Pittie olde age, within whose silver haires
Honour and reverence evermore have rain’d.
MARLOWE’S TAMBURLAINE.
THOSE who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have noticed
the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sunday. The clacking of
the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the flail, the din of the
blacksmith’s hammer, the whistling of the ploughman, the rattling of
the cart, and all other sounds of rural labor are suspended. The
very farm-dogs bark less frequently, being less disturbed by passing
travellers. At such times I have almost fancied the wind sunk into
quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its fresh green tints melting
into blue haze, enjoyed the hallowed calm.
Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so brigh’
The bridal of the earth and sky.
Well was it ordained that the day of devotion should be a day of rest.
The holy repose which reigns over the face of nature has its moral
influence; every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel the
natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. For my
part, there are feelings that visit me, in a country church, amid the
beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience nowhere else; and if
not a more religious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on any
other day of the seven.
During my recent residence in the country, I used frequently to attend
at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering monuments,
its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of departed years,
seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation; but, being in a
wealthy, aristocratic neighborhood, the glitter of fashion penetrated
even into the sanctuary; and I felt myself continually thrown back upon
the world, by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms around me. The
only being in the whole congregation who appeared thoroughly to feel the
humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian was a poor decrepit old
woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmities. She bore the
traces of something better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent
pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the
extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been
awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but
sat alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all
love, all friendship, all society, and to have nothing left her but the
hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form
in prayer; habitually conning her prayer-book, which her palsied hand
and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she evidently
knew by heart, I felt persuaded that the faltering voice of that poor
woman arose to heaven far before the responses of the clerk, the swell
of the organ, or the chanting of the choir.
I am fond of loitering about country churches, and this was so
delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on a
knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful bend and then wound
its way through a long reach of soft meadow scenery. The church was
surrounded by yew trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its
tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows
generally wheeling about it. I was seated there one still sunny morning
watching two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of
the most remote and neglected corners of the churchyard, where, from the
number of nameless graves around, it would appear that the indigent and
friendless were huddled into the earth. I was told that the new-made
grave was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was meditating on
the distinctions of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very
dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. They
were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A
coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or other covering, was
borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air
of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of
affected woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after
the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased, the poor old woman
whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported by
a humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. A few of the
neighboring poor had joined the train, and some children of the village
were running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and now
pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner.
As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson issued from the
church-porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer-book in hand, and
attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity.
The deceased had been destitute, and the survivor was penniless. It
was shuffled through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeeling. The
well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door; his voice
could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I hear the funeral
service, that sublime and touching ceremony, turned into such a frigid
mummery of words.
I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the ground. On it were
inscribed the name and age of the deceased--“George Somers, aged 26
years.” The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head
of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer; but I could
perceive, by a feeble rocking of the body, and a convulsive motion of
the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the
yearnings of a mother’s heart.
Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. There was
that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and
affection; directions given in the cold tones of business; the striking
of spades into sand and gravel; which, at the grave of those we love,
is, of all sounds, the most withering. The bustle around seemed to
waken the mother from a wretched revery. She raised her glazed eyes, and
looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to
lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into
an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her took her by the arm
endeavoring to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like
consolation: “Nay, now--nay, now--don’t take it so sorely to heart.”
She could only shake her head, and wring her hands, as one not to be
comforted.
As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the cords
seemed to agonize her; but when, on some accidental obstruction, there
was a jostling of the coffin, all the tenderness of the mother burst
forth, as if any harm could come to him who was far beyond the reach of
worldly suffering.
I could see no more--my heart swelled into my throat--my eyes filled
with tears; I felt as if I were acting a barbarous part in standing by
and gazing idly on this scene of maternal anguish. I wandered to another
part of the churchyard, where I remained until the funeral train had
dispersed.
When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the grave, leaving
behind her the remains of all that was dear to her on earth, and
returning to silence and destitution, my heart ached for her. What,
thought I, are the distresses of the rich? They have friends to
soothe--pleasures to beguile--a world to divert and dissipate their
griefs. What are the sorrows of the young? Their growing minds soon
close above the wound--their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the
pressure--their green and ductile affections soon twine round new
objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliances to
soothe--the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but a wintry
day, and who can look for no after-growth of joy--the sorrows of a
widow, aged, solitary, destitute, mourning over an only son, the last
solace of her years,--these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the
impotency of consolation.
It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way homeward, I met
with the woman who had acted as comforter: she was just returning from
accompanying the mother to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her
some particulars connected with the affecting scene I had witnessed.
The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from childhood.
They had inhabited one of the neatest cottages, and by various rural
occupations, and the assistance of a small garden, had supported
themselves creditably and comfortably, and led a happy and a blameless
life. They had one son, who had grown up to be the staff and pride of
their age. “Oh, sir!” said the good woman, “he was such a comely lad,
so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful to his
parents! It did one’s heart good to see him of a Sunday, drest out in
his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, supporting his old mother to
church; for she was always fonder of leaning on George’s arm than on her
good man’s; and, poor soul, she might well be proud of him, for a finer
lad there was not in the country round.”
Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity and
agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of one of the small
craft that plied on a neighboring river. He had not been long in this
employ, when he was entrapped by a press-gang, and carried off to sea.
His parents received tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could
learn nothing. It was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was
already infirm, grew heartless and melancholy and sunk into his grave.
The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer
support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind
feeling towards her throughout the village, and a certain respect as
being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage
in which she had passed so many happy days, she was permitted to remain
in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of
nature were chiefly supplied from the scanty productions of her little
garden, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was
but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told
me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she
heard the cottage-door which faced the garden, suddenly opened. A
stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around.
He was dressed in seamen’s clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and
bore the air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her and
hastened towards her, but his steps were faint and faltering; he sank on
his knees before her and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon
him with a vacant and wandering eye. “Oh, my dear, dear mother! don’t
you know your son? your poor boy, George?” It was, indeed, the wreck
of her once noble lad; who shattered by wounds, by sickness and foreign
imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to
repose among the scenes of his childhood.
I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where
sorrow and joy were so completely blended: still, he was alive! he was
come home! he might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age! Nature,
however, was exhausted in him; and if any thing had been wanting to
finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have
been sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed
mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it
again.
The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had returned, crowded
to see him, offering every comfort and assistance that their humble
means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk--he could only
look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant; and he seemed
unwilling to be helped by any other hand.
There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood,
that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy.
Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and
despondency, who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and
loneliness of a foreign land, but has thought on the mother “that looked
on his childhood,” that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his
helplessness? Oh, there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a
mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart.
It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger,
nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will
sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every
pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his
prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to
her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will
still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the
world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.
Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness, and none to
soothe--lonely and in prison, and none to visit him. He could not endure
his mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye would follow her.
She would sit for hours by his bed watching him as he slept. Sometimes
he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw
her bending over him; when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom,
and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died.
My first impulse on hearing this humble tale of affliction was to visit
the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecuniary assistance, and, if
possible, comfort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings
of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case
admitted; and as the poor know best how to console each other’s sorrows,
I did not venture to intrude.
The next Sunday I was at the village church, when, to my surprise, I saw
the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on
the steps of the altar.
She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son;
and nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious
affection and utter poverty--a black ribbon or so, a faded black
handkerchief, and one or two more such humble attempts to express by
outward signs that grief which passes show. When I looked round upon
the storied monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp with
which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride, and turned to
this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God,
and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious though a broken
heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them
all.
I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation,
and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her
situation more comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was,
however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a
Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and
before I left the neighborhood I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction,
that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she
loved, in that world where sorrow is never known and friends are never
parted.