The news of the stoppage of the mail reached Salt Lake Valley July 24th,

an eventful anniversary in the history of Mormonism. It was on the 24th

of July, 1847, that Brigham Young entered the Valley from the East, and

the day had always afterwards been kept as a holiday of the Church. On

this occasion, the celebration was held in Cottonwood Cañon, one of the

wildest and grandest gorges among the Wahsatch Mountains, opening at

the foot of the Twin Peaks, about twenty miles southeast from Salt Lake

City. Thither more than twenty-five hundred people had flocked from the

city on the previous day, and prepared to hold their festival under

bowers built of fragrant pines and cedars around a little lake far up

among the mountains. During the afternoon of the 24th, while they were

engaged in music, dancing, and every manner of lively sport, two dusty

messengers rode up the cañon, bringing from the States the news of the

stoppage of the mail and of the approaching march of the troops. This

mode of announcement was probably preconcerted with Brigham Young, who

was undoubtedly aware of the facts on the preceding day. A scene of

the maddest confusion ensued, which was heightened by the inflammatory

speeches of the Mormon leaders. Young reminded the fanatical throng,

that, ten years ago that very day, he had said, "Give us ten years of

peace and we will ask no odds of the United States"; and he added,

that the ten years had passed, and now they asked no odds,--that they

constituted henceforth a free and independent state, to be known no

longer as Utah, but by their own Mormon name of Deseret. Kimball, the

second in authority in the Church, called on the people to adhere to

Brigham, as their "prophet, seer, and revelator, priest, governor,

and king." The sun set on the first overt act in the rebellion. The

fanatics, wending their way back to the city, across the broad plain, in

the moonlight, were ready to follow wherever Brigham Young might choose

to lead.

On the succeeding Sundays the spirit of rebellion was breathed from the

pulpit in language yet more intemperate, and often profane and obscene.

Military preparations were made with the greatest bustle; and the Nauvoo

Legion--under which name, transplanted from Illinois, the militia were

organized--was drilled daily in the streets of the city. The martial

fervor ran so high that even the boys paraded with wooden spears and

guns, and the little ragamuffins were inspected and patted on the head

by venerable and veritable Fathers of the Church.

In total ignorance that the standard of rebellion had already been

raised, General Harney, in the beginning of August, detached Captain Van

Vliet, the Quarter-master on his staff, to proceed rapidly to Utah to

make arrangements for the reception of the army in the Valley. He passed

the troops in the vicinity of Fort Laramie. About thirty miles west

of Green River he was met by a party of Mormons, who escorted him,

accompanied only by his servant, to the city. There he was politely

treated, but informed that his mission would be fruitless, for the

Mormon people were determined to resist the ingress of the troops. At

a meeting in the Tabernacle, at which the Captain was present on the

platform, when Brigham Young called on the audience for an expression of

opinion, every hand was raised in favor of the policy of resistance, and

in expression of willingness, if it should become necessary, to abandon

harvest and homestead, retreat with the women to the mountains, and wage

there a war of extermination. They took pains to conduct the Captain

through the well-kept gardens and blooming fields, to show him their

household comforts, the herds of cattle, the stacks of hay and grain,

and all their public improvements, in order to present a contrast

between such plenty and prosperity and such a scene of desolation as

they depicted. Profoundly impressed by the devotion of the people to

their leaders, he started on his return, accompanied by Mr. Bernhisel,

the Mormon delegate to Congress. Two days after he left the city, a

proclamation was issued by Young, in his capacity of Governor, in which

the army was denounced as a mob and forbidden to enter the Territory,

and the people of Utah were summoned to arms to repel its advance.

When this document reached the troops, they had already crossed the

Territorial line, and were prepared for its reception by the report of

Captain Van Vliet as he passed them on his return to the States. Their

position was embarrassing. In the absence of General Harney, each

separate detachment constituted an independent command. The senior

officer present was Colonel Alexander, of the Tenth Infantry, a thorough

soldier in the minutiae of his profession, and distinguished by

gallantry during the Mexican War. He resolved, very properly, in view

of his seniority, to assume the command-in-chief until General Harney

should arrive from the East. On the 27th of September, before the

proclamation was received, the first division of the army crossed Green

River, having accomplished a march of a thousand miles in little more

than two months. That same night it hastened forwards thirty miles to

Ham's Fork,--a confluent of Black's Fork, which empties into Green

River,--where several supply-trains were gathered, upon which there

was danger that the Mormons would make an attack. The other divisions

followed within the week, and the whole force was concentrated. On the

night of October 5th, after the last division had crossed the river, two

supply-trains, of twenty-five wagons each, were captured and burned just

on the bank of the stream, by a party of mounted Mormons led by a man

named Lot Smith, and the next morning another train was destroyed by

the same party, twenty miles farther east, on the Big Sandy, in Oregon

Territory. The teamsters were disarmed and dismissed, and the cattle

stolen. No blood was shed; not a shot fired. Immediately upon the news

of this attack reaching Ham's Fork, Colonel Alexander, who had then

assumed the command-in-chief, dispatched Captain Marcy, of the Fifth

Infantry, with four hundred men, to afford assistance to the trains, and

punish the aggressors, if possible. But when the Captain reached Green

River, all that was visible near the little French trading-post was two

broad, black rings on the ground, bestrewn with iron chains and bolts,

where the wagons had been burned in _corral_. He was able to do

nothing except to send orders to the other trains on the road to halt,

concentrate, and await the escort of Brevet Colonel Smith, of the Tenth

Infantry, who had started from the frontier in August with the two

companies mentioned as having been left behind in Minnesota, and by

rapid marches had already reached the Sweetwater. The condition of

affairs at this moment was indeed critical. By the folly of Governor

Walker's movements in Kansas the expedition was deprived of its mounted

force, and consisted entirely of infantry and artillery. The Mormon

marauding parties, on the contrary, which it now became evident were

hovering on every side, were all well mounted and tolerably well armed.

The loss of three trains more would reduce the troops to the verge

of starvation before spring, in case of inability to reach Salt Lake

Valley. Nothing was heard from General Harney, and in his absence no one

possessed instructions adequate to the emergency.

To understand the movements which followed, it is necessary to describe

briefly the topography of the country between Green River and the Great

Salt Lake. The entire interval, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth,

is filled with groups and chains of mountains, the direct route through

which to Salt Lake City lies along water-courses, following them through

cañons so narrow that little science is necessary to render the natural

defences impregnable. In this respect, and in the general character of

the scenery, it bears much resemblance to the Tyrol. In the narrowest of

these gorges, Echo Cañon, twenty-five miles in length, whose walls of

rock often approach within a stone's throw of each other, it became

known that the Mormons were erecting breastworks and digging ditches,

by means of which they expected to be able to submerge the road to the

depth of several feet, for miles. The only known mode of avoiding a

passage through this gorge was by a circuitous route, following the

eastern slope of the rim of the Great Basin northward, more than a

hundred miles, to Soda Springs, at the northern bend of Bear River, the

principal tributary of the Salt Lake,--then crossing the rim along the

course of the river, and pursuing its valley southward, and that of the

Roseaux or Malade, into Salt Lake Valley. The distance of Salt Lake

City from the camp on Ham's Fork was by this route nearly three hundred

miles,--while the distance by the road past Fort Bridger, through the

cañons, was less than one hundred and fifty miles. At that fort, about

twenty miles west from the encampment of the army, the Mormon marauding

parties had their head-quarters and principal _dépôt_. It was there that

Colonel Alexander was ordered, about this time, by Brigham Young,

to surrender his arms to the Mormon Quartermaster-General, on which

condition and an agreement to depart eastward early the following

spring, he and his troops should be fed during the winter; otherwise,

Young added, they would perish from hunger and cold, and rot among the

mountains. In his perplexity, Colonel Alexander called a council of

war, and, with its approval, resolved to commence a march towards Soda

Springs, leaving Fort Bridger unmolested on his left. For more than

a fortnight the army toiled along Ham's Fork, cutting a road through

thickets of greasewood and wild sage, incumbered by a train of such

unwieldy length that often the advance-guard reached its camp at night

before the rear-guard had moved from the camp of the preceding day, and

harassed by Mormon marauding parties from the Fort, which hung about the

flanks out of the reach of rifle-shot, awaiting opportunities to descend

on unprotected wagons and cattle. The absence of dragoons prevented a

dispersion of these banditti. Some companies of infantry were, indeed,

mounted on mules, and sent to pursue them, but these only excited their

derision. The Mormons nicknamed them "jackass cavalry." Their only

exploit was the capture of a Mormon major and his adjutant, on whose

person were found orders issued by D.H. Wells, the Commanding General of

the Nauvoo Legion, to the various detachments of marauders, directing

them to burn the whole country before the army and on its flanks, to

keep it from sleep by night surprises, to stampede its animals and set

fire to its trains, to blockade the road by felling trees and destroying

river-fords, but to take no life. On the 13th of October, eight hundred

oxen were cut off from the rear of the army and driven to Salt Lake

Valley. Thus the weary column toiled along until it reached the spot

where it expected to be joined by Colonel Smith's battalion, about fifty

miles up Ham's Fork. The very next day snow fell to the depth of more

than a foot. Disheartened, vacillating, and perplexed, Colonel Alexander

called another council of war, and, acting on its judgment, resolved to

retrace his steps. An express reached him that same day, from Colonel

Smith, by which he was informed of the approach of Colonel Albert S.

Johnston, of the Second Cavalry, who had been detailed to take command

of the expedition in the place of General Harney, and now sent orders

that the troops should return to Black's Fork, where he proposed to

concentrate the entire army.

During the month of August, it having become evident that General Harney

was reluctant to proceed to Utah, anticipating a brighter field for

military distinction in Kansas, Colonel Johnston was summoned from

Texas to Washington and there ordered to hasten to take command of the

expedition. On the 17th of September, he left Fort Leavenworth, and by

rapid travel overtook Colonel Smith while he was engaged in collecting

the trains which he intended to escort to the main body. On the 27th of

October, the column moved forwards. The escort had been reinforced by a

squadron of dragoons from Fort Laramie, but its entire strength was less

than three hundred men, a number obviously insufficient to defend a line

of wagons six miles in length. An attack by the Mormons was expected

every day, but none was made; and on the 3d of November, the whole army,

with its munitions, supplies, and commander, was concentrated on Black's

Fork. Colonel Alexander had arrived at the place of rendezvous some days

previously, being no nearer Salt Lake City November 3d than he had been

a month before. The country was covered with snow, winter having fairly

set in among the mountains, the last pound of forage was exhausted, and

the cattle and mules were little more than animated skeletons.

Colonel Johnston had already determined, while in the South Pass, that

it would be impracticable to cross the Wahsatch range until spring,

and shaped his arrangements accordingly. He resolved to establish

winter-quarters in the vicinity of Fort Bridger, and on the 6th of

November the advance towards that post commenced. The day was memorable

in the history of the expedition. Sleet poured down upon the column from

morning till night. On the previous evening, five hundred cattle had

been stampeded by the Mormons, in consequence of which some trains

were unable to move at all. After struggling along till nightfall, the

regiments camped wherever they could find shelter under bluffs or among

willows. That night more than five hundred animals perished from

hunger and cold, and the next morning the camp was encircled by their

carcasses, coated with a film of ice. It was a scene which could be

paralleled only in the retreat of the French from Moscow. Had there been

any doubt before concerning the practicability of an immediate advance

beyond Fort Bridger, none existed any longer. It was the 16th of

November when the vanguard reached that post, which the Mormons had

abandoned the week before. Nearly a fortnight had been consumed in

accomplishing less than thirty miles.

It is time to return to the States and record what had been transpiring

there, in connection with the expedition, while the army was staggering

towards its permanent winter-camp. The only one of the newly-appointed

civil officials who was present with the troops was Judge Eckels,

who had left his home in Indiana immediately after receiving his

appointment, and started across the Plains with his own conveyance. Near

Fort Laramie he was overtaken by Colonel Smith, whom he accompanied in

his progress to the main body. Governor Cumming, in the mean while,

dilly-dallied in the East, travelling from St. Louis to Washington and

back again, begging for an increase of salary, for a sum of money to be

placed at his disposal for secret service, and for transportation

to the Territory,--all which requests, except the last, were denied.

Towards the close of September, he arrived at Fort Leavenworth. Governor

Walker had, by this time, released his hold on the dragoons, and,

notwithstanding the advanced period of the season, they were preparing

to march to Utah. The Governor and most of the other civil officers

delayed until they started, and travelled in their company. The march

was attended with the severest hardships. When they reached the Rocky

Mountains, the snow lay from one to three feet deep on the loftier

ridges which they were obliged to cross. The struggle with the elements,

during the last two hundred miles before gaining Fort Bridger, was

desperate. Nearly a third of the horses died from cold, hunger, and

fatigue; everything that could be spared was thrown out to lighten the

wagons, and the road was strewn with military accoutrements from the

Rocky Ridge to Green River. On the 20th of November, Colonel Cooke

reached the camp with a command entirely incapacitated for active

service.

The place selected by Colonel Johnston for the winter-quarters of

the army was on the bank of Black's Fork, about two miles above Fort

Bridger, on a spot sheltered by high bluffs which rise abruptly from the

bottom at a distance of five or six hundred yards from the channel of

the stream. The banks of the Fork were fringed with willow brush and

cottonwood trees, blasted in some places where the Mormons had attempted

to deprive the troops of fuel. The trees were fortunately too green to

burn, and the fire swept through acres, doing no more damage than to

consume the dry leaves and char the bark. The water of the Fork, clear

and pure, rippled noisily over a stony bed between two unbroken walls

of ice. The civil officers of the Territory fixed their quarters in

a little nook in the wood above the military camp. The Colonel,

anticipating a change of encampment, determined not to construct

quarters of logs or sod for the army. A new species of tent, which had

just been introduced, was served out for its winter dwellings. An iron

tripod supported a pole from the top of which depended a slender but

strong hoop. Attached to this, the canvas sloped to the ground, forming

a tent in the shape of a regular cone. The opening at the top caused a

draught, by means of which a fire could be kept up beneath the tripod

without choking the inmates with smoke. An Indian lodge had evidently

been the model of the inventor. Most of the civil officers, however, dug

square holes in the ground, over which they built log huts, plastering

the cracks with mud. Their little town they named Eckelsville, after the

Chief Justice. A _dépôt_ for all the military stores was established at

Fort Bridger, where a strong detachment was encamped. At the time of its

occupation, the Fort consisted merely of two stone walls, one twenty,

the other about ten feet in height, inclosing quadrangles fifty paces

long and forty broad. These walls were built of cobble-stones cemented

with mortar. Half-a-dozen cannonballs would have knocked them to pieces,

although they constituted a formidable defence against infantry. When

the Mormons evacuated the post, they burned all the buildings inside

these quadrangles. Colonel Johnston proceeded to set up additional

defences for the _dépôt_, and within a month two lunettes were completed

with ditches and _chevaux-de-frise_, in each of which was mounted a

piece of artillery.

The work of unloading the trains commenced, and after careful

computation the Chief Commissary determined, that, by an abridgment of

the ration, diminishing the daily issue of flour, and issuing bacon only

once a week, his supplies would last until the first of June. All the

beef cattle intended for the use of the army having been intercepted by

the Cheyennes, it became necessary to kill those draught oxen for beef,

which had survived the march. Shambles were erected, to which the poor

half-starved animals were driven by hundreds to be butchered. The flesh

was jerked and stored carefully in cabins built for the purpose.

The business of loading the trains had been carelessly performed at Fort

Leavenworth. In this respect the quartermaster who superintended the

work might have learned a lesson from the experience of the British in

the Crimea. But, unwilling to take the trouble to assign to each train

a proportionate quantity of all the articles to be transported, he had

packed one after another with just such things as lay most conveniently

at hand. The consequence was, that in the wagons which were burned

were contained all the mechanics' implements, stationery, and

horse-medicines, although the loss of the latter was not to be

regretted. The rest of their contents was mostly flour and bacon. Had

the Mormons burned the next three trains upon the road, they would have

destroyed all the clothing intended for the expedition. As it was, upon

searching those trains, only one hundred and fifty pairs of boots and

shoes and six hundred pairs of stockings were found provided for an army

of two thousand men, and some of the soldiers already had nothing but

moccasins to cover their feet, with the thermometer at 16 degrees below

zero,--while there were found one thousand leather neck-stocks and three

thousand bed-sacks, articles totally useless. "How not to do it" had

evidently been the motto of the Quarter-master's Department. The ample

supplies of some articles were rendered unavailable by deficiencies in

other articles equally necessary. In some of its arrangements it seemed

to have proceeded on the presumption that there would be an armed

collision, while in others the probability of such an event was entirely

disregarded. One wagon was loaded wholly with boiling-kettles, but there

was no brine to boil, and at the close of November not a pound of salt

remained in the camp.

One of the first and most important of Colonel Johnston's duties was

to provide for the keeping, during the winter, of the mules and horses

which survived. On Black's Fork there was no grass for their support. It

had either been burned by the Mormons or consumed by their cavalry. He

decided to send them all to Henry's Fork, thirty-five miles south of

Fort Bridger, where he had at one time designed to encamp with the whole

army. The regiment of dragoons was detailed to guard them. A supply of

fresh animals for transportation in the spring was his next care. The

settlements in New Mexico are less than seven hundred miles distant from

Fort Bridger, and to them he resolved to apply. Captain Marcy was

the officer selected to lead in the arduous expedition. He had been

previously distinguished in the service by a thorough exploration of the

Red River of Louisiana. Accompanied by only thirty-five picked men, all

volunteers, and by two guides, he started for Taos, November 27th,--an

undertaking from which, at that season of the year, the most experienced

mountaineers would have shrunk. A party was dispatched at the same

time to the Flathead country, in Oregon and Washington Territories, to

procure horses to remount the dragoons, and to induce the traders in

that region to drive cattle down to Fort Bridger for sale.

On the day of Captain Marcy's departure, Governor Cumming issued a

proclamation, declaring the Territory to be in a state of rebellion,

and commanding the traitors to lay down their arms and return to their

homes. It announced, also, that proceedings would be instituted against

the offenders, in a court to be organized in the county by Judge Eckels,

which would supersede the necessity of appointing a military commission

for that purpose. This document was sent to Salt Lake City by a Mormon

prisoner who was released for the purpose. The Governor sent also, by

the same messenger, a letter to Brigham Young, in which there were

expressions that indicated a disposition to temporize.

The whole camp, at this time, was a scene of confusion and bustle. Some

of the stragglers around the tents were Indians belonging to a band of

Pah-Utahs, among whom Dr. Hurt, already mentioned as the only Federal

officer who did not abandon the Territory in the spring of 1857, had

established a farm upon the banks of the Spanish Fork, which rises among

the snows of Mount Nebo, and flows into Lake Utah from the East. Shortly

after the issue of Brigham Young's proclamation of September 15th, the

Mormons resolved to take the Doctor prisoner. No official was ever more

obnoxious to the Church than he; for by his authority over the tribes

he had been able to counteract in great measure the influences by which

Young had endeavored to alienate both Snakes and Utahs from the control

of the United States. On the 27th of September, two bands of mounted men

moved towards the farm from the neighboring towns of Springville and

Payson. Warned by the faithful Indians of his danger, the Doctor fled to

the mountains, and twenty Pah-Utahs and Uinta-Utahs escorted him to the

South Pass, where he joined Colonel Johnston on the 23d of October. It

was an act of devotion which has rarely been excelled in Indian history.

The sufferings of his naked escort on the journey were severe. They

crossed the Green River Mountains, breaking the crust of the snow and

leading their animals, being reduced at the time to tallow and roots for

their own sustenance. On the advance of the army towards Fort Bridger,

they accompanied its march.

Another class of stragglers, and one most dangerous to the peace of the

camp, was composed of the thousand teamsters who were discharged from

employment on the supply-trains. Many of these men belonged to the scum

of the great Western cities,--a class more dangerous, because more

intelligent and reckless, than the same class of population in New York.

Others had sought to reach California, not anticipating a state of

hostilities which would bar their way. Now, thrown out of employment,

with slender means, a great number became desperate. Hundreds attempted

to return to the States on foot, some of whom died on the way,--and

nine-tenths of them would have perished, had they encountered the storms

of the preceding winter among the mountains. But the majority hung

around the camp. To some of these the Quartermaster was able to furnish

work, but he was obviously incapable of affording this assistance to

all. Thefts and assaults became frequent, and promised to multiply as

the season advanced. To remedy this trouble, Colonel Johnston assumed

the responsibility of organizing a volunteer battalion. The term of

service for which the men enlisted was nine months. For their pay they

were to depend on the action of Congress. The four companies which the

battalion comprised selected for their commander an officer from the

regular army, Captain Bee, of the Tenth Infantry.

The organization of a District Court, by Judge Eckels, helped quite as

essentially to enforce order. Its convicts were received by Colonel

Johnston and committed to imprisonment in the guard-tents of the army.

The grand jury, impanelled for the purposes of the court, were obliged

to take cognizance of the rebellion, and, after thoroughly investigating

the facts of the case, they returned bills of indictment against Brigham

Young and sixty of his principal associates.

During "the campaign of Ham's Fork," as Colonel Alexander's march up and

down that stream was facetiously called by the Mormons, he had been in

constant receipt of communications from Young, of a character similar to

the letter in which the army was commanded to surrender its arms at Fort

Bridger. This correspondence was now abruptly terminated by Colonel

Johnston. Two messengers came to the camp from Salt Lake City at the

beginning of December, escorted by a party of Mormon militia, and

bringing four pack-mules loaded with salt, which a letter from Young

offered as a present, with assurances that it was not poisoned. This

letter contained, besides, certain threats concerning the treatment

of prisoners, and reminded Colonel Johnston that the Mormons also had

prisoners in their power, on whom anything which might befall those in

camp should be retaliated. The Colonel returned no other answer to this

epistle than to dismiss its bearers with their salt, informing them

that he could accept no favors from traitors and rebels, and that any

communication which they might in future hold with the army must be

under a flag of truce, although as to the manner in which they might

communicate with the Governor it was not within his province to

prescribe. A week or two later, a thousand pounds of salt were forced

through to the camp from Fort Laramie, thirty out of the forty-six mules

on which it was packed perishing on the way.

Thus the long and dreary winter commenced in the camp of the army of

Utah. It mattered not that the rations were abridged, that communication

with the States was interrupted, and that every species of duty at such

a season, in such a region, was uncommonly severe. Confidence and even

gayety were restored to the camp, by the consciousness that it was

commanded by an officer whose intelligence was adequate to the

difficulties of his position. Every additional hardship was cheerfully

endured. As the animals failed, all the wood used in camp was obliged to

be drawn a distance of from three to six miles by hand, but there were

few gayer spectacles than the long strings of soldiers hurrying the

wagons over the crunching snow. They built great pavilions, decorated

them with colors and stacks of arms, and danced as merrily on Christmas

and New Year's Eves to the music of the regimental bands, as if they had

been in cozy cantonments, instead of in a camp of fluttering canvas,

more than seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. In the

pavilion of the Fifth Infantry, there drooped over the company the flags

which that regiment had carried, ten years before, up the sunny slopes

of Chapultepec, and which were torn in a hundred places by the storm of

bullets at Molinos del Rey.

Meanwhile, how hearts were beating in the States with anxious

apprehension for the safety of kindred and friends, those who felt that

anxiety, and not those who were the objects of it, best know.

Perhaps the disposition of the camp would have been more in harmony

with the scenery and the season, if the army had dreamed that the

administration, which had launched it so recklessly into circumstances

of such privation and danger, was about to turn its labors and

sufferings into a farce, and to claim the approval of the country for

an act of mistaken clemency, which was, in reality, a grave political

error.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH TREATS OF ROMANCE.

There is no word in the English language more unceremoniously and

indefinitely kicked and cuffed about, by what are called sensible

people, than the word _romance_. When Mr. Smith or Mr. Stubbs has

brought every wheel of life into such range and order that it is one

steady, daily grind,--when they themselves have come into the habits and

attitudes of the patient donkey, who steps round and round the endlessly

turning wheel of some machinery, then they fancy that they have gotten

"the victory that overcometh the world."

All but this dead grind, and the dollars that come through the mill,

is by them thrown into one waste "catch-all" and labelled _romance_.

Perhaps there was a time in Mr. Smith's youth,--he remembers it

now,--when he read poetry, when his cheek was wet with strange tears,

when a little song, ground out by an organ-grinder in the street, had

power to set his heart beating and bring a mist before his eyes. Ah, in

those days he had a vision!--a pair of soft eyes stirred him strangely;

a little weak hand was laid on his manhood, and it shook and trembled;

and then came all the humility, the aspiration, the fear, the hope,

the high desire, the troubling of the waters by the depending angel of

love,--and a little more and Mr. Smith might have become a man, instead

of a banker! He thinks of it now, sometimes, as he looks across the

fireplace after dinner and sees Mrs. Smith asleep, innocently shaking

the bouquet of pink bows and Brussels lace that waves over her placid

red countenance.

Mrs. Smith wasn't his first love, nor, indeed, any love at all; but they

agree reasonably well. And as for poor Nellie,--well, she is dead and

buried,--all that was stuff and romance. Mrs. Smith's money set him up

in business, and Mrs. Smith is a capital manager, and he thanks God that

he isn't romantic, and tells Smith Junior not to read poetry or novels,

and to stick to realities.

"This is the victory that overcometh the world,"--to learn to be fat and

tranquil, to have warm fires and good dinners, to hang your hat on the

same peg at the same hour every day, to sleep soundly all night, and

never to trouble your head with a thought or imagining beyond.

But there are many people besides Mr. Smith who have gained this

victory,--who have strangled their higher nature and buried it, and

built over its grave the structure of their life, the better to keep it

down.

The fascinating Mrs. T., whose life is a whirl between ball and opera,

point lace, diamonds, and schemings of admiration for herself, and of

establishments for her daughters,--there was a time, if you will believe

me, when that proud, worldly woman was so humbled, under the touch of

some mighty power, that she actually thought herself capable of being a

poor man's wife. She thought she could live in a little, mean house on

no-matter-what-street, with one servant, and make her own bonnets

and mend her own clothes, and sweep the house Mondays, while Betty

washed,--all for what? All because she thought that there was a man

so noble, so true, so good, so high-minded, that to live with him in

poverty, to be guided by him in adversity, to lean on him in every rough

place of life, was a something nobler, better, purer, more satisfying,

than French laces, opera-boxes, and even Madame Roget's best gowns.

Unfortunately, this was all romance,--there was no such man. There

was, indeed, a person of very common, self-interested aims and worldly

nature, whom she had credited at sight with an unlimited draft on all

her better nature; and when the hour of discovery came, she awoke

from her dream with a start and a laugh, and ever since has despised

aspiration, and been busy with the _realities_ of life, and feeds poor

little Mary Jane, who sits by her in the opera-box there, with all the

fruit which she has picked from the bitter tree of knowledge. There is

no end of the epigrams and witticisms which she can throw out, this

elegant Mrs. T., on people who marry for love, lead prosy, worky lives,

and put on their best cap with pink ribbons for Sunday. "Mary Jane shall

never make a fool of herself"; but, even as she speaks, poor Mary Jane's

heart is dying within her at the vanishing of a pair of whiskers from an

opposite box,--which whiskers the poor little fool has credited with a

_résumé_ drawn from her own imaginings of all that is grandest and

most heroic, most worshipful in man. By-and-by, when Mrs. T. finds the

glamour has fallen on her daughter, she wonders; she has "tried to keep

novels out of the girl's way,--where did she get these notions?"

All prosaic, and all bitter, disenchanted people talk as if poets

and novelists _made_ romance. They do,--just as much as craters make

volcanoes,--no more. What is romance? whence comes it? Plato spoke to

the subject wisely, in his quaint way, some two thousand years ago, when

he said, "Man's soul, in a former state, was winged and soared among the

gods; and so it comes to pass, that, in this life, when the soul, by the

power of music or poetry, or the sight of beauty, hath her remembrance

quickened, forthwith there is a straggling and a pricking pain as of

wings trying to come forth,--even as children in teething." And if an

old heathen, two thousand years ago, discoursed thus gravely of the

romantic part of our nature, whence comes it that in Christian lands

we think in so pagan a way of it, and turn the whole care of it to

ballad-makers, romancers, and opera-singers?

Let us look up in fear and reverence and say, "GOD is the great maker

of romance. HE, from whose hand came man and woman,--HE, who strung the

great harp of Existence with all its wild and wonderful and manifold

chords, and attuned them to one another,--HE is the great Poet of life."

Every impulse of beauty, of heroism, and every craving for purer love,

fairer perfection, nobler type and style of being than that which closes

like a prison-house around us, in the dim, daily walk of life, is

God's breath, God's impulse, God's reminder to the soul that there is

something higher, sweeter, purer, yet to be attained.

Therefore, man or woman, when thy ideal is shattered,--as shattered a

thousand times it must be,--when the vision fades, the rapture burns

out, turn not away in skepticism and bitterness, saying, "There is

nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink," but rather

cherish the revelations of those hours as prophecies and foreshadowings

of something real and possible, yet to be attained in the manhood, of

immortality. The scoffing spirit that laughs at romance is an apple of

the Devil's own handing from the bitter tree of knowledge;--it opens the

eyes only to see eternal nakedness.

If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship,--a boundless

worship and belief in some hero of your soul,--if ever you have so

loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations have

gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from

heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your

whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet

of another, and all for nothing,--if you awoke bitterly betrayed and

deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of

heaven. The door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest

capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you;

treasure it, as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so

feel,--that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul.

By such experiences are we taught the pathos, the sacredness of life;

and if we use them wisely, our eyes will ever after be anointed to see

what poems, what romances, what sublime tragedies lie around us in the

daily walk of life, "written not with ink, but in fleshly tables of the

heart." The dullest street of the most prosaic town has matter in it for

more smiles, more tears, more intense excitement, than ever were written

in story or sung in poem; the reality is there, of which the romancer is

the second-hand recorder.

So much of a plea we put in boldly, because we foresee grave heads

beginning to shake over our history, and doubts rising in reverend and

discreet minds whether this history is going to prove anything but a

love-story, after all.

We do assure you, right reverend Sir, and you, most discreet Madam, that

it is not going to prove anything else; and you will find, if you will

follow us, that there is as much romance burning under the snow-banks

of cold Puritan preciseness as if Dr. H. had been brought up to attend

operas instead of metaphysical preaching, and Mary had been nourished on

Byron's poetry instead of "Edwards on the Affections."

The innocent credulities, the subtle deceptions, that were quietly at

work under the grave, white curls of the Doctor's wig, were exactly of

the kind which have beguiled man in all ages, when near the sovereign

presence of her who is born for his destiny;--and as for Mary, what did

it avail her that she could say the Assembly's Catechism from end to

end without tripping, and that every habit of her life beat time to

practical realities, steadily as the parlor clock? The wildest Italian

singer or dancer, nursed on nothing but excitement from her cradle,

never was more thoroughly possessed by the awful and solemn mystery of

woman's life than this Puritan girl.

It is quite true, that, the next morning after James's departure,

she rose as usual in the dim gray, and was to be seen opening the

kitchen-door just at the moment when the birds were giving the first

little drowsy stir and chirp,--and that she went on setting the

breakfast-table for the two hired men, who were bound to the fields with

the oxen,--and that then she went on skimming cream for the butter,

and getting ready to churn, and making up biscuit for the Doctor's

breakfast, when he and they should sit down together at a somewhat later

hour; and as she moved about, doing all these things, she sung various

scraps of old psalm-tunes; and the good Doctor, who was then busy with

his early exercises of devotion, listened, as he heard the voice, now

here, now there, and thought about angels and the Millennium. Solemnly

and tenderly there floated in at his open study-window, through the

breezy lilacs, mixed with low of kine and bleat of sheep and hum of

early wakening life, the little silvery ripples of that singing,

somewhat mournful in its cadence, as if a gentle soul were striving to

hush itself to rest. The words were those of the rough old version of

the Psalms then in use:--

"Truly my waiting soul relies

In silence God upon;

Because from him there doth arise

All my salvation."

And then came the busy patter of the little footsteps without, the

moving of chairs, the clink of plates, as busy hands were arranging the

table; and then again there was a pause, and he thought she seemed

to come near to the open window of the adjoining room, for the voice

floated in clearer and sadder:--

"O God, to me be merciful,

Be merciful to me!

Because my soul for shelter safe

Betakes itself to thee.

"Yea, in the shadow of thy wings

My refuge have I placed,

Until these sore calamities

Shall quite be overpast."

The tone of life in New England, so habitually earnest and solemn,

breathed itself in the grave and plaintive melodies of the tunes then

sung in the churches; and so these words, though in the saddest minor

key, did not suggest to the listening ear of the auditor anything more

than that pensive religious calm in which he delighted to repose. A

contrast indeed they were, in their melancholy earnestness, to the

exuberant carollings of a robin, who, apparently attracted by them,

perched himself hard by in the lilacs, and struck up such a merry

_roulade_ as quite diverted the attention of the fair singer;--in fact,

the intoxication breathed in the strain of this little messenger, whom

God had feathered and winged and filled to the throat with ignorant

joy, came in singular contrast with the sadder notes breathed by that

creature of so much higher mould and fairer clay,--that creature born

for an immortal life.

But the good Doctor was inly pleased when she sung,--and when she

stopped, looked up from his Bible wistfully, as missing something, he

knew not what; for he scarce thought how pleasant the little voice

was, or knew he had been listening to it,--and yet he was in a manner

enchanted by it, so thankful and happy that he exclaimed with fervor,

"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly

heritage."

So went the world with him, full of joy and praise, because the voice

and the presence wherein lay his unsuspected life were securely near, so

certainly and constantly a part of his daily walk that he had not even

the trouble to wish for them. But in that other heart how was it?--how

with the sweet saint that was talking to herself in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs?

The good child had remembered her mother's parting words the night

before,--"Put your mind upon your duties,"--and had begun her first

conscious exercise of thought with a prayer that grace might be given

her to do it. But even as she spoke, mingling and interweaving with that

golden thread of prayer was another consciousness, a life in another

soul, as she prayed that the grace of God might overshadow him, shield

him from temptation, and lead him up to heaven; and this prayer so got

the start of the other, that, ere she was aware, she had quite forgotten

self, and was feeling, living, thinking in that other life.

The first discovery she made, when she looked out into the fragrant

orchard, whose perfumes steamed in at her window, and listened to the

first chirping of birds among, the old apple-trees, was one that has

astonished many a person before her; it was this: she found that all

that had made life interesting to her was suddenly gone. She herself had

not known, that, for the month past, since James came from sea, she had

been living in an enchanted land,--that Newport harbor, and every rock

and stone, and every mat of yellow seaweed on the shore, that the

two-mile road between the cottage and the white house of Zebedee Marvyn,

every mullein-stalk, every juniper-tree, had all had a light and a charm

which were suddenly gone. There had not been an hour in the day for the

last four weeks that had not had its unsuspected interest,--because he

was at the white house, because, possibly, he might be going by, or

coming in; nay, even in church, when she stood up to sing, and thought

she was thinking only of God, had she not been conscious of that tenor

voice that poured itself out by her side? and though afraid to turn her

head that way, had she not felt that he was there every moment,--heard

every word of the sermon and prayer for him? The very vigilant care

which her mother had taken to prevent private interviews had only served

to increase the interest by throwing over it the veil of constraint

and mystery. Silent looks, involuntary starts, things indicated, not

expressed, these are the most dangerous, the most seductive aliment of

thought to a delicate and sensitive nature. If things were said out,

they might not be said wisely,--they might repel by their freedom, or

disturb by their unfitness; but what is only looked is sent into the

soul through the imagination, which makes of it all that the ideal

faculties desire.

In a refined and exalted nature, it is very seldom that the feeling of

love, when once thoroughly aroused, bears any sort of relation to the

reality of the object. It is commonly an enkindling of the whole power

of the soul's love for whatever she considers highest and fairest; it

is, in fact, the love of something divine and unearthly, which, by a

sort of illusion, connects itself with a personality. Properly speaking,

there is but One true, eternal Object of all that the mind conceives, in

this trance of its exaltation. Disenchantment must come, of course; and

in a love which terminates in happy marriage, there is a tender and

gracious process, by which, without shock or violence, the ideal is

gradually sunk in the real, which, though found faulty and earthly, is

still ever tenderly remembered as it seemed under the morning light of

that enchantment.

What Mary loved so passionately, that which came between her and God in

every prayer, was not the gay, young, dashing sailor,--sudden in anger,

imprudent of speech, and, though generous in heart, yet worldly in plans

and schemings,--but her own ideal of a grand and noble man,--such a man

as she thought he might become. He stood glorified before her, an image

of the strength that overcomes things physical, of the power of command

which controls men and circumstances, of the courage which disdains

fear, of the honor which cannot lie, of constancy which knows no shadow

of turning, of tenderness which protects the weak, and, lastly, of

religious loyalty which should lay the golden crown of its perfected

manhood at the feet of a Sovereign Lord and Redeemer. This was the man

she loved, and with this regal mantle of glories she invested the person

called James Marvyn; and all that she saw and felt to be wanting she

prayed for with the faith of a believing woman.

Nor was she wrong;--for, as to every leaf and every flower there is an

ideal to which the growth of the plant is constantly urging, so is there

an ideal to every human being,--a perfect form in which it might appear,

were every defect removed and every characteristic excellence stimulated

to the highest point. Once in an age, God sends to some of us a friend

who loves in us, _not_ a false imagining, an unreal character, but,

looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the

divine ideal of our nature,--loves, not the man that we are, but the

angel that we may be. Such friends seem inspired by a divine gift of

prophecy,--like the mother of St. Augustine, who, in the midst of the

wayward, reckless youth of her son, beheld him in a vision, standing,

clothed in white, a ministering priest at the right hand of God,--as he

has stood for long ages since. Could a mysterious foresight unveil to us

this resurrection form of the friends with whom we daily walk, compassed

about with mortal infirmity, we should follow them with faith and

reverence through all the disguises of human faults and weaknesses,

"waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God."

But these wonderful soul-friends, to whom God grants such perception,

are the exceptions in life; yet sometimes are we blessed with one who

sees through us, as Michel Angelo saw through a block of marble, when he

attacked it in a divine fervor, declaring that an angel was imprisoned

within it;--and it is often the resolute and delicate hand of such a

friend that sets the angel free.

There be soul-artists, who go through this world, looking among their

fellows with reverence, as one looks amid the dust and rubbish of old

shops for hidden works of Titian and Leonardo, and, finding them,

however cracked or torn or painted over with tawdry daubs of pretenders,

immediately recognize the divine original, and set themselves to cleanse

and restore. Such be God's real priests, whose ordination and anointing

are from the Holy Spirit; and he who hath not this enthusiasm is not

ordained of God, though whole synods of bishops laid hands on him.

Many such priests there be among women;--for to this silent ministry

their nature calls them, endowed, as it is, with fineness of fibre, and

a subtile keenness of perception outrunning slow-footed reason;--and she

of whom we write was one of these.

At this very moment, while the crimson wings of morning were casting

delicate reflections on tree, and bush, and rock, they were also

reddening innumerable waves round a ship that sailed alone, with a wide

horizon stretching like an eternity around it; and in the advancing

morning stood a young man thoughtfully looking off into the ocean, with

a book in his hand,--James Marvyn,--as truly and heartily a creature of

this material world as Mary was of the invisible and heavenly.

There are some who seem made to _live;_--life is such a joy to them,

their senses are so fully _en rapport_ with all outward things, the

world is so keenly appreciable, so much a part of themselves, they are

so conscious of power and victory in the government and control of

material things, that the moral and invisible life often seems to hang

tremulous and unreal in their minds, like the pale, faded moon in the

light of a gorgeous sunrise. When brought face to face with the great

truths of the invisible world, they stand related to the higher wisdom

much like the gorgeous, gay Alcibiades to the divine Socrates, or like

the young man in Holy Writ to Him for whose appearing Socrates longed;--

they gaze, imperfectly comprehending, and at the call of ambition or

riches turn away sorrowing.

So it was with James;--in full tide of worldly energy and ambition,

there had been forming over his mind that hard crust, that skepticism

of the spiritual and exalted, which men of the world delight to call

practical sense; he had been suddenly arrested and humbled by the

revelation of a nature so much nobler than his own that he seemed

worthless in his own eyes. He had asked for love; but when _such_ love

unveiled itself, he felt like the disciple of old in the view of a

diviner tenderness,--"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man."

But it is not often that all the current of a life is reversed in one

hour; and now, as James stood on the ship's deck, with life passing

around him, and everything drawing upon the strings of old habits, Mary

and her religion recurred to his mind as some fair, sweet, inexplicable

vision. Where she stood he saw; but how _he_ was ever to get there

seemed as incomprehensible as how a mortal man should pillow his form on

sunset clouds.

He held the little Bible in his hand as if it were some amulet charmed

by the touch of a superior being; but when he strove to read it, his

thoughts wandered, and he shut it, troubled and unsatisfied. Yet there

were within him yearnings and cravings, wants never felt before, the

beginning of that trouble which must ever precede the soul's rise to a

higher plane of being.

There we leave him. We have shown you now our three different

characters, each one in its separate sphere, feeling the force of that

strongest and holiest power with which it has pleased our great Author

to glorify this mortal life.

CHAPTER IX.

WHICH TREATS OF THINGS SEEN.

As, for example, the breakfast. It is six o'clock,--the hired men and

oxen are gone,--the breakfast-table stands before the open kitchen-door,

snowy with its fresh cloth, the old silver coffee-pot steaming up a

refreshing perfume,--and the Doctor sits on one side, sipping his coffee

and looking across the table at Mary, who is innocently pleased at

the kindly beaming in his placid blue eyes,--and Aunt Katy Scudder

discourses of housekeeping, and fancies something must have disturbed

the rising of the cream, as it is not so thick and yellow as wont.

Now the Doctor, it is to be confessed, was apt to fall into a way

of looking at people such as pertains to philosophers and scholars

generally, that is, as if he were looking through them into the

infinite,--in which case, his gaze became so earnest and intent that it

would quite embarrass an uninitiated person; but Mary, being used to

this style of contemplation, was only quietly amused, and waited till

some great thought should loom up before his mental vision,--in which

case, she hoped to hear from him.

The good man swallowed his first cup of coffee and spoke:--

"In the Millennium, I suppose, there will be such a fulness and plenty

of all the necessaries and conveniences of life, that it will not be

necessary for men and women to spend the greater part of their lives in

labor in order to procure a living. It will not be necessary for each

one to labor more than two or three hours a day,--not more than will

conduce to health of body and vigor of mind; and the rest of their time

they will spend in reading and conversation, and such exercises as

are necessary and proper to improve their minds and make progress in

knowledge."

New England presents probably the only example of a successful

commonwealth founded on a theory, as a distinct experiment in the

problem of society. It was for this reason that the minds of its great

thinkers dwelt so much on the final solution of that problem in this

world. The fact of a future Millennium was a favorite doctrine of the

great leading theologians of New England, and Dr. H. dwelt upon it with

a peculiar partiality. Indeed, it was the solace and refuge of his soul,

when oppressed with the discouragements which always attend things

actual, to dwell upon and draw out in detail the splendors of this

perfect future which was destined to glorify the world.

Nobody, therefore, at the cottage was in the least surprised when there

dropped into the flow of their daily life these sparkling bits of ore,

which their friend had dug in his explorations of a future Canaan,--in

fact, they served to raise the hackneyed present out of the level of

mere commonplace.

"But how will it be possible," inquired Mrs. Scudder, "that so much less

work will suffice in those days to do all that is to be done?"

"Because of the great advance of arts and sciences which will take

place before those days," said the Doctor, "whereby everything shall

be performed with so much greater ease,--also the great increase of

disinterested love, whereby the skill and talents of those who have much

shall make up for the weakness of those who have less.

"Yes," he continued, after a pause,--"all the careful Marthas in those

days will have no excuse for not sitting at the feet of Jesus; there

will be no cumbering with much serving; the Church will have only Maries

in those days."

This remark, made without the slightest personal intention, called a

curious smile into Mrs. Scudder's face, which was reflected in a

slight blush from Mary's, when the crack of a whip and the rattling of

wagon-wheels disturbed the conversation and drew all eyes to the door.

There appeared the vision of Mr. Zebedee Marvyn's farm-wagon, stored

with barrels, boxes, and baskets, over which Candace sat throned

triumphant, her black face and yellow-striped turban glowing in the

fresh morning with a hearty, joyous light, as she pulled up the reins,

and shouted to the horse to stop with a voice that might have done

credit to any man living.

"Dear me, if there isn't Candace!" said Mary.

"Queen of Ethiopia," said the Doctor, who sometimes adventured a very

placid joke.

The Doctor was universally known in all the neighborhood as a sort of

friend and patron-saint of the negro race; he had devoted himself to

their interests with a zeal unusual in those days. His church numbered

more of them than any in Newport; and his hours of leisure from study

were often spent in lowliest visitations among them, hearing their

stories, consoling their sorrows, advising, and directing their plans,

teaching them reading and writing, and he often drew hard on his slender

salary to assist them in their emergencies and distresses.

This unusual condescension on his part was repaid on theirs with all the

warmth of their race; and Candace, in particular, devoted herself to the

Doctor with all the force of her being.

There was a legend current in the neighborhood, that the first efforts

to catechize Candace were not eminently successful, her modes of

contemplating theological tenets being so peculiarly from her own

individual point of view that it was hard to get her subscription to

a received opinion. On the venerable clause in the Catechism, in

particular, which declares that all men sinned in Adam and fell with

him, Candace made a dead halt:--

"I didn't do dat ar', for one, I knows. I's got good mem'ry,--allers

knows what I does,--nebber did eat dat ar' apple,--nebber eat a bit ob

him. Don't tell me!"

It was of no use, of course, to tell Candace of all the explanations of

this redoubtable passage,--of potential presence, and representative

presence, and representative identity, and federal headship. She met all

with the dogged,--

"Nebber did it, I knows; should 'ave 'membered, if I had. Don't tell

me!"

And even in the catechizing class of the Doctor himself, if this answer

came to her, she sat black and frowning in stony silence even in his

reverend presence.

Candace was often reminded that the Doctor believed the Catechism, and

that she was differing from a great and good man; but the argument made

no manner of impression on her, till, one day, a far-off cousin of hers,

whose condition under a hard master had often moved her compassion, came

in overjoyed to recount to her how, owing to Dr. H.'s exertions, he had

gained his freedom. The Doctor himself had in person gone from house

to house, raising the sum for his redemption; and when more yet was

wanting, supplied it by paying half his last quarter's limited salary.

"He do dat ar'?" said Candace, dropping the fork wherewith she was

spearing doughnuts. "Den I'm gwine to b'liebe ebery word _he_ does!"

And accordingly, at the next catechizing, the Doctor's astonishment was

great when Candace pressed up to him, exclaiming--

"De Lord bress you, Doctor, for opening de prison for dem dat is bound!

I b'liebes in you now, Doctor. I's gwine to b'liebe ebery word you say.

I'll say de Catechize now,--fix it any way you like. I did eat dat ar'

apple,--I eat de whole tree, an' swallowed ebery bit ob it, if you say

so."

And this very thorough profession of faith was followed, on the part of

Candace, by years of the most strenuous orthodoxy. Her general mode of

expressing her mind on the subject was short and definitive.

"Law me! what's de use? I's set out to b'liebe de Catechize, an' I'm

gwine to bliebe it,--so!"

While we have been telling you all this about her, she has fastened her

horse, and is swinging leisurely up to the house with a basket on either

arm.

"Good morning, Candace," said Mrs. Scudder. "What brings you so early?"

"Come down 'fore light to sell my chickens an' eggs,--got a lot o' money

for 'em, too. Missy Marvyn she sent Miss Scudder some turkey-eggs, an'

I brought down some o' my doughnuts for de Doctor. Good folks must lib,

you know, as well as wicked ones,"--and Candace gave a hearty, unctuous

laugh. "No reason why Doctors shouldn't hab good tings as well as

sinners, is dere?"--and she shook in great billows, and showed her white

teeth in the _abandon_ of her laugh. "Lor bress ye, honey, chile!" she

said, turning to Mary, "why, ye looks like a new rose, ebery bit! Don't

wonder _somebody_ was allers pryin' an' spyin' about here!"

"How is your Mistress, Candace?" said Mrs. Scudder, by way of changing

the subject.

"Well, porly,--rader porly. When Massa Jim goes, 'pears like takin' de

light right out her eyes. Dat ar' boy trains roun' arter his mudder like

a cosset, he does. Lor', de house seems so still widout him!--can't a

fly scratch his ear but it starts a body. Missy Marvyn she sent down,

an' says, would you an' de Doctor an' Miss Mary please come to tea dis

arternoon."

"Thank your mistress, Candace," said Mrs. Scudder; "Mary and I will

come,--and the Doctor, perhaps," looking at the good man, who had

relapsed into meditation, and was eating his breakfast without taking

note of anything going on. "It will be time enough to tell him of it,"

she said to Mary, "when we have to wake him up to dress; so we won't

disturb him now."

To Mary the prospect of the visit was a pleasant one, for reasons which

she scarce gave a definite form to. Of course, like a good girl, she had

come to a fixed and settled resolution to think of James as little as

possible; but when the path of duty lay directly along scenes and among

people fitted to recall him, it was more agreeable than if it had lain

in another direction. Added to this, a very tender and silent friendship

subsisted between Mrs. Marvyn and Mary; in which, besides similarity of

mind and intellectual pursuits, there was a deep, unspoken element of

sympathy.

Candace watched the light in Mary's eyes with the instinctive shrewdness

by which her race seem to divine the thoughts and feelings of their

superiors, and chuckled to herself internally. Without ever having been

made a _confidante_ by any party, or having a word said to or before

her, still the whole position of affairs was as clear to her as if

she had seen it on a map. She had appreciated at once Mrs. Scudder's

coolness, James's devotion, and Mary's perplexity,--and inly resolved,

that, if the little maiden did not think of James in his absence, it

should not be her fault.

"Laws, Miss Scudder," she said, "I's right glad you's comin'; 'cause you

hasn't seen how we's kind o' splendified since Massa Jim come home. You

wouldn't know it. Why, he's got mats from Mogadore on all de entries,

and a great big 'un on de parlor; and ye ought to see de shawl he

brought Missus, an' all de cur'us kind o' tings to de Squire. 'Tell

ye, dat ar' boy honors his fader and mudder, ef he don't do nuffin

else,--an' dat's de fus' commandment wid promise, Ma'am; an' to see him

a-settin' up ebery day in prayer-time, so handsome, holdin' Missus's

han', an' lookin' right into her eyes all de time! Why, dat ar' boy is

one o' de 'lect,--it's jest as clare to me; and de 'lect has got to come

in,--dat's what I say. My faith's strong,--real clare, 'tell ye,"

she added, with the triumphant laugh which usually chorused her

conversation, and turning to the Doctor, who, aroused by her loud and

vigorous strain, was attending with interest to her.

"Well, Candace," he said, "we all hope you are right."

"_Hope_, Doctor!--I don't hope,--I _knows_. 'Tell ye, when I pray for

him, don't I feel enlarged? 'Tell ye, it goes wid a rush. I can feel it

gwine up like a rushin', mighty wind. I feels strong, I do."

"That's right, Candace," said the Doctor, "keep on; your prayers stand

as much chance with God as if you were a crowned queen. The Lord is no

respecter of persons."

"Dat's what he a'n't, Doctor,--an' dere's where I 'gree wid him," said

Candace, as she gathered her baskets vigorously together, and, after

a sweeping curtsy, went sailing down to her wagon, full laden with

content, shouting a hearty "Good mornin', Missus," with the full power

of her cheerful lungs, as she rode off.

As the Doctor looked after her, the simple, pleased expression with

which he had watched her gradually faded, and there passed over his

broad, good face a shadow, as of a cloud on a mountain-side.

"What a shame it is," he said, "what a scandal and disgrace to the

Protestant religion, that Christians of America should openly practise

and countenance this enslaving of the Africans! I have for a long time

holden my peace,--may the Lord forgive me!--but I believe the time is

coming when I must utter my voice. I cannot go down to the wharves or

among the shipping, without these poor dumb creatures look at me so that

I am ashamed,--as if they asked me what I, a Christian minister, was

doing, that I did not come to their help. I must testify."

Mrs. Scudder looked grave at this earnest announcement; she had

heard many like it before, and they always filled her with alarm,

because--Shall we tell you why?

Well, then, it was not because she was not a thoroughly indoctrinated

anti-slavery woman. Her husband, who did all her thinking for her, had

been a man of ideas beyond his day, and never for a moment countenanced

the right of slavery so far as to buy or own a servant or attendant

of any kind; and Mrs. Scudder had always followed decidedly along the

path of his opinions and practice, and never hesitated to declare the

reasons for the faith that was in her. But if any of us could imagine an

angel dropped down out of heaven, with wings, ideas, notions, manners,

and customs all fresh from that very different country, we might easily

suppose that the most pious and orthodox family might find the task of

presenting him in general society and piloting him along the courses of

this world a very delicate and embarrassing one. However much they might

reverence him on their own private account, their hearts would probably

sink within them at the idea of allowing him to expand himself according

to his previous nature and habits in the great world without. In like

manner, men of high, unworldly natures are often reverenced by those who

are somewhat puzzled what to do with them practically.

Mrs. Scudder considered the Doctor as a superior being, possessed by a

holy helplessness in all things material and temporal, which imposed

on her the necessity of thinking and caring for him, and prevising the

earthly and material aspects of his affairs.

There was not in Newport a more thriving and reputable business at that

time than the slave-trade. Large fortunes were constantly being turned

out in it, and what better Providential witness of its justice could

most people require?

Beside this, in their own little church, she reflected with alarm, that

Simeon Brown, the richest and most liberal supporter of the society, had

been, and was then, drawing all his wealth from this source; and rapidly

there flashed before her mind a picture of one and another, influential

persons, who were holders of slaves. Therefore, when the Doctor

announced, "I must testify," she rattled her tea-spoon uneasily, and

answered,--

"In what way, Doctor, do you think of bearing testimony? The subject, I

think, is a very difficult one."

"Difficult? I think no subject can be clearer. If we were right in our

war for liberty, we are wrong in making slaves or keeping them."

"Oh, I did not mean," said Mrs. Scudder, "that it was difficult to

understand the subject; the _right_ of the matter is clear, but what to

_do_ is the thing."

"I shall preach about it," said the Doctor; "my mind has run upon it

some time. I shall show to the house of Judah their sin in this matter."

"I fear there will be great offence given," said Mrs. Scudder. "There's

Simeon Brown, one of our largest supporters,--he is in the trade."

"Ah, yes,--but he will come out of it,--of course he will,--he is all

right, all clear. I was delighted with the clearness of his views

the other night, and thought then of bringing them to bear on this

point,--only, as others were present, I deferred it. But I can show him

that it follows logically from his principles; I am confident of that."

"I think you'll be disappointed in him, Doctor;--I think he'll be angry,

and get up a commotion, and leave the church."

"Madam," said the Doctor, "do you suppose that a man who would be

willing even to give up his eternal salvation for the greatest good of

the universe could hesitate about a few paltry thousands that perish in

the using?"

"He may feel willing to give up his soul," said Mrs. Scudder, naïvely,

"but I don't think he'll give up his ships,--that's quite another

matter,--he won't see it to be his duty."

"Then, Ma'am, he'll be a hypocrite, a gross hypocrite, if he won't,"

said the Doctor. "It is not Christian charity to think it of him. I

shall call upon him this morning and tell him my intentions."

"But, Doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Scudder, with a start, "pray, think a

little more of it. You know a great many things depend on him. Why! he

has subscribed for twenty copies of your 'System of Theology.' I hope

you'll remember that."

"And why should I remember that?" said the Doctor,--hastily turning

round, suddenly enkindled, his blue eyes flashing out of their usual

misty calm,--"what has my 'System of Theology' to do with the matter?"

"Why," said Mrs. Scudder, "it's of more importance to get right views of

the gospel before the world than anything else, is it not?--and if, by

any imprudence in treating influential people, this should be prevented,

more harm than good would be done."

"Madam," said the Doctor, "I'd sooner my system should be sunk in the

sea than it should be a millstone round my neck to keep me from my duty.

Let God take care of my theology; I must do my duty."

And as the Doctor spoke, he straightened himself to the full dignity of

his height, his face kindling with an unconscious majesty, and, as he

turned, his eye fell on Mary, who was standing with her slender figure

dilated, her large blue eye wide and bright, in a sort of trance of

solemn feeling, half smiles, half tears,--and the strong, heroic man

started, to see this answer to his higher soul in the sweet, tremulous

mirror of womanhood. One of those lightning glances passed between his

eyes and hers which are the freemasonry of noble spirits,--and, by

a sudden impulse, they approached each other. He took both her

outstretched hands, looked down into her face with a look full of

admiration, and a sort of naïve wonder,--then, as if her inspired

silence had been a voice to him, he laid his hand on her head, and

said,--

"God bless you, child! 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast

thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest

still the enemy and the avenger!'"

In a moment he was gone.

"Mary," said Mrs. Scudder, laying her hand on her daughter's arm, "the

Doctor loves you!"

"I know he does, mother," said Mary, innocently; "and I love

him,--dearly!--he is a noble, grand man!"

Mrs. Scudder looked keenly at her daughter. Mary's eye was as calm as a

June sky, and she began, composedly, gathering up the teacups.

"She did not understand me," thought the mother.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

REVIEW.

_The New Testament_. Translated from the Original Greek, etc. By

LEICESTER AMBROSE SAWYER. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 1858.

Few books merit the criticism which they receive; fewer receive all they

merit. Here is a work, a translation, which is more likely than most to

get its deserts, because its circle of critics will be unusually large.

It purports to be a new and improved version of "the Book of Books,"

and puts forth claims which will be conceded only after it shall have

sustained the most extensive, minute, and even prejudiced scrutiny. The

Bible has more readers than any other book; and that which claims to be

an improved Bible must, if it secure anything like a general attention,

meet with criticisms from all quarters. Mr. Sawyer is fortunate in one

respect: his work will be examined and judged by multitudes who never

undertook to criticize any other book; he will have, therefore,

ultimately, a popular judgment of his task and its performance. But he

is unfortunate in another point: for he must meet that popular sentiment

which at the outset looks with disfavor upon anything that has even the

appearance of meddling with the commonly received and almost universally

approved version of the Holy Scriptures. Let us, in a brief space and

with as little of formal and scholastic criticism as possible, examine

Mr. Sawyer's translation.

A work of such a character as this should be judged not more by its

absolute or intrinsic merits than by a comparison of them with the

design avowed and the claims advanced by the author. In a task of such

magnitude we ought not to expect to find everything perfect. If the

completed structure have a symmetry of proportions and excellence of

finish approaching reasonably near to the plan proposed, we should not

too severely censure minor defects. Critics rarely accord all that

authors claim; the former measure the actual achievement,--the latter

look to the ideal conception; if the one be in a reasonable degree

commensurate with the other, we should be lenient toward the faults of

the performance.

With this charitable substratum for our critical structure, let us test

Mr. Sawyer's new version by contrasting it with his own avowed design

and the claims with which he introduces his completed task. In the

Preface he says,--

"This is not a work of compromises, or of conjectural interpretations

of the Sacred Scriptures, neither is it a paraphrase, but a strict

[strictly] literal rendering. It neither adds nor takes away; but aims

to express the original with the utmost clearness and force, and with

the utmost precision."

This is a somewhat pretentious claim. A strictly literal rendering of

any language into another is by no means always an easy task; and it is

especially difficult to couple, as the translator in this case asserts

he has done, the utmost clearness, force, and precision in the

expression of the thought, with minute exactness of version. We

are surprised that Mr. Sawyer should have rested his claim for the

excellence and superiority of his translation mainly upon this quality

of literalism, for it is often the case that the closest literalist is

the worst translator. It is often impossible to render the thoughts

expressed in the peculiar idioms of one tongue into exactly

corresponding idioms of another. There are idiomatic forms, especially

in the Greek, which have no precisely correspondent forms in the

English, and yet these are not unfrequently the most forcible

expressions of any to be found in the original; any attempt to render

these literally must be abortive; and a literal rendering, or as nearly

literal as possible, is the worst translation, because it sacrifices

the clearness, force, and precision, to say nothing of the grace and

delicacy, of the original. The French language abounds in words and

phrases the literal translation of which into English perverts the

meaning and destroys the force of the original. Still more is a strictly

literal rendering incompatible with the preservation and transference of

the beauties of style and the strength of diction. The widest range of

the thought, its more delicate shades and subtiler connections, often

depend in great part upon the peculiar forms of the language in which

they are first clothed; and by a strictly literal translation the scope

of the thought is narrowed, its finer lines obscured, and that which

is of more importance than all else, the fitness of the expression, is

altogether lost. The utmost strictness of literal translation is a poor

compensation for the resultant poverty of language and dilution of

thought; and by as much as the original is more impressive in its rich

and fitting garb, by so much the more is it made to appear mean and

unlike itself when forced to clothe itself in scanty second-hand

habiliments.

We have said thus much on this point for two reasons: first, because it

is on this chiefly that Mr. Sawyer appeals to the public for a verdict

in favor of his translation; and secondly, because it is a common and

popular notion, that, the more literal a translation can be made,

especially in the case of the Bible, the better and more trustworthy

it will be. And we are willing to admit, that, in translating the Holy

Scriptures, the greatest degree of strictness in literal rendering,

compatible with the full and correct expression of the thought, is and

should be a first consideration; the translator should take no liberties

with the text, by way either of omission, alteration, or compromise; he

must in no way vitiate the thought; and if he keep within this rule,

he will have escaped just criticism, and may claim the merit of

faithfulness to his task. Has Mr. Sawyer, then, in his New Testament,

given a strictly literal rendering? and is it an improvement on

the common version? We have space for only a few specimens of his

translation, and we have taken some of the first that attracted our

notice; it will be observed that they are none of them abstruse or

disputed passages.

COMMON VERSION.

_Matt_. ii. 16.

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was _mocked_ of the _wise men_, was

exceeding wroth, and sent forth and _slew_ all the children that were in

Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under,

according to the time which he _had diligently inquired_ of the _wise

men_."

SAWYER'S VERSION.

_Chap_. ii. _verse_ 4.

"Then Herod seeing that he was _despised_ by the _Magi_, was exceedingly

angry, and sent and _destroyed_ all the children, in Bethlehem, and in

all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the precise

time which he _had learned_ of the _Magi_."

Here is a comparison of the two translations of a simple narrative text

taken at random. The essential changes (improvements?) made by Mr.

Sawyer are in the words which we have Italicized. Two of these changes,

the substitution of "Magi" for "wise men," and of "destroyed" for

"slew," we shall pass with the single observation, that the rendering

of the common version is in both instances the more accurate and better

expressed. Mr. Sawyer substitutes "despised" for "mocked," as the

translation of [Greek: henepaichthae]. Is this literal? or is it an

improvement? The Greek verb [Greek: hemaiso] has the signification

primarily _to deride, to mock, to scoff at_, and secondarily _to delude,

to deceive, to disappoint_, but it has not the meaning to _despise_. The

word _mock_ is used in our language in both these significations,--in

the secondary sense when it refers to men's hopes or expectations,--as,

_to mock one's hopes_, that is, to delude or disappoint one's

expectations. In this sense, and in this alone, it is obviously used in

this passage. The wise men did not scoff at King Herod, but they did

delude him; they mocked his expectation of their return, and went back

to their own country without returning to report to him, because they

had been "warned of God in a dream," not because they despised the

king. To say, as Mr. Sawyer does, that they "despised" him, is neither

warranted by the meaning of [Greek: _enepaichthae_], nor is such a

rendering accordant with the facts of the story or the connections of

the thought. It is a forced and far-fetched translation, and a change

from the common version much for the worse. The same word is of frequent

occurrence in the Scriptures. In the Septuagint, Jer. x. 14, it is used

in the same sense as in Matt. ii. 16. It is worthy of note that in no

other instance does Mr. Sawyer render it by "despised." In Luke xviii.

32 and xxii. 63, and Matt. xx. 19, he translates it "mocked," like the

common version. Mr. Sawyer should be more consistent, if he would have

us put faith in his scholarly pretensions and literal accuracy. The

passage in which he indulges in this variation from his own rule is the

one of all the list where such a translation is particularly fitting,

and where neither force, clearness, nor precision is gained by the

substitution.

Mr. Sawyer renders [Greek: _katha thov chrinon du haekribose_] thus:

"according to the precise time which he had learned."--Is this literal

or correct? [Greek: _'Akriboo_] signifies _to inquire diligently,

assiduously, or accurately_, and has no such signification primarily as

_to learn_. If the reader will now turn to Mr. Sawyer's translation of

the 7th verse of the same chapter of Matthew, he will there find that

he translates [Greek: _haekribose_] "asked"! And yet it stands in that

passage in precisely the same connection of thought as in the 16th

verse; so that we have our translator, who gives us only strictly

literal renderings, translating the same word, occurring in the same

relative connection, in the one instance by "asked," and in the other

by "had learned,"--neither of them legitimate translations, and neither

precisely expressing the thought. The rendering "asked" falls as far

short of the full and forcible meaning of [Greek: _haekribose_], in

the one case, as "had learned" varies from its strictly literal

signification in the other.

We will now examine another passage illustrating Mr. Sawyer's consistent

fidelity to literal renderings. He translates the word [Greek:

_phuchae_], Luke xii. 19, 20, and 23, "soul"; thus, "I will say to my

_soul_," find "Is not the _soul_ more than the food?"--agreeing with

the common version in the first instance, and differing from it in the

second. But he renders [Greek: _phuchae_] in Mark viii. 36, 37, Luke

xvii. 33, and Matt. xvi. 26, "life"; thus, "For what is a man profited,

if he shall gain the whole world and lose his _life_?" "For whoever

wishes to save his _life_ shall lose it." In these cases he seems to

have made his choice between the renderings "soul" and "life" according

to no rule of translation or of criticism in philology, but as his fancy

dictated. How shall we explain these inconsistencies, and, at the same

time, grant Mr. Sawyer his claim to literalness of rendering?

Luke ix. 24, 25, Mr. Sawyer translates [Greek: _phuchae_] "life," and

then renders [Greek: _eauthon de apolesas ae zaemiotheis_] "and destroys

himself or loses his life." The common version is "and lose himself or

be cast away," which is not only more strictly literal, but far more

forcible. [Greek: _'Apollumi_] conveys the strongest idea of _total,

irremediable ruin_; and [Greek: _zaemioo_], when used, as in this

passage, in the aorist tense, has the signification of _bringing loss

or ruin upon one's self_. Both these thoughts are lost in Mr. Sawyer's

translation; and a more tame, insufficient, and tautological rendering

than his could scarcely be imagined.

Another instance of Mr. Sawyer's singular choice of renderings, in his

zeal for improvement, is found in Luke viii. 46, which he translates,

"Some one touched me; for I perceived a _power_ going from me." The

common version, "Somebody touched me; for I perceive that _virtue_ is

gone out of me," is clear and precise; Mr. Sawyer's version, "a power,"

is more indefinite and less forcible. Any intelligent reader will at

once perceive that the common version is the better, and that Mr.

Sawyer's improved rendering is almost meaningless.

One more example of these strictly literal renderings must suffice, John

iii. 4. common version,--"Nicodemus saith unto him, 'How can a man be

born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb

and be born?'" Sawyer's version,--"Nicodemus said to him, 'How can a man

be born when he is old? can he become an unborn infant of his mother a

second time, and be born?'" The absurdity of the form of language put

into the mouth of Nicodemus by Mr. Sawyer is obvious at a glance; no

such thought was ever so expressed by any speaker in any language; it is

wholly forced and unnatural; and upon comparing Mr. Sawyer's translation

with the original, we find that he has paraphrased the passage with a

vengeance, altogether omitting to translate the clause [Greek: _eis

thaen koilian ... eiselthein kai gennaethaenai_], and interpolating an

expression, instead, which is neither in the original text nor in the

thought. Probably Mr. Sawyer's motive for taking this extraordinary

liberty was a false delicacy, amounting to prudery; but it ill assorts

with his assertion, that his work is not a paraphrase, nor one of

compromises, or of conjectural interpretations.

We might proceed with numerous illustrations' exhibiting the weakness of

Mr. Sawyer's claim of an improved and strictly literal rendering, but

these are enough. Before he claims much on the score of scholarly

accuracy or critical rendering, he must explain these inconsistencies

and remove these blemishes. But if such faults are patent in the

simplest narrative passages, what confidence can we place in Mr. Sawyer

as a translator of difficult, abstruse, doctrinal, and disputed texts?

In every instance in which we have tested his translation of the

original, the changes which he has made from the common version not

only, in our judgment, are no improvements, but positively render the

expression less clear, less forcible, and less precise; of course, as

the language is made worse, the thought is, in the same proportion,

obscured.

Another peculiarity of Mr. Sawyer's translation, which we suppose he

claims as an improvement, does not meet our approval. In all cases where

there is no word in our language which expresses the signification

of the Greek, as in the names of weights and measures, Mr. Sawyer

substitutes for the language of the common version the foreign word of

the original,--sometimes merely giving the orthography of the Greek in

English letters, sometimes affixing a termination,--and frequently he

adds, in brackets, an explanation of his rendering. As examples of this,

we quote the following:--

"Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a _modius_ [1.916

gallon measure]."

"I tell you that you shall not go out thence till you have paid even the

last _lepton_ [2 mills]."

"It is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three _sata_ [33

quarts] of flour."

"And there were six stone water-jars there, placed for the purification

of the Jews, containing two or three _metretes_ [16.75 or 25.125

gallons] each."

"And he desired to fill his stomach with the _carob pods_ which the

swine eat."

"And one poor widow came and cast in two _lepta_, which is a _quadrans_

[4 mills]."

It requires no knowledge of the original to pass judgment on such

changes as are here made from the common version. The practice which

Mr. Sawyer here introduces and sanctions is a vicious one in any

translation, and is especially so in the case of the Holy Scriptures,

which are to be read by the unlearned and ignorant as well as by the

scholar and the critic. Mr. Sawyer's translation of such words as we

have noted above conveys no idea to the mind of the common reader, and

requires a glossary to make it intelligible. There is in his choice of

words a pedantry and affectation of learning that are in bad taste.

But in this, as in his other strictly literal renderings, he is

inconsistent, and does not adhere to his own rule. He translates Matt.

vi. 30,--"And if God so clothes the grass of the field, which to-day is,

and tomorrow is cast into the _oven_," etc. If he were consistent in his

practice, he would have rendered the word "oven" _klibanon_, and then,

in parenthesis, explained that it signifies "a large round pot, of

earthen or other material, two or three feet high, narrowing towards

the top, on the sides of which the dough was spread to be baked in thin

cakes." Probably Mr. Sawyer was deterred from following his rule in this

case by the formidableness of the necessary parenthesis; but there is as

much reason why he should have written _klibanon_ instead of "oven,"

as there is for substituting _lepton_ for "farthing," or _modius_ for

"bushel," or _carob pods_ for "husks,"--and in fact more reason,

because the word "oven," which he indorses and uses, conveys a far more

imperfect idea of the original, [Greek: _klibanon_], than those words of

the common version which he has rejected do of their originals. All such

changes as those instanced above, in our judgment, mar the simplicity

and obscure the meaning of the passages where they occur.

But we will now notice what appears to us a more serious defect than

any of those already mentioned. Mr. Sawyer throughout his translation

substitutes vulgar Latinisms and circumlocutions for the vigorous

phrases of the received version. Sometimes this is done at the expense

of homely Saxon words which are the very sinews of our language; and

wherever such words are sacrificed for Latinisms, the beauty and force

of the whole are impaired or destroyed. Again, the translator seems to

have a peculiar antipathy to everything like poetical expressions or the

euphonious arrangement of sentences. He has evidently fallen into the

error of supposing that the most prosaic rendering is necessarily

the most exact; whereas the fact is, that the most poetical form of

expression of which a passage is susceptible is often the most clear,

forcible, and precise. The best method of giving the reader an idea of

the justice of this portion of our criticism of Mr. Sawyer's version is

to quote some passages in contrast with the common version.

COMMON VERSION.

"_If thou wilt_, let us make here three tabernacles."

"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of

Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord:

thou knowest that _I love thee_."

"God be _merciful_ to me a sinner."

"Give us this day our _daily_ bread."

"_And therefore_ I cannot come."

"And to whom men have _committed_ much, of him they will ask the more."

"I _give tithes_ of all that I _possess_."

"For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and

_counteth the cost_?"

"And upon this rock I will build my _church_."

"If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if _he repent_,

forgive him."

"And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors,

saying unto them, _Rejoice with me_, for I have found my sheep which was

lost."

"And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, _Peace_, be

still."

"As we were driven up and down in Adria, about midnight the shipmen

_deemed that they drew near to some country_."

"Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and _broad_ is the

way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat;

because strait is the gate and _narrow_ is the way which leadeth unto

life, and few there be that find it."

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they _toil not_,

neither do they spin."

SAWYER'S VERSION.

"_If you please_, we will make here three tabernacles."

"When therefore they had breakfasted, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon,

son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord,

you know that _I am a friend to you_."

"God, be _propitious_ to me a sinner."

"Give us to-day our _essential_ bread."

"_On this account_ I cannot come."

"And of him with whom men have _deposited_ much, they will ask more."

"I _tithe_ all I _acquire_."

"For what man of you wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down

and _estimate the expense_?"

"And upon this rock will I build my _assembly_."

"If your brother sins, reprove him; and if _he changes his mind_,

forgive him."

"And coming to the house, he calls together his friends and neighbors,

saying, _Congratulate me_; for I have found my sheep that was lost."

"And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said to the lake, _Hush!_ Be

still!"

"When we were borne along in the Adriatic, at about midnight the sailors

_suspected that some land was approaching them_."

"Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and _spacious_

the way which leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in by

it; for narrow is the gate, and _compressed_ the way which leads to

life, and few are those who find it."

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they _perform no hard

labor_, neither do they spin."

These must suffice. We cannot extend our quotations, nor is there

occasion to do so. We think we have seen enough of Mr. Sawyer's use of

words and phrases, enough of his improvements on the common version of

the Bible, to convince any candid mind that his is neither a literal nor

a correct translation; that so far from having improved the version,

by adding clearness, force, or precision, he has injured it in each

of these respects; and that the world would be immensely the loser

by accepting him as a substitute for the forty-seven translators who

composed the famous Council of King James in 1611. We are informed that

Mr. Sawyer has completed his improved version of the Old Testament, and

will soon publish it. We almost shudder in anticipation of the sounds

which he has probably evoked from the harp of Judah's minstrel king, of

the colors which he has put on the canvas where are painted the glowing

visions of Isaiah, and of the rude matter-of-fact method in which he

has doubtless used the modern telescope to penetrate and scatter the

glorious and solemn mysteries of the cloud-land of prophecy out of which

spake the God of Daniel. But we forbear, and must wait till we have the

remainder of this _magnum opus_ before we venture to hazard an opinion

of its merits.

* * * * *

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

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