Pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; and he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used.
O, be wiser, then!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love:
True dignity abides with him alone,
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.
WORDSWORTH.
It has been the fashion, of late, to depreciate the clergymen among our
Puritan fathers. It is true they erred, but their errors belonged to the
time and the circumstance that placed in their hands unusual power.
There were among them men that would have done honor to any age; perfect
gentlemen, who would have adorned a drawing-room, as well as consecrated
a church.
The traits that constitute _gentlesse_ do not belong to any age or any
school: they are not formed by the conventions of society, nor the forms
that are adopted to facilitate and give grace to the intercourse of
equals. The precept that says, "In honor preferring one another," if
acted on in perfect sincerity of heart, and carried out in all the
intercourse of society, would form perfect gentlemen and ladies. We have
heard Jesus called the most finished gentleman that ever lived.
Undisguised benevolence, humility, and sincerity, would form such
gentlemen, and the intercourse of society, founded on such principles,
would be true, noble, graceful, and most attractive.
Such a gentleman was Edith's father; and while he was an honored and
cherished guest at the tables of the fathers and princes of the colony,
he seldom left his humble parish. His influence there was unbounded, and
his peculiarities, if he had them, belonged to the age. In an age of
persecutors, he was so averse to persecution, that he did not escape the
charge of heresy and insincerity.
The clergy of that time loved to preach from the Old Testament, and to
illustrate the lives of the patriarchs. An unlimited and implicit faith,
that made each believe he was the especial care and favorite of God, was
the foundation of the religion of the Old Testament. Our fathers had
much of the same persuasion. To an audience of fishermen, and scattered
cultivators of the sterile fields of New England, such a faith came home
to their hearts; the one committing their frail boats to the treacherous
ocean, the other depending on the early and the latter rains, and genial
skies, for their support.
June had come, the genial month of June, and Mr. Grafton was not revived
by its soft air. He declined daily, and Edith, his tender nurse, could
not conceal from herself that there was little hope of his ever
reviving.
Dinah had watched with him almost every night, but, worn out with
fatigue, Edith had persuaded her to take some moments for repose. After
a night of much restlessness, towards morning, her father fell into a
tranquil slumber. Edith was alone in the darkened room, and as she sat
in the deep silence by his bedside, an old-fashioned clock, that stood
in the corner, seemed, to her excited nerves, to strike its monotonous
tick directly on her temples. A small taper was burning in the chimney,
and the long shadows it cast served only to darken the room. From time
to time, as Edith leaned over her father, she touched his forehead with
her hand: in the solitude and stillness, it seemed a medium of
communication with the mind of her father, and held the place of
language.
At length he opened his eyes, and seeing her bending over him, he drew
her towards him, and kissed her tenderly. In a whisper, he said, "I
feel, my child, that I am dying."
"Do not weep," said he, observing how much Edith was shocked; "you can
trust in God. You can be near me in death, as you have been in life. Now
is the time, my Edith, to feel the value of all those principles we have
learned together through life. I feel that God is near us, and that when
I am gone, he will be near to you."
Edith threw herself into his arms. Her father laid his hand on her head,
and prayed audibly. She arose more calm, and asked him if she should not
call the faithful slaves.
"No, my child," he said; "let the poor children"--he always named them
thus--"let the poor children sleep. God is here. I hold your hands in
mine. What more do we want? Let the quiet night pass. The morning will
be glorious! it will open for me in another world."
It was a beautiful sight, that young and timid woman sustaining her aged
father, and he trusting so entirely in God, and feeling no anxiety, no
grief, but that of leaving her alone.
As she sat thus holding his hand in hers, his breath became less
frequent; he fixed his eyes on hers with a tender smile. His breathing
stopped--his spirit was gone!
Edith did not shriek, or faint. It was the first time she had been in
the chamber of death, and a holy calmness, a persuasion that her
father's spirit was still there, came over her. She closed his eyes, and
sat long with his hand strained in hers.
The first note of the early birds made her start. She arose, and opened
the window. The morning had dawned, and every leaf, every blade of
grass, was glittering in the early dew. Her father's horse, that had
borne him so many years, was feeding in the enclosure. At the sound of
the window, he came forward: then a sense of her loss came over Edith,
and she burst into tears.