had conceived it. I revelled in the terrible excitement that it gave rise to; page after page was stereotyped upon a most retentive memory without an effort, and during a sleepless night I feasted on the pernicious sweets thus hoarded in my brain.
Pernicious indeed they were; for from that hour my diligence in study, my docility of conduct, every thing that is usually regarded as praiseworthy in a child, sprung from a new motive. I wanted to earn a reward, and that was no longer a sweet story from the Bible, but permission to carry into my retreat a volume of Shakspeare. A taste so unusual at my age was hailed with applause; visitors questioned me on the different plays, to ascertain my intimate acquaintance with the characters; but no one, not even my father, could persuade me to recite a line, or to listen when another attempted it, or to witness the representation of any play of Shakspeare. This I mention to prove what a powerful hold the enemy of all godliness must have expected to take on a spirit so attuned to romance. Reality became insipid, almost hateful to me; conversation, except that of the literary men to whom I have alluded, a burden. I imbibed a thorough contempt for women, children, and household affairs, intrenching myself behind invisible barriers that few, very few, could pass. Oh how many wasted hours, how much of unprofitable labor, what wrong to my fellow-creatures, what robbery of God, must I refer to this ensnaring book. My mind became unnerved, my judgment perverted, my estimate of people and things wholly falsified, and my soul wrapped in the vain solace of unsubstantial enjoyments during years of after sorrow, when but for this I might have early sought the consolations of the gospel. Parents know not what they do, when from vanity, thoughtlessness, or overindulgence, they foster in a young girl what is called a poetical taste. Those things highly esteemed among men are held in abomination with God; they thrust him from his creatures' thoughts, and enshrine a host of polluting idols in his place.
My father, I am sure, wished to check the evil which, as a sensible man, he could not but foresee; my state of health, however, won a larger portion of indulgence than was good for me. The doctors into whose hands I had fallen, were of the school now happily very much exploded: they had one panacea for almost every ill, and that was the perilous drug mercury. With it, they rather fed than physicked me; and its deleterious effects on the nervous system were doubly injurious to me, as increasing tenfold the excitability that required every curb. Among all the marvels of my life, the greatest is that of my having grown up to be one of the healthiest of human beings, and with an inexhaustible flow of even mirthful spirits; for certainly I was long kept hovering on the verge of the grave by the barbarous excess to which medical experiments were carried; and I never entertained a doubt that the total loss of my hearing before I was ten years old, was owing to a paralysis induced by such severe treatment. God, however, had his own purposes to work out, which neither Satan nor man could hinder. He overruled all for the furtherance of his own gracious designs.
Shut out by this last dispensation from my two delightful resources, music and conversation, I took refuge in books with tenfold avidity. By this time I had added the British poets generally to my original stock, together with such reading as is usually prescribed for young ladies; and I underwent the infliction of reading aloud to my mother the seven mortal volumes of Sir Charles Grandison. It was in the fulfilment of this awful task that I acquired a habit particularly mischievous and ensnaring—that of reading mechanically, with a total abstraction of mind from what I was about. This became the easier to me from the absence of all external sound; and its consequences are exceedingly distressing to this day, as experienced in a long-indulged, and afterwards most bitterly lamented wandering of the mind in prayer and in reading the Scriptures. In fact, through the prevalence of this habit, my devotions, always very punctually performed, became such an utter lip-service, as frequently to startle and terrify my conscience, when I found myself saying prayers and thinking idle songs or scraps of plays; but I regarded such transient pangs of remorse as a satisfaction for the sin, and never dreamed of resisting the general habit.
Thus far I had led a town life, residing in the heart of a populous city, enjoying indeed that noble garden, but daily more and more absorbed in books of fancy. Happily, my health became so affected that a removal into the country was judged necessary, and I forgave the doctors all their past persecution of me, in consideration of their parting injunctions, which were, that I was to have unbounded liberty; to live entirely in the open air, save when the weather forbade; to be amused with all rural occupations; and especially to frequent farm-yards, for the purpose of inhaling the breath of cows. My father exchanged parochial duty with a friend, taking his village congregation, and engaging a house very near the church.
That tall white house, what a place it holds in my fond recollection. It was perfectly an old parsonage, and behind it lay a garden larger than our city orchard, sloping gently down, with a profusion of fruit and flowers, bounded by high walls, and the central walk terminating in a door, beyond which lay the scene of our greatest enjoyment. A narrow slip of grass, fringed with osiers and alders and willows, alone separated the wall from a very clear, lovely stream, which winding half round an extensive common, turned a mill. This small river abounded with fish, and we soon became expert anglers; besides which, on creeping to some distance by a path of our own discovery, we could cross the stream on a movable plank, and take a wide range through, the country. This removal was a double resource: it invigorated my bodily frame, until I outgrew and out-bloomed every girl of my age in the neighborhood, while really laying a foundation for many years of uninterrupted health, and a constitution to defy the change of climate for which I was destined; while it won me from the sickening, enervating habit of sedentary enjoyment over the pages of a book, which, added to the necessary studies and occupations, was relaxing alike the tone of the bodily and mental frame. From the polluted works of man, I was drawn to the glorious works of God; and never did bird of the air or beast of the field more luxuriate in the pure bright elements of nature than I did. All the poetical visions of liberty that had floated in my brain seemed now realized; all pastoral descriptions faded before the actual enjoyment of rural life. Sometimes wreathing garlands of, wild flowers, reclined on a sunny bank, while a flock of sheep strolled around, and the bold little lambs came to peep in our faces, and then gallop away in pretended alarm; sometimes tearing our clothes to tatters in an ardent hunt for the sweet filberts that hung high above our heads, on trees well fortified behind breastworks of bramble and thorn; sometimes cultivating the friendship while we quaffed the milk of the good-natured cows under the dairymaid's operation: all was freedom, mirth, and peace. Often would my father take his noble pointers preparatory to the shooting season, at once to try their powers and to ascertain what promise of future sport the fields presented. These were destructive expeditions in one sense. I remember the following dialogue, repeated to me by my brother, when we made our appearance at home after a day's demolition of wearing apparel.
"Mr. B. this will never do; that girl cannot wear a frock twice without soiling it; nor keep it whole for a week: the expense will ruin us."
"Well, my dear, if I am to be ruined by expense, let it come in the shape of the washerwoman's and linen-draper's bills, not in those of the apothecary and undertaker."
My dear father was right; and it would be a happy thing for girls in general, if somewhat of appearance, and of acquirement too, was sacrificed to what God has so liberally provided, and to the enjoyment of which a blessing is undoubtedly annexed. Where, among females, do we find the stamina of constitution and the elasticity of spirit which exist in those of our rural population who follow outdoor employment? It positively pains me to see a party of girls, a bonneted and tippeted double-file of humanity,
"That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along,"
under the keen surveillance of a governess, whose nerves would never be able to endure the shock of seeing them bound over a stream and scramble through a fence, or even toss their heads and throw out their limbs as all young animals, except that oppressed class called young ladies, are privileged to do. Having ventured, in a fit of my country daring, to break the ice of this very rigid and frigid subject, I will recount another instance of the paternal good sense to which I owe, under God, the physical powers without which my little talent might have been laid by in a napkin all my days.
One morning, when his daughter was about eight years old, my father came in, and found sundry preparations going on, the chief materials for which were buckram, whalebone, and other stiff articles, while the young lady was under measurement by the hands of a female friend.
"Pray, what are you going to do to the child?"
"Going to fit her with a pair of stays."
"For what purpose?"
"To improve her figure; no young lady can grow up properly without them."
"I beg your pardon; young gentlemen grow up very well without them, and so may young ladies."
"O, you are mistaken. See what a stoop she has already; depend on it this girl will be both a dwarf and a cripple if we don't put her into stays."
"My child may be a cripple, ma'am, if such is God's will; but she shall be one of his making, not ours."
All remonstrance was vain; stays and every species of tight dress were strictly prohibited by the authority of one whose will was, as every man's ought to be, absolute in his own household. He also carefully watched against any evasion of the rule: a ribbon drawn tightly round my waist would have been cut without hesitation by his determined hand; while the little girl of the anxious friend whose operations he had interrupted, enjoyed all the advantages of that system from which I was preserved. She grew up a wandlike figure, graceful and interesting, and died of decline at nineteen; while I, though not able to compare shapes with a wasp or an hour-glass, yet passed muster very fairly among mere human forms of God's moulding; and I have enjoyed to this hour a rare exemption from headaches, and other ladylike maladies, that appear the almost exclusive privilege of women in the higher classes.
This is no trivial matter, believe me; it has frequently been the subject of conversation with professional men of high attainment, and I never met with one among them who did not, on hearing that I never but once, and then only for a few hours, submitted to the restraint of these unnatural machines, refer to that exemption, as a means, the free respiration, circulation, and powers both of exertion and endurance with which the Lord has most mercifully gifted me. There can be no doubt that the hand which first encloses the waist of a girl in these cruel contrivances, supplying her with a fictitious support, where the hand of God has placed bones and muscles that ought to be brought into vigorous action, that hand lays the foundation of bitter sufferings; at the price of which, and probably of a premature death, the advantage must be purchased of rendering her figure as unlike as possible to all the models of female beauty, universally admitted to be such, because they are chiselled after nature itself. I have seen pictures, and I have read harrowing descriptions, of the murderous consequences of thus flying in the face of the Creator's skill, and presuming to mend, to improve, his perfect work; but my own experience is worth a thousand treatises and ten thousand illustrations, in bringing conviction to my mind. Once, when introduced, as it is called, to the public, through the medium of a ballroom, I did join in persuading my father to allow of a fashionable lacing-up, though by no means a tight one. I felt much as, I suppose, a frolicksome young colt feels when first subjected to the goading apparatus that fetters his wild freedom. I danced, but it was with a heavy heart and laboring breath; I talked, under the influence of a stupefying headache, and on my return home flew to my apartment and cut the goodly fabric in pieces; nor was I ever afterwards tempted so to tempt my all-wise Maker by saying to the frame that he had fashioned and supplied with means of healthful growth, "Hitherto shalt thou go and no further."
Compressure of the feet was with equal strictness forbidden by my judicious father. This vain custom is perhaps not so fatal as the other, but it produces many evils. Coldness of the extremities may certainly exist where nothing of the kind has been practised; but while rejoicing that I, experimentally, know nothing of it, I cannot help recollecting that the bounding pulse which plays so joyously through my veins was never impeded in any part; and feeling this, I would no more expose a girl to one infliction than I would to the other. Do Christian mothers take a sufficiently serious and prayerful view of this subject, as regards their children? Do they weigh, in a balance of God's providing, this necessary provision of clothing, to separate not only what is unseemly for the woman professing godly simplicity, but what is enervating to those physical powers which she is bound to devote to the Lord, and the weakening of which is actual robbery of him? I fear we females are more ready to ask counsel one of another in this matter than of the Lord; or even of our husbands, who, in nine cases out of ten, no doubt would decide against the foolish and pernicious custom. At least, in all my arguments with my own sex, I have found the men invariably siding with me upon this topic.
You will be tired of these digressions, my dear friend, but I set out by forewarning you that my opinions would be freely stated; and while touching on a period of mortal life, where the body no less than the mind usually takes its direction for the rest of our pilgrimage, I cannot pass by any thing that appears to me of real importance to either. We will now return to what poets have sung and citizens sighed for, time out of mind—the delights of rural life.
All cramping is decidedly bad: wholesome restraints there are, which parents are bound to lay upon their children, and the latter to submit to; and among other things, I am sure a defined method and regular habits in education, work, and play, together, with a most strict attention to scrupulous punctuality, are not only valuable but indispensable to a right government of the mind and conduct in after- life. I have daily cause to lament the unavoidable neglect of such a system in my own case, during three important years; but unavoidable it was, unless my life had been sacrificed to the maintenance of such order. Accordingly, mine was the life of a butterfly; and whatever of the busy bee has since appeared in my proceedings must be ascribed to divine grace alone. I often recall those days of summer sunshine to which I have alluded; and the scarcely less joyous winter season, when, ploughing the light snow, we raced with our inseparable companion, the favorite pointer, or built up a brittle giant for the glory of demolishing him with balls of his own substance, or directed the soft missiles against each other. Accompanied by our father, but never alone, we made excursions upon our frozen stream; and very sweet it was to the fond hearts of my tender parents to watch the mantling glow of health, the elastic vigor of increasing stature, and the unbounded play of most exuberant spirits, in the poor child whom they had expected to enclose in an early grave. How often, seated on the low wide brick-work corner of the immense fireplace in a neighboring farm-house, have I been smoked among hams and tongues, while watching the progress of baking a homely cake upon those glowing wood-embers, or keeping guard over a treasury of apples, nuts, and elderberry wine, all streaming together in the lusciousness of a promised feast? Patriotism is with me no inert principle; it verily lives and acts and pervades my whole spirit; and I believe its energetic character, except as God deigns to work by his especial influence, is traceable to that early acquaintance with what is most purely English among us—the homes and the habits of our own bold yeomanry.
Cities may resemble one another, and the aping propensities of their inhabitants produce among them a rapid approximation of appearance and manners; but where shall we look for the counterpart of a rural English HOME? The thing is as untransferable as the word is untranslatable. The antique village church, with its broad square tower or low spire, its stone porch and oak seats, its narrow casements and the many vestiges of those abominations which the besom of the blessed Reformation swept from our services, though it could not, without demolishing the building, efface their relics from its walls; the churchyard surrounding its base, with undulating hillocks of mortality clad in long, rich grass, where lie, half hidden, the old grey monumental stones that can no longer tell the tale of bygone generations; the more modern sculpture, and the homely grave-rail standing sentry over the last resting-place of the poor, while some venerable tree overshadows the ground, where it has probably stood since the first stone of that modest temple was laid by our forefathers—all these are so endearingly English. The broad, rich fields, the hedgerow boundaries and stately lines of vigorous trees guarding their native soil; and above all, the manly bearing of a bold, an independent, and a peaceful peasantry, the humblest of whom knows that his cottage is a chartered sanctuary, protected alike from the aggressions of civil and of ecclesiastical tyranny—these, too, are English, sacredly English; and they leave upon the heart that has once expanded among them, an impress never to be effaced. Among national reformers, what a noble position would he occupy who should prevail upon our monied countrymen to exchange their habits of periodical vagrancy into popish lands, for a sojourn in the moral districts of their own Protestant England, in the confidence that the climate which agreed with their fathers from generation to generation—as the dates and ages decipherable on our monuments will testify—would not annihilate them; and that the sphere in which God had seen good to place them was that wherein he purposed them to move, to exert their influence, and to occupy for his glory, with the talents committed to their charge.
I have told you how books of imagination had supplanted the Bible in my esteem; those books now, in a measure, yielded to the irresistible attraction of outdoor amusement; but my mind was so abundantly stored with the glittering tinsel of unsanctified genius, as it shone forth in the pages of my beloved poets, that no room was left for a craving after better studies. Yet the turn of my mind was devotional in the extreme; so much so, that had the Lord permitted me at that time to come in contact with the wily fascinations of popery, I am sure I should have fallen, for a season at least, into the snare. God was really in all my thoughts; not as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—not as a being of purer eyes than to behold iniquity—not as He whom I was required to glorify in my body and in my spirit, being bought with a price, to be no longer my own but his; no, my religion was a very attractive sort of Deism, which recognized the Creator of all those things wherein I delighted, and thought to render him great honor by such recognition. Thomson's "Hymn on the Seasons" was my body of divinity; and Pope's atrocious "Universal Prayer" would have become my manual of devotion, had not my father denounced it as a most blasphemous outrage upon revelation, and charged me never to repeat what he deeply regretted that I had committed to memory. I hated profanity, and would not have omitted the private repetition of a form of prayer, morning or evening, on any account, nor absented myself from public worship. A slighting expression applied to the Bible would kindle me into glowing resentment, expressed with no less sincerity than earnestness, and as a matter of duty I devoted some time every Sabbath-day to the perusal of God's word, with which I had become more extensively acquainted by reading it during sermon-time at church. I well know that even then, and at a much earlier period too, conviction of my own sinfulness was working very deeply, though not permanently, in my mind: it was not an abiding impression, but a thing of fits and starts, overwhelming me while it lasted, but soon shaken off by diverting my thoughts to something else. These convictions were unquestionably the result of my occasional readings in God's book: they always occurred during or immediately after such perusal, or when some passage was suddenly brought to my recollection.
I grew up a healthy, active, light-hearted girl, wholly devoted to reading and to rural occupations. The latter, particularly gardening, served as a counterpoise to the sedentary temptation that would have proved physically injurious; but laying in, as I daily did, a plentiful store of romantic adventure or fascinating poetry for rumination when abroad, my mind was unprofitably occupied at all times, to the exclusion of better things. On Sundays, indeed, I made it a point of conscience to abstain from light reading; and, as far as I could, to banish from my thoughts the week's acquisition of folly. I went to church, and read the Bible at home with a sermon of Blair's, or some similar writer wholly destitute of gospel light; and I generally had a short fit of compunction, on that day, for having been so wholly absorbed in worldly things during the preceding six; for even then God was striving with me to bring me unto himself, and many a strong conviction did I forcibly stifle. The warmth of my natural feelings, the ardor with which I entered into every thing that interested them, and a sort of energy that always longed to be doing where any cause that I considered good was to be promoted—all these would have rendered me a working character, had I obeyed the gracious call to go into the Lord's vineyard. I say a call, because though as yet I know nothing whatever of the gospel, I could not overlook or misunderstand the reiterated injunctions of Scripture to seek spiritual wisdom, to ask for guidance, and to occupy with the talent committed to my charge. I knew the promise, "They that seek me early shall find me," and more than once I trembled under such scriptures as the latter part of Proverbs 1; but my Sunday resolutions vanished before the Monday's dawning light, and I rushed again with a redoubled zest into the seductive regions of my imaginary world. Oh, how greatly do they err who think that such studies may be safely engaged in by the young and excitable mind. Some indeed there are so phlegmatic as to be proof against all the charms of poesy, insensible to the highest illusions of romance; but their number is small, and the individuals hard to identify, because a very cold exterior is often like the snow- capped heights of Etna, overspreading a hoard of volcanic elements of which the burst and blaze will some day be terrific. Such seem imbued with the spirit of indifference, because they are abstracted and silent when the laugh and merry jest go round among their companions; whereas this abstraction, from outward things results not from deadness of feeling, but from the intensity with which the mind is brooding over some phantom known only to itself. Nor do this class of dreamers always appear devoted to Books: a little reading goes far with them; and the quality rather than the quantity of their selections is to be looked to.
I have known many parents and teachers argue that it is better to bring the young acquainted with our standard poets and prose authors of a worldly cast, while they are yet under careful superintendence, so as to neutralize what may be unprofitable by judicious remark, and to avert the dangers attendant on such fascinating introductions at a riper age, when the restraints of authority are removed. Against this, two reasons have prevailed with me to exclude from my book-shelves all the furniture of a worldly library, and to watch against its introduction from other quarters. One is; the consideration that we are not authorized to calculate on the continuance of any creature's mortal existence; nor can we ever know that the being whom we are training for eternity will not be called into it before such period of life as is here anticipated. In such a case, how sad to feel that we have needlessly forestalled an evil day, and even momentarily diverted the young spirit from a sacred path. The other consideration is this: that as the flesh and the devil will assuredly do their parts without help from me, and the children of this world, who are wiser in their generation than the children of light, will certainly do the same; I may take a lesson of policy from them, using my best endeavors to preoccupy the field with what is decidedly good, and humbly hoping that the seed so sown may, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, take root before the tares are introduced, leaving little room for them to grow.
Of all the errors into which the world has fallen, none is more fatally mischievous than the habit of overlooking the personality, the energy, the power, the watchfulness, the deep cunning of the devil. By a conventional system, no doubt of his own suggesting, he is never to be named but in the act of worshipping God, or that of spiritual instruction. Any other robber and murderer, who was known to be on the watch to attack our houses, would be the subject of free discourse: his habits, his haunts, his usual plans, his successful and his baffled assaults in former cases, would be talked over, and thus a salutary fear would be kept alive, influencing us to bolt and bar, and watch and ward with unfailing vigilance, to avert a surprise. But Satan seems to be a privileged person: we learn, in the nursery, to fancy him a hideous caricature of human nature, with horns, hoof, and a tail, inspiring disgust, and a childish fear that wears off as we advance into youth, leaving an impression rather ludicrous than alarming of the ugly phantom that, nevertheless, continues identified with him of whom we read in the Bible. We then perhaps take up Milton, engrafting his poetical conception upon the original nursery stock, and make a devil half monster, half archangel, invested with the ugliness of the first and the sublimity of the second, but still far removed from the scripture character of that roaring lion who "goeth about seeking whom he may devour." We do not realize his existence, his presence, his devices; and so we often do his work from sheer ignorance or inexcusable thoughtlessness about it.
With me, as I have told you, the Bible did its work and conscience did hers; but a passion for the unreal proved too strong for both. Undoubtedly God could have wrought, as afterwards he did, to the casting down of imaginations and every thing that exalteth itself against Christ. But how many years of sorrow might have been averted, or how greatly at least might those sorrows have been mitigated, had not the inveteracy of a long-cherished disease required such sharp discipline to bring it under. Pride was the master-sin of my corrupt nature, a pride that every child of Adam inherits, but which peculiarly beset me. It was not what usually goes by that name: no one ever accused me of an approach to haughtiness, neither was I boastful or forward, as far as I know; but I delighted to model my own character according to the standard set forth in my foolish books, and by the contemplation of them I hoped to succeed. I loved to mark in others a mean, ungenerous, selfish, or malicious trait, and to contrast with it my own high-flown notions of the opposite qualities. My memory was well stored with fine sentiments concerning human dignity, honor, virtue, and so forth; and while secretly applying them—for I was not inclined to make ill-natured remarks—in contrast to the failings of those around me, I naturally learned to identify myself with the aforesaid sentiments, and to take it for granted it was I who shone so brightly at other people's expense. This is the inevitable consequence of measuring ourselves by ourselves, as all will do who are not led betimes to the standard appointed of God.
And now, the chambers of imagery being well furnished, I became in thought the heroine of all the foolish, improbable adventures I met with. Shakspeare and others having furnished me with dresses and decorations, every day of my life had its drama. Adventures the most improbable, situations the most trying, and conversation the most nonsensical among a visionary acquaintance of my own creating, became the constant amusement of my mind; or if I took a fancy to any new companion, that individual was metamorphosed into something equally unreal, and was soon looked upon in the light, not of sober reality, but of fanciful extravagance. Of course my estimate alike of persons and of things was egregiously false; and with a fair portion of common-sense naturally belonging to me, I became most emphatically a fool. Even when employed at the pencil, which I dearly loved, I could not trace a figure on the paper or a landscape on the canvas, that did not presently become the subject of a separate romance; and it never occurred to me that there was danger, much less sin, in this. I loved dancing to excess, and took much delight in all that was brilliant and beautiful; but upon the whole I preferred the uninterrupted course of my own vain thoughts, and then admired myself for being of a less dissipated turn than my young friends. Of course, I am now speaking of the time when, according to the world's usage, and rather earlier than usual, that is to say, at sixteen, I was introduced into society, by making my appearance at a grand election ball; and moreover, publicly receiving the compliments of the most polished and distinguished of our successful candidates, for sundry political squibs, said to be full of drollery and point, which had been traced home to me. Alas for the girl who makes such a debut! We were now again resident in the town, or rather within the precincts, as they are called, surrounding that venerable cathedral which had been the object of my babyish contemplations, and which is endeared to me beyond any other spot in my native place.
My beloved companion, my brother, had always manifested the most decided predilection for a military life. Often had he, in earliest childhood, toddled away from the gate after the fife and drum of a recruiting party; and often did he march and countermarch me, till I could not stand for fatigue, with a grenadier's cap, alias a muff, on my head, and my father's large cane shouldered by way of a firelock. The menaced invasion had added fuel to his martial fire, and when any other line of life was pointed out to him, his high spirits would droop, and the desire of his heart show itself with increasing decision. Our parents were very anxious to settle him at home for my sake, who seemed unable to live without him; and I am sure that my influence would have prevailed even over his long-cherished inclination, so dearly did he love me, but here the effect of that pernicious reading showed itself and forged the first link in a long chain of sorrows. I viewed the matter through the lying medium of romance: glory, fame, a conqueror's wreath or a hero's grave, with all the vain merit of such a sacrifice as I must myself make in sending him to the field—these wrought on me to stifle in my aching bosom the cry of natural affection, and I encouraged the boy in his choice, and helped him to urge on our parents this offering up of their only son, the darling of all our hearts, to the Moloch of war.
Finding that he could not be dissuaded, my father gave a reluctant consent; and let me here record an instance of generous kindness on the part of the bishop. He went to London, and by dint of personal, persevering importunity, obtained in a few days a commission in the army, at a time when seven hundred applicants, many of them backed by strong interest, were waiting for the same boon. The suddenness of the thing was quite stunning; we calculated on a delay of this sore trial; but it was done, and he was ordered to repair immediately, not to the dépôt, but to his regiment, then hotly engaged in the Peninsula. The bishop's kindness did not end here; he carried his generosity further in other ways, and likewise gave him introductions of great value. I love to record it of one whose public conduct as a Protestant prelate I am compelled to lament, but whose private character was most lovely.
Upheld by the intoxicating power of senseless romance, not by confidence in God, nor even by the reality of the patriotism that I persuaded myself was at the root of it all, I bore to see that beloved companion of my life depart for the scene of most bloody conflict. He was not nearly full grown; a blooming beautiful boy, reared, and up to that time tenderly guarded under the parental roof, in almost exclusive companionship with me. There was indeed but one heart between us, and neither could fancy what it would be to rejoice or to suffer alone. Of this I had given a proof in the preceding year. He took the measles and was exceedingly ill, and great precautions were used to preserve me from the infection; but, unable to brook a separation from him, I baffled their vigilance, burst into his apartment, and laying my cheek to his, resisted for a while all efforts to remove me. To my infinite delight I sickened immediately, and considered it an ample compensation for all attendant suffering, that I was allowed to sit constantly in the same room with him.
How strong, how sweet, how sacred is the tie that binds an only sister to an only brother, when they have been permitted to grow up together untrammelled by the heartless forms of fashion; unrivalled by alien claimants in their confiding affection; undivided in study, in sport, and in interest. Some object, that such union renders the boy too effeminate and the girl too masculine. In our case it did neither. He was the manliest, the hardiest, most decided, most intrepid character imaginable; but in manners sweet, gentle, and courteous, as they will be who are accustomed to look with protecting tenderness on an associate weaker than themselves. And as for me, though I must plead guilty to the charge of being more healthy, more active, and perhaps more energetic, than young ladies are usually expected to be, still I never was considered unfeminine; and the only peculiarity resulting from this constant companionship with one of the superior sex, was to give me a high sense of that superiority, with a habit of deference to man's judgment and submission to man's authority, which I am quite sure God intended the woman to yield. Every way has this fraternal tie been a rich blessing to me. The love that grew with us from our cradles never knew diminution from time or distance. Other ties were formed, but they did not supersede or weaken this. Death tore away all that was mortal and perishable, but this tie he could not sunder. As I loved him while he was on earth, so do I love him now that he is in heaven; and while I cherish in his sons the living likeness of what he was, my heart evermore yearns towards him where he is.
Parents are wrong to check as they do the outgoings of fraternal affection, by separating those whom God has especially joined as the offspring of one father and one mother. God has beautifully mingled them, by sending now a babe of one sex, now of the other, and suiting, as any careful observer may discern, their various characters to form a domestic whole. The parents interpose, packing off the boys to some school where no softer influence exists to round off, as it were, the rugged points of the masculine disposition, and where they soon lose all the delicacy of feeling peculiar to a brother's regard, and learn to look on the female character in a light wholly subversive of the frankness, the purity, the generous care for which earth can yield no substitute, and the loss of which only transforms him who ought to be the tender preserver of woman into her heartless destroyer. The girls are either grouped at home, with the blessed privilege of a father's eye still upon them, or sent away in a different direction from their brothers, exposed through unnatural and unpalatable restraints, to evils not perhaps so great, but every whit as wantonly incurred as the others. The shyness, miscalled retiring modesty, with which one young lady shrinks from the notice of a gentleman as though there were danger in his approach, and the conscious coquettish air, miscalled ease, with which another invites his notice, are alike removed from the reality of either modesty or ease. Both result from a fictitious mode of education —both are the consequences of nipping in the bud those sisterly feelings that lay a fair foundation for the right use of those privileges to which she looks forward as a member of society; and if the subject be viewed through the clear medium of Christian principle, its lights will become more brilliant, its shadows more dark, the longer and the closer we contemplate it.
Hitherto you have not heard of any spiritually minded person connected with my early life; yet there was one, I feel sure, though my recollections are confused and imperfect on that point; and one to whose prayers, if not to her teaching, I surely owe something.
My father's mother was a fine, sprightly, robust old lady, rather small in stature, and already bending a little under the burden of years at the time when I first recollect her as mingling in the visions of my childhood, though I know that even from infancy I was the delight of her warm honest heart. She was simplicity itself in manners, her blunt speeches sometimes clashing a little with her son's notions of polish and refinement, as also did her inveterate antipathy to the reigning fashion, whatever that might be. I remember her reading me a lecture upon something novel in the cut of a sleeve, ending by this remark: "I never wore a gown but of one shape; and because I don't follow the fashion, the fashion is forced to come to me sometimes by way of a change. I can't help that, you know, my dear; but I never was fashionable on purpose." She added some pious remarks on vanity and folly, which I soon forgot; but the other dwelt on my mind because it chimed in with my own love of independence—a prominent characteristic with me; too often carried to the excess of self-willed obstinacy. However, I dearly loved and exceedingly respected my grand mother, and used in my heart to glory in her smooth clean locks, half brown, half grey, combed down from under a snowy cap of homely make, when she had successfully resisted alike the entreaties and examples of contemporary dames, who submitted their heads to the curling-irons and powder-puff of a frizeur, preparatory to an evening party. I used to stand proudly at her knee, admiring the high color of her cheek, and uncommon brilliancy of her fine dark hazle eye, while her voice, remarkably rich and clear, involuntarily swelled the chorus parts of our magnificent music.
She was a Percy, not by name, for that had been lost in the female line some generations before, but the pedigree in my possession shows how just was her vaunt in that respect. For vaunt it she did, to us at least, often bringing it forward to check any tendency to behavior unbefitting those who claimed descent from
"The stout earl of Northumberland,"
with whom I ought to be well acquainted, for the singing of Chevy Chace in proper time and tune with her, was the only secular accomplishment in which my dear grandmother personally labored to perfect me, except knitting and curious old-fashioned needlework. The pride of ancestry took strong hold of my mind, and such an ancestry accorded but too well with my romance, innate and acquired. It stood me, many a time, in the stead of better things, when nerving myself to endure affliction and wrong; and therefore I notice it, to warn you against exposing your own children to the same snare.
Next to the fashion, if not in an equal or superior degree, I think my grandmother most abhorred the French. Indeed her strongest denunciations against the reigning modes were usually clinched with the triumphant assertion that they were "French fashions." No marvel if her spirit was stirred within her by the horrors of revolutionary France, and her Protestantism strengthened by the butcheries of "Ninety-eight." I knew that she was a protester and a tory of no common stamp; and I knew that she brought her Bible forward in support of every opinion that she uttered. Rarely did I visit her without finding her buried in the study of that blessed book; and I know that she strove to teach me much of its meaning; but our change of residence proved a great bar to personal intercourse, and she never wrote letters. I sometimes trace impressions on my mind, made in early life, which I am sure must have been through her means, and though the good seed died on the ground, while the weeds took root and flourished, still, here and there a grain might sink below the surface, to spring up after many days.
And now I must record my first sorrow, although I cannot dwell upon it as on some other things. My brother had been nearly two years absent, on service in the Peninsula, when an apoplectic attack arrested my lather in the midst of life and health and vigor, and every promise of lengthened years. The premonitory visitations of repeated strokes were disregarded, for we could not, would not, realize the approach of such an event, and persisted in believing them nervous; but just when all cause for alarm seemed at an end, and I was rejoicing in the assurance of its being so, I was called from my pillow at midnight to see that tender and beloved parent die. The bereavement was terrible to me: I had always been his principal companion, because no one else in the family had a taste for those things in which he delighted—literature and politics especially—and since my brother's departure, instead of seeking to replace him by friends of my own age, I had turned wholly to my father, never desiring to pass an hour out of his society, and striving to be to him both daughter and son. My mother was a perfect devotee to household affairs, every thought occupied in seeking to promote the domestic comforts of her family; while I, indulging a natural antipathy to all that did not engage the intellectual powers, gave her no help there, I was truly cumbering the ground, seeking only my own gratification, and dignifying my selfishness with many fine names, only because it was best indulged in my own dear home. From the period of my loss of hearing, music had been wholly banished; my father seemed to lose all relish for what could no longer minister enjoyment to me, and deeply I felt the force of that affection which could so instantly and wholly overcome the ruling passion of his mind, accompanied as it was with such exquisite skill in that delightful science as rendered him the admiration of all who came within its influence. It redoubled my devotion to him, and most bitter was the anguish of my heart when I beheld him taken away at a stroke.
Was this affliction sanctified to me? Not in the least. I found a luxury in grieving alone, brooding on the past, and painting the probable future in any colors but those of reality. My father had enjoyed two livings with a minor canonry in the cathedral, but the emolument was very small, and his income had not allowed him, as yet, to make any provision for us. A small annuity was all that my mother could depend on, and I resolved to become a novel-writer, for which I was just qualified, both by nature and habits of thinking, and in which I should probably have succeeded very well, but it pleased God to save me from this snare. My brother's unexpected return on leave, with our subsequent changes of abode, paying visits among friends, and keeping my thoughts constantly unsettled, hindered the execution of the project; and when my brother returned to Portugal, we repaired to London, to make a long stay with some near relations. It was there that I met with the gentleman, an officer on leave of absence, whose wife, at the end of six months, I became.
I am longing to arrive at that period when the light of the glorious gospel of Christ first shone upon me through the darkness of many trying dispensations; therefore I pass by much that intervened, including my dear brother's marriage, who returned again to London with his bride and his mother, to resume his staff situation there; and shall only take you with me across the Atlantic, for a few Nova Scotian reminiscences, before proceeding to the scene of my most precious recollections, dear Ireland. My husband had joined his regiment in Halifax, and sent me a summons to follow him out without delay; in order to which I was obliged to embark in a large vessel taken up partially by government for the conveyance of troops, but in which there was a select party, occupying the state cabin, and making their own terms with the captain for the best possible accommodation and provision on the passage. Of this number was I; and certainly a more select, polished and agreeable party of highly bred gentlemen could not have been found. I went under the kind care of one of these, with his wife, who had invited me to travel with them.
Have you ever been at sea? It is a question the answer to which will throw very little light on the matter, unless you also state how it agreed with you: no two races on the earth can be more distinct than those two are upon the water—the people who are sea-sick and the people who are not. It was my happy privilege to belong to the latter class; I never for a moment experienced even an unpleasant sensation from any marine cause, but on the contrary enjoyed exemption from all physical annoyances during a five weeks' voyage, excepting that of hunger. An abundant supply of every thing that was nourishing, in the most palatable form, left no excuse for remaining hungry; nevertheless the demand was incessantly kept up; and I appeal to all who have been similarly affected, whether the munching of hard sea-bread from morning to night under the pressure of a real sea appetite, is not a greater luxury than the choicest viands on shore. To me it certainly was; and surely I had reason to be deeply thankful to the Lord, who, by means of that delicious voyage, and its bracing exhilarating effects, prepared me for a trying winter in the singular climate for which I was bound.
Every day, and all day long, be the weather what it might, I was stationed on deck, generally seated on the highest point of the ship's stern, directly over the rudder, to enjoy a full view of that most graceful and exquisite spectacle, a large vessel's course through the mighty deep. Ours was a splendid one, a West Indiaman, almost rivalling the sea-palaces of the East India Company, and manned in the first style. The troops on board, under the command of a field officer, greatly added to the effect and comfort of the thing, for nothing is so conducive to the latter as military discipline, well and mildly maintained. Although our party was perfectly distinct from those who went out entirely at the charge of government, consisting of several officers and their wives, yet we too were nearly all military, including the commandant, and were strictly amenable to martial law. Of course that soul of domestic and social comfort, punctuality, reigned paramount; every meal was regulated by beat of drum, subordination carefully preserved, and decorum, to the most minute particular, insisted on. No dishabille could appear, in the cabin or on deck; no litter, not an article of luggage visible. All the sick people, all the cross people, and all the whimsical people were stowed away in their respective berths, and such drawing-room elegance, combined with the utmost freedom of good-humor and the unrestrained frankness that results from a consciousness of proper restraint, pervaded our little select coterie, amounting to seventeen gentlemen and two ladies, that it did not need the miserable contrast which I afterwards experienced on the homeward passage, to assure me we were among the most favored of ocean travellers.
How very much do they err who consider the absence of order and method as supplying greater liberty or removing a sense of restraint. Such freedom is galling to me; and in my eyes, the want of punctuality is a want of honest principle; for however people may think themselves authorized to rob God and themselves of their own time, they can plead no right to lay a violent hand on the time and duties of their neighbor. I say it deliberately, that I have been defrauded of hundreds of pounds, and cruelly deprived of my necessary refreshment in exercise, in sleep, and even in seasonable food, through this disgraceful want of punctuality in others, more than through any cause whatsoever besides. It is also very irritating; for a person who would cheerfully bestow a piece of gold, does not like to be swindled out of a piece of copper; and of many an hour have I been ungenerously wronged, to the excitement of feelings in themselves far from right, when I would gladly have so arranged my work as to bestow upon the robbers thrice the time they made me wantonly sacrifice. To say, "I will come to you on such a day," leaving the person to expect you early, and then, after wasting her day in that uncomfortable, unsettled state of looking out for a guest, which precludes all application to present duties, to come late in the evening—or to accept an invitation to dinner, and either break the engagement or throw the household into confusion by making it wait—to appoint a meeting, and fail of keeping your time—all these, and many other effects of this vile habit are exceedingly disgraceful, and wholly opposed to the scriptural rules laid down for the governance of our conduct one to another. I say nothing of the insult put upon the Most High, the daring presumption of breaking in upon the devotions of his worshippers, and involving them in the sin of abstractedness from the solemn work before them, by entering late into the house of prayer. Such persons may one day find they have a more serious account to render on the score of their contempt of punctuality, than they seem willing to believe.
But I have run away from my ship—yet not so; for as every thing shines out most by contrast, it was natural to think on the ugly reverse when recalling the beautiful harmony and order of our regulations on board. We were favored with most delightful weather, fresh and dry and warm; with only one day's hard rain, during which the sea "ran mountains," as the sailors said. I was conducted on deck, "just for one minute, that you may be able to say you have seen such a sea," remarked the gentleman who put a military cloak over me, and led me up the stairs. But who could be satisfied with a momentary sight of any thing so stupendously grand? I resisted all efforts to persuade me into retreating again, and it ended in my being lashed to the mizenmast by my friendly conductor, who declared that his head, the best landsman's head on board, would not stand the giddy scene; in short, that he should be obliged to report himself sick, and exchange our agreeable society below for the solitude of his berth. Of course I dismissed him, and was left among the mountains, alone, save when a sailor passed me on his duties among the rigging, and gave me a smile of approval, while the man at the wheel seemed to regard me as being under his especial patronage. The tars love one who does not flinch from their own element.
Truly, I saw that day the works of the Lord and his wonders in the great deep. Imagine yourself in a ship, large among vessels, but a mere cork upon the waters of that mighty main. On every side, turn where you would, a huge mountain of irregular form was rising-dark, smooth, of unbroken surface, but seeming about to burst from over-extension. How did you come into that strange valley? how should you get out of it? how avoid the rush of that giant billow that even now overhangs your bark? These questions would inevitably rush through the mind; but in a second of time the huge body beside you sunk, you were on its summit, and another came rolling on. Meanwhile the ship would reel, with a slow slanting movement that gradually lowered the tall masts till the yards almost dipped in the brine, and you were either laid back on the frame- work behind you, or well-nigh suspended, looking down upon the water over the ship's bulwarks. I soon discovered why my companion had so carefully buckled the leather strap that held me to the mast; certainly I cannot recall the scene with such steadiness of nerve as I beheld it with. Every now and then a small billow would burst upon the vessel's side, sending its liquid treasure across the deck, and more than one ablution of the kind was added to the fresh-water drenching bestowed by the clouds. Can you fancy the discomfort of such a situation? Then you were never at sea, or at least you left your imagination ashore; for I defy any person not well inured to it, to look on such a scene with so negative a feeling as discomfort; it will excite either terror or delight sufficient to engross the whole mind.
I well remember that, when deeply affected by the grandeur of this and other aspects assumed by the majestic main, I found the highest flights of man's sublimity too low. They would not express, would not chime in with my conceptions; and I was driven to the inspired pages for a commentary on the glorious scene. It was then that the language of Job, of Isaiah, of Habakkuk, supplied me with a strain suited to the sublime accompaniment of God's magnificent work. Sunrise I could not witness, because at that hour no lady might appear on deck, and my cabin had not a side-window; but sunset, moonlight, starlight, with the various phenomena of ocean's ever-varying appearance, these furnished an endless contemplation with which nothing could accord but the language of Holy writ. I did not bring forth my Bible, well knowing the bantering remarks to which it would have exposed me on the score of affectation, but my memory served me equally well in that as in profane poetry; and many a precious word of warning, exhortation, and promise did I recite, enchanted by the sublimity of what, as to its spiritual meaning, was still an unknown tongue to me. Among these, the thirty-second of Deuteronomy, the fortieth of Isaiah, and other passages full of the gospel, were repeatedly called to mind; and above all, in blowing weather, the forty-sixth Psalm delighted me.
You may suppose that I could not wholly forget the fact of being where, in the strictest sense, there was but a step between me and death. The first day of our voyage some one had quoted the expression, "There is but a plank between us and eternity," not with any serious application, but as a fine thought. I do not think that I was ever for a moment unmindful of this; the presence of actual danger was always felt by me: but concerning eternity I had no fears whatever. A general reliance on the boundless mercy of God, a recognition of Christ as having suffered for our sins, and a degree of self-righteousness that easily threw my sins into the shade, while magnifying my supposed merits, these formed the staff whereon I leaned; and when the most imminent and appalling peril overhung us, so that we expected to be ingulfed in the waves without hope of succor, I looked it boldly in the face, confident in my false hope. Although just then revelling in enjoyments best suited to my natural taste, life had in reality no charms for me. From all that had gilded the sonny hours of youth I was completely severed, and the world on which I had launched was a wilderness indeed in comparison with the Eden I had left. I would not have made the slightest effort to escape from death in any form; and though I was not senseless enough to prefer an eternity of untried wretchedness to the fleeting sorrows of mortal life, yet as my conscience was lulled to rest by the self-delusion that I suffered more than I deserved, and had therefore a claim on divine justice, and as I was willing to receive the supposed balance of such debtor and creditor account in the world to come, I was perfectly content to be summoned to my reward. Blessed be God that I was not taken away in that hour of blind willingness.
The extreme peril to which I have alluded overtook us when within a short distance of our destination; we were suddenly caught by a tremendous wind from the south, which blew us right in the direction of Cape Sable, one of the most fatal headlands in those seas. Night closed upon us and the gale increased; sails were spread, in a desperate hope of shifting the vessel's course, but were instantly torn into ribbons. At one time, for a moment, the rudder broke loose, the tiller-rope giving way under the violent strain upon it; and the next minute the spanker-boom, an immense piece of timber, snapped like a reed. It was an awful scene: on the leeside the ship lay so low in the water that every thing was afloat in the sleeping cabins; and the poor ladies were screaming over their terrified children, unheeded by the gentlemen, every one of whom was on deck. The captain openly declared we were bound for the bottom, if a very sudden and unlikely change of wind did not take place. In the midst of all this, I was reported missing, and as I had the privilege of being every body's care, because, for the time being, I belonged to nobody, a search was commenced. A young officer found me, at last, so singularly situated, that he went and reported me to the captain. I had climbed three tiers of lockers in the state cabin, opened one of the large stern windows, and was leaning out, as far as I could reach, enraptured beyond expression with the terrific grandeur of the scene. The sky above was black as midnight and the storm could make it, overhanging us like a large pall, and rendered awfully visible by the brilliancy of the waters beneath. I had heard of that phosphorescent appearance in the sea, but never could have imagined its grandeur, nor can I essay to describe it. Even in perfect stillness the illuminated element would have looked magnificent; what, then must it have been in a state of excessive, tumultuous agitation, the waves swelling up to a fearful height and then bursting into sheets of foam; every drop containing some luminous animalculæ sparkling with vivid, yet delicate lustre? We were going with headlong speed before the wind, and I hung right over the track of the rudder, a wild, mad eddy of silver foam, intermingled with fire. There was something in the scene that far overpassed all my extravagant imaginings of the terribly sublime. The hurry, the fierceness, the riot of those unfettered waters, the wild flash of their wondrous lights, the funereal blackness of the overhanging clouds, and the deep, desperate plunge of our gallant ship, as she seemed to rend her way through an opposing chaos—it was perfect delirium; and no doubt I should have appeared in keeping with the rest to any external observer, for I was stretching out at the window, the combs had fallen from my hair, which streamed as wildly as the rent sails; and I was frequently deluged by some bursting wave, as the dip of the vessel brought me down almost to the surface. The peril of an open window was startling to those on deck, and the captain, hearing that I refused to relinquish my post, sent the mate to put up the dead-lights; so I sat down on the floor, buried my face in my hands, and strove to realize the magnificence thus rent from my sight.
Yes, God's works in the great deep are indeed wonders. Nothing landward can possibly approach them: in the rudest tempest the ground remains firm, and you feel that you are a spectator; but at sea you are a part of the storm. The plank whereon you stand refuses to support you, ever shifting its inclination; while the whole of your frail tenement is now borne aloft, now dashed into the liquid furrow beneath, now struck back by a head-sea with a shock that makes every timber quiver, now flung on one side as if about to reverse itself in the bosom of the deep. No doubt the sense of personal danger, the death-pang already anticipated, the dark abyss that yawns before the sinner, and the heaven opening on a believer's soul, must each and any of them deaden the sense to what I have vainly sought to describe; and I suppose this accounts for the astonishment expressed by the whole party at my singular conduct, when the youth who was sent to warn me of the peril, described my half-angry, half-reproachful pettishness at the interruption: "Can't you let me enjoy it in peace, Mr. J——? Shall I ever see any thing like it again? Do go away." "But the captain says the window must be shut." "Then take me on deck, and you may shut it." "That is utterly impossible; no lady could stand for an instant on deck, your drapery would bear you over the ship's side." "Then I wont shut the window: so go and tell Captain L—— not to tease me with messages."
This was downright recklessness. I wonder when recalling it to mind, and feel that I could not have thus sported with death after I acquired a good and solid hope of everlasting life. The act of dying had always great terrors for me, until, through adverse circumstances, I seemed to have nothing worth living for, and then I could laugh at it in my own heart. Strange to say, that fearfulness of the passage through the dark valley returned with double force when I had realized a personal claim to the guiding rod and the supporting staff, and the bright inheritance beyond. But before this period of blessedness, of joy and peace in believing arrived, I had to pass through many waters of affliction, and to experience remarkable interpositions at His hand who was leading me by a path which I knew not.
Two of them I will mention. While at Annapolis and at Windsor, I had a horse provided for me of rare beauty and grace, but a perfect Bucephalus in her way. This creature was not three years old, and, to all appearance, unbroken. Her manners were those of a kid rather than of a horse; she was of a lovely dappled grey, with mane and tail of silver, the latter almost sweeping the ground; and in her frolicsome gambols she turned it over her back like a Newfoundland dog. Her slow step was a bound; her swift motion unlike that of any other animal I ever rode, so fleet, so smooth, so unruffled—I know nothing to which I can compare it. Well, I made this lovely creature so fond of me by constant petting, to which I suppose her Arab character made her peculiarly sensitive, that my voice had equal power over her as over my docile, faithful dog. No other person could in the slightest degree control her. Our corps, the seventh battalion of the sixtieth Rifles, was composed wholly of the elite of Napoleon's soldiers, taken in the Peninsula, and preferring the British service to a prison. They were principally conscripts, and many were evidently of a higher class in society than is usually found in the ranks. Among them were several Chasseurs and Polish Lancers, very fine equestrians, and as my husband had a field officer's command—on detachments—and allowances, our horses were well looked after. His groom was a Chasseur, mine a Pole; but neither could ride Fairy, unless she happened to be in a very gracious mood. Lord Dalhousie's English coachman afterwards tried his hand at taming her, but all in vain. In an easy quiet way, she either sent her rider over her head, or by a laughable manoeuvre sitting down like a dog on her haunches, slipped him off the other way. Her drollery made the poor men so fond of her that she was rarely chastised; and such a wilful, intractable wild Arab it would be hard to find. Upon her I was daily mounted; and surely the Lord watched over me then indeed. Inexperienced in riding, untaught, unassisted, and wholly unable to lay any check upon so powerful an animal, with an awkward country saddle, which by some fatality was never well fixed, bit and bridle to match, and the mare's natural fire increased by high feed, behold me bound for the wildest paths in the wildest regions of that wild country. But you must explore the roads about Annapolis, and the romantic spot called "The General's Bridge," to imagine either the enjoyment or the perils of that my happiest hour. Reckless to the last degree of desperation, I threw myself entirely on. the fond attachment of the noble creature; and when I saw her measuring with her eye some rugged fence or wild chasm, such as it was her common sport to leap over in her play, the soft word of remonstrance that checked her was uttered more from regard to her safety than my own. The least whisper, a pat on the neck, or a stroke down the beautiful face that she used to throw up towards mine, would control her: and never for a moment did she endanger me. This was little short of a daily miracle, when we consider the nature of the country, her character, and my unskilfulness. It can only be accounted for on the ground of that wondrous power which having willed me to work for a time in the vineyard of the Lord, rendered me immortal until the work should be done. Oh that my soul, and all that is within me could sufficiently bless the Lord, and remember all his benefits.
I was then unmindful of, and unthankful for his protection; I revelled in the delights of a freedom that none could share but my dog, who never left the side of his associate. Shall I give you a sketch of the group, in some lines composed during one of those excursions? They may partly describe it. I found, them among some old papers.
"I know by the ardor thou canst not restrain,
By the curve of thy neck and the toss of thy mane,
By the foam of thy snorting which spangles my brow,
The fire of the Arab is hot in thee now.
'Twere harsh to control thee, my frolicsome steed;
I give thee the rein—so away at thy speed;
Thy rider will dare to be wilful as thee,
Laugh the future to scorn, and partake in thy glee.
Away to the mountain—what need we to fear?
Pursuit cannot press on my Fairy's career;
Full light were the heel and well-balanced the head
That ventured to follow the track of thy tread,
Where roars the loud torrent and starts the rude plank,
And thunders the rook-severed mass down the bank,
While mirrored in crystal the far-shooting glow,
With dazzling effulgence is sparkling below.
One start, and I die; yet in peace I recline,
My bosom can rest on the fealty of thine:
Thou lov'st me, my sweet one, and would'st not be free,
From a yoke that has never borne rudely on thee.
Ah, pleasant the empire of those to confess,
Whose wrath is a whisper, their rule a caress.
"Behold how thy playmate is stretching beside,
As loath to be vanquished in love or in pride,
While upward he glances his eyeball of jet,
Half dreading thy fleetness may distance him yet.
Ah, Marco, poor Marco—our pastime to-day
Were reft of one pleasure if he were away.
"How precious these moments: fair freedom expands
Her pinions of light o'er the desolate lands;
The waters are flashing as bright as thine eye,
Unchained as thy motion the breezes sweep by,
Delicious they come, o'er the flower-scented earth,
Like whispers of love from the isle of my birth;
While the white-bosomed Cistus her perfume exhales,
And sighs out a spicy farewell to the gales.
Unfeared and unfearing we'll traverse the wood,
Where pours the rude torrent its turbulent flood:
The forest's red children will smile as we scour
By the log-fashioned hut and the pine-woven bower;
Thy feathery footsteps scarce bending the grass,
Or denting the dew-spangled moss where we pass
"What startles thee? 'Twas but the sentinel gun
Flashed a vesper salute to thy rival the sun;
He has closed his swift progress before thee, and sweeps
With fetlock of gold the last verge of the steeps.
The fire-fly anon from his covert shall glide,
And dark fall the shadows of eve on the tide.
Tread softly—my spirit is joyous no more.
A northern aurora, it shone and is o'er;
The tears will fall fast as I gather the rein,
And a long look reverts to yon shadowy plain."
* * * * *
There is more of it, but nothing to the purpose of the present history. It cost me something to transcribe this, so vividly is the past recalled by it. Would to God I might more fully devote to his service every day of the life so wonderfully preserved by him.
In addition to this continuous preservation on horseback, I experienced the same interposing providence when violently upset in a gig. The road where it occurred was strewn with broken rocks on either side, for miles; and scarcely one clear spot appeared, save that on which I was thrown, where a carpet of the softest grass overspread a perfect level of about twelve feet in length, and nearly the same in width. Here I fell, with no other injury than a contusion on the hip. The gig was completely reversed, the horse dashed on till he ran one of the shafts into a bank, and set himself fast.
My sojourn in this interesting country was of two years' duration, marked with many mercies, among the greatest of which was the uninterrupted enjoyment of perfect health, although my first winter there was the most severe that had been known for thirty years, and the following summer one of the most oppressively hot they had ever experienced. The gradations of spring, autumn, and twilight, are there scarcely known, and the sudden transition from summer to winter is as trying to the health of an European as that from day to night is uncongenial to the taste. Here, too, I repented at leisure, and amended with no small difficulty and labor, my neglect of those accomplishments to which my dear mother had so often vainly solicited my attention. The pencil was profitless; I had long thrown it by: books were no longer an adequate set-off against realities, even could I have conjured up a library in the wilderness of Nova Scotia's inland settlement; but the culinary and confectionary branches were there invaluable, and in them I was wofully deficient. Had I not coaxed the old French soldier who officiated as mess-cook to give me a few lessons, we must have lived on raw meal and salt rations during weeks when the roads were completely snowed up, and no provisions could he brought in. However, I proved an apt scholar to poor Sebastian, and to the kind neighbors who initiated me into the mysteries of preserves and pastry. Young ladies cannot tell into what situations events may throw them; and I would strongly recommend the revival of that obsolete study called good housewifery. The woman who cannot dispense with female servants, must not travel. I had none for six months, keen winter months, in Annapolis; the only persons who could be found disengaged being of characters wholly inadmissible. The straits to which I was put were any thing but laughable at the time, though the recollection now often excites a smile. Indeed no perfection in European housekeeping would avail to guard against the devastations that a Nova Scotian frost will make, if not met by tactics peculiar to that climate. How could I anticipate that a fine piece of beef, fresh-killed, brought in at noon still warm, would by two o'clock require smart blows with a hatchet to slice off a steak; or that half-a-dozen plates, perfectly dry, placed at a moderate distance from the fire preparatory to dinner, would presently separate into half a hundred fragments, through the action of heat on their frosted pores; or that milk drawn from a cow within sight of my breakfast-table would be sheeted with ice on its passage thither; or that a momentary pause, for the choice of a fitting phrase in writing a letter, would load the nib of my pen with a black icicle? If I did not cry over my numerous breakages and other disasters, it was under the apprehension of tears freezing on my eyelids; and truly they might have done so, for my fingers were once in that awful condition that must have ended in mortification, but for the presence of mind of a poor soldier, who, seeing me running to the fire in that state, drew his bayonet to bar my approach, and wrapping a coarse cloth round my lifeless hands, muff-fashion, compelled me to walk up and down the spacious hall until the circulation returned, which it did with a sensation of agony that well-nigh took away my senses. This was a most signal escape, for I was wholly ignorant of my danger, and not a little perplexed and annoyed at the insubordinate conduct of the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion—for he was a French Romanist—he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, the immense faggots of which would have sufficed to roast a heretic.
Nova Scotia is, I firmly believe, the most generally and devotedly loyal of all our colonies: the attachment of its people to the mother-country is beautiful, and their partisanship in all questions between us and the States most zealous. The only fault I had to find with them was their indifference towards the poor relics of the Indian race still dwelling in the woods, who were to me objects of the liveliest interest even before I had any feeling of Christian duty towards the heathen—or towards such as those who are worse than heathen, being numbered among the members of the Romish church, and utterly, wretchedly ignorant even of such little truth as remains buried under the mass of antichristian error, to make its darkness more visible. The Indians are wholly despised; scarcely looked on as beings of the same race, by the generality of the colonists. Where Christian principle prevails, they become of course important in the highest degree; but I speak of what I saw, when vital godliness was little known among them, and I can aver that even Lord Dalhousie scarcely could succeed in stirring up a momentary interest for the dispersed aborigines. That excellent nobleman devoted himself very warmly to the work of attempting their civilization; and told me that if a few would join him heartily and zealously in the effort, he should succeed; but that, between, lukewarmness on the one side and suspicion on the other, he found himself completely baffled. It was not to be wondered at that the Indians had a lurking dread of experiencing again the hardships, not to say the treachery and cruelty, inflicted on their fathers. I enjoyed a high place in the affection and confidence of those interesting people, the origin of which may help to prove at how light an estimate the poor creatures were generally rated by their white brethren. My claim on their attachment consisted in nothing more than the performance of a bounden duty in sheltering for a few weeks one of their number who had, in a most unprovoked and cruel manner, been wounded by a party of our soldiers and left to perish in the woods.
How beautiful do the white cliffs of Albion appear in the eyes of the returning wanderer who has learned by a foreign sojourn to estimate the comforts, the privileges, the blessings of this island home. No place could be more thoroughly English in feeling, habits, and principles, than Nova Scotia; but it was not England. The violent transition of seasons, so different from the soft gradations by which, with us, winter brightens into summer, and summer fades into winter, marked a contrast far from pleasing; and the intensity of cold, the fierceness of heat, alike unknown in our temperate climate, forced comparisons far from agreeable. Thus, on the lowest ground of a wholly selfish feeling, the approach to nay native shore could not be otherwise than delightful; but viewed as the mother-land, as the great emporium of commerce, the chief temple of liberty, the nurse of military prowess, the unconquered champion of all that is nationally great throughout the world, the sight of our free and happy isle is indeed an inspiring one to those who can appreciate moral grandeur. How much more, in the eyes of the Christian, is she to be esteemed as the glory of all lands, as possessing the true knowledge of God, and laboring to spread that knowledge throughout the world; the land of Protestantism, the land of the Bible.
I really cannot understand the meaning, nor fancy what may be the feeling, of those who profess to have merged their patriotism in something of universal good-will to the household of faith all over the world. It seems to me every whit as unnatural as that the member of a Christian family should forego all the sweets of conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal love, in the determination to feel an equal regard for his neighbor's wife, husband, etc., as for his own; and, moreover, to take an equal concern in the affairs of his neighbor's kitchen as in his own household matters. This sort of generalizing regard would throw our respective establishments into singular confusion, and might betray ourselves into sundry false positions, and very awkward predicaments. However, the comparative extinction of natural affection would form the most prominently reprehensible feature in the case; and I cannot but think that the boasted cosmopolitanism of some good people would wear an aspect not very dissimilar, if rightly and soberly viewed. Certainly I could no more tear the love of country from my heart, than I could the love of kindred; and when my step again pressed the English strand, it was with a sensation almost resembling the fabled invigoration of the Titans, who derived new life, new strength, new enterprise, from coming in contact with their mother earth.
England, indeed, contained little that was personally endearing to me, except my beloved surviving parent; but it was a joyous thing to embrace her once more, after the deep roll of the ocean had separated us for nearly three years; during a portion of which she had been learning to prize her native land, in a disgusting region of all that is most directly opposed to liberty, civil or religious—to honorable feeling, just conduct, honest principle, or practical decency. In short, she had been in Portugal.
I now arrive at an epoch from which I may date the commencement of all that deserves to be called life, inasmuch as I had hitherto been living without God in the world. My existence was a feverish dream of vain pleasure first, and then of agitations and horrors. My mind was a chaos of useless information, my character a mass of unapplied energies, my heart a waste of unclaimed affections, and my hope an enigma of confused speculations. I had plenty to do, yet felt that I was doing nothing; and there was a growing want within my bosom, a craving after I know not what—a restless, unsatisfied, unhappy feeling, that seemed in quest of some unknown good. How this was awakened, I know not; it was unaccompanied with any conviction of my own sinfulness, or any doubt of my perfect safety as a child of God. I did not anticipate any satisfaction from change of place; but readily prepared to obey a summons from my husband to follow him to Ireland, whither he had gone to engage in a law-suit. To be sure I hated Ireland most cordially; I had never seen it, and as a matter of choice would have preferred New South Wales, so completely was I influenced by the prevailing prejudice against that land of barbarism. Many people despise Ireland, who, if you demand a reason, will tell you it is a horrid place, and the people all savages; but if you press for proofs and illustrations, furthermore such deponents say not.
On a dull day in April I took my place, a solitary traveller, in the Shrewsbury coach, quite ignorant as to the road I was to travel, and far less at home than I should have been in the wildest part of North America, or on the deck of a ship bound to circumnavigate the globe. We rattled out of London, and the first thing that at all roused my attention was a moonlight view of Oxford, where we stopped at midnight to change horses. Those old grey towers, and mighty masses of ancient building, on which the silvery ray fell with fine effect, awoke in my bosom two melancholy trains of thought; one was the recollection of my father, whose enthusiastic attachment to his own university had often provoked warm discussion with the no less attached Cantabs of our old social parties, and who often held out to me, as the greatest of earthly gratifications, a visit with him to that seat of learning which he would describe in glowing colors. But where was my father now? His poor girl, the delight of his eyes and treasure of his heart, was in Oxford, with none to guide, none to guard, none to speak a cheering word to her. I shrunk back in the coach, and grieved over this till a sudden turning once more threw before me the outline of some magnificent old fabric bathed in moonlight, and that called up a fit of patriotism, calculated to darken, yet more the prospect before me. This was England, my own proud England; and these "the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces," that distinguished her seats of learning above all others, I was bound for Ireland. What English young lady had ever studied the history of that remote, half-civilized settlement, called Ireland? Not I, certainly, nor any of my acquaintance; but I took it for granted that Ireland had no antiquities, nothing to distinguish her from other barbarous lands, except that her people ate potatoes, made blunders, and went to mass. I felt it a sort of degradation to have an Irish name, and to go there as a resident; but comforted myself by resolving never in one particular to give in to any Irish mode of living, speaking, or thinking, and to associate only with such as had been at least educated in England.
The next day's rising sun shone upon Stratford-on-Avon; and here revived in some degree my Shakspearian mania, to the still higher exaltation of my English stilts, and the deeper debasement of all "rough Irish kernes." At Shrewsbury we parted with a kind old lady, who had shown me some good-natured attentions, and I was left with only an elderly gentleman, bound also for Dublin, who told me we must start at three o'clock the following morning for Holyhead. I was dreadfully dejected, and told him I hoped he would not think the worse of me for being so utterly alone, and that he would excuse my retiring to my own apartment the instant we had dined. He took pencil and paper, and with a glow of benevolent feeling expressed his anxious desire to take the same care of me that he would of his own daughter, and to look on me as his especial charge, until he should give me into the hands of my lawful protector. I thanked him with true English reserve, and a coldness that seemed rather to grate on his warm feelings; and having owned that his seeing my Newfoundland dog well fed and lodged would be a great obligation, I withdrew to fret alone over my exile to this foreign land. You may call this an exaggeration, but it is no such thing. I delight in dwelling upon my reluctant approach to the land that I was to love so fondly.
Next day my miseries were alleviated by the enchanting beauties of the Welsh country through which we passed; and my regard for Mr. D—— greatly increased by the compassionate care he took of a poor sickly woman and her ragged infant, whom he descried on the top of the coach, and first threw his large cloak to them, then, with my cordial assent, took them inside, and watched them most kindly until he fell asleep. I peeped into his kind, benevolent face, and inwardly confessed there might be some nice people in Ireland.
At the inn where we dined, I made another acquaintance. A younger, but middle-aged man, whose vivacity, combined with Welch mutton and ale, quite raised my spirits. Hearing from Mr. D—— with what enthusiasm I had admired the scenery of Llangollen, he volunteered to hand me in at the coach window, a note of every remarkable place we should approach during the rest of the journey; adding, "I know the road pretty well, having traversed it at least twice a year for sixteen years, passing to and from my Irish home." He was a legal man, a finished gentleman, and another sad drawback on my perverse prejudices. Mr. F—— proved an excellent descriptive guide, punctually reaching to me from the roof of the coach his little memoranda, in time for me to take a survey of the object concerned; and also most assiduously aiding in the care of my luggage and dog when we were all put into the ferry-boat.
There was then no bridge over the Menai, and I being in total ignorance of the route was not a little dismayed at the embarkation, forgetting that Holyhead was in Anglesea, and that Anglesea was an island. At last, when the boat pushed off, the opposite shore being hidden under the mist of deepening twilight, I addressed the ferryman in a tone of remonstrance that infinitely diverted the whole party, "Surely you are not going to take me over in this way to Ireland?"
"No, no," said Mr. F——, "you shall have a good night's rest, and a better sea-boat, before we start for the dear green isle."
Steamers were not then upon the packet station, and the wind being unfavorable, we had a passage of seventeen hours, not landing until two in the morning of Easter Sunday. Nothing could exceed my discomfort, as you may suppose, when I tell you that after paying my bill at Holyhead, I, in a fit of abstraction, deposited it very safely in my purse, and in its stead threw away my last bank-note. The mistake was not suspected until in mid-voyage I examined the state of my finances, and found the sum total to amount to one shilling. This was an awful discovery; my passage was paid, but how to reach Dublin was a mystery, and such was the untamed pride of my character that I would sooner have walked there than confessed to the fact, which might have been doubted, and laid myself under the obligation of a loan which I was sure of repaying in a few hours, even to good old Mr. D——. When I stepped from the deck of the packet upon the plank that rested against the pier of Howth I had not one single halfpenny in my pocket, and I experienced, without the slightest emotion, one of the most hairbreadth escapes of my life.
The water was very low; the plank of course sloped greatly, and as soon as I set my foot on it began to slide down. In another second I should have been plunged between the vessel's side and the stone pier, without any human possibility of rescue; and already I had lost my balance, when a sailor, springing on the bulwarks, caught me round the knees, and at the same instant Mr. F——, throwing himself on the ground, seized and steadied the plant, until I recovered my footing and ran up. I shudder to recall the hardened indifference of my own spirit, while the kind, warm-hearted Irishmen were agitated with strong emotion, and all around me thanking God for my escape. Each of my friends thought I had landed under the care of the other; while one had my dog and the other my portmanteau. I received their fervent "cead-mille-failthe" with cold politeness, and trod with feelings of disgust on the dear little green shamrocks that I now prize so fondly.
We went to the hotel, and Mr. D—— proposed my retiring to a chamber until the coach started; but my empty purse would not allow of that, so I said I preferred sitting where I was. Refreshments were ordered; but though in a state of ravenous hunger, I steadily refused to touch them, for I would not have allowed another person to pay for me, and was resolved to conceal my loss as long as I could. I was excused, on the presumption of a qualmishness resulting from the tossing of the ship; and most melancholy, most forlorn were the feelings with which I watched through the large window the fading moonbeams and the dawning day. To my unspeakable joy, the two gentlemen proposed taking a postchaise with me to Dublin, the expense being no more and the comfort much greater than going by coach; and having requested Mr. F—— to keep an exact account of my share in the charges, I took my seat beside them with a far lighter heart; my dog being on the footboard in front of the carriage.
Away we drove, our horses being young, fresh, and in high condition. It was a glorious morning, and vainly did I strive not to admire the scenery, as one after another of the beautiful villas that adorn the Howth road gleamed out in the snowy whiteness that characterizes the houses there, generally embosomed in trees and surrounded by gardens on the rising grounds. We were descending the hilly road very rapidly, when by some means the horses took fright, and broke into a full-gallop, crossing and re-crossing the road in a fearful manner. The driver was thrown on the footboard, poor Tajo hung by his chain against the horses' legs, and our situation was most critical. I had suffered from one upset in America, and resolved not to encounter another; so quietly gathering my long riding-habit about me with one hand, and putting the other out at the window, I opened the door, and with one active spring flung myself out. You know the extreme peril, the almost certain destruction of such a leap from a carriage at full speed; I did not, or certainly I would not have taken it. However, at that very instant of time, the horses made a dead stop, and the chaise remained stationary only a few paces in advance of me.
Was not the hand of God here? Oh, surely it was, in the most marked and wonderful manner. No cause could be assigned for the arrest of the animals; the driver had lost the reins, and no one was near. I had fallen flat on the road-side, just grazing my gloves with the gravel and getting a good mouthful of the soil, with which my face was brought into involuntary contact. In a moment I sprung to my feet, and blowing it out, exclaimed with a laugh, "Oh well, I suppose I am to love this country after all, for I have kissed it in spite of me." I then ran to help my dog out of his disagreeable state of suspension, and returned to my friends, who were frightened and angry too, and who refused to let me into the chaise unless I positively promised not to jump out any more. To shorten the tale, I reached the Hibernian hotel, where my husband was, seized some money, and paid my expenses without any one having discovered that I was a complete bankrupt up to that minute.
I have been very prolix here; for I cannot overlook a single incident connected with this eventful journey. Never did any one less anticipate a blessing or look for happiness than I in visiting Ireland. I cannot enter into more particulars, because it would involve the names of friends who might not wish to figure in print; but if these pages ever meet the eyes of any who gave me the first day's welcome in Dublin, let them be assured that the remembrance of their tender kindness, the glowing warmth of their open hospitality, and their solicitude to make the poor stranger happy among them, broke through the ice of a heart that had frozen itself up in most unnatural reserve, and gave life to the first pulse that played within it of the love that soon pervaded its every vein—the love of dear, generous Ireland.
My first journey into the interior was to the King's county, where I passed some weeks in a house most curiously situated, with an open prospect of ten miles pure bog in front of it. Being newly built, nothing had yet had time to grow; but its owner, one of the most delightful old gentlemen I ever met with, had spared no cost to render it commodious and handsome. He was a fine specimen of the hospitable Irish gentleman, and took great pleasure in bringing me acquainted with the customs of a people and the features of a place so new to me. Indeed it was my first introduction to what was really Irish, for Dublin is too much of a capital to afford many specimens of distinct nationality. On that great festival of the peasantry, St. John's eve, Mr. C—— resolved on giving his tenants and neighbors a treat that should also enlighten me on one of their most singular relics of paganism. It is the custom at sunset on that evening to kindle numerous immense fires throughout the country, built like our bonfires to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bog-wood, and such other combustibles as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bog-wood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Ours was a magnificent one, being provided by the landlord as a compliment to his people, and was built on the lawn, as close beside the house as safety would admit. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterizes the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it, and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up, and for a while they stood contemplating it, with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when bog-wood is thrown on; after a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-replenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began.
An Irish jig is interminable, so long as the party holds together; for when one of the dancers becomes fatigued, a fresh individual is ready to step into the vacated place quick as thought, so that the other does not pause, until in like manner obliged to give place to a successor. They continue footing it, and setting to one another, occasionally moving in a figure, and changing places with extraordinary rapidity, spirit, and grace. Few indeed among even the very lowest of the most impoverished class have grown into youth without obtaining some lessons in dancing from the travelling dancing-masters of their district; and certainly, in the way they use it, many would be disposed to grant a dispensation to the young peasant, which they would withhold from the young peer. It is, however, sadly abused among them, to Sabbath-breakings, revellings, and the most immoral scenes, where they are congregated and kept together under its influence; and the same scene enacted a year afterwards would have awoke in my mind very different feelings from those with which I regarded this first spectacle of Irish hilarity, when I could hardly be restrained by the laughing remonstrances of "the quality" from throwing myself into the midst of the joyous group and dancing with them.
But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little; when the fire had burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse's head fixed to one end and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with load shouts as the "white horse;" and having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented all cattle. Here was the old pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name. I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of pagan idolatries to its own scheme; and while I looked upon the now wildly excited people with their children, and in a figure all their cattle, passing again and again through the fire, I almost questioned in my own mind the lawfulness of the spectacle, considered in the light that the Bible must, even to the natural heart, exhibit it in to those who confess the true God. There was no one to whom I could breathe such thoughts, and they soon faded from my mind: not so the impression made on it by this fair specimen of a population whom I had long classed with the savage inhabitants of barbarous lands, picturing them to myself as dark, ferocious, discontented, and malignant. That such was the reverse of their natural character I now began to feel convinced; and from that evening my heart gradually warmed towards a race whom I found to be frank, warm, and affectionate, beyond any I had ever met with.
My interest in them, however, was soon to be placed on another and a firmer basis. I took up my permanent abode in a neighboring county; and within six months after that celebration of St. John's eve, I experienced the mighty power of God in a way truly marvellous. Great and marvellous are all his works, in creating, in sustaining, in governing this world of wonderful creatures; but Oh, how surpassingly marvellous and great in redeeming lost sinners, in taking away the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, and making his people willing in the day of his power! I have carefully abstained from any particulars respecting myself that could either cast a reproach on the dead or give pain to the living; I shall do so still, and merely remark, that as far as this world was concerned, my lot had no happiness mingled in it, and that my only solace under many grievous trials consisted in two things: one was a careful concealment of whatever might subject my proud spirit to the mortification of being pitied when I desired rather to be envied; and the other a confident assurance, that in suffering afflictions silently, unresistingly, and uncomplainingly, I was making God my debtor to a large amount. What desperate wickedness of a deceived and deceitful heart was this! The very thing in which I so arrogantly vaunted myself before God was the direct result of personal pride, in itself a great sin; and thus I truly gloried in my shame. I never looked beyond the rod to Him who had appointed it; but satisfying myself that I had not merited from man any severity, my demerits at the hand of the Most High were wholly put out of the calculation. Thus, of course, every stroke drove me further from the only Rock of refuge, and deeper into the fastness of my own vain conceits. Added to this, I was wholly shut out from all the ordinary means by which the Lord usually calls sinners to himself. There was no gospel ministry then within my reach; nor could I, if it were provided, have profited by it, owing to my infirmity, (deafness.) Into Christian society I had never entered, nor had the least glimmer of spiritual light shone into my mind. My religion was that of the Pharisee, and my addresses to God included, like his, an acknowledgment that it was by divine favor I was so much better than my neighbors. Reality had so far chased away romance, that my old favorite authors had little power to charm me; and the hollowness of my affected gayety and ease made society a very sickening thing. * * *
At the time I am now to speak of, I was living in perfect seclusion, and uninterrupted solitude. Captain —— was always in Dublin, and my chief occupation was in hunting out, and transcribing and arranging matter for the professional gentlemen conducting the lawsuit, from a mass of confused family papers and documents. Our property consisted of a large number of poor cabins with their adjoining land, forming a complete street on the outskirts of the town, which was greatly in arrear to the head landlords, and a periodical "distress" took place. On these occasions a keeper was set over the property, some legal papers were served, and the household goods—consisting of iron kettles, wooden stools, broken tables, a ragged blanket or two, and the little store of potatoes, the sole support of the wretched inhabitants—were brought out, piled in a long row down the street, and "canted," that is, put up to sale, for the payment of perhaps one or two per cent. of the arrears. This horrified me beyond measure: I was ashamed to be seen among the people who were called our tenants, though this proceeding did not emanate from their immediate landlord; and every thing combined to render the seclusion of my own garden more congenial to me than any wider range.
It was then that I came to the resolution of being a perfect devotee in religion: I thought myself marvellously good; but something of monastic mania seized me. I determined to emulate the recluses of whom I had often read; to become a sort of Protestant nun; and to fancy my garden, with its high stone-walls and little thicket of apple-trees, a convent enclosure. I also settled it with myself to pray three or four times every day, instead of twice; and with great alacrity entered upon this new routine of devotion.
Here God met and arrested me. When I kneeled down to pray, the strangest alarms took hold of my mind. He to whom I had been accustomed to prate with flippant volubility in a set form of heartless words, seemed to my startled mind so exceedingly terrible in unapproachable majesty, and so very angry with me in particular, that I became paralyzed with fear. I strove against this with characteristic pertinacity; I called to mind all the commonplace assurances respecting the sufficiency of a good intention, and magnified alike my doings and my sufferings. I persuaded myself it was only a holy awe, the effect of distinguished piety and rare humility, and that I was really an object of the divine complacency in no ordinary degree. Again I essayed to pray, but in vain; I dared not. Then I attributed it to a nervous state of feeling that would wear away by a little abstraction from the subject; but this would not do. To leave off praying was impossible, yet to pray seemed equally so. I well remember that the character in which I chiefly viewed the Lord God was that of an Avenger, going forth to smite the first-born of Egypt; and I somehow identified myself with the condemned number. Often, after kneeling a long time, I have laid my face upon my arms, and wept most bitterly, because I could not, dared not pray.
It was not in my nature to be driven back easily from any path I had entered on; and here the Lord wrought on me to persevere resolutely. I began to examine myself, in order to discover why I was afraid; and taking as my rule the ten commandments, I found myself sadly deficient on some points. The tenth affected me as it never had done before. "I had not known lust," because I had not understood the law when it said, "Thou shalt not covet." A casual glance at the declaration of St. James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," alarmed me exceedingly; and on a sudden it occurred to me that not only the ten commandments, but all the precepts of the New Testament, were binding on a Christian; and I trembled more than ever.
What was to be done? To reform myself, certainly, and become obedient to the whole law. Accordingly I went to work, transcribed all the commands that I felt myself most in the habit of neglecting, and pinned up a dozen or two texts around my room. It required no small effort to enter this apartment and walk round it, reading my mementos. That active schoolmaster, the law, had got me fairly under his rod, and dreadful were the writhings of the convicted culprit, I soon, however, took down my texts, fearing lest some one else might see them, and not knowing they were for myself, be exasperated. I then made a little hook, wrote down a list of offences, and commenced making a dot over against each, whenever I detected myself in the commission of one. I had become very watchful over my thoughts, and was honest in recording all evil; so my book became a mass of black dots; and the reflection that occurred to me of omissions being sins too, completed the panic of my mind. I flung away my book into the fire, and myself into an abyss of gloomy despair.
How long this miserable state of mind lasted, I do not exactly remember; I think about two weeks. I could not pray. I dared not read the Bible, it bore so very hard upon me. Outwardly, I was calm and even cheerful, but within reigned the very blackness of darkness. Death, with which I had so often sported, appeared in my eyes so terrible, that the slightest feeling of illness filled my soul with dismay. I saw no way of escape: I had God's perfect law before my eyes, and a full conviction of my own past sinfulness and present helplessness, leaving me wholly without hope. Hitherto I had never known a day's illness for years; one of God's rich mercies to me consisted in uninterrupted health, and a wonderful freedom from all nervous affections. I knew almost as little of the sensation of a headache as I did of that of tight-lacing; and now a violent cold, with sore throat, aggravated into fever by the state of my mind, completely prostrated me. I laid myself down on the sofa one morning and waited to see how my earthly miseries would terminate; too well knowing what must follow the close of a sinner's life.
I had not lain long, when a neighbor hearing I was ill, sent me some books just received from Dublin, as a loan, hoping I might find some amusement in them. Listlessly, wretchedly, mechanically, I opened one; it was the memoir of a departed son, written by his father. I read a page describing the approach of death, and was arrested by the youth's expressions of self-condemnation, his humble acknowledgment of having deserved at the Lord's hand nothing but eternal death. "Ah, poor fellow," said I, "he was like me. How dreadful his end must have been; I will see what he said at last, when on the very brink of the bottomless pit." I resumed the book, and found him in continuation glorifying God that though he was so guilty and so vile, there was ONE able to save to the uttermost, who had borne his sins, satisfied divine justice for him, opened the gates of heaven, and now waited to receive his ransomed soul.
The book dropped from my hands. "O, what is this? This is what I want: this would save me. Who did this for him? Jesus Christ, certainly; and it must be written in the New Testament." I tried to jump up and reach my Bible, but was overpowered by the emotion of my mind. I clasped my hands over my eyes, and then the blessed effects of having even a literal knowledge of scripture were apparent. Memory brought before me, as the Holy Spirit directed it, not here and there a detached text, but whole chapters, as they had long been committed to its safe but hitherto unprofitable keeping. The veil was removed from my heart, and Jesus Christ, as the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of every thing, shone out upon me just as he is set forth in the everlasting gospel. It was the same as if I had been reading, because I knew it so well by rote, only much more rapid, as thought always is. In this there was nothing uncommon; but in the opening of the understanding, that I might UNDERSTAND the scriptures, was the mighty miracle of grace and truth. There I lay, still as death, my hands still folded over nay eyes, my very soul basking in the pure, calm, holy light, that streamed into it through the appointed channel of God's word. Rapture was not what I felt; excitement, enthusiasm, agitation, there was none. I was like a person long enclosed in a dark dungeon, the walls of which had now fallen down, and I looked round on a sunny landscape of calm and glorious beauty. I well remember that the Lord Jesus, in the character of a shepherd, of a star, and above all, as the pearl of great price, seemed revealed to me most beautifully: that he could save every body I at once saw; that he would save me, never even took the form of a question. Those who have received the gospel by man's preaching may doubt and cavil; I took it simply from the Bible, in the words that God's wisdom teacheth, and thus I argued: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners: I am a sinner; I want to be saved: he will save me." There is no presumption in taking God at his word: not to do so is very impertinent: I did it, and I was happy.
After some time I rose from the sofa, and walked about. My feelings were delicious. I had found HIM of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write; I had found the very Paschal Lamb whose blood would be my safeguard from the destroying angel. Oh, how delicious was that particular thought to me. It was one of the first that occurred, and I laughed with gladness. Indeed my feeling was very joyous, and I only wanted somebody to tell it to. I had two servants, one a young woman, the other a little girl, both papists, both loving me with Irish warmth. They were delighted to see me so well and happy on a sudden; and in the evening I bade them come to my room, for I was going to read a beautiful book, and would read it aloud. I began the gospel of St. Matthew, and read nine chapters to them, their wonder and delight increasing my joy. Whenever I proposed leaving off, they begged for more; and only for my poor throat, I think we should have gone on till day. I prayed with them, and what a night's rest I had! Sleep so sweet, a waking so happy, and a joy so unclouded through the day, what but the gospel could bestow? Few, very few, have been so left alone as I was with the infallible teaching of God the Holy Ghost by means of the written word, for many weeks, and so to get a thorough knowledge of the great doctrines of salvation, unclouded by man's vain wisdom. I knew not that in the world there were any who had made the same discovery with myself. Of all schemes of doctrine I was wholly ignorant, and the only system of theology open to me was God's own. All the faculties of my mind were roused and brightened for the work. I prayed, without ceasing, for divine instruction; and took, without cavilling, what was vouchsafed. On this subject I must enter more largely, for it is one of immense importance.
I am standing before you now in the character of one who, having been brought under conviction of sin into utter self-despair, had found in Christ Jesus a refuge from the storm of God's anger. I felt myself safe in him; but as the revelation which God had made to man was not confined to the sole point of a satisfaction for the sins of men, I felt it my bounden duty to search for all that the Most High had seen good to acquaint his people with. At the same time I found myself a member of a church calling itself Christian; but I too had called myself a Christian, while as yet wholly ignorant of Christ, therefore I could not depend upon a name. I knew that there were other churches, each putting in a claim to a higher and purer standard than its neighbors, and it behooved me to know which of them all was in the right, I had no books of a religious character—not one; no clergyman among my acquaintance, no means of inquiry, save as regarded my own church, whose Liturgy and Articles lay before me. I resolved to bring them first to the test of scripture, and if they failed, to look out for a better.
How I commenced the work and pursued it, I need not state. I tried every thing, as well as I could, by the Bible; and my satisfaction was great to find the purest, clearest strain of evangelical truth breathing through the book which I had used all my life long, as I did the Bible, without entering into its real meaning. How I could possibly escape seeing the doctrines of faith, regeneration, and the rest of God's revelation in them both, was strange to me; but I understood that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, and mourned over the darkness that I supposed universal.
I found it distinctly stated by our Lord, that "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and this served as a key to many passages in the epistles and other parts of scripture illustrative of the same solemn truth. I had never understood, never thought of this. Did my church hold it? Yes; it was not only laid down as a fundamental doctrine in her Articles, but constantly put into the mouths of her congregation, either expressed or clearly implied. Again, I found that not by works but by faith I was to be justified before God; and this also ran through the prayer-book, with unvarying distinctness; though with that book in my hand and its contents on my lips I had been hitherto attempting to scale heaven by a ladder of my own forming.
* * * * *
The Athanasian creed brought to my recollection a circumstance that had occurred a few years before, the importance of which had never been known to me until I was brought acquainted with the saving truths of the gospel. I now looked back upon it with trembling joy and gratitude to him who had preserved me from a snare into which the pride of intellect, joined to spiritual ignorance, would have been sure to lead me, but for the watchful care of my heavenly Father, still working by means of my blind but sincere reverence for his word. In my native town, Socinianism flourished to a fearful extent; it has long been a very hotbed of that fatal heresy, the holders of which are found among many leading characters of wealth, influence, and high attainments. I knew no more of it than that it was one of the many forms of dissent with which I had nothing to do. I was acquainted with several of its disciples; but as religion formed no part of our social intercourse, its peculiarities were wholly unknown to me.
Not long before my trip to America I had been staying in Norwich, in the same house with a most clever, intelligent, and amiable woman, of whom I was very fond. I knew her to be a dissenter, and that was all. One evening she drew me into a conversation, the commencement of which I forget, but it soon arrived at a denial, on her part, of the Godhead of Christ, which exceedingly astonished me, for I never supposed that could be called in question. I ran for the Bible, saying, I would soon show her it was not to be disputed; and she in return asserted that I could not prove it out of the inspired scriptures. After pondering for a while, I recollected the first chapter of Revelation, which, for its sublimity, I ranked among the highest of my poetical gems, and that it unequivocally proclaimed the divinity of our glorious Lord. I opened at it, on which she burst into a laugh, saying, "You are not so weak as to fancy that book of riddles any part of God's word!" "Why it is in the Bible, you see," replied I, half indignantly. "And who put it there? Come, you are a person of too much sense to believe that the binding up of certain leaves between the two covers of the Bible makes them a part of it. You must exercise the reason that God has given you, and in so doing you will discover so many interpolations and deceptions in that version of yours, that you will be glad to find a more accurate one."
She continued in the same strain for some time. I was greatly agitated; I closed the great Bible, and leaning on it with folded arms, my heart beating violently against the bright red cover, I gave heed to all she said. My love of novelty, passion for investigation, and the metaphysical turn that had sometimes made my father quite uneasy about me, when he saw me at eight years old poring over abstruse reasonings with the zest of an old philosopher, were all in her favor. I felt as if the foundation of my faith was giving way, and I was being launched on a sea of strange uncertainty. When she concluded, I laid my forehead on the book in most deep and anxious thought. I did not pray: God was found of one who sought him not, for surely he alone dictated my answer. I started up, and with the greatest vivacity said, "Mrs. ——, if you can persuade me that the book of Revelation is not inspired, another person may do the same with regard to the book of Genesis, and so of all that lie between them, till the whole Bible is taken away from me. That will never do; I cannot part with my dear Bible. I believe it all, every word of it, and I am sure I should be miserable if I did not." Then, kissing the precious volume with the affection one feels for what is in danger of being lost to us, I carried it back to its shelf, and declined any further discussion on the subject. She told some one else she was sure of having me yet; but the good providence of God interposed to remove me from the scene of danger.
That metaphysical turn I omitted to mention among my early snares; my father checked it, although it was a great hobby of his own. He had seen its fearful abuse in the origin of the French revolution, and regarded it as one of the evil spirits of the age. I recollect the mixture of mirth and vexation depicted in his face one morning, when on his remarking that I did not look well and inquiring if any thing ailed me, I replied, "No, but I could not get any sleep."
"What prevented your sleeping?"
"I was thinking, papa, of 'Cogito, ergo sum'—'I think, therefore I exist'—and I lay awake, trying to find out all about it."
"'Cogito, ergo sum!'" repeated my father, laughing and frowning at the same time; "what will you be at twenty, if you dabble in metaphysics before you are ten? Come, I must set you to study Euclid; that will sober your wild head a little." I took the book with great glee, delighted to have a new field of inquiry, but soon threw it aside. Mathematics and I could never agree. Speculative and imaginative in an extraordinary degree, carrying much sail with scarcely any ballast, what but the ever watchful care of Him who sitteth upon the circle of the earth could have preserved from fatal wrecking a vessel so frail, while yet without pilot, helm, or chart?
It was the recollection of my short encounter with the Socinian that satisfied me respecting the Athanasian creed. I felt that had I taken up its bold assertions and established every one of them, as now I did, by scripture, no sophistry could have staggered my faith, though it had been but a reasoning, not a saving faith, in that high doctrine of the coexistent, coequal Trinity. I did not then know—for of all church history I was ignorant—that its original object was not so much to establish a truth, as to detect and defeat a falsehood. The damnatory clauses, as they are called, did not startle me. I saw clearly the fact that God had made a revelation of himself to man, which revelation man was not at liberty to receive or to reject, and as without faith it is impossible to please God, and that alone is faith which implicitly believes the record that he hath given of his Son, the deductions in question were perfectly fair and orthodox. I frequently wondered, when subsequently brought into the arena of various controversies, at the ease with which, aided by the Bible alone, I settled so many disputed points; and as it really was by the Bible I settled them, man's teaching has never yet on any subject altered my views. * * *
Whether it be regarded as presumptuous or not, I must thankfully avow that during the weeks when I was left alone with my Bible, I obtained a view of the whole scheme of redemption and God's dealings with man, which to this hour I have never found reason to alter in any one respect, save as greater light has continually broken in on each branch of the subject, strengthening, not changing those views. You will see in the progress of my sketch, how complete a bulwark against error in numberless shapes I have found in this simple adherence to the plain word of truth—this habit of bringing every proposition "to the law and to the testimony;" fully persuaded that "if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
I now proceed to an interesting epoch in my life: the commencement of my literary labors in the Lord's cause. It marks very strongly the overruling hand of Him who was working all things after the counsel of his own will; and I will give it you without curtailment, together with my introduction, through it to the Christian community of the land.
My life, as I told you, was solitary and retired; my time chiefly passed in writing out documentary matters for the lawyers. The circumstance of my using the pen so incessantly became known, and I was looked on as a literary recluse. One day a lady personally unknown to me, but whose indefatigable zeal was always seeking the good of others, sent me a parcel of tracts. With equal wonder and delight I opened one of them, a simple, spiritual little production; and the next that I took up was an inducement to distribute tracts among the poor. From this I learned that some excellent people were engaged in a work quite new to me; and, with a sigh, I wished I had the means of contributing to their funds. Presently the thought flashed upon me, "Since I cannot give them money, may I not write something to be useful in the same way?" I had just then no work before me, and a long winter evening at command. I ordered large candles, told the servants not to interrupt me, and sat down to my novel task. I began about seven o'clock, and wrote till three in the morning; when I found I had produced a complete little story, in the progress of which I had been enabled so to set forth the truth as it is in Jesus, that on reading it over I was amazed at the statement I had made of scriptural truth, and sunk on my knees in thankfulness to God. Next morning I awoke full of joy, but much puzzled as to what I should do with my tract. At length, in the simplicity of my heart, I resolved to send it to the bishop of Norwich, and busied myself at the breakfast- table in computing how many franks it would fill. While thus employed, a note was put into my hands from Miss D——, apologizing for the liberty taken, saying she had sent me, the day before, some tracts, and as she heard I was much occupied with the pen, it had occurred to her that I might be led to write something myself; in the possibility of which she now enclosed the address of the secretary to the Dublin Tract Society, to whom such aid would be most welcome.
I was absolutely awe-struck by this very striking incident. I saw in it a gracious acceptance of my freewill offering at His hands to whom it had been prayerfully dedicated; and in two hours the manuscript was on its way to Dublin, with a very simple letter to the secretary. A cordial answer, commendatory of my tract and earnestly entreating a continuance of such aid, soon reached me, with some remarks and questions that required a fuller communication of my circumstances and feelings. He had recommended frequent intercourse with the peasantry, of whose habits and modes of expression I was evidently ignorant, and I then mentioned my loss of hearing as a bar to this branch of usefulness, His rejoinder was the overflowing of a truly Christian heart, very much touched by an artless account of the Lord's dealings with me; and greatly did my spirit rejoice at having found a brother in the faith thus to cheer and strengthen me.
But alas, a few days afterwards, Miss D——, whom I had still never seen, wrote to apprize me that this excellent man had ruptured a blood- vessel and was dying. Still he did not forget me, but after lingering for some weeks, on his death-bed commended me to the friendship of his brother, who from that period proved a true and valuable helper to me.
Meanwhile I was beginning to take a view of popery, under the light of the gospel. As yet, I knew nothing of it spiritually; and my retired life kept me from observing how it worked among the poor people around. My attention was first directed to it by a conversation with the younger of my two servants; she slept in my apartment, and I remarked that while kneeling at her devotions she not only uttered them with amazing rapidity, but carried on all the while the operation of undressing, with perfect inattention to what she was saying. I asked her the purport of her prayers; she told me she said the "Our Father," and then the "Hail Mary:" at my request she repeated the latter, and I gave her a gentle lecture on the irreverence of chattering to God so volubly, and of employing herself about her clothes at the same time; adding that she should be devout, deliberate, and quiet while speaking to God; but as for the Virgin Mary it was no matter how she addressed her, if address her she would, for being only a dead woman she could know nothing about it. This, I am ashamed to say, was the extent of my actual protest at that time. The girl took it all very readily, and ever after, during her address to God, she knelt with her hands joined, repeating the words slowly and seriously; but the moment she commenced the "Hail Mary," to make up for lost time she prattled it so rapidly, and tore open the fastenings of her dress with such bustling speed, that I could scarcely refrain from laughing. A little reflection, however, convinced me it was an act of idolatry, and no laughing matter; and from that time I inquired as deeply as I could into their faith and practice; constantly showing them from the scriptures how contrary their religion was to that of the gospel. Still it was but a very partial and superficial view that I could as yet obtain of the great mystery of iniquity through these ignorant and thoughtless girls; and to this must be attributed my sad failure in not warning them more distinctly to come out of Babylon. I rather tried to patch up the old, decayed, tattered garment with the new piece of the gospel, as many more have done; and so made the rent worse, instead of replacing the vile article with one of God's providing.
* * * * *
When that excellent man, Mr. D——, was committed to the grave, his younger brother visited me on his way back to Dublin. That interview I shall never forget; he talked to me out of the overflowings of a heart devoted to Christ, and left me pining for more extended enjoyment of Christian society. I was not long ungratified; within three days an unexpected summons took me to Dublin, and on the very evening of my arrival Mr. D—— introduced me to a party of about thirty pious friends, assembled to meet a missionary just returned from Russia. Remember these were the frank, unrestrained, warmhearted Irish, of all people the most ready at expressing their zealous and generous feelings; and imagine, if you can, my enjoyment, after such a long season of comparative loneliness, when they came about me with the affectionate welcome that none can utter and look so eloquently as they can. I thought it a foretaste of heavenly blessedness; and yet I often longed for those seasons when I had none but my God to commune with, and poured out to him all that now I found it delightful to utter to my fellow- creatures. Then, my tabernacle was indeed pitched in the wilderness, and the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation, and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness.
A few months after this, the lawsuit being ended, my husband was ordered abroad. I declined to cross the Atlantic a second time, and from this period I became chiefly dependent on my own exertions. My mother had joined me in Ireland, having been made a partaker in the like precious faith and hope with myself. * * *
We took up our abode in the town of Kilkenny, so richly blessed with gospel privileges, and so far removed from the annoyances to which I was exposed while trying to fulfil the landlord's part over a property inextricably involved, and now also placed in the hands of trustees. I had sought the maintenance of that character for the sake of the poor tenants, whose affection, for me was very great, and among whom I had of late been frequently allowed to read the scriptures. The necessity, however, of providing for myself, and the hopeless perplexities of my nominal office, between head-landlords, under-tenants, trustees, a receiver, and all the endless machinery of an embarrassed little Irish estate, compelled me to seek a more quiet sphere; and in Kilkenny I found all that could combine to encourage me in the pursuit of honest independence in the way of usefulness. I finished "Osric," which formed a good-sized volume, and commenced the pleasant task of writing penny and twopenny books for the Dublin Tract Society, who paid me liberally, and cheered me on my path with all the warmth of Christian affection. It was indeed a delightful task, and God had raised up to me also a friend to whose truly paternal kindness I owe more than ever can be told, Mr. George Sandford, now Lord Mountsandford, who, from our first acquaintance, entered with a father's interest into all that concerned me. Thus encouraged, I held on my way, and tasted the sweets that I hope to enjoy to the end of my days—those of the original curse brightened by the irreversible blessing: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread;" "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor shall not be in vain in the Lord."
I have already told you my escape from the snare of Socinianism; and now I am to narrate a trial of faith and doctrine which by the mercy of God produced effects just the reverse of what was intended. This was no less than a vigorous attempt to convert me to Popery. I had not yet bestowed any great attention on the details of that abominable device, but was most fully persuaded of its being a system of idolatrous delusion, the working of which was strikingly manifested in the wretchedness, the immorality, the turbulence and degrading superstitions of the poor creatures around me. It never had been my practice to tamper with or to compromise what I knew to be wrong; therefore I had not suffered curiosity to lead me within the walls of a mass-house, nor in any way to put on the semblance of an agreement which cannot really exist between the temple of God and idols. I believed Popery to be the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and I longed for resolution to proclaim to the deluded victims, "Come out of her, my people," This I had never done, but on the contrary fell cheerfully in with the then cautious policy of my friends, and so framed my little books and tracts as to leave it doubtful whether they were written by a Protestant or not. Paul to the Jews became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews: I, by a false process of reason, thought it allowable to become as an idolater to the idolaters, that I might gain the idolaters. An awful, presumptuous sin! The Jew possesses the fair blossom of gospel truth, which by kindly fostering is to be expanded and ripened into the rich fruit: the Papist holds in his hand an apple of Sodom, beneath the painted rind of which is a mass of ashes and corruption. He must be induced to fling it away, and to pluck from the tree of life a wholly different thing.
My Protestant principles, such as they were, withheld me from visiting the convent which formed a principal attraction to the military and other strangers in Kilkenny. Many sought to draw me thither, adducing the examples of Christian ministers and other spiritual people, who did not scruple to go; but in vain. At length a lady came to me with an earnest request from "the most interesting nun in the establishment," to give her some information on the best mode of conveying instruction to a poor little girl in their school, deaf and dumb. Here was a call of duty: I knew it could not be effectually done unless in person; and to the surprise of my friend, I volunteered to accompany her to the convent.
The nun was indeed a most engaging young lady; in personal appearance, in manner, in feeling, realizing the visions of my girlish romance, when reading idle stories in novels on such topics. She had, moreover, all the animated warmth of a genuine Irishwoman, and her fine countenance beaming with benevolent joy at our successful beginning, and with affectionate gratitude for my services, quite won my heart. I promised to repeat the visit shortly, and on doing so accompanied her to walk round the garden, at the other extremity of which stood a building which I took for their school, and unhesitatingly mounted the stairs with my sweet conductor. Judge what was my dismay when, on passing the folding doors, I found myself in a splendid Popish chapel, opposite the altar, over which shone a richly gilt cross, while my poor nun was prostrated in the lowliest adoration, touching the ground with her forehead before the senseless idol. I was confounded, and unable to say any thing; but after a hasty glance at the fine trappings, left the place secretly praying for grace and strength to protest openly against the abomination from which my soul revolted with unspeakable horror from the moment of my witnessing the act of idolatrous homage rendered to a thing of wood and stone. On leaving the convent, I met a person who informed me that my poor nun was a Protestant lady of high respectability, sprung from one of those iniquitous mixed marriages, her mother belonging to the established church, her father a Romanist, who, however, honestly adhered to the terms of the wicked covenant by which the sons were to be educated in his, the daughters in her persuasion. A family of daughters were born to them, who, with their mother, continued nominally Protestant; but after his death, when the house was filled with Romish priests, performing for a week together their mummeries over the corpse, these poor females had become a prey to the subtle perversions of the ecclesiastics, and had openly apostatized, all save my new friend, who with a better informed mind and more scriptural knowledge withstood their sophistries, until sundry mock miracles performed by means of saintly relics and a well-contrived nocturnal visitation from the ghost of her father whom she fondly loved, had so unnerved and frightened her that she too fell a prey to the delusion. They ended by admitting her into the sisterhood of this convent, excusing the payment of the large sum usually demanded; and as her darkness was now great in proportion to the measure of light against which she had sinned, they found her a valuable decoy-bird to draw others into the snare. I did not learn all these particulars at the time, nor until after her decease, when I met with a near family connection of hers who told them to me. I simply gleaned the fact of her apostasy, with that of her abounding zeal in the antichristian cause.
With all my heart I loved the gentle, affectionate, elegant nun, and earnestly did I pray for help in bringing her back, as I was resolved to do, from the path of destruction; and while I deliberated on the best means of commencing the work, the difficulty was removed by her openly attempting to convert me. To this end she urged on me a strict inquiry into the real doctrines and tenets of her church, for myself and by myself, promising to lend me books of the most candid character, if I would engage to read them. I agreed, stipulating that I was freely to write out my remarks on them for her consideration; and with this mutual understanding, I brought home from the convent as a loan Dr. Milner's "End of Controversy," furnished for my especial benefit by a seminary of Jesuit priests, located near the town: and thus was I become the object of a combined attack from the forces of great Babylon.
True to what I considered a tacit engagement to study the matter alone, I read the book. Never shall I forget the effect it produced on me. I seemed to be holding communion with Satan himself, robed as an angel of light, the transparent drapery revealing his hideous form but baffling my endeavors to rend it away. Such sophistry, such impudence of unsupported assertion, such distortion of truth and gilding of gross falsehood, I never met with. I tried in vain to find an answer to things that I saw and felt to be antiscriptural and destructive; but this "End" was the beginning of my controversy, for I was wholly new to it, and ignorant of the historical and other facts necessary to disprove the reverend author's bold assumptions. At last I burst into tears, and kneeling down, exclaimed, "O Lord, I cannot unravel this web of iniquity: enable me to cut it in twain." I was answered; for after a little more thought, a broad view of the whole scheme of man's salvation as revealed in the holy Scriptures appeared to me the best antidote for this insidious poison. I read through the New Testament with increased enjoyment, and casting from me the wretched fabric of lies, with all its flimsy pretences, I resolved, instead of attempting a reply to what I saw to be falsehood, to set forth a plain statement of what I knew to be truth. Indeed it is indescribable how disgusting the painted face, the gaudy trappings, and the arrogant assumptions of the great harlot appeared in my eyes, when thus contrasted with the sublime simplicity, purity, and modesty of the chaste spouse of Christ.
I wrote; and in reply got another and a smaller book, containing the pretended reasons of a Protestant for embracing Popery. They were of course artfully put, and made a formidable exhibition of the peril of heresy. I thought I could not do better in return, while writing my dissent, than to enclose some small books of my own to the nun, inviting her comments thereon. This brought a letter which was probably written by stealth, though so cautiously worded as to be safe if intercepted. She said she did not wish to leave me under a wrong impression, and therefore told me that she was not permitted to read any of my letters, or the little books I had sent, as those who watched over her spiritual interests and whom she was bound to obey, thought it wrong to unsettle her mind by reading any thing contrary to the true faith which she held. Here was a pretty exposure of one-sided honesty. I thanked God for the further insight given me into the mystery of iniquity, and from that day devoted all my powers to the investigation of that against which I had become a stanch protester.
In the midst of our proceedings, a nun had taken the veil at the convent. Every body almost, to their shame be it spoken, was trying for tickets to the unhallowed show. My poor friend sent us two, informed me that two of the best front seats would be reserved for us, and accompanied her kind note with a programme of the ceremony and a translation or transcription of the service, all in her own handwriting. I felt deeply the pain of hurting her, and perhaps for a moment the workings of natural curiosity, but the hesitation was short. I sent back both books and tickets, with a grateful but decided refusal to be present. In all Kilkenny I did not find a person who could go along with me in my objections; but it is a matter of great joy to me to this hour, that I kept myself wholly unpolluted by any participation in these idolatrous doings; and I do believe that a double blessing has attended my efforts against Popery in consequence of it.
The affair of the little deaf mute at the convent led me to turn my attention to some poor children similarly circumstanced in the streets of Kilkenny; and while prosecuting that work the Lord brought to me that dear dumb boy whom you well remember as the brightest, most lovely of Christian characters. He was then very little, and had a brother of sixteen, one of the most genuine paddies I ever beheld. This lad was living very idly; a fine, sensible, shrewd fellow, who could read and write, and very soon made great proficiency in the finger language by helping me to instruct Jack. No one above Pat's own rank had ever taken any interest in him; I did, a strong one, and as he was much with me, and of a character most intensely Irish, he became attached to my with a warmth of devotion rarely met with among any other people.
One day Pat made his appearance with an important look, his brogues stamping the carpet with unwonted energy, his fine bare throat stiffened into a sort of dignified hauteur, and his very keen hazel eyes sparkling under the bushy luxuriance of chestnut curls that clustered about his face and fell on his neck. The very beau ideal of a wild Irish youth was my friend Pat. Seating himself as usual, he began—and here I must observe that my chief knowledge of the phraseology and turn of thought so peculiar to the Irish peasant was derived from this source. Whenever Pat came "to discourse me," I got rich lessons in the very brogue itself, from the fidelity with which his spelling followed the pronunciation of his words—"I wouldn't like," said he, "that you would go to hell."
"Nor I either, Pat."
"But you are out of the thrue church, and you wont be saved, and I must convart ye."
"That is very kind of you, my good lad. If I am wrong, you cannot do better than set me right."
"Sure and I will."
"But how?"
"With this," said he, pulling out a small pamphlet nothing the cleaner for wear. "You must learn my catechism, and it's you that will be the good Catholic."
Delighted with the boy's honest zeal, I asked him where I should begin; and he no less pleased at my docility, desired me to read it all, and then get it all by heart. I promised to do the first at any rate; and Oh what a tissue of falsehood and blasphemy that "Butler's Catechism" was. Next morning my teacher came early: "Well, Pat, I have found out what makes you anxious about me: here it is said that none can be saved out of the true church."
"That's it, sure enough."
"But I do belong to the true church, and I'll show you what it is;" so I pointed out to him two passages, and added, "Now, I do love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and therefore I am one of those to whom St. Paul wishes grace and peace; and do you think an apostle would send his blessing to any body who was not of the true church?"
Pat shook his head: "That's your catechism, not mine."
"Very true. Dr. Butler wrote yours, and God wrote mine," holding up the
Bible; "which is best?"
"That is not the real Bible," persisted Pat; "my priest has the true
Bible."
"Then ask him to lend you his."
"I wouldn't get my ears pulled, would I?" said he, smiling: "but if he lent me his Bible he must lend me a car to bring it home in, for it's as big as this table. Yours is too little, and doesn't hold half the truth. That is why you are so ignorant."
I soon proved, by showing him Matthew. Henry's Commentary, that the word of God would lie in a very small compass, the great bulk of the book being man's work. I also urged on him the absolute necessity of reading what God had given for our learning, and the danger of resting on man's assertion.
Pat stood his ground most manfully, astonishing me by the adroitness with which he parried my attacks, while pursuing, as he hoped, the good work of my conversion. For many a day was the controversy carried on, Butler versus the Bible, without any other effect than that of bringing Pat to read the sacred book for himself; but it opened to me the awful wiles of darkness by which the poor and ignorant are blinded, while for the more educated class such polished sophistry as Milner's is carefully prepared. I reaped the fruit, however, six years afterwards, when, in a little English church, Pat kneeled beside me and his brother, a thankful communicant, at the Lord's table.
I turned my attention to the deaf and dumb children, whose situation was deplorable indeed: I took four out of the streets to instruct them, of whom one proved irreclaimably wild and vicious; two were removed by a priest's order, lest I should infect them with heresy: the fourth was to me a crown of rejoicing, and will be so yet more at "that day." * * *
John, or Jack as we always called him, was a puny little fellow, of heavy aspect, and wholly destitute of the life and animation that generally characterize that class, who are obliged to use looks and gestures as a substitute for words. He seemed for a long while unable to comprehend my object in placing before him a dissected alphabet, and forming the letters into words significant of dog, man, hat, and other short monosyllables; and when I guided his little hard hand to trace corresponding characters on the slate, it was indeed a work of time and patience to make him draw a single stroke correctly. His unmeaning grin of good-natured acquiescence in whatever I bade him do, was more provoking than downright rebellion could have been; and I secretly agreed with my friends that the attempt would prove a complete failure, while impelled, I hardly could tell how, to persevere with redoubled efforts. Jack's uncouth bristly hair fell in a straight mass over one of the finest foreheads ever seen, and concealed it. I happened one day to put aside this mass, for the benefit of his sight, and was so struck with the nobly expansive brow, that I exclaimed to a friend then in the act of dissuading me from the work, "No; with such a forehead as this, I can never despair of success."
* * * * *
It was by a sudden burst that the boy's mind broke its prison and looked around on every object as though never before beheld. All seemed to appear in so new a light to him; curiosity, in which he had been strangely deficient, became an eagerly active principle, and nothing that was portable did he fail to bring to me, with an inquiring shake of the head, and the word "what?" spelled by the fingers. It was no easy matter, before we had mastered a dozen common substantives and no other parts of speech, to satisfy his inquisitiveness, which I always endeavored to do, because it is wrong to repress that indication of dawning reason in a child, and Jack at eleven years old was in the predicament of a mere infant. More especially was I puzzled when his "what?" was accompanied by a motion pointing first at the dog, then to himself, to learn wherein consisted the difference between two creatures, both of whom, as he intimated, could eat, drink, sleep, and walk about, could be merry or angry, sick or well; neither of whom could talk; and yet, that there was a very great difference, he felt. The noble nature of man, was struggling to assert its preeminence over the irrational brute, which he, nevertheless, loved and feared too; for Barrow was a splendid dog, and used to assist me very cleverly in keeping my little wild Irish crew in order. Oh what a magnificent wreck is man! I do love to watch the rapid approach of that glorious time when, the six thousand years of his degradation beneath the reign of Satan being fulfilled, he shall rise above the usurper's power, and resume his high station among the brightest works of God.
I do not remember exactly how long after his first coming to me it was that Jack began to inquire so diligently about God. He seemed full of grave but restless thought, and then approaching me, pointed towards the sun, and by a movement of the hands as if kneading something, asked me whether I made it. I shook my head. Did my mother? No. Did Mr. Roe, or Mr. Shaw—two Protestant clergymen—or the priest? He had a sign to express each of these. No. Then "What? what?" with a frown and a stamp of fretful impatience. I pointed upwards, with a look of reverential solemnity, and spelled the word "God." He seemed struck, and asked no more at that time, but next day he overwhelmed me with "whats," and seemed determined to know more about it. I told him as well as I could, that He of whom I spoke was great, powerful, and kind; and that he was always looking at us. He smiled, and informed me he did not know how the sun was made, for he could not keep his eyes on it; but the moon he thought was like a dumpling, and sent rolling over the tops of the trees, as he sent a marble across the table. As for the stars, they were cut out with a large pair of scissors, and stuck into the sky with the end of the thumb. Having thus settled his system of astronomy, he looked very happy, and patted his chest with evident self-applause.
I was amused, but of course not satisfied: my charge was necessarily an Atheist, and what I had told him was a very bare sort of Deism indeed. To communicate more, however, seemed utterly impossible, until we should have accomplished considerable things in the way of education. We had not above a dozen of the commonest words—all names of things—to which he could attach a meaning; and our signs were all of his own contriving, which I had to catch and follow as I might. So said reason, but reason is a fool. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." "For my ways are not your ways, neither are your thoughts my thoughts, saith the Lord." It pleased him to enlighten the mind of the boy; and instead of that work being dependent on human wisdom, all that human wisdom could do was to creep after it at a modest distance.
Next day, Jack came to me in great wrath, intimating that my tongue ought to be pulled out. This was his usual mode of accusation where a lie had been told. So I looked innocent and said, "What?" He reminded me of yesterday's conversation, telling me he had looked everywhere for God: he had been down the street, over the bridge, into the churchyard, through the fields, had peeped into the grounds of the castle, walked past the barrack-yard, and got up in the night to look out at the window. All in vain; he could not find God. He saw nobody big enough to put up his hand and stick the stars into the sky. I was "bad," my tongue must be pulled out; for there was "God, NO." And he repeated "God, no," so often that it went to my heart.
I considered, prayerfully. My view of the scriptures told me that without divine help none could really seek after God: and also that when he vouchsafed to give the desire, he would surely increase knowledge. Here was a poor afflicted boy getting out of his bed to look by night for one whom he had vainly sought all the day: here was Satan at work to strengthen unbelief: I was commanded to resist the devil, and surely there must be some way of resisting him. I sat silent on the opposite side of the fire, and a plan having struck me, I looked at Jack, shrugged my shoulders and seemed convicted of a deception. He shook his head at me, frowned, and appeared very much offended at my delinquency. Presently I seized a small pair of bellows, and after puffing at the fire for a while, suddenly directed a rough blast at his little red hand, which hung very near it. He snatched it back, scowled at me, and when again I repeated the operation, expressed great displeasure, shivering, and letting me know he did not like it.
I renewed the puff, saying, "What?" and looking most unconscious of having done any thing; he blew hard, and repeated that it made his hands cold; that I was very bad, and he was very angry. I puffed in all directions, looked very eagerly at the pipe of the bellows, peering on every side, and then, explaining that I could see nothing, imitated his manner, saying, "Wind? no!" shaking my head at him, and telling him his tongue must come out, mimicking his looks of rebuke and offended virtue. He opened his eyes very wide, stared at me and panted; a deep crimson suffused his whole face, and a soul, a real soul shone in his strangely altered countenance, while he triumphantly repeated, "God like wind! God like wind!" He had no word for "like;" it was signified by holding the two forefingers out, side by side, as a symbol of perfect resemblance.
Here was a step, a glorious step, out of absolute atheism into a perfect recognition of the invisible God. An idea, to call it nothing more, new, grand, and absorbing, took possession of his mind. I numbered seven years of incessant care over him from that day; and I will fearlessly assert that in his head and in his heart God reigned unrivalled. Even before he knew him as God in Christ, the Creator and Preserver were enthroned in his bosom; and every event of the day, every object that met his view, gave rise to some touchingly simple question or remark concerning God. He made me observe that when trying to look at the sun he was forced to shut his eyes, adding, "God like sun." An analogy not very traceable, though strictly just; for the glory that dazzled his mind was not visible. He was perpetually engaged in some process of abstract reasoning on every subject, and amazed me by explaining its results; but how he carried it on without the intervention of words, was and is a puzzle to me.
Previously he had been rather teasing to the dog and other inferior creatures, and had a great desire to fish; but now he became most exquisitely tender towards every living thing, moving his hand over them in a caressing way, and saying, "God made." At first he excepted the worms from this privilege, remarking that they came up through holes from beneath the earth, while God was above, over the sky; therefore they were not made by him; but I set him right, and he agreed that they might be rolled up in the world, like meat in a pudding, and bite their way out. Thenceforth, woe to the angler whom Jack detected looking for live bait!
When my first pupil from being irregular in his attendance fell off more and more, until he wholly discontinued coming, and the others were withdrawn for fear of heretical infection, I became more anxious lest this dear boy might also leave me before he had received the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I had, at his earnest entreaty, taken him into the house altogether, his home being at some distance; but I knew not how long he might be permitted to stay. The ravages of a dreadful fever among the poor, increased my solicitude to see my devout little Deist a Christian. I have, in a small memoir of this "Happy Mute," related the manner of his receiving the gospel, but I must not pass it over here. To the glory of God's rich grace it shall be recorded, as one of the most signal mercies ever vouchsafed to me. As before, the boy was led to open the way, and in the faith of the Lord's willingness to reveal himself to an inquiring soul, I followed it up.
Jack had noticed the number of funerals passing; he had occasionally seen dead bodies placed in their coffins, and one evening he alluded to it, asking me by significant gestures if they would ever open their eyes again. Considering that he had often been present at the interment of the dead, and had also witnessed the decay of animals cast out to perish, it struck me as a singular question, plainly indicating that the consciousness of immortality is natural to man, and unbelief in a future state foreign to his untaught feelings. On the present occasion, my heart being then lifted up in prayer for divine assistance on this very point, I caught at the encouragement, and instantly proceeded to improve the opportunity, I sketched on paper a crowd of persons, old and young; near them a pit with flames issuing from it, and told him all those people, among whom were we, had been "bad" and God would throw us into the fire. When his alarm was greatly excited, I introduced into the picture another individual, who I told him was God's Son; that he came out of heaven; that he had not been bad, and was not to go in the pit; but that he allowed himself to be killed; and when he died, God shut up the pit; so the people were spared. This seemed to myself too strange, vague, meagre, to convey any definite idea to the boy's mind; but how effectual does the Lord make our poorest efforts when HE wills to work! After a few moments' deep thought, Jack astonished me by an objection that proved he saw the grand doctrine of a substitute for sinners, which I was so hopeless of bringing before him. He told me the rescued people were many; he who died was one, and his earnest "What?" with the eloquent look that now peculiarly belonged to his once stupid countenance, showed his anxiety for a solution of this difficulty.
With unutterable joy in my heart, but great composure of manner, I rose, and taking from a vase a bunch of dead flowers, inadvertently left there, I cut them into small bits, laid them in a heap on the table, and beside them my gold ring: then pointing to each, with the words "many- one," I asked which he would rather have? He struck his hand suddenly to his forehead, then clapped both hands, gave a jump as he sat, and with the most rapturous expression of countenance intimated that the one piece of gold was better than the room full of dead flowers With great rapidity he applied the symbol, pointing to the picture, to the ring, to himself, to me, and finally to heaven. In the last position he stood up and paused for some time, and what a picture he would have made! A smile perfectly angelic beaming on his face, his eyes sparkling and dancing with delight, until, with a rush of tears that quite suffused them, he gazed at me, then again raised them to the ceiling, his look softened into an expression of deep awe and unbounded love, while he gently spelled on his fingers, "Good ONE, good ONE!" and ended by asking me his name.
"How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer's ear!"
Jack was not to hear that name with his bodily ears until the voice of the archangel and the trump of God should call him from sleeping in the dust of the earth; but he received it into his mind, and the gospel, the glorious, everlasting gospel, into his soul, and the Holy Spirit into his heart, without the intervention of that sense. In that hour it was given unto him to believe, and from that hour all things were his—the world, life, death, and a bright immortality. Never but once before had I laid my head on the pillow with such an overwhelming sense of perfect happiness. The Lord had indeed shown me his glory, by causing his goodness to pass before me.
Henceforth I had a Christian brother in my little dumb charge: his love to Jesus Christ was fervent and full; his thoughts about him most beautiful. By degrees, I gave him some knowledge of our Lord's mortal birth, his infancy, work, death, resurrection, and ascension; together with his coming to final judgment at the end of the world. * * *
Very great indeed was Jack's emotion when he discovered that the Saviour in whom he was rejoicing was the object represented by the image he had been taught to bow down before. He resented it deeply: I was quite alarmed at the sudden and violent turn his feelings took against Popery. * * * He spurned the whole system from him, as soon as the light of the gospel fell upon its deformities.
Returning from the chapel one day, soon after this, he came up to me under great excitement: he took up a clothes-brush, set it on one end, and with a ludicrous grimace bowed down before it, joining his hands in the attitude of prayer and chattering after his fashion; then asking the brush if it could hear him, waiting in an attitude of attention for its reply, and finally knocking it over and kicking it round the room, saying, "Bad god, bad god!" I guessed pretty well what it was all about; but as he concluded by snapping his fingers exultingly and seating himself without further remark, I spoke on other subjects.
Next morning, Jack was very animated, and came to me with an evident budget of new thoughts. He told me something very small came out of the ground, pointing in opposite directions; it grew: and then two more points appeared. I found he was describing the growth of a plant, and expecting some question, was all attention; but Jack was come to teach, not to learn. He soon showed that his tree had reached a great height and size; then he made as if shouldering a hatchet, advanced to the tree and cut it down. Next came a great deal of sawing, chopping, planing, and shaping, until he made me understand he had cut out a crucifix, which he laid by, and proceeded to make a stool, a box, and other small articles; after which he gathered up the chips, flung them on the fire, and seemed to be cheering himself in the blaze. I actually trembled at the proceeding; for where had he, who could not form or understand half a sentence, where had he learned the Holy Spirit's testimony as recorded by Isaiah?
The sequel was what I anticipated: he feigned to set up the imaginary crucifix, and preparing to pray before it, checked himself, saying, "No;" then with animated seriousness reverted to the springing up of the little seedling, saying, "God made;" and as it grew, he described the fashioning of the trunk and branches and leaves most gracefully, still saying "God made;" he seemed to dip a pencil in color, to paint the leaves, repeating, "God made beautiful!" Then, that God made his hands too; and he came to the conclusion that the tree which God made, cut out by his hands which God made, could not be God who made them. Then he got very angry, and not satisfied with an unsubstantial object for his holy indignation to vent itself upon, he ran for the clothes-brush, and gave it a worse cuffing and kicking than before; ending with a solemn inquiry whether I worshipped crosses, etc., when I went to church.
I trembled to give the encouragement I longed to bestow. However, I distinctly intimated my detestation of idolatry, and confirmed his strong repudiation of it. He told me he would not go any more to chapel, but I told him, as well as I could, the almost certain consequences, and he then remembered that other boys had told him those who ate meat on Fridays would go to hell. He became greatly distressed as the next Sabbath approached, but contrary to all my expectations returned from mass in excellent spirits. Pat told me, laughing, that Jack was become so musical he insisted on going to sit by the organ, that he might feel the vibration; and when alone with me, Jack joyfully told me that he had run up the stairs from the outer door to the organ- loft, and so escaped even the necessity of bowing down to the cross. This plan he persisted in from that day. Some years afterwards I asked his brother if he had any suspicion at the time of the boy's object in so doing: he answered, None at all; and that if he had, he would have forced him into the body of the mass-house, and compelled him to prostrate himself.
* * * * *
Early in the summer of 1824, I received a summons to return to England. It was most unwelcome, for my heart was knit to Ireland, and to share the lot of her devoted people was its earnest desire. At home I had many old friends; but what were they to the beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, who had been my fellow-helpers for the last four years in the work of the Lord? All ties were weak to that, save one, the tie that bound me to my beloved brother. Him I had not seen for nine years: he had continued on the staff of the Portuguese army until the establishment of the Cortes, who dismissed all British officers; and then he settled in the interior of that country, cultivating some of the land which he had gallantly fought to rescue. It was a subject of continual sorrow to me that he was residing in the heart of an exclusively Popish country, far from every means of grace; not even a place of worship within many leagues, and wholly shut out from Christian intercourse. I knew that he had been equally dark with myself on the subject of religion; and truly can I say, that from the very hour of my being enabled to see the truth as it is in Jesus, my life had been a constant prayer for him, that God would make him a partaker in the like precious faith. There was now a prospect of his returning, and this added to the summons I have mentioned, made my way plain. The state of Jack's mind, too, on the subject of Popery, helped to reconcile me, since I had made up my mind to take him with me if his parents would agree to it. There was no difficulty in bringing them to do so; they gave a willing, a grateful consent. His mother's words, while tears rolled down her cheeks, were, "Take him; he is more your child than ours." His father remarked, "Why shouldn't we let him go with you, seeing he would grieve to death if you left him behind?" When I began to state that I could not promise he would not openly embrace my religion, they interrupted me, repeating that he was my child more than theirs, and could never come to any harm under my care. Coward as I was, I did not use the opportunity then given to set before them their own danger, and commend the pure faith that I knew their child held. I had occasionally talked in a general way, and once very strongly, when the mother told me of the dreadful penances she had done, walking on her bare knees over a road strewed with pebbles, glass, and quicklime, to make her sufferings greater, in order to obtain from God and the saints the restoration of the boy's hearing and speech. She was then pleading the power and holiness of her clergy, and their superiority to all the rest of the world. I looked from the window, and said, "See, there goes your bishop; now do you think this bright sun warms him more than it does any Protestant walking beside him?" "Troth, and I am sure it does," answered she. "What, do you think he has any particular advantage over other men in things that are common to all?" "That he has, being a holy bishop." "Well, now, if I call him up, and we all put our fingers together between these bars, do you think the fire would burn him less than us?" She hesitated; her husband burst into a laugh, and archly said, "I'll engage his reverence wouldn't try that same."
I was now to bid adieu to my pleasant haunts, chief among which was the lordly castle of Kilkenny, where I had passed so very many delightful hours. Its noble owners were abroad, but by their favor I had a key to the private door beside the river, and full access to every part of the castle and its beautiful grounds. It was there I used to muse on days of Ireland's bygone greatness, though not then well read in her peculiar history, and gradually I had become as Irish as any of her own children. How could it be otherwise? I was not naturally cold-hearted, though circumstances had, indeed, greatly frozen the current of my warm affections, and I had learned to look with comparative indifference on whatever crossed my changeful path; but no one with a latent spark of kindly feeling can long repress it among the Irish. There is an ardor of character, an earnestness in their good will, a habit of assimilating themselves to the tastes and habits of those whom they desire to please —and that desire is very general—that wins on the affections of those who possess any, a grateful regard, and leaving on the scenes that have witnessed such intercourse, a sunshine peculiar to themselves. Reserve of manner cannot long exist in Irish society. I have met with some among the people of the land, who were cold and forbidding, insensible and unkind, but these were exceptions, establishing the rule by the very disagreeable contrast in which they stood out from all around them; and I never found these persons in the humbler classes, where the unmixed Irish prevails. Hospitality is indeed the polestar of Ireland; go where you will, it is always visible; but it shines the brightest in the poor man's cabin, because the potato that he so frankly, so heartily, so gracefully presses upon your acceptance is selected from a scanty heap, barely sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger in himself and his half-clad little ones. In this, as in all other particulars, a change for the worse has come over the people of late; priestly authority has interposed to check the outgoings of kindness from a warm-hearted people to those who are indeed their friends, and a painful, reluctant restraint is laid upon them; but the evil had not become evident at the time of my sojourn there, and I can only speak of them as the most respectful, most courteous and hospitable peasantry in the world.
At the same time they were in many respects the most degraded. Nothing could equal the depth of their abasement before an insolent priesthood, except the unblushing effrontery with which the latter lorded it over them. For any infraction of their arbitrary rules, the most cruel and humiliating penances were imposed. I knew an instance of a young woman, a Romanist, who engaged in the service of a Protestant family, and went out with them to America. While there, she was led to join in family worship, but without any intention of forsaking her own creed; neither had they attempted to draw her out of the net. On her return to Kilkenny she went to confession, and among other things divulged the fact of having heard the Bible read, and prayed in company with heretics. This was an enormity too great for the priest to deal with alone; so he ordered the girl off, fasting, to her original confessor, who then officiated in a chapel seven good Irish miles distant. On hearing the case, he ordered her to go thrice round the chapel on her bare knees, and then to set off, still fasting, and walk back to Kilkenny, there to undergo such additional penance as his reverend brother should see good to impose. The poor creature scarcely reached the town alive, through fatigue, exhaustion, and terror; she was ill for some time, and on her recovery subjected to further discipline. These particulars I had from one of her own friends and a bigoted Papist to boot, who told it in order to convince me that the girl had committed a very great sin.
I once asked a young man how he got on at confession—whether he told all his sins. He replied, "Sometimes I disremember a few, and if the priest, suspects it, he pulls my hair and boxes my ears, to help my memory." "And how do you feel when you have got absolution?" "I feel all right; and I go out and begin again." "And how do you know that God has really pardoned you?" "He doesn't pardon me directly; only the priest does. He, the priest, confesses my sins to the bishop, and the bishop confesses them to the pope, and the pope sees the Virgin Mary every Saturday night, and tells her to speak to God about it." "And you really believe this monstrous story?" "Why shouldn't I? But it is no affair of mine, for, once I have confessed, all my sins are laid on the priest, and he must do the best he can to get rid of them. I am safe." Of such materials is the net composed that holds these people in bondage; and who can marvel that such prostration of mind before a fellow-mortal should lead to an abject slavery of the whole man, body, conscience, and understanding? We see the effects, and abhor them; but we do not go to the root of the matter.
The priest himself is equally enslaved; his oath binds him to an implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them is bound periodically to appear for personal examination and fresh instructions. The Propaganda is, of course, the primum mobile of the system, set agoing by Satan himself. Hence the mischief that is perpetrated by the unhappy beings who form the operative section of this cunning concern—the handicraft men of blood. It is an awful spectacle, and one that we cannot long avert our eyes from contemplating with the deep interest that personal peril excites. All is preparing for a burst of persecution against the people of the Lord, and happy is he who shall be found armed with watching.
We started for Dublin with sorrowing hearts, for it was likely to be a long, if not a last farewell to friends who were endeared as well by a participation in danger as in feeling. * * *
Jack had never before been beyond the environs of his native town, and I expected to see him much astonished by the splendid buildings of Dublin. He regarded them however with indifference, because, as he said, they were not "God-mades;" while the scenery through which we had travelled, particularly the noble oaks on Colonel Bruen's fine demesne, and the groups of deer reclining beneath their broad shadow, roused him to enthusiasm. It was wonderful to trace the exquisite perception of beauty as developed in that boy, who had never even been in a furnished room until he came to me. His taste was refined, and his mind delicate beyond belief: I never saw such sensitive modesty as he manifested to the last day of his life. Rudeness of any kind was hateful to him; he not only yielded respect to all, but required it towards himself, and really commanded it by his striking propriety of manner. He was, as a dear friend once remarked, a "God-made" gentleman, untainted with the slightest approach to any thing like affectation or coxcombry: indeed he ridiculed the latter with much comic effect: and the words "Dandy Jack," would put him out of conceit with any article of apparel that drew forth the remark. He would answer the taunt with a face of grave rebuke, saying, "Bad Mam, bold Mam; Jack dandy? no; Jack poor boy." He had not, indeed, arrived at so copious a vocabulary when we left his home; but he was rapidly acquiring new words.
It was beautiful to see him at prayer. He had never kneeled down with us at Kilkenny; for any Romanist who had detected him doing so must have informed, and the priest would have commanded his removal. In Dublin he volunteered to join us, and as he kneeled with clasped hands, looking up towards heaven, the expression of his countenance was most lovely. A smile of childlike confidence and reverential love played over his features, now becoming most eloquent; his bristly hair had begun to assume a silky appearance, and was combed aside from a magnificent brow, while a fine color perpetually mantled his cheeks and changed with every emotion; his dark hazel eyes, large, and very bright, always speaking some thought that occupied his mind. He was rather more than twelve years old. In profile, he much resembled Kirke White when older; but the strongest likeness I ever saw of him is an original portrait of Edward VI., by Holbein, in my possession.
It was taken after consumption had set its seal on the countenance of that blessed young king, as it did on that of my dear dumb boy.
In Dublin, he had one adventure that afforded him much enjoyment. I went into an extensive toy-shop to make some purchase, and Jack, enchanted with the wonders around him, strolled to the further end, and into a little adjoining recess, well filled with toys. A great uproar in that direction made us all run to inquire the cause, and there was Jack, mounted on a first-rate rocking-horse, tearing away full gallop, and absolutely roaring out in the maddest paroxysm of delight, his hat fallen off, his arm raised, his eyes and mouth wide open, and the surrounding valuables in imminent peril of a general crash. The mistress of the shop was so convulsed with laughter that she could render no assistance, and it was with some difficulty I checked his triumphant career, and dismounted him. He gave me afterwards a diverting account of his cautious approach to the "good horse;" how he ascertained it was "bite, no; kick, no:" and gradually got resolution to mount it. He wanted to know how far he had rode, and also if he was a God-made? I told him it was wood, but I doubt whether he believed me. Thenceforth Dublin was associated in his mind with nothing else; even at nineteen years of age he would say, if he met with the name, "Good Dublin, good horse; small Jack love good Dublin horse." The shipping pleased him greatly, and many of his beautiful drawings were representations of sailing vessels.
I had now been in Ireland five years and three months; and with what different feelings did I prepare to leave its green shores from those with which I first pressed them. Unfounded prejudice was succeeded by an attachment founded on close acquaintance with those among whom I had dwelt, contempt by respect, and dislike by the warmest, most grateful affection. I had scorned her poverty, and hated her turbulence. The first I now knew to be no poverty of soil, of natural resources, of mind, talent, or energy, but the effect of a blight, permitted to rest alike on the land and people, through the selfishness of an unjust, crooked policy, that made their welfare of no account in its calculations, nor would stretch forth a hand to deliver them from the dark dominion of Popery. Their turbulence was the natural fruit of such poverty, and of their being wholly under the influence of a party necessarily hostile to the interests of a Protestant state, and bent on subverting its ascendency. What Ireland was, I too plainly saw: what she might be, I clearly understood; and the guilt of my country's responsibility lay heavy on my heart as I watched the outline of her receding coast.
Bristol was our destination; and for the ensuing year, Clifton became our abode. This period of my life was one of severe trial, which it is not necessary to particularize. Incipient derangement, which afterwards became developed, in a quarter where, if I did not find comfort and protection, I might expect their opposites, occasioned me much alarm and distress, while my brother's protracted absence increased the trial. Much secluded, I pursued my literary avocations, and watched the progress of Jack's growth in knowledge and in grace. * * *
My sojourn at Clifton brought me into personal acquaintance with that venerable servant of God, Hannah More. We had for some time corresponded, and she had afforded me great encouragement in my humble labors, taking an especial interest in my attempts to instruct the deaf and dumb children. I had now the pleasure of showing her the progress made with Jack, who delighted her greatly, and who, to the last day of his mortal existence, most fondly cherished the memory of that sweet old lady. She was, indeed, one of the excellent of the earth, permitted long to beautify the church which she had so mainly helped to strengthen and advance, and to be an honor to the land where she had nobly stood forth to repel the assaults of revolutionizing impiety. I often wonder that so little stress is laid upon this branch of Mrs. More's extensive labors. We hear much of her schools, her charities, her letters, her devotional and educational publications, and all of these deserve the full celebrity that they have attained. But England should especially bear in mind her effective championship of the good cause, by means most admirably adapted to its furtherance among the most dangerous, and generally speaking the most unapproachable class—a class who congregated in ale-houses to hear the inflammatory harangues of seditious traitors, while as yet Bibles were scarce, religious tracts not in existence, and district visiting unthought of. In a lady of refined taste, and rare accomplishments in the higher style of writing, to volunteer in a work so new, and to furnish the press with a series of plain truths dressed in a most homely phrase, rendered attractive by lively narrative and even drollery, and the whole brought down to the level of coarse, uninformed minds, while circulated in a form to come within the narrow means of the lowest mechanics—this was an enterprise worthy especial note, even had not God openly blessed it to the turning of that formidable tide. When I looked upon the placid but animated countenance of the aged saint, as she sat in her bow-window looking out upon the fair fields, the still inviolate shores of her beloved country, I thought more of her "Cheap Repository Tracts" than of all her other works combined. There lay the Bristol Channel, that noble inlet to our isle, by which the commerce of the world was even then finding its peaceful way to the great mart of Bristol; and there sat the aged lady, so long the presiding spirit of the place, with one hand, as it were, gathering the lambs of the flock into green pastures among the distant hills, that formed a beautiful feature in the landscape; with the other vigorously repulsing the wolf from the field. If I could have discovered, which I could not, a single trait of consciousness that she was a distinguished being, exalted into eminence by public acclaim, I must have conceived her to be dwelling upon this branch of her many privileges, that she had been a Deborah where many a Barak shrunk from the post of honor and skulked behind a woman. She took that lively interest in the public, secular affairs of her country that Jeremiah and Ezekiel did of old; and on the same plain ground—that where the state professes to be modelled and the executive to act on principles of God's instilling, with a view that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us, nothing done by the state can be indifferent to the church, or unworthy the anxious watchful regard of Christians. To be called a carnal politician by those whose minds, at least on religious subjects, could contain, but one idea, was certainly a light affliction to balance against the joyous consciousness of having materially aided in preserving those cavillers' homes from the hand of the spoiler, and their Bibles from that of the Atheist.
When I saw Hannah More, she was really at ease in her possessions; and none who loved her less than the Lord himself did, would have laid a sorrow upon her grey hairs. Man would have decreed that such a full-ripe shock of corn should be brought into the garner without further ruffling or shaking. She had suffered exceedingly from rheumatism and other ailments, and yet more from the tongue of calumny and the hand of ingratitude. She was an illustration of that striking couplet,
"Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
And, like the shadow, prove the substance true."
She had, however, triumphed over all by meekly committing her cause to Him who judgeth righteously; and now she seemed to be placed beyond the reach of further molestation, and about to end her useful life in peace. But she had another lesson to give to the people of God, another fire in which to glorify him: and not long after I saw her reclining in that lovely retreat which had grown up about her, a perfect bower from slips and seeds of her own planting, as she delighted to tell us, she was actually driven out of her little paradise, compelled to leave the shadow of her nursling trees, and to cast a tearful farewell look on the smiling flowers, and to turn away from the bright sea and the waving line of her Cheddar hills, to find a lodging in the neighboring town; and all through treachery, domestic treachery against her whose whole life had been a course of unsparing beneficence towards others. Hannah More perhaps needed to be again reminded, that she must do all her works "as to the Lord," looking to him alone for acceptance of them; or if she needed it not, others did; and often since she entered into her Saviour's presence, "to go no more out," has the scene of the last trial to which her generous, confiding, affectionate spirit was subjected, been blessed to the consolation of others. God's children find that it is good for themselves that they should be afflicted; but they do not always remember how good it is for the church, that they should be so. They look within, and seeing so much there daily, "justly deserving God's wrath and condemnation," they lie still in his hand, willing and thankful to have the dross purged out, and the tin taken away. Their fellows look on, and not seeing the desperate wickedness of their hearts, but fondly believing them to be as near perfection as human frailty will permit, they argue, "If such a saint as —— be thus chastened and corrected, what must a sinner like me expect?" So they learn watchfulness and fear in the day of prosperity; and when adversity comes, they are enabled more lovingly to kiss the rod. Oh, if we could see but a little of the Lord's dealings, in all their bearings, how should we praise him for his goodness and the wonders that he doeth unto the children of men. What profit, what pleasure has he in afflicting us? Surely it is, so to speak, more trouble to correct than to leave us alone; and he would not twine the small cords into a scourge, unless to cleanse and sanctify his temple.
I have said that my brother's return home was delayed. A hurt received in shooting, with its consequences, detained him in Lisbon nearly a year; but his family came over, and I had a new delicious employment, a solace under many sorrows, an unfailing source of interest and delight, in teaching his eldest surviving boy the accomplishments of walking and talking. I almost expected Jack to be jealous of such a rival, but I wronged him: nothing could exceed his fondness for "baby boy," or the zeal of his Irish devotion to the little gentleman. Knowing that in the event of my removal, Jack must earn his bread by some laborious or servile occupation, I had kept him humble. He ate in the same room with us, because I never suffered him to associate with servants; but at a side-table; and he was expected to do every little household work that befitted his age and strength. A kind shake of the hand, morning and evening, was his peculiar privilege; and the omission a punishment too severe to be inflicted, except on occasions of most flagrant delinquency, such as rebelling against orders, or expressing any angry emotion, to which he was constitutionally liable, by yells and howls that almost frightened our hosts from their propriety. He had, of course, no idea of the strength of his own lungs, nor of the effect produced by giving them full play in a fit of passion; but the commotion into which it threw the whole house seemed to flatter his vanity, and he became a vocalist on very trifling occasions. This neither agreed with our dear invalid landlady, nor was a fitting example for "baby boy," who speedily tried his own little treble in admiring imitation of Jack's deafening bass; and recourse was at last had to the aid of a young friend, who bestowed a few gentle raps on his head with the bent end of a hooked cane, and then locked him up in a dark kitchen for half an hour, saying to me, rather regretfully, "I suppose my popularity is at an end now. Poor fellow, I shall be sorry to lose his affection." But this was so far from being the case, that to his closing scene Jack retained a grateful remembrance of the proceeding. He used to say, "Good Mr. W——; good little stick beat Jack's head; made bad Jack good. Jack love good Mr. W——." At the very time, as soon as he saw his kind corrector after the business, he very gracefully and cordially thanked him, kissing his hand, with a bow, and saying, "Jack no more cry;" and as he really was hardly touched, and full well knew we had not the heart to be severe, it was a proof of that openness to rebuke which is a lovely mark of true Christianity.
Montgomery beautifully says,
"Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air."
And so it eminently was with the dumb boy. Under every form of condition and circumstance, in health and sickness, in joy, in grief, in danger, in perplexity—over his food, his studies, his work, his amusements, he was ever turning a look of peculiar sweetness on me, with the two words, "Jack pray." He always smiled when so engaged, and a look of inexpressible eagerness, mingled with satisfaction and the triumph of one who feels that he has taken a secure stand, told me when he was praying, without any change of position, or looking up. There was always a mixture of anxiety in his aspect when he tried to make himself understood by his fellow-creatures; this gave place to something the reverse of anxiety when he was "talking to God," as he sometimes expressed it. He oftener looked down than up; and very often did I see his eye fixed upon the "baby boy," when, as his looks bespoke, and as he afterwards told me, he was "tell God" about him, and that he was too little to know about Jesus Christ yet. Many a prayer of that grateful dumb boy even now descends in blessings on the head of my brother's "baby," and long may the hallowed stream continue to flow down, until they rejoice together before the throne of the Lamb.
One of Jack's lovely thoughts was this: he told me that when little children began to walk, Jesus Christ held them by the hand to teach them; and that if they fell, he put his hand between their heads and the ground to prevent their being hurt. Then, as if he saw this proceeding, he would look up, and with the fondest expression say, "Good Jesus Christ, Jack very much loves Jesus Christ." I hope you are not tired of Jack; I have much to tell about him. God made me the humble means of plucking this precious brand from the burning; and I owe it to the Lord to show what a tenfold blessing I reaped in it. Jack was not the only one of whom He has, in the dispensations of his providence, said to me, "Nurse this child for me, and I will give thee thy wages." I have found him a noble Paymaster.
And now I come to a period of my life that I have scarcely courage to go over. Many and sharp and bitter were the trials left unrecorded here; and shame be to the hand that shall ever DARE to lift the veil that tender charity would cast over what was God's doing, let the instruments be what and who they might. It is enough to say, that even now I know there was not one superfluous stroke of the rod, nor one drop of bitter that could have been spared from the wholesome cup. Besides, he dealt most mercifully with me; those two rich blessings, health and cheerfulness, were never withdrawn. I had not a day's illness through years of tribulation; and though my spirits would now and then fail, it was but a momentary depression; light and buoyant, they soon danced on the crest of the wave that had for an instant ingulfed them.
It is of joy I have to tell: safety, peace, prosperity, under the restored sunshine that had made my early career so bright. Never did a sister more fondly love a brother; never was a brother more formed to be the delight, the pride, the blessing of a sister. He was of most rare beauty from the cradle, increasing in loveliness as he grew up, and becoming the very model of a splendid man; very tall, large, commanding, with a face of perfect beauty, glowing, animated, mirthful—a gait so essentially military, that it was once remarked by an officer, "If B—— were disguised as a washerwoman, any soldier would give him the salute." He had also served in the Peninsula with the highest possible credit, regarded by those in command as one of the best officers in the service, and most ardently loved by the men under him. Many a bloody battle-field had he seen; but never did a wound reach him. On one occasion—at Albuhera—his gallant regiment went into action 800 strong, and on the following day only 96 men were able to draw rations. He became on the field a lieutenant, from being the youngest ensign; and alike in all circumstances he shone out as an honor to his profession. He had also been an especial favorite with John VI. of Portugal, and the high polish of a court was superadded to all the rest, without in the smallest degree changing the exceedingly playful, unaffected joyousness of the most sunshiny character I ever met with.
Ten years' absence had produced the effect on my sisterly love that
Burns describes:
"Time but th' impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear."
I had also many personal reasons for looking forward to his return with peculiar anxiety; and its uncertainty increased the feeling. I had been spending the day with a sick friend, and ran home at night to the lodging occupied by my mother and myself, and there I found my brother. What a dream those ten years' trials appeared!
We remained but a short time in Clifton, and soon bent our way towards the metropolis, where he expected, as is usual, to dance a long and wearisome attendance on the Horse Guards, for a regimental appointment. He had refused that of aid-de-camp to king John, with any military rank and title that he might desire; preferring a half-pay unattached company in the British, to any thing that a foreign service could offer; but he was mistaken: his merits were well known to the Duke of York, and before he could well state to Sir Herbert Taylor his wishes, that estimable man told him he had only to select out of two or three regiments lately returned from foreign service, and he would be gazetted on the following Tuesday. He chose the 75th, and was immediately appointed to it, with leave to study for two years in the senior department of the Military college at Sandhurst, the better to qualify himself for a future staff situation.
A sweet cottage, standing isolated on the verge of Bagshot-heath, sheltered by tall trees and opening on a beautiful lawn, with a distant but full view of the college, became our abode. A delightful room was selected for me, with an injunction to sit down and make the most of my time while he was in the halls of study, that I might be at leisure to walk, to ride, to garden, to farm with him—my brother—my restored brother, whose eye beamed protection, and whose smile diffused gladness, and whose society was what in our happy childhood it had ever been, just instead of all the world to me. If one thing was wanting, and wanting it was, to knit us in a tie more enduring than any of this world's bonds could possibly be, that very sense of want furnished a stimulus to more importunate prayer on his behalf. Some of the good people who for lack of a relay of ideas borrow one of their neighbors and ride it to death, treated me to a leaf from the book of Job's comforters, when the calamity fell on me of that precious brother's death, by telling me I had made an idol of him. It was equally false and foolish. An idol is something that either usurps God's place, or withdraws our thoughts and devotions from him. The very reverse of this was my case. I had an additional motive for continually seeking the Lord, not only in prayer for the enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit on behalf of one so dear, but also for grace to walk most circumspectly myself, lest I should cast any stumbling-block in his way, or give him occasion to suspect that my religious profession was a name, and not a reality. That was surely a profitable idol which kept me always prayerful before God, watchful over myself, diligent in the discharge of duties, and in continual thanksgiving for the mercies I had received. Do I repent loving my brother so well? I wish it had been possible to love him better. These warm affections of the heart are among the sweetest relics of a lost Eden, and I would sooner tear up the flowers that God has left to smile in our daily path through a sin-blighted wilderness, far sooner than I would cease to cherish, to foster, to delight in the brighter, sweeter flowers of domestic love, carried to the full extent of all its endearing capabilities.
The Lord knoweth our frame; he deals with us not according to what we are not, but according to what we are. He sets before us various duties, and to the end that we may the better fulfil them, he gives us aids not contrary to, but accordant with our natural feelings. Men set up a standard, often a just and scriptural one, to which they sorrowfully confess that because of the weakness of their nature they cannot themselves attain; but according to which they sternly judge their neighbors. A person has a path assigned to him, a steep ascent strewed with thorns and crowded with obstacles, before which he often pauses and waxes faint. God gives him a companion for his way, even as he sent forth the disciples two and two, and the pilgrim is cheered. He quickens his pace; another besides himself will be benefited by his progress, and if he fails, another will suffer in his loss. So he goes on thankful, rejoicing, and endued with double energy for the toilsome achievement. But he sees a neighbor to whom the Lord has also granted help through human means, perhaps not exactly similar to that which he has received; he sees his neighbor likewise openly rejoicing in the possession of such a staff; and bringing him to the tests of that perfect law which requires an entire devotedness to and dependence on the Lord, he raises a cry of "mixed motives," "the arm of flesh," "idolatry," and so forth. No doubt he is so far right, that perverse humanity will ever abuse God's gifts, and often make them occasions of sin; but this outcry of the beam against the mote, which is so grievously prevalent in the religious world, is very unseemly. Oh, how infinitely more tender is the Lord to us than we to one another.
Hitherto, many impediments had been thrown in the way of my literary labors. Anxiety, apprehension, and the restlessness of feeling resulting from a continual change of abode, had broken the train of thought, and rendered my work very uncertain. Indeed, it would often have been wholly inadequate to my support, but for the watchful kindness of friends whom the Lord raised up to me, foremost among whom always stood the estimable Mr. Sandford, who never ceased to regard me with paternal affection and care. To he wholly independent was the first earthly wish of my heart; and now a fair opportunity was given of testing my willingness to labor diligently. The result was so far, satisfactory, that in the course of the two years and two months of my residence under my brother's roof, I wrote the Rockite, the System, Izram, Consistency, Perseverance, Allen McLeod, Zadoc, and upwards of thirty little books and tracts, besides contributions to various periodicals. I was going on most prosperously, when an attempt was suddenly made from another quarter to establish a claim to the profits of my pen. The demand was probably legal, according to the strict letter of existing statutes, though circumstances would have weighed strongly in my favor. But it greatly reduced the value of my copyrights for the time being, and I found myself checked in my career at a juncture when it was especially my desire to go on steadily. This brought upon me two temptations, the force of which was greatly increased by the circumstances under which they found me.
When I first began to write, it was with a simple desire to instruct the poor in the blessed truths of the gospel. My own situation soon rendered it needful to turn the little talent I possessed to account. This I did, still keeping in view the grand object of promoting God's glory; and my attempts having been well received, I found a ready market for whatever I wrote, so that the name was considered a sufficient guarantee for the book. Now, I could no longer safely use that name, and anonymous writing became the only feasible plan. A friend, who did not look upon the main subject in the light that I did, made, through my brother, a proposal that I should become a contributor to the most popular magazine of the day, supplying tales, etc., the purport of which was to be as moral as I pleased, but with no direct mention of religion. The terms offered were very high: the strict incognito to be preserved would secure me from any charge of inconsistency, and coming as it did when my regular source of income was suddenly closed, and when the idea of being burdensome to my generous brother with his increasing family was hardly supportable, it was thought I could not demur.
Nevertheless, I did; the Lord in his gracious providence had said to me, "Go work to-day In my vineyard," and I had for upwards of four years enjoyed that blessed privilege. It was now withdrawn, certainly not without his permission; and how did I know that it was not to try my faith? The idea of hiring myself out to another master—to engage in the service of that world the friendship of which is enmity with God—to cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before those whom by the pen I addressed—to refrain from setting forth Jesus Christ and him crucified to a perishing world, and give the reins to an imagination ever prone to wander after folly and romance, but now subdued to a better rule—all this was so contrary to my views of Christian principle, that, after much earnest prayer to God, I decided rather to work gratuitously in the good cause, trusting to Him who knew all my necessity, than to entangle myself with things on which I could not ask a blessing. The conflict was indeed severe; no one attempted to oppose my resolve; but as yet no one could at all understand its real ground; and it was a very trying position in which I stood, thus seemingly spurning an honorable means of independence and leaving myself destitute. But the trial was short: my first friends, the Christian "Dublin Tract Society," exercising that faith which has distinguished all their acts, determined to brave the consequences, and still publish my little books. This, though, the profit was not then very good, I hailed as a gracious intimation of the Lord's purpose still to continue me in his service; and I was the more strengthened to meet the second trial, which coming at a time when the sum proffered would he doubly acceptable, and the refusal involving the loss of a very old and kind friend, was rather a sharp one; more especially as the offence given would and did alienate him from others who had no share in the proceeding, and whose interests were far dearer to me than my own.
Many years before, that friend had published a novel: not a flimsy love- story, but of a class above the common run. I had, as a girl, been very fond of it, and often delighted the amiable author by expressing an admiration that was not general; for the work had failed, and was unsold. Now, finding I had been myself successful with the pen, and full, even, in old age, of natural love for his literary offspring, he had formed a plan, in which he never dreamed of encountering opposition. He wished me to rewrite it, to cast the characters anew, enliven the style, add variety to the incidents, and, in short, make a new work out of his materials. Still it was to be a novel; and as it had been originally published in his name, it was to be so now. My share in the work would never be known; and as he was abundantly wealthy, and equally generous, a carte blanche as to terms was before me.
On the former occasion I had paused, and thought much: on this I did not. The path was plain before me, but dreadfully painful to pursue. A hundred pounds just then would have been more to me than a thousand at another time; and private feeling was most distressingly involved, both as regarded myself and others. It was in an agony of prayer, and after many bitter tears, that I brought myself to do what, nevertheless, I had not a wish to leave undone. I wrote a faithful letter to the friend in question, most unequivocally stating the ground of my refusal—the responsibility under which I conceived we all lay before God for the application of talents committed by him; the evils of novel-reading; and, as far as I could, I declared the whole gospel of Christ to one whom I had no reason to consider as taking any thought whatever for his soul. I heard no more from him to the day of his death, which took place ten years after. I had reason to believe that his intentions towards me were very liberal in the final distribution of his property; for he had known and loved me from my cradle, and he had no family; but my conscience bore a happy testimony in the matter; and I am fully persuaded that the whole was a snare of Satan to betray me into an acceptance of unhallowed gains, by catering to the worldly tastes of those who forget God. No doubt, the business would have been a profitable one, and the inducement to persevere made strong in proportion as I sacrificed principle to lucre. "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." I should neither do justice to the Lord's rich goodness nor to the honored instrument of his bounty if I omitted to add, that, shortly after, my munificent friend Mr. Sandford sent me a gift that left me no loser by having done my duty.
While on the subject of my books, I will record an incident that occurred about the same time, and on which I always look with feelings of indescribable delight. I did not know it until, some years afterwards, the story was related to me by the principal actor in it— the abetter of my heretical pravity. Little did I dream, when writing my humble penny books, that they would be advanced to the high honor of a place in the Papal Index Expurgatorius.
The lady in question took to the continent a sweet, only daughter: a lovely little girl of ten years old, the joy of her widowed bosom, who was fast sinking in decline. I was exceedingly fond of that child, who returned my affection from the depths of an Irish heart; and who, out of love for its author, selected one of my small penny books to translate into Italian during her last stage of suffering. She did not live to complete it; but with her dying breath requested her mother to do so, in the earnest hope of its being made useful to the ignorant people around them. Bessie was a lamb of the Lord's fold; and to lead other children into the same blessed shelter was her heart's desire. As soon as the bereaved mother could make any exertion, she betook herself to the task assigned by her departed darling, and found such satisfaction in it that she extended her labors, and translated several more. Being a lady of rank and affluence, she was enabled to carry it on to publication, and to insure the circulation of the little books among many. One of them, "The Simple Flower," a sixpenny book, thus translated, fell into the hands of an Italian physician, a man of highly cultivated mind; nominally a Romanist; and like all thinking Romanists, in reality an infidel. The book contains not a word on controversy; not an allusion to Popery—it is plain gospel truth, conveyed in a very simple narrative. God blessed it to this gentleman, and he became a Christian. The circumstance excited much remark: curiosity led many to read that and others of the series, and a great number were circulated in the neighboring districts. This was actually within the papal states, under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Sienna, to whose knowledge came the astounding fact that pennyworths of heresy were circulated within the range of his pastoral charge: the matter was reported at head- quarters, taken up with due seriousness, and a Sunday appointed, on which, no doubt, I was quietly worshipping in the college chapel at Sandhurst, wholly unconscious that my name was then being proclaimed at a hundred Italian altars, with a denunciation against all who should read, circulate, or possess any book, tract, or treatise penned by me. One instance was particularized: a poor priest had himself given numbers of these translations to his flock; and after mass, he stood before them deeply moved, telling them he had a painful duty to perform. That he had received from the highest authority a command to proclaim what he held in his hand, and which he proceeded to read to them—a copy of the fulmination above-mentioned. Having done so he folded the paper, and resumed, saying he had given and recommended the little books to them, because he had read them himself and found nothing but what was good in them: however, the church, which they were all bound to obey, judged otherwise; "and now." he added, "you must bring them back to me, or burn them, or in some other way destroy them wholly: nevertheless, I declare in the sight of God I found no evil in those dear little books, but the contrary—they are full of good." He burst into tears, and many wept with him; and not a few of the proscribed productions were wrapped up and buried in the earth, or otherwise put away till the search should be over. Who knows but that very priest was led to the Bible and to Christ through such humble means? I would not exchange for the value of the ten kingdoms ten times trebled, the joy that I feel in this high honor put upon me—this rich blessing of being under the papal curse. * * *
With what fondness does memory linger over those delightful days of sojourn under the sheltering roof of my brother, so soon, to be for ever parted in this world. Another boy had been added to our happy little circle, and Jack's warm heart seemed to receive an accession of love, that he might have it to bestow on the "beautiful baby small," which claimed so much of his thoughts and prayers. Indeed, his thoughts were always prayers, for God was in all. He made but little progress in language, having a great dislike to learning beyond what was needful for communicating his thoughts to me, and as he was then obliged to be more with servants than I liked, I was not anxious to extend his facilities of communicating with them; nor did he at all desire their society. He had a little room of his own, to his great delight, over the coach- house; and when not employed in his work, or talking with me, he was most happy with the pencil. He gave a strong and beautiful proof of the dread with which God inspired him as to ensnaring company; and I cannot pass it over.
My brother declared his intention of keeping a horse, and of course a groom. Jack came to me with an earnest entreaty that he might be the groom, saying he could do it so well. The reason he gave to me, confidentially, was, that men were very wicked; that the man-servant would often shake hands with the devil—his usual mode of expressing wilful sin—and that if Jack shook hands with him, he would some day draw his hand till he got it into the devil's; meaning, that an evil companion would by degrees induce him to become evil too. He also said, Captain B—— was very kind to Mam, and that a servant would cost him money, and eat a great deal; but Jack would take no money, and only eat "small potato, small meat," because he loved Captain B——. When I communicated the request to my brother he laughed, saying such a boy could never groom a horse; but Jack had been privately to a kind friend of his, a retired non-commissioned officer of cavalry, who had the care of some horses, and got him to give him instruction, succeeding so well in his attempt that the serjeant told my brother he really thought him competent to the office. He consented to try; and having purchased his horse, tied him up at the stable-door for Jack to commence operations, while we all assembled to see him. I was apprehensive of a total failure, but he did it admirably, and my brother declared he only wanted a few inches in height to be one of the best grooms in the kingdom. Jack's exultation was very great. When we were alone, he went up to the horse, kissed it, and after telling me how pleased he saw his master look, he added, "No man; all one Jack. Devil cry—go, devil!" and snapped his fingers at the invisible enemy.
His greatest security next to his love of God was his constant fear of Satan. Yet it was rather a fear of himself, lest he should yield to his temptations, for he was perfectly aware Satan would not force him to do any thing. Hence his extreme caution as to what associates he had, and a reserve with those whom he did not know to be Christians, which was sometimes mistaken for pride. He invariably asked me, of every person who came to the house, whether that person loved Jesus Christ; and if I could not give a positive answer in the affirmative, he stood aloof, always most courteous, but perfectly cold, and even dignified in repelling any advance to sociability beyond common politeness. He did not know the meaning of a single bad word, and God kept him so that the wicked one touched him not. I used every means, of course, to this end. I watched him most narrowly, and always interposed if he was required to do any thing, or to go to any place, in which I apprehended danger. My vigilance extorted smiles from those who considered it must all be in vain when he grew a little older; but no obstacle was placed in my way; and I bless God I never relaxed that care, nor did the boy ever depart from his holy caution; and he died at the age of nineteen, a very tall and fine-looking young man, with the mind of a little babe as regards the evil that is in the world. Oh that parents knew the importance of thus watching over their boys.
Soon after the first horse was established in his stall, my brother purchased a second for my riding, saying he should now, of course, get an assistant in the stable; but Jack burst into tears, and himself pleaded with him for leave to do all. My brother greatly delighted in his broken language, and caught exactly his phraseology, so that they conversed together as well as with me; and he told me he could not stand Jack's entreaties. "He is a fine little fellow," said he, "and if you will watch and see that he is not overexerting himself, he may try for a while: he will soon be tired." But far from it; Jack was proud of his two horses; and none in the place were better kept. When a cow was added, a young person came to milk her; but Jack was outrageous, talked of his mother's "Kilkenny cows," and "cow's baby," and expressed such sovereign contempt for the stranger's performance, and such downright hostility against the intruder, that we had no peace till he got the cow also under his especial care. Often afterwards did he talk of that time, saying he was "well Jack," when he had two horses and a cow, and almost crying over his loss. He grew rapidly, and the doctors told me that such a life would have kept him strong to any age.
One day he came and asked me to let him have a large hoop, to make him go faster on messages. I thought it childish, and did not regard it; so he went to my brother with the same request, who inquired his reason. Jack told him the stage-coaches that passed our gate went very fast, because the four horses had four large hoops, meaning the wheels, and if he had a large hoop he could go as fast as the horses. Diverted beyond measure at such an original idea, my brother sent to Reading for the largest and best hoop that could be got; and many a laugh we had at seeing Jack racing beside the London coaches with his wheel, nodding defiance at the horses, and shouting aloud with glee. He often went six miles with his wheel, to bear messages and notes to our valued and much- loved friend General Orde, whom he idolized almost, and who looked on him as one of the most lovely instances of divine grace he had ever met with. On the first formation of the British Reformation Society, General Orde wrote to me, with a prospectus of the intended work. I told it to Jack, who in rapturous delight gave me his whole worldly fortune of two shillings, bidding me give it to put it in their pockets, and to bid good General Orde tell gentlemen to send much Bibles to Kilkenny, that his father and mother and all the poor people might learn to break the crucifixes, and love Jesus Christ. I wrote this to the general, who sent to me for the identical two shillings, which Mr. Noel produced on the platform, with the dumb boy's message, and I believe it drew many a piece of gold from the purses of those who saw the gift, which stands enrolled the very first in the accounts of that noble society's receipts. Jack often prayed for the Reformation Society, and I believe his blessing helped them not a little; there was so much faith in all that he did, such as God alone could give, and he never seemed to entertain a doubt of obtaining what he asked. Many a sweet instance of his childlike confidence in the Lord is engraven on my memory, at once to stimulate and to shame me. His whole experience seemed to be an illustration of the word of promise, "Ask, and ye shall receive."
One of the things that struck me as being referable to nothing but the teaching of the Holy Spirit, was the interest manifested by this boy for the Jews. His active Protestantism was easily accounted for; but to give him an idea of Judaism would have been impossible. He could not read. His knowledge of language did not go far enough to enable him to understand the construction of a sentence; and though he spelled correctly, and wrote readily whatever he wished to say, and his mode of expression was generally quite intelligible to others, he did not comprehend what was spoken or written in the ordinary way. Accustomed to attach a distinct meaning to every word, and acquainted with very few besides nouns and a few verbs, which he only used in the present tense, independent of the pronouns, and without reference to number, he was quite lost among the other parts of speech. For instance, if I had wanted to say, "You must go to the village and buy me a small loaf of bread," I should have expressed it thus: "Jack, go village, money, bread small, one." Grammatically expressed, the order would have been unintelligible to him: but few would have misunderstood it in the uncouth phrase last instanced. He would have gone to the shop, and writing down, "Bread small, one," would have held out the money, and made a sign to express what size he wanted. It was this very fact of the impossibility of conveying to his mind any clear notion of things invisible and spiritual, that so gloriously manifested the power and goodness of God in causing the light to shine into his heart. To a reader who never witnessed the attempts of an intelligent, half-taught deaf mute to express his meaning and to catch that of others, much of what I state respecting Jack may and must appear, if not incredible, at least unintelligible; yet none who ever saw and conversed with him would fail to substantiate it, and they were very many. That zealous missionary, Dr. Wolff, visited my brother's cottage when he and I were both absent, and no one could assist Jack in conversing with him; yet so great was his delight, that he wanted to take him to Palestine, to instruct the deaf and dumb in the doctrine of Christ. The Rev. H. H. Beamish is another who cannot, without emotion, recall his intercourse with that dying Christian. General Orde, who saw him very frequently, regarded him as a wonder of divine grace; and the Rev. W. Hancock, his beloved pastor, who for four years observed him closely, often said he derived greater encouragement from the experience and the prayers of that poor boy, than from almost any other earthly source. Unbelievers will doubt; but those who know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will adore.
Still it will be evident that Jack could not read the Bible. He took great delight in copying it out, dwelling on such words as he knew; but I have seen him turn over two leaves and go on wholly unconscious, of any mistake: and I have found among his papers whole pages, composed of half sentences and single epithets from Scripture, put together in unbroken paragraphs, without any meaning. With all this, he was ardently attached to the Jewish cause, and always told me "Jesus Christ love poor Jew; Jew soon love Jesus Christ." When speaking of them, he would look very tender and sorrowful, moving his head slowly from side to side, and his hand as if stroking some object in a caressing way. At such times it was curious to mark the effect of naming a "priest Roman" to him. In a moment his aspect changed to something ludicrously repulsive: he stuck his hands in his sides, puffed out his cheeks to their full extent, scowled till his brows overhung his eyelids, and generally finished by appearing to seize a goblet and drain off the contents to the last drop, inflating his body, stroking it, smacking his lips, and strutting about. This he did, not as imputing drunkenness to the priesthood, but their denying the cup to the laity, and swallowing the contents themselves. Though his acting was laughably comic, his feeling was that of serious and severe indignation; and he would reprove us for the laughter it was utterly impossible to restrain, saying, with triumphant confidence, "God see." * * *
The two shortest years of my life were now drawing to a close. My brother had completed his studies, passed his examination, and was under orders to join his regiment in Ireland. Oh how my heart rose in prayer, that where I had found a spiritual blessing he also might receive it. I could not understand the state of his mind on the most vital of all points: he had imbibed a prejudice so strong against the class of people called evangelical, that nothing but his generous affection for us would have induced him to receive under his roof two of that proscribed body, to say nothing of Jack. He confessed to me, laughing, not long after we became his inmates, that he supposed we should be falling on our knees half a dozen times a day, singing psalms all over the house, and setting our faces against every thing merry or cheerful. He had never been acquainted with any serious person before going to Portugal, nor during his short leaves of absence at home: none of that class ever crossed his path abroad, and he came home prepared to believe any thing that was told him of the supposed fanatics, whom he understood to be a sort of ranting dissenters. At Clifton, extremes then ran far; the gay people most violently denouncing their sober neighbors, and making up all sorts of scandal concerning them. Hannah More was pointed out as "queen of the Methodists," and a most infamous lie, wholly destructive of her moral character, circulated among a narrow but dissipated clique as a known fact; while the small fry of fanatics were disposed of by dozens in a similar way. The faithful clergyman, whose ministry we attended, was absolutely persecuted; and his congregation could expect no better at the same hands. I am very far from charging this upon the generality of even worldly people there; but it did exist, visibly and sensibly; and my dear brother evidently had fallen in with some of these wholesale calumniators, before he could possibly judge for himself. A visit to Barley Wood, and a very prolonged interview with the "queen," greatly staggered his prejudices; he was perfectly charmed with her, and remarked to me that if all her subjects were like her, they must be a very agreeable set of people. Still he apprehended an outbreak of extravagance when we should be fairly installed in his abode; and though he soon became undeceived, and learned to take the greatest delight in the society of General Orde, Mr. Sandford, and others equally decided; though he punctually attended the faithful ministry of Mr. Hancock at the college chapel, besides his regular appearance at the usual military service, and would not allow one disparaging word to be uttered in his presence of that zealous preacher or his deeply spiritual discourses; though he chose from among his brother officers a bold, uncompromising Christian as his most intimate associate, and gave many unconscious indications that he had received the doctrine of man's total corruption, and the nothingness of his best works; though he became the warm advocate of a scriptural education for the youthful poor, whom he had always before considered most safe and happy in total ignorance—still, with all this, I could not see even in his beautiful devout bearing in public worship where the reverse so sadly prevailed, and where every thing approaching to seriousness became a matter of suspicion, that he was really seeking God. In fact, I had been too much in the trammels of a system which lays down arbitrary rules, and will not admit that God is working unless his hand be immediately and openly apparent to all. I would not believe that what looked green and beautiful was a blade of corn, just because it had not yet grown to an ear: and I refrained from speaking when perhaps speech on such subjects would have been more welcome than he wished to acknowledge, lest the remarks that I longed to utter might prove unpalatable, and produce the contrary effect to what I desired. He was only going for a little while: an appointment on the home-staff was promised, and then I was to live with him again, and I would zealously pursue the work. Alas, what a rod was prepared for my unbelief and presumption! The present was slighted, in the confident expectation of a future that was never to arrive.
We were almost always together out of his college hours. My window commanded a view of the distant building, and when I saw the preparatory movement to breaking up, I rose from my desk, tied on my bonnet, and ran off in sufficient time to meet him very near the college. Both let loose from six hours' hard work, we were like children out of school, often racing and laughing with all the buoyancy of our natural high spirits. The garden, the poultry-yard, and all the little minutiae of our nice farming establishment, fully occupied the afternoon, while the children gambolled round, and Jack looked on with smiles, often telling me how much he loved "beautiful Captain B——," as he constantly called him. At ten o'clock we parted for the night, I to resume the pen till long after midnight; he to rest, whence he always rose at four o'clock, devoting four or five hours to study before we met in the morning. We visited very little, domestic retirement being the free choice of every one of us; and nothing could have induced my brother to banish his children from the parlor or drawing-room. Few things excited his indignation more than the nursery system: his little ones were the pride of his heart, the delight of his eyes, the objects of his fondest care. He often said he intended his boys to be gentlemen, and therefore would not allow them to imbibe the tastes and habits of the kitchen. The consequence is that his boys are gentlemen.
Thus dwelling in love, united in every plan and pursuit, our time fairly divided between diligent work and healthful recreation amid the delights of rural life, do you marvel that I call this period my two shortest years? Had no previous circumstances given tenfold brilliancy to these lights by casting a depth of black shadow behind them, or no menacing future hung over the present enjoyment, still there was enough to make it indeed an oasis; but it was more. I cannot doubt that the Lord mercifully gave me a foreboding of what was to come, in the intolerable anguish of what seemed to be but a very short parting, with a delightful prospect of renewed domestic comfort just beyond. Yet so it was: I almost died under the trial of that farewell; and for three weeks before, and as long after, I never had a night's rest. Visions of terror were constantly before me, among which a scene of drowning was so perpetually recurring that I have often started from my bed under the vivid impression. This was the more strange because we had always been so fearlessly fond of the water: in our early days we had a little boat, just big enough for him to row and me to steer, in which we used to take excursions on the river Wensum, and never thought of danger. At Sandhurst too we were frequently upon the lake, and had both become familiarized with ocean, until of all perils those of the water were least likely to daunt me, either for myself or him: yet in most imminent peril we had once been placed; and at this time it would recur to my memory with tormenting frequency.
I was about seven years old, and he though younger was much the larger of the two, a stout hearty boy, and I a very frail delicate little creature, thanks to the doctors and their pet drug. Our parents went out for a day's excursion with a friend, and of course we accompanied them. The place was one celebrated for good fishing, and the gentlemen having enjoyed a long morning's sport, remained in the house with my mother, sending us out to play. We had strict charge not to go too near the water, nor on any account to get into a boat, of which there were several on the river. We strolled about, and at last came to the brink of this river, to admire a barge or wherry which lay close to the little pier; for it was a public ferry, and the depth very great. A small boat just by attracted my brother's attention, who wished to get into it, until I reminded him of the prohibition, when he said, "I wont get into it, Char., but I will sit down here and put my two feet in the little boat." He did so: the boat moved, and in his alarm trying to rise, he fell and disappeared.
I perfectly remember the scene; I have also heard it described many a time by others, but I cannot understand how it was that I, stooping from the shore, with nothing to hold on by way of support, seized the little fellow by the collar as he rose, and firmly held him in my grasp. He did not struggle, but looked up in my face, and I down in his, and as I felt my puny strength rapidly failing, the resolution was firm on my mind to be drawn in and perish with him. There was not a question about it; I can recall the very thought, as though it was of yesterday, and I am positively certain that I should have tightened my hold in proportion as the case became more desperate. It pleased God that, just then, some men returning from work descried the figure of a little child stooping in a most dangerous position over the deep water: they ran up, and while one held me the other rescued the boy. My grasp was not unloosed until they had him safe on shore: he was then insensible, and I lost every recollection until I found myself still in the arms of the man who had carried me in, while my mother and the rest were stripping the rescued boy and chafing his limbs before a fire. It was much talked of, and many a caress I got for what they considered heroism beyond my years; but what heroism is like love? "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."
When my brother departed for Ireland, we left that sweet cottage and went to reside in the village, in one better suited to the size of our diminished family party. I had several young friends among the cadets, in whom I took a warm interest, and whose occasional visits I endeavored to make as profitable to them as might be. It is a sad thing to see a boy, perhaps most carefully brought up by tender, and even Christian parents, watched and kept as far as possible from all evil communication, then thrown at once into a large public institution, and exposed to every danger that can assail the youthful mind. A little insight into human nature must show any candid person the extent of mischief to be expected. Rarely do we find a case of conversion, with establishment in grace, very early in life; and where it exists as remarkably as in Jack, we may learn from his excessive dread of exposure to temptation how vigilantly the young plant should be guarded. Let us just suppose, what is indeed no sketch of imagination, but a slight sketch of acknowledged reality—let us suppose a boy at the age when they are eligible for those places, acquainted with the truth, accustomed to Christian instruction, taught to look into the word of God for daily direction, and to seek in prayer the daily supply of needful grace: consider him as having remained under the eye of Christian parents, or a schoolmaster who regards those committed to his care as immortal beings, for whose well-doing while under his charge he is responsible to God, and who therefore counsels them well, and banishes to the utmost of his power, vice and profaneness from among them; affording them the usual domestic means of grace, and seeing that they are not neglected:—thus prepared, the lad enters upon a new scene, where he finds himself surrounded by a large number of youthful companions, all busy in qualifying themselves for a future career, we will say in the service of their country. The first thing done is to try the mettle of the new comer by putting upon him some insult, which if he resents and offers to fight his way, he may be looked on with some respect; but if he appear timid, or reluctant to retaliate, he may be assured of becoming the object of a most harassing persecution for the amusement of the thoughtless and the gratification of the cruel. In either case, he passes an ordeal of great severity, particularly during the night, when nothing is deemed too rough or alarming for the poor stranger to encounter. I appeal to those who have passed it, whether this is not enough to turn the brain of a weak-minded youth, or to injure severely the body of a delicate one: I have myself known an instance, in a great public seminary, wherein derangement and death followed.
Supposing this well got over, the lad then finds that if there be any among his new comrades disposed to keep up the practice of reading the Scriptures and praying, they must do it as secretly as they would commit a murder, and find it more difficult to accomplish than any crime that could be named. There always will be a large proportion of ruffianly characters among many boys; some naturally so, others made so by example. These have the ascendency of course, and they will use it to check and to stifle whatever might shine in contrast to themselves; while, what with those unstable characters who always row with the stream, and prudent ones who will not provoke hostility, and timid ones who dare not, they meet with little if any opposition, but rule the whole mass for evil. The youth, we will believe, sincerely desires to preserve his integrity; but what can he do? Man in his best estate is a frail, inconsistent being, liable to be blown about by every breath of temptation, even when unfettered, and in full possession of all gospel privileges; and what are we to expect from a boy who has never yet been left to himself, or deprived of countenance and support? He sees none watching over him, he hears no kind admonitory voice inviting him to seek the way of peace and purity. His nature is corrupt, his heart is deceitful, his soul cleaves to the dust, and he finds that by following the bent of this perverse nature, by gratifying its lowest propensities, and revelling in unhallowed things, he shall best purchase the good- fellowship of those who have it in their power to make his life miserable if he thwarts their will. His conscience loudly protests, and calls on him to pray; but if he would do so, where is he to retire for that purpose? Alone he cannot be; he has no separate apartment, and let those who have tried it say what would be the consequence of his kneeling down publicly to worship God. He may do it silently and undiscovered in his bed; yes, if he can lift up his heart, and realize the presence of the God of heaven, while the language of hell resounds on every side. Even so, he has an enemy within, striving against the right principle, and responding to all that his better feeling repudiates. Then, too, wherewithal shall the young man cleanse his way, if not by ruling himself according to the word of God? And how is he to study that word? Does the parent who puts a Bible in his boy's portmanteau know that the most blasphemous tissue of ribaldry and all abomination, would be a more suitable gift, if it is intended that he should exhibit it? These are awful questions, to be well considered by those who are wavering as to the destination of a youth; and they apply very widely throughout the land.
We all know the case of him whose heart has been swept and garnished; and how much the last state is worse than the first, when Satan reënters with his seven new companions. The very checks of conscience render the fretted mind more restive; and the longer restrained, the more headlong is the wild gallop into which the chafed spirit at last breaks. He who trembled at a profane word, becomes an accomplished swearer; he whose modesty was most retiring is foremost to glory in early depravity; he whose hand was ever ready to relieve the poor, while his heart sympathized in their sorrows, becomes the wanton spoiler and marauder for the sake of a bold vaunt; he who shrunk from the approach of profligate misleaders, now volunteers to harden new comers in the ways of sin. The youth who with noiseless step trod the courts of the Lord's house, and bent with lowly reverence in prayer, and listened with fixed attention to the teacher's voice, now delights in shaming others out of the semblance of devotion, and feigns, if he does not fall into it, the profound sleep of a wholly uninterested actor in the tedious show of public worship. Perchance some friend whose proximity to the place admits of it may stretch out a helping hand, or lift an admonitory voice, or proffer a little encouragement to strengthen the things that remain, and which are ready to die: if so, both the helper and the helped will be marked out for ridicule and reviling, if for nothing worse.
Honorable men, after this world's course, who are themselves wholly in the dark, verily believing that religion would turn a youth's brain and unfit him for the active business of life, will feel it a part of their duty to oppose every possible obstacle to such attempts at reclaiming the young wanderers under their charge. I knew, and knew right well, an instance wherein a lady who strove to do good to the souls of some young lads whose parents she knew to be praying people, had a sort of ban put upon her, by the publication of an express order that they should not be again permitted to visit her; and when a nobleman who well knew that she had not done any thing to merit such public condemnation, asked the principal of the institution the reason for so harsh a proceeding, he received this answer: "My lord, I was sorry to do it; I felt it a painful duty, but an imperative one. The fact is, she got hold of some of the most promising lads under my care, and so infected them with her own gloomy notions that, I give you my word, they were seen walking alone, with Bibles in their hands." So much wiser are the children of this world in guarding those committed to them from the entrance of spiritual good, than are the children of light in protecting their dearest treasures from the contamination of most deadly evil.
But to return to my cadets at Sandhurst. I had two young friends there, both Irish, who were known to me from childhood; both greatly attached to my brother; both loving me dearly; and many a happy hour we passed, strolling over the wild heath, or enjoying the cheerfulness of my cottage home. On those two, among many, I looked with especial solicitude as to their future course; and I have had to rejoice, in different ways, over them both. One was early taken to his rest; he died in the faith, looking simply to the Lord Jesus, and finding perfect peace in him. The other was long away on foreign service, and when next I saw him it was as the deliverer, under God, of a whole town, and probably through that of the whole kingdom, from a scene of revolutionary carnage. He commanded the gallant little body of troops at Newport who, on the 4th of November, 1839, quelled the Chartist insurrection, and broke the formidable power that menaced a general outbreak. I cannot pass over this event, it was so delightfully gratifying to me.
A third of those in whom I took a lively interest was Alexander Count Calharez, the eldest son of the Duc de Palmella. He was a most elegant youth, of fine mind, delicate feelings, and the sweetest manners possible. Devotedly attached to Romanism, he constantly attended mass at the house of the old abbé, who added to his professorship in the Royal Military College the duties of a Popish priest. It was a sore grief to me to see Calharez pursuing his solitary way to that house, while we took the road to the college chapel, and met him half-way. I longed to enter a solemn protest against his delusion, but I never did it in direct terms, though very often dwelling, in his presence, on the peculiar truths of Christianity, opposed as they are to the lie in which he trusted. I hoped to have enjoyed many future opportunities of conversing with him, for he always sought our society in preference to many things that appeared more attractive, and took a lively interest in Jack. But the college did not suit his taste; he left it soon and accompanied his father to Portugal. He died at the Azores; and I have been told that his hope at the last was one which maketh not ashamed. He was the subject of many prayers; the last day will tell whether they were answered.
But I cannot hasten through the heaviest part of my task; it is the rending open of a wound never to heal until the leaves of the tree of life shall be laid upon it; and if by any means I do attain to that resurrection from among the dead in which none but the Lord's children shall partake, surely the dear object of all this sorrow will be there beside me.
Six months had passed since my brother's departure to Ireland, and all his letters were full of cheerfulness and pleasant anticipation. On the subject where I most wished to know his feelings, he was silent; but a passage in one of his letters struck me greatly. I had been suffering from a slight local pain, which one of my medical friends erroneously pronounced to be a disease of the heart; and in communicating this to him I had noticed, that I must live in momentary expectation of sudden death. His reply was very affectionate. He said it had given him a great shock, but on a little reflection he was convinced of its being altogether a nervous sensation; adding, "If not, why should you shrink from sudden death? For my own part, I should desire it, as a short and easy passage out of this life." A tremor came over me as I read these words; but again I thought, "Surely there is something on his mind to brighten that passage, or he would not so express himself;" and the thought of many perils surrounding him quickened me to redoubled prayer that God would set his feet upon the Rock of ages.
It was on a bright Sabbath morning at the end of June, that having rather overslept myself, I found, on awaking, the letters brought by early post lying on my pillow. I took one: it was the Horse Guards envelope, in which his letters usually came; and in my eagerness to open one from him, I did not even put up a prayer. Full of smiling anticipation, I unfolded the enclosure, which was from a most dear and valued friend at the Horse Guards; and after some tender preparation, which the sudden reeling of my terrified brain prevented my comprehending, came the paralyzing sequel: A letter had been received from Mullingar—he was on the lake fishing—the boat overset. I could not understand the meaning of the words; but I understood the thing itself.
I sprung to my knees to cry for mercy on him—but Oh, that dreadful, dreadful thought that pierced through my inmost soul—"He is beyond the reach of prayer." I fell back as if really shot. But what avails it to dwell on this? I bore it as God enabled me; I felt crushed, annihilated as it were, under the fierce wrath of the Lord; for to aggravate the blow, I had no power to believe or to hope. It was a light thing to have lost him, my all in this cold, dreary world, who from early infancy had been as the light to my eyes, and the life-blood to my heart—him who had so very lately been restored, as if to show that while he remained all I could desire of earthly happiness was within my reach—him who had been to me instead of every other mortal blessing, and to whom I looked for all that I dared hope of future comfort. It was a light thing to have lost him, and to look upon the anguish of his widowed mother, to whom he had ever been more of a ministering angel than a son, and upon the tears of his little daughter, who had lost a father indeed. All this was a small matter compared with the overwhelming horrors of that fearful thought, that he had lost his soul.
I had fallen much into the common, dangerous error of looking to my own faith rather than to the object of it for salvation; and I did in my heart, exceedingly glory in this supposed faith of mine. The dreadful dispensation under which I was laid showed me at once, that of faith I had not to the value of a grain of mustard-seed; and now I felt the desolation of spirit which none can know who have not been so compelled to make such a discovery. I did not rebel; I owned the justice of God: nay, the very first words I could find breath to utter broke forth in the confession, "Righteous art thou, O Lord; just and true are thy ways, O King of saints!" But it was a fearful trembling beneath the hand that had smote me; and as for being contented to have it so, I was not: I do not wish that I had been contented to believe my brother was lost; I do not understand that feeling, nor wish to understand it; for surely while we remain in the flesh, we cannot divest ourselves of what God has interwoven with our very nature, nor cease to feel for the spiritual, the eternal interests of those most fondly endeared to us—a solicitude as great, aye, much greater, than what we, in our unconverted state, once knew in regard to their temporal concerns. I speak of those instances where, after being ourselves brought to know the Lord, we have labored and prayed perseveringly for others, and then have suddenly lost them. I was not content to think that my prayers had been cast out: I wanted some token that they had been answered. Blessed be the God of all mercies, I was not disappointed. * * *
Meanwhile, what a tenfold recompense for all the care bestowed on him did I reap in the beautiful sympathy of the dumb boy. When I came down stairs that dreadful morning, he met me with a face of such wild dismay as even then arrested my attention. He uttered an audible "Oh!" of most touching tone, and thus expressed the impossibility he felt of realizing the tidings: "Jack what? Jack asleep? Jack see, no—think, no. Jack afraid, very. Beautiful Captain B—— gone?—dead? What?" and he stamped with the impatience of that fearfully inquisitive what. I answered, "Captain B—— gone; water kill—dead." Tears stole down his loving face as he responded, "Poor mam! Mam one;" meaning I was now alone in the world. "God see poor mam one; Jesus Christ love poor mam one." With a feeling of bitter agony I asked him, "What? Jesus Christ love Captain B——?" "Yes," he replied, after a moment's solemn thought on the question, "Yes, Jack much pray; mam much pray; Jesus Christ see much prays." This was true comfort; all the eloquence of all the pulpits in England could not have gone to my heart like that assurance, that Jesus Christ had seen his many dumb prayers on behalf of that lost—Oh, I could not, even in the depth of my unbelieving heart, say, "lost one." I again asked the boy, "Jack much prays?" He answered with solemn fervency, "Very, very much prays. Jack pray morning, pray night; Jack pray church, pray bed. Yes, Jack many days, very, pray God make"—and he finished by signs, that wings should be made to grow from my brother's shoulders, for him to fly to heaven, adding, Jesus Christ must make the wings; and then, with a burst of delighted animation, he told me that he was a "very tall angel, very beautiful."
I have repeated this conversation to show the broken language carried on between us; and also how powerfully he expressed his thoughts. Soon after, when I was nearly fainting, a glass of water was held to my lips. I am ashamed to say, I dashed it down, exclaiming, "That murderer!" Jack caught my eye, and echoing my feelings, said, in a bitter way, "Bad water!" then with a look of exulting contempt at the remaining fluid, he added, "Soul gone water? No!" This idea, that the soul was not drowned, electrified me; so good is a word spoken in due season, however trite a truism that word may be.
That night I pretended to go to bed, that others might do so too; and then I left my room, went to my little study, which was hung round with Jack's sweet drawings, and sat down, resting my elbows on the table, my face on my hands, and so remained for a couple of hours. Day had scarcely broken, brightly upon me, about two in the morning, when the door opened softly, and Jack entered, only partially dressed, his face deadly pale, and altogether looking most piteously wretched. He paused at the door, saying, "Jack sleep, no; Jack sick, head bad—no more see beautiful Captain B——." I could only shake my head, and soon buried my face in my hands again. However, I still saw him through my fingers; and after lifting up his clasped hands and eyes in prayer for me, he proceeded to execute the purpose of his visit to that room. Softly, stealthily, he went round, mounting a chair, and unpinned from the wall every drawing that contained a ship, a boat, or water under any form of representation. Still peeping at me, hoping he was not observed, he completed this work, which nothing but a mind refined to the highest degree of delicate tenderness could ever have prompted, and then stopping at the door, cast over his shoulder such a look of desolate sorrow at me, that its very wretchedness poured balm into my heart. Oh what a heavenly lesson is that, "Weep with them that do weep," and how we fly in its face when going to the mourner with our inhuman, cold- blooded exhortations to leave off grieving. Even Job's tormenting friends gave him seven days' true consolation while they sat silent on the earth weeping with him.
But God put into the dumb boy's heart another mode of consolation, which I must recount as a specimen of his exceedingly original and beautiful train of thought. He used to tell his ideas to me as if they were things that he had seen: and now he had a tale to relate, the day after this, which riveted my attention. He told me my brother went on the lake in a little boat, and while he was going along the devil got under it, seized one side, pulled it over, and caught my brother, drawing him down to the bottom, which, as he told me, was deep, deep, and flames under it. Then Jesus Christ put his arm out of a cloud, reached into the water, took the soul out of the body, and drew it into the sky. When the devil saw the soul had escaped, he let the body go, and dived away, crying, Jack said, with rage, while the men took it to land. The soul, he continued, went up, up, up; it was bright, and brighter, "like sun—all light, beautiful light." At last he saw a gate, and inside many angels looking out at him; but two very small angels came running to meet the soul; and when he saw them, he took them up into his arms, kissed them, and carried them on towards the gate, still kissing and caressing them. I was amazed and utterly at a loss, and said, "Two angels? What? Mam not know; what?" He looked at me with a laugh of wonder; pointed to my head and the wooden table, and replied—his usual way of calling me stupid— "Doll mam! Two small boys, dead, Portugal." My brother had lost two babes in Portugal; and thus exquisitely, thus in all the beauty of true sublimity, had the untaught deaf and dumb boy pictured the welcome they had given their father on approaching the gate of heaven.
A day or two after, some kind, sympathizing relations and friends being assembled at the dinner-table, something cheerful was said, which excited a general smile: Jack was in the act of handing a plate; he looked round him with a face of stern indignation, set down the plate, said, "Bad laughing!" and walked out of the room, stopping at the door to add to me, "Mam, come: no laughing! Gone; dead." I had not smiled; and this jealous tenaciousness of such a grief, on the part of an exceedingly cheerful boy, was the means of soothing more than any other means could have done it, the anguish of that wound which had pierced my very heart's core. These were a small part of the munificent wages that my Master gave me for nursing a child of his.
My first act had, of course, been to adopt my brother's son—the "baby boy"—now five years old, who had been since he first showed his little round face in England, my own peculiar treasure. I begged him as a precious boon, and for his sake bore up against the storm of sorrow that was rending me within. Jack fell into a decline, through the depression of his spirits in seeing me suffer; for to conceal it from one who read every turn of my countenance was impossible; and I should have been well content to sink also, but for the powerful motive set before me. Under God, who gave him to me, you may thank your young friend for what little service I may have rendered in the cause you love, since 1828; for the prospect which by the Lord's rich mercy is so far realized, of seeing him grow up a useful, honorable member of society, with right principles, grounded on a scriptural education, was what enabled me to persevere against every difficulty and every discouragement that could cross my path. I set up a joyful Ebenezer here; and I ask your prayers that the blessing may be prolonged, increased, perfected, even to the day when we shall all meet before the throne of God. * * *
How is it that Christians so often complain they can find nothing to do for their Master? To hear some of them bemoaning their unprofitableness, we might conclude that the harvest indeed is small, and the laborers many. So many servants out of employ is a bad sign; and to obviate the difficulty complained of, I purpose showing you two or three ways in which those who are so inclined may bestir themselves for the good of others. What a blessing were a working church! and by a church I mean, "the company of all faithful people," whosoever and wheresoever they be.
In the village where I lived, there was a very good national-school, well attended; also a Sunday-school; and the poorer inhabitants generally were of a respectable class, with many of a higher grade, such as small tradesmen, and the families of those in subordinate offices about the Military College. I always took a great interest in the young; and as love usually produces love, there was no lack of affectionate feeling on their part. It occurred to me, as the Sunday was much devoted by most of them to idling about, that assembling such of them as wished it at my cottage would afford an opportunity for scriptural instruction; and without any thing resembling a school, or any regular proposal, I found a little party of six or seven children assembled in the afternoon, to hear a chapter read, answer a few questions upon it, and join in a short prayer. Making it as cheerful and unrestrained as possible, I found my little guests greatly pleased; and on the next Sabbath my party was doubled, solely through the favorable report spread by them. One had asked me, "Please, ma'am, may I bring my little sister?" and on the reply being given, "You may bring any body and every body you like," a general beating up for recruits followed. In three or four weeks my assemblage amounted to sixty, only one half of whom could be crowded into the parlor of my small cottage. What was to be done? The work was rather arduous, but as I too had been complaining not long before of having little to do for the Lord, except with the pen, I resolved to brave a little extra labor. I desired the girls to come at four, the boys at six, and allowing an interval of half an hour between, we got through it very well. A long table was set across the room, from corner to corner; round this they were seated, each with a Bible, I being at the head of the table. I found this easy and sociable way of proceeding highly gratified the children: they never called, never thought it a school—they came bustling in with looks of great glee, particularly the boys, and greeted me with the affectionate freedom of young friends. A few words of introductory prayer were followed by the reading of one or more chapters, so that each had a verse or two; and then we talked over the portion of Scripture very closely, mutually questioning each other. Many of the girls were as old as sixteen or seventeen, beautiful creatures, and very well dressed: and what a privilege it was so to gather and so to arm them in a place where, alas, innumerable snares beset their path. We concluded with a hymn; and long before the half-hour had expired that preceded the boys' entrance, they were clustering like bees at the gate, impatient for the joyous rush; and to seat themselves round their dear table, with all that free confidence without which I never could succeed in really commanding the attention of boys.
Our choice of chapters was peculiar. I found they wanted stirring subjects, and I gave them Gideon, Samson, Jonathan, Nehemiah, Boaz, Mordecai, Daniel, all the most manly characters of Old Testament history, with the rich gospel that lies wrapped in every page of that precious volume. Even in the New Testament I found that individualizing as much as possible the speaker or the narrative produced, great effects. Our blessed Lord himself, John the Baptist, Paul—all were brought before them as vividly as possible; and I can assure those who try to teach boys as they would teach girls, that they are pursuing a wrong method. Mine have often coaxed an extra hour from me; and I never once saw them willing to go, during the fifteen months of our happy meetings. If the least symptom of unruliness appeared, I had only to tell them they were my guests, and I appealed to their feelings of manliness, whether a lady had not some claim to forbearance and respect. Nothing rights a boy of ten or twelve years like putting him on his manhood; and really my little lads became gentlemen in mind and manners, while, blessed be God, not a few became, I trust, wise unto salvation. Their greatest temptation to disorderly doings was in the laughable, authoritative style of Jack's superintendence. He was now rapidly fading, but in mind brighter than ever. Seated in a large chair, a little to the rear of me, he kept strict watch over the party, and any deviation from what he considered correct conduct was noticed with a threat of punishment, conveyed by pinching his own ear, slapping his own face, kicking out his foot, and similar indications of chastisement, with a knowing nod at the offender. But if he saw an approach to levity over the word of God, his manner wholly changed. Tears filled his eyes, he looked all grief and entreaty, and the words, "God see," were earnestly spelled on his uplifted hands. No one could stand the appeal; and very rarely had he occasion to make it. I am sure his prayers helped forward the work mightily. It was wonderful to see thirty-two robust, boisterous fellows, from nine to seventeen years old, sitting in perfect delight and perfect order, for two and even three hours, on a fine Sunday evening, never looking dissatisfied till they were told to go.
I cannot help recording an event on which I look back with great thankfulness, though it was a terrible trial to me at the time. Two of my boys had a quarrel one week-day. One of them was very teasing, the other very passionate. The latter ran to a butcher's window close by, seized the large knife, and plunged it into the left side of his companion. Most mercifully the wound was not dangerous: the keenness of the knife was in his favor; it penetrated to within a short distance of the heart, but separated no large vein, and within a few days the boy was out again. The Sunday after it occurred my party were exceedingly moved; they expressed great anger, and not a few threats were, uttered against the culprit, whose parents had locked him up. On the following Sabbath I resolved to make an effort to avert bad consequences, and also to arrest the poor boy in his dangerous course. He had rather justified himself than otherwise, and had shown a spirit sadly unsubdued, and unthankful for his escape from a deadly crime and its awful consequences. I sent word to him to come to my party: he replied he would not. I repeated the summons, saying I should be exceedingly hurt if he did not. No answer was returned. The place next but one to me belonged to the wounded boy, that below it to his assailant; and the former was present, pale, indeed, but well. I lost no time in announcing to them that I expected P——, which occasioned a burst of indignation, some saying they would not stay in the room with him, and the rest seeming to assent. "Then," said I, "you must go, for he wants instruction most: and the very feeling that makes you shrink from associating with him proves that you are better taught. So if you will leave me, do; I must admit him." Just then P—— was seen coming down the little garden: he entered, his walk very erect, his eyes unflinching, and his dark brows knitted. The looks of my young lads were very eloquent; his bold bearing exasperated them much. My heart seemed bursting its boundary with the violent palpitation of alarm, and other emotions which I could scarcely suppress; but I motioned to P—— to take his usual place, and instantly rising offered up the usual prayer, with a petition for the spirit of mutual compassion, forgiveness, and love. I ceased, all remained standing, and certainly it was a period of most fearful interest. I looked imploringly at the wounded boy; he hesitated a moment, then suddenly turned, and with an air of noble frankness, held out his hand to P——, who took it directly. I then offered him mine; he grasped it, and burst into tears. A delightful scene followed, each pressing to seal his forgiveness in the same manner, while Jack's countenance shone with almost heavenly beauty on a spectacle so congenial to his loving heart. We had a most happy evening, and I could not but tell my dear boys how much I rejoiced over them. Whatever may have been the effect on the characters of those concerned, I know not. I am persuaded the proceeding was a means of averting much mischief. Boys are noble creatures when placed on their right footing; but they are pugnacious animals and require prudent management. News was brought me one evening, while they waited for admission, that two of them had stripped off their jackets to fight, the dispute being which loved their teacher most. "Exclude them both to- night," said a friend, "and threaten to expel them." Instead of which, I sent word that the one who first put on his jacket loved me most, and that I was ready to begin. In they both came, smiling, and they got their lecture in due time, when a passage in point came before us.
Now, who complains of non-employment while there are so many neglected children, and so many who, in the dull routine of a school, get only a mechanical knowledge of what would deeply interest them if brought before them with the help of a little personal condescension and care? It is a branch of Christian duty for which all are competent who know the gospel; and two, three, or four young people invited to come in for an hour or so at stated times, to sit down at a table and talk over the passages of Scripture which may appear best calculated to engage their pleased attention, may often prove the foundation for a noble work. * * * Ladies do not like to instruct boys: they are very wrong. Female influence is a powerful thing, and freely exerted for evil—why not for good? We brought sin into the world, involving man in the ruin he was not the first to seek; and it is the least we can do to offer him a little good now. I never yet met with a boy—and thanks be to God I have taught many—who would be rude to a female earnestly and kindly seeking his welfare, without attempting to crush that independence of spirit which is man's prerogative, and which no woman has a right to crush.
I need not say that in the foregoing, and in all similar works where the Lord permitted me to engage, I labored diligently to make my young friends something more than nominal Protestants. To omit this, in giving instruction, is the very madness of inconsistent folly and cruelty.
A few weeks after the commencement of my weekly assemblages, I was called to the metropolis in search of medical aid for a dear little child of my brother's. I found it, and all that Christian kindness could add to render it doubly valuable, at the hands of an estimable physician, near whom I resolved to stay for a few weeks; and while secretly lamenting that here, at least, I should find nothing to do, an answer was given to my unbelief that might well shame it. To the same end I will record this also, the circumstances being already well known, but not the delightful encouragements that are afforded when a project is entered upon in single, simple reliance on the help of Him for whose glory his people desire to work. Unbelief in his willingness—for we dare not doubt his power to prosper our poor attempts—is the real bar to our success. Such mistrust is infinitely dishonoring to him.
Six years had elapsed since I left Ireland, but my affection for the country and people was unchanged, unchangeable. The very centre of the isle had become the grave of my beloved brother, and this only added tenfold to the touching interest excited by the very mention of that land. Strange to say, I had never heard of the Irish Society, nor considered of what vast importance it would be to make the language of the natives a medium of conveying spiritual instruction to them. The annual meeting was about to be held, and among the Irish clergymen forming the deputation to London, was the Rev. Charles Seymour, the venerable and every-way estimable pastor under whose ministry my brother had been placed at Castlebar, and from whom I had received letters, fully confirmatory of my sanguine hope that he had indeed and wholly embraced the gospel of Christ. Longing to see Mr. Seymour, I went to him on the morning of the meeting; and most sweet was the testimony he had to give; most tender the sympathy he evinced in all my sorrow and all my gladness. After a conversation that left me overflowing with gratitude for the blessings vouchsafed to my precious brother, he asked me to attend the meeting, and I went prepared to take a lively interest in whatever might be said respecting Ireland. How great was my astonishment when, for the first time, I heard the story of Bishop Bedell, of the Irish Bible, and of the good work in rapid progress among the aborigines of the land. The extent and inveteracy of the disease, I well knew; but the suitability of the remedy had never been set before me. In fact, I hardly knew that the Irish was a written language; and strange it seemed, to have passed three years in a part of the country where it is extensively spoken, and in the house of one who always conversed in that tongue with the rustic frequenters of her shop, yet to be so grossly ignorant of all relating to it. I resolved to become an active partisan of the Irish Society in Ireland; but a different turn was soon given to my sympathies. Mr. Seymour spoke after the others: he said much calculated to prove the power of the language in preaching the gospel; but suddenly reverting to the state of the many thousands of his poor countrymen congregated in London, he drew a most affecting picture of their destitute, degraded condition. He appealed to us as Christians; and reminding us of our many privileges, bade us take care that the souls of his poor countrymen did not rise up in judgment to condemn us for allowing them to perish in the heart of our metropolis. "Open," he said, "a bread-shop in St. Giles's; deal forth a little of the bread of life to their starving souls. Ye English Christians, I appeal to you for them: Oh, pity my poor lost countrymen, open but a bread-shop in St. Giles's!" Tears ran down his venerable face, as he lifted his clasped hands, and bent towards us. The effect of his words on me was electric: I looked at him, and silently but fervently said, "So God help me as I will open you a bread-shop in St. Giles's, if He does but permit!" Again and again did I repeat the pledge; and when Lord Roden spoke—the first time of my seeing that noble Irishman—and heartily seconded the appeal, I renewed the secret promise, with such purpose of heart as rarely fails to accomplish its object.
For some days I tried in vain to do any thing towards it; but on the Sunday, passing from Great Russell-street to Long-acre, through the worst part of St. Giles's, I saw the awful state of that district, and declared to my companion, himself a devoted Irishman, my fixed resolve to have a church there. He warmly encouraged it, extravagant as the idea appeared; and I began to pray earnestly for direction from above. Two nights after, a thought struck me; I wrote an appeal on behalf of the miserable Irish Papists in that place, likening their case among us to that of Lazarus lying at the rich man's gate, and imploring means to give them the gospel in their own tongue. This I had printed, and sent copies as I could to various friends. Some smiled at my enthusiasm; others pointed out the work among distant heathen as far more important. Many wished me success; a few rebuked me for desiring to proselytize the members of another church; and still fewer gave me money. At the end of a fortnight's hard begging, I had got just seven pounds towards building a church! This was slow work. One day, dining at the table of my dear friend Dr. P——, he heard many bantering me for being so sanguine, and said, "You remind me of Columbus going to the cathedral of Seville to ask a blessing on his romantic project of discovering a new world. Everybody laughed at him. Nevertheless, Columbus succeeded, and so will you." At that moment a gentleman sitting next me laid a sovereign on my piece of bread; and the coincidence of the gold and the "bread-shop," combined with the doctor's confident prediction, put new life into me, and I boldly said, "I WILL succeed."
With the sum of seven pounds in hand, I wrote to the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, begging him to ask the bishop of London if he would license my Irish church and an Irish clergyman, if I provided both. Lord Mountsandford took this letter to him, and the next day he brought me this rather startling message: "The bishop of London will license your church: Lichfield sends his love to you, and desires you will summon the gentlemen who are assisting you in this undertaking—half a dozen or so —to meet him in Sackville-street on Saturday next, and be there yourself. He will see what can be done to forward it." Half a dozen gentlemen! where was I to find them? My only helpers were Mr. Maxwell, Dr. Pidduck, and Lord Mountsandford himself. However, I went to work, praying incessantly, and solacing myself with that beautiful text, "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord." I suppose I repeated that verse a hundred times a day, in my solitude, attending the sick child and writing letters till I nearly fell from my seat with exhaustion.
Saturday arrived: I had no idea how far my applications might have succeeded; but if I had as many gentlemen there as pounds in my treasury, namely, seven, it would be sufficient. I went trembling with hope and fear, accompanied by two warmhearted young Irish barristers whom my good friend Mr. Maxwell had pressed into the service. Oh what could I render unto the Lord for all his goodness to me, when I saw the glorious spectacle presented to my view at the hour appointed! There sat the good Bishop Ryder in the chair; beside him the bishop of Bath and Wells; lords Lorton, Lifford, Bexley, Mountsandford, and Carberry; and of other clergymen and gentlemen upwards of forty. "Let us ask a blessing," said the bishop of Lichfield; and when, we all kneeled down to commit unto the LORD a work so new, so strange, and to poor human reason so hopelessly wild as this had appeared two days before, I thought I might as well die then as not; I could never die happier.
All was zeal, love, unanimity; they placed it on a good basis, and my seven pounds were multiplied by more than seven before we broke up. They did not take the work out of my hands, but formed themselves into a body for aiding in carrying it on: the rector of St. Giles's came forward voluntarily to give his hearty consent, and ten pounds; and if there was a pillow of roses in London that night, I surely slept on it. In six weeks my memorable seven pounds swelled to thirteen hundred; a church was bought, a pastor engaged; and a noble meeting held in Freemason's Hall, to incorporate the new project with the Irish Society. I went back to Sandhurst elated with joy, and lost no time in putting up, most conspicuously written out on card, over my study fireplace, the lines that I had so often repeated during the preceding two months:
"Victorious Faith, the promise sees,
And looks to God alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And says, 'IT SHALL BE DONE!"
In the following November the Irish Episcopal church in St. Giles's was opened for divine service on Advent Sunday, the Rev. H.H. Beamish officiating. A more eloquent and fluent preacher, a more gifted and devoted man, the whole church of God could not have supplied. He preached the whole gospel in Irish to the listening, wondering people, who hung with delight upon accents so dear to them; and he attacked their pestilent heresies with the bold faithfulness of one who meant what he said, when vowing to drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines from those under his charge. God blessed most richly his ministry: many were awakened, several truly converted to Christ, and not a small number fully convinced of the falsehood of their own superstition, which they forsook. We had forty communicants from among the most wretchedly ignorant and bigoted of the Irish Romanists, before Mr. Beamish left his post; and one of them had even endured a cruel martyrdom for the truth's sake. A bread-shop in deed it was: and the old Christian, whose fervent appeal had given rise to its establishment, himself preached there in Irish to a delighted congregation, before the Lord took him to himself. * * *
I come now to the period of my delivering up a sacred trust into the hands of Him who committed it to me. Jack had lingered long, and sunk very gradually; but now he faded apace. His eldest sister, a very decided Romanist, came over for the purpose of seeing him, and to take care that he had "the rites of the church." Had the abbé remained, it is probable we should have soon found ourselves deep in controversy; for, as priest, he never should have crossed my threshold, to bring upon my house the curse attached to idolatrous worship: and there was happily no other within reach. Jack requested me to promise him in his sister's presence that no Romish priest should come near him: I willingly did so; and moreover informed her that if she was herself dying and asked for one, he would not be admitted under my roof. The abomination that maketh desolate stands in many places where it ought not, but where I have authority it never did, nor by God's grace ever shall. I have toleration full and free for every form of Christianity, but none for antichrist, come in what form he may.
It may be possible to describe a glorious summer sunset, with all the softening splendor that it sheds around; but to describe the setting of my dumb boy's sun of mortal life is impossible. He declined like the orb of day, gently, silently, gradually, yet swiftly, and gathered new beauties as he approached the horizon. His sufferings were great, but far greater his patience; and nothing resembling a complaint ever escaped him. When appearing in the morning, with pallid, exhausted looks, if asked whether he had slept, he would reply, with a sweet smile, "No, Jack no sleep; Jack think good Jesus Christ see poor Jack. Night dark; heaven all light; soon see heaven. Cough much now, pain bad; soon no cough, no pain." This was his usual way of admitting how much he suffered, always placing in contrast the glory to be revealed in him, and which, seemed already revealed to him. Knowing that his recovery was impossible, I refrained, with his full concurrence, from having him tormented with miscalled alleviations, such as opiates, bloodletting, and so forth. All that kindness and skill could effect was gratuitously done for him, and every thing freely supplied by our medical friends; but they admitted that no permanent relief could be given, and I always hold it cruel to imbitter the dying season with applications that in the end increase the sufferings they temporarily subdue. This plan kept the boy's mind clear and calm; the ever-present Saviour being to him instead of all soothing drugs. Sometimes when greatly oppressed, he has had leeches; and I remember once half a dozen were put on his side, at his own request. The inflammation was very great; the torture dreadful as they drew it to the surface; and I was called to him, as he sat grasping the arm of a chair, and writhing convulsively. He said to me, "Very, very pain; pain bad, soon kill;" and he seemed half wild with agony. Looking up in my face, he saw me in tears; and instantly assumed his sweetest expression of countenance, saying in a calm, leisurely way, that his pain was much, but the pain the Lord suffered much more: his was only in his side; the Lord suffered in his side, his hands, his feet, and head. His pain would be over in half an hour, the Lord's lasted many hours; he was "bad Jack," the Lord was "good Jesus Christ." Then again he observed the leeches made very little holes in his skin, and drew out a little blood; but the thorns, the nails, the spear, tore the Lord's flesh, and all his blood gushed out—it was shed to save him; and he raised his eyes, lifted his clasped hands, turned his whole face up towards heaven, saying, "Jack loves, loves, very loves good Jesus Christ!" When another violent pang made him start and writhe a little, he recovered in a moment, nodded his head, and said, "Good pain, make Jack soon go heaven."
His sublime idea of the "red hand" was ever present. He had told me some years before, that when he had lain a good while in the grave, God would call aloud, "Jack!" and he would start, and say, "Yes, me Jack." Then he would rise, and see multitudes standing together, and God sitting on a cloud with a very large book in his hand—he called it "Bible book"—and would beckon him to stand before him while he opened the book, and looked at the top of the pages, till he came to the name of John B——. In that page he told me, God had written all his "bads," every sin he had ever done: and the page was full. So God would look, and strive to read it, and hold it to the sun for light, but it was all "no, no nothing, none." I asked him in some alarm if he had done no bad. He said yes, much bads; but when he first prayed to Jesus Christ he had taken the book out of God's hand, found that page, and pulling from his palm something which he described as filling up the hole made by the nail, had allowed the wound to bleed a little, passing his hand down the page so that, as he beautifully said, God could see none of Jack's bads, only Jesus Christ's blood. Nothing being thus found against him, God would shut the book, and there he would remain standing before him, till the Lord Jesus came, and saying to God, "My Jack," would put his arm around him, draw him aside, and bid him stand with the angels till the rest were judged.
All this he told me with the placid but animated look of one who is relating a delightful fact: I stood amazed, for rarely had the plan of a sinner's ransom, appropriation, and justification, been so perspicuously set forth in a pulpit, as here it was by a poor deaf and dumb peasant boy, whose broken language was eked out by signs. He often told it to others, always making himself understood, and often have I seen the tears starting from a rough man's eye as he followed the glowing representation. Jack used to sit silent and thoughtful for a long time together in his easy-chair, when too weak to move about, and then catching my eye, to say with a look of infinite satisfaction, "Good red hand." I am persuaded that it was his sole and solid support; he never doubted, never feared, because his view of Christ's all-sufficiency was so exceedingly clear and realizing. It certainly never entered his head to question God's love to him. One night a servant went to his room, long after he had gone to bed: he was on his knees at the window, his hands and face held up towards a beautiful starlight sky. He did not perceive the servant's entrance: and next morning when I asked him about it, he told me that God was walking above, upon the stars; and that he went to the window and held up his head that God might look down into it and see how very much he loved Jesus Christ.
All his ideas were similar—all turned on the one theme so dear to him; and their originality was inexhaustible. What could be finer than his notion of the lightning, that it was produced by a sudden opening and shutting of God's eye—or of the rainbow, that it was the reflection of God's smile? What more graphic than his representation of Satan's malice and impotence, when, one evening, holding his finger to a candle, he snatched it back, as if burnt, pretending to be in great pain, and said, "Devil like candle." Then with a sudden look of triumph he added, "God like wind," and with a most vehement puff at once extinguished the light. When it was rekindled he laughed and said, "God kill devil."
He told me that God was always sitting still with the great book in his hand, and the Lord Jesus looking down for men, and crying to them, "Come, man; come, pray." That the devil drew them back from listening, and persuaded them to spit up towards him, which was his sign for rebellion and contempt; but if at last a man snatched his hand from Satan, and prayed to the Lord Jesus, he went directly, took the book, found the name, and passed the "red hand" over the page; on seeing which Satan would stamp and cry. He gave very grotesque descriptions of the evil spirit's mortification, and always ended by bestowing on him a hearty kick. From seeing the effect, in point of watchfulness, prayer, and zeal, produced on this young Christian by such continual realization of the presence of the great tempter, I have been led to question very much the policy, not to say the lawfulness, of excluding that terrible foe as we do from our general discourse. It seems to be regarded a manifest impropriety to name him, except with the most studied circumlocution, as though we were afraid of treating him irreverently; and he who is seldom named will not often be thought of. Assuredly it is a great help to him in his countless devices to be so kept out of sight. We are prone to speak, to think, to act, as though we had only our own evil natures to contend with, including perhaps a sort of general admission that something is at work to aid the cause of rebellion; but it was far otherwise with Jack. If only conscious of the inward rising of a sullen or angry temper, he would immediately conclude that the devil was trying to make him grieve the Lord; and he knelt down to pray that God would drive him away. The sight of a drunken man affected him deeply: he would remark that the devil had drawn that man to the ale- house, put the cup into his hand with an assurance that God did not see, or did not care; and was now pushing him about to show the angels he had made that wretched being spit at the authority of the Lord. In like manner with all other vices, and some seeming virtues. As an instance of the latter, he knew a person who was very hostile to the gospel, and to the best of his power hindered it, but who nevertheless paid the most punctual regard to all the formalities of external public worship. He almost frightened me by the picture he drew of that person's case, saying the devil walked to church with him, led him into a pew, set a hassock prominently forward for him to kneel on, put a handsome prayer- book into his hand; and while he carefully followed all the service kept clapping him on the shoulder, saying, "A very good pray." I told this to a pious minister, who declared it was the most awfully just description of self-deluding formality, helped on by Satan, that ever he heard of. When partaking of the Lord's supper, Jack told me that his feeling was "very, very love Jesus Christ; very, very, very hate devil: go, devil!" and with holy indignation he motioned, as it were, the enemy from him. He felt that he had overcome the accuser by the blood of the Lamb. Oh that we all may take a lesson of wisdom from this simple child of God.
During the winter months he sunk daily: his greatest earthly delight was in occasionally seeing Mr. Donald, for whom he felt the fondest love, and who seemed to have a presentiment of the happy union in which they would together soon rejoice before the Lord. Jack was courteous in manner, even to elegance; most graceful; and being now nineteen, tall and large, with the expression of infantine innocence and sweetness on a very fine countenance, no one could look on him without admiration, nor treat him with roughness or disrespect: but Donald's tenderness of manner was no less conspicuous than his; and I have watched that noble- minded Christian man waiting on the dying youth, as he sat patiently reclining in his chair—for he could not lie down—and the grateful humility with which every little kindness was received, until I almost forgot what the rude unfeeling world was in that beautiful contemplation. How much the fruit in God's garden is beautified by the process that ripens it.
Jack labored anxiously to convert his sister; and as she could not read at all, the whole controversy was carried on by signs. Mary was excessively mirthful, Jack unboundedly earnest; and when her playful reproaches roused his Irish blood, the scene was often very comic. I remember he was once bringing a long list of accusations against her priest, for taking his mother's money, making the poor fast while the rich paid for dispensations to eat, inflicting cruel penances, drinking too much whiskey, and finally telling the people to worship wooden and breaden gods. To all this Mary attended with perfect good-humor, and then told him the same priest had christened him and made crosses upon him. Jack wrathfully intimated that he was then a baby, with a head like a doll's, and knew nothing; but if he had been wise he would have kicked his little foot into the priest's mouth. The controversy grew so warm that I had to part them. His horror of the priests was solely directed against their false religion; when I told him of one being converted, he leaped about for joy.
At the commencement of the year 1831 he was evidently dying; and we got a furlough for his brother to visit him. Poor Pat never went to bed but twice during the fortnight he was there, so bitterly did he grieve over the companion of his early days; and many a sweet discourse passed between them on the subject of the blessed hope that sustained the dying Christian. He only survived Pat's departure four days. On the third of February the last symptoms came on; the death-damps began to ooze out, his legs were swelled to the size of his body, and he sat in that state, incapable of receiving warmth, scarcely able to swallow, yet clear, bright, and tranquil, for thirty hours. The morning of the last day was marked by such a revival of strength that he walked across the room with little help, and talked incessantly to me, and to all who came near him. He told me, among other things, that once God destroyed all men by rain, except those in the ark; and that he would soon do it again, not with water but with fire. He described the Lord as taking up the wicked by handfuls, breaking them, and throwing them into a fire; repeating, "All bads, all bads go fire." I asked if he was not bad; "Yes, Jack bad very." Would he be thrown into the fire? "No; Jesus Christ loves poor Jack." He then spoke rapturously of the "red hand," of the angels he should soon be singing with, of the day when Satan should be cast into the pit, and of the delight he should have in seeing me again. He prayed for his family, begged me to teach Mary to read the Bible, to warn Pat against bad example, to bring up my brother's boys to love Jesus Christ, and lastly he repeated over and over again the fervent injunction to love Ireland, to pray for Ireland, to write books for "Jack's poor Ireland," and in every way to oppose Popery. He called it "Roman," always; and it was a striking sight, that youth all but dead, kindling into the most animated, stern, energetic warmth of manner, raising his cold, damp hands, and spelling with them the words, "Roman is a lie." "One Jesus Christ, one," meaning he was the only Saviour; "Jack's one Jesus Christ;" and then with a force as if he would have the characters impressed on his hands, he reiterated, as slowly as possible, his dying protest, "Roman is A LIE!" Very sweetly he thanked me for all my care; and now he seemed to bequeath to me his zeal against the destroyer of his people. The last signs of removal came on in the evening; his sight failed, he rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and then smiled with conscious pleasure. At last he asked me to let him lie down on the sofa where he had been sitting, and saying very calmly, "A sleep," put his hand into mine, closed his eyes, and breathed his spirit forth so gently, that it was difficult to mark the precise moment of that joyful change.
I still hope to throw into a volume the numerous particulars that remain untold concerning this boy; and I will not now dwell upon the subject longer. God had graciously kept me faithful to my trust; and I surrendered it, not without most keenly feeling the loss of such a companion, but with a glow of adoring thankfulness that overcame all selfish regrets. Thenceforth my lot was to be cast among strangers, and sorely did I miss the comforting, sympathizing monitor who for seven years had been teaching me more than I could teach him; but all my prayers had been answered, all my labors crowned; and with other duties before me I was enabled to look at the past, to thank God, and to take courage.
Circumstances led me to decide on removing nearer the metropolis; and with reluctance I bade adieu to Sandhurst, where I had resided five years. Jack was buried under the east window of the Chapel of Ease at Bagshot, there to rest till roused by the Lord's descending shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God. I am very certain he will rise to glory and immortality. It was a severe trial to part with my school, to dispose of the endeared relics that had furnished a home blessed by my brother's presence, to bid farewell to many kind friends, and cast myself into the great wilderness of London. The feeling that oppressed me was a conviction that I should there find nothing to do; but I prayed to be made useful, and none ever asked work of a heavenly Master in vain. The dreadful famine in the west of Ireland had called forth a stream of English liberality, and collections were made everywhere for relief of the suffering Irish: one was announced at Long- Acre chapel; but before the day arrived, the committee put forth a statement that they had abundant funds and required no more. I was then residing in Bloomsbury, daily witnessing the wretchedness of St. Giles's: and on learning this I wrote to Mr. Howels, begging him to say a word to his congregation on behalf of those Irish who were starving at their doors, whose miserable destitution I laid before him as well as I could. He returned me no answer; but on the Sunday morning read my letter from the pulpit, asked his flock to contribute, and collected upwards of fifty pounds, which he gave to me.
Knowing the character of the people so well, and longing to make the relief of their bodily wants subservient to a higher purpose, I resolved to visit in person every case recommended to my notice. Many of my friends stood aghast at the proposal: I should be insulted, murdered, by the Irish savages; no lady could venture there, their language was so dreadful: no delicate person could survive the effects of such a noxious atmosphere. To this I replied that, happily, I could not hear their conversation; and as for the unwholesomeness, it could not be worse than Sierra Leone, or other missionary stations, where many ladies went. Insult had never yet been my lot among the Irish; and as to murder, it would be martyrdom in such a cause, of which I had little hope. So I turned my fifty pounds into bread, rice, milk, meal, coals, and soup, resolved to give no money, and on the very next day commenced the campaign against starvation and Popery in St. Giles's.
For four months I persevered in the work, devoting from four to six hours every day to it; and though I never in the smallest degree concealed or compromised the truth, or failed to place in the strongest light its contrast with the falsehoods taught them, I never experienced a disrespectful or unkind look from one among the hundreds, the thousands who knew me as the enemy of their religion, but the loving friend of their country and of their souls. Often, when I went to visit and relieve some poor dying creature in a cellar or garret, where a dozen wholly unconnected with the sufferer were lodged in the same apartment, have I gathered them all about me by speaking of Ireland with the affection I really feel for it, and then shown them, from the Scriptures, in English, or by means of an Irish reader sometimes accompanying me, the only way of salvation, pointing out how very different was that by which they vainly sought it. My plan was to discover such as were too ill to go to the dispensary for relief, or to select the most distressed objects whom I met there, and to take the bread of life along with the bread that perisheth into their wretched abodes. I was most ably and zealously helped by that benevolent physician who had always been foremost in every good and compassionate work for the Irish poor; and to whose indefatigable zeal it is chiefly owing that at this day the poor lambs of that distressed flock are still gathered and taught in the schools which it was Donald's supreme delight to superintend. I cannot pass over in silence the devotion of Dr. Pidduck, through many years, to an office the most laborious, the most repulsive, and in many respects the most thankless that a professional man can be engaged in—that of ministering to the diseased and filthy population of the district. But many a soul that he has taught in the knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal, will be found to rejoice him in the day when their poor bodies shall arise to meet the Lord.
The schools in George-street, to which I have alluded, are the main blessing of the place: they were established long before the gospel in Irish was ever introduced there; and they survive the Irish ministry which, alas, has been withdrawn from the spot where God enabled me to plant it. Those schools are a bud of promise in the desolate wilderness, which may the Lord in his own good time cause to blossom again. * * *
During a sojourn of some years a little to the north of London, I devoted myself more to the pen, and found less opportunity for other usefulness than in Sandhurst and London; yet much encouragement was given to labor among the poor neglected Irish, who may be found in every neighborhood, and to whom few think of taking the gospel in their native tongue—still fewer of bearing with the desperate opposition that Satan will ever show to the work. We make the deplorable state, morally and physically, of the Irish poor, an excuse first for not going among them at all, and then for relinquishing the work if we do venture to begin it. In both cases it ought to plead for tenfold readiness and perseverance. I always found it a perilous task to attack the enemy in this strong-hold: not from any opposition encountered from the people themselves; far otherwise; they ever received me gladly, and treated me with respect and grateful affection; but Satan has many ways of assailing those whom he desires to hinder, and sometimes his chain is greatly lengthened for the trial of faith, and perfecting of humility and patience, where they may be sadly lacking. There are spheres of undeniable duty where the Christian may often almost, if not altogether, take up the apostle's declaration, and say, "No man stood by me." This, to the full extent, has never yet been my experience; but I have often found many against me, both without and within, when earnestly bent on dealing a blow at the great antichrist. It is no good sign when all goes on too smoothly.
In 1834 I was induced to undertake what seemed an arduous and alarming office, that of editing a periodical. I commenced it in much prayer, with no little trembling, and actuated by motives not selfish. That it was not laid down at the end of the second year, was owing to the great blessing just then given to my appeals on behalf of the cruelly oppressed and impoverished Irish clergy through its means: and recommencing, at the beginning of the third year, with an ardent desire to promote more than ever the sacred cause of Protestantism, I found the Lord prospering the work beyond my best hopes; and by his help I continue it to this day. * * *
It was my blessed privilege, four years since, to abridge into two moderate sized volumes the English Martyrology, as recorded by Foxe. In the progress of this work I became better acquainted with the true doctrines of the Reformation than ever before: I compared them, as I am wont to do every thing, with what God has revealed; and I am satisfied that they are perfectly accordant with Scripture: if they were not so, I would reject them. By the same standard let us prove all things, that we may hold fast that which is good.
I have not particularized the trial of my scriptural principles when exposed for a short time to the pernicious doctrines of a subtle and persuasive Antinomian teacher. At first he only appeared to me to insist very strenuously on the doctrine of free, sovereign grace; and greatly to magnify God in the saving of souls, wholly independent of aught that man can do: but a little further investigation convinced me that the vilest system of moral licentiousness might be built on such a foundation as he laid; and I found the discourses of Peter and of Paul, as recorded in the Acts, especially conclusive against his perverted notions. Antinomianism is a most deadly thing; and I believe all extremes in doctrines where good men have much differed to be dangerous; while at the same time they are very deluding, for we all love to go far in an argument, or under the influence of party spirit. * * *
Of myself, I have now no more to say than that, "by the help of my God, I continue to this day" anxiously desirous to devote my little talent to his service, as he may graciously permit. I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel, but counted it a privilege to labor with my hands and head, for myself and for those most dear to me. Many trials, various and sharp, have been my portion; but they are passed away, and if I have not enlarged upon them it is from no reluctance to declare all the Lord's wonderful doings, but from a desire to avoid speaking harshly of those who are departed. The Lord has accepted at my hand one offering, in the case of the precious dumb boy, received into glory through his rich blessing on my efforts; and he mercifully gives me to see the welfare of two others, committed to me as the offspring of my brother, over whose early years I have been permitted to watch, and in whose growing prosperity my heart can rejoice. He has been a very gracious Master to me; he has dealt very bountifully, and given me now the abundance of domestic peace, with the light of his countenance to gladden my happy home. Yet the brightest beam that falls upon it is the anticipation of that burst of glory when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, to reign in righteousness over the world that shall soon, very soon, acknowledge him the universal, eternal King: and the most fervent aspiration my heart desires to utter is the response to his promise of a speedy advent. "Even so, Lord Jesus; come quickly. Amen."
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NOTE. Charlotte Elizabeth was born in October, 1790, and wrote the Personal Recollections near the close of 1840, when fifty years of age. She continued her active Christian beneficence, and the brilliant and unceasing labors of her pen, in editing the Protestant Magazine, and other writing for the press, until the very close of life. "Immediately after breakfast," says a brief sketch of her remaining years, "she went to her desk, locking the door to exclude interruptions; and when her pen was laid aside, her garden afforded ever new delight; and with her, gardening was no light occupation. She smiled at lady gardeners who only enjoyed the labors of others. From the moment the gravel-walks and beds were formed, all was the work of her own hands; and the most laborious operations were to her refreshment and enjoyment. Each plant, each bed was familiar to her. She knew their history, their vicissitudes, and the growth and expansion of each became a source of lively and never-failing interest. The emotions produced in her mind by the brilliant tints of flowers, can only be compared to those of music to others, and this love of color was regulated by the most delicate sense of harmony in their disposition and arrangement. The writer wears at this moment a small diamond ring, which she kept in her desk, and would place on her finger only when engaged in writing; the occasional flashing of the brilliants as the light fell upon them, producing most pleasurable sensations in her mind, and greatly assisting the flow of her thoughts and imagination. Her countenance, at such moments, would light up with animation, and if an inquiring glance were turned to her, she would smile, and add, 'Oh, it was only the diamonds.'
"Often would she lay down her pen in the midst of some work requiring the whole energy of her mind, and much concentration of thought, and go to her garden for half an hour; and while apparently wholly absorbed in pruning or transplanting, she was really engaged in her work; and the apparent loss of time was amply repaid by the rapidity with which she wrote out the ideas conceived and matured during this healthful recreation. A word, however, spoken to her at such times, would have caused a most painful interruption in the current of her thoughts—she compared the effect to a stone thrown into a quiet running brook—and would utterly disable her from writing during the rest of the day, a circumstance not easy to impress on the minds of servants. Even those who would most carefully refrain from addressing her when they knew she was actually writing, could hardly understand that like care was needful when she was thus employed over her flowers.
"All communication was held with her by means of the finger alphabet, but so quick was her appreciation of what was thus said, and so easy was it for those about her to acquire great rapidity in this art, that her total deafness was hardly felt to be an inconvenience; sermons, speeches, conversations even of the most voluble speakers, were conveyed to her with the greatest ease, and with hardly the omission of the smallest word."
In 1841 she married Mr. L.H.J. Tonna, who held an office in London under the British government, and who prepared the sketch from which the above passage is quoted. Having in 1836 removed from Edmonton, (page 242,) she resided at Blackheath till 1845, when she removed to London. About the end of 1844, she found that a small swelling near her left shoulder was indeed a cancer, which would doubtless terminate life; but she continued her literary labors till a vary short time before her death, which was one of peace and humble trust in her Redeemer, and occurred at Ramsgate on the sea-side. The following epitaph, dictated by herself, is inscribed on her tombstone:
End of Project Gutenberg's Personal Recollections, by Charlotte Elizabeth