Tears on Earth, Joy in Heaven.
Madeleine, with all the keenness of her maternal heart, had caught
the drift of Louis' mind, and felt the disclosure before it was made.
A rough, rude remark from Cassier, and he left her to the silence and
reflection she then vehemently desired. Reflection, in bringing before
her a beautiful but sad picture, crumbled before her mental vision the
castles that her affection and her hopes had built on the shadowy
basis of Louis' future temporal glory. She felt, however, from the
inspiration of faith a feeling of spiritual joy that he was called to
the higher destiny of a favorite of Heaven. Had the fire of divine
love glowed more fervently in her heart, she would feel the joy of
ecstasy, such as consoled the death-bled of the mothers of the saints
when the revelation of the sanctity of their children was the last
crown of earthly joy. Anticipating the privilege the fond maternal
heart would fain claim even in the kingdom free from all care, Madeleine
often found herself contemplating her son fighting the brave fight,
winning crown upon crown, and virtue flinging around him a shield more
impenetrable than the fabulous Aegis of pagan mythology.
In the flippant boastings of Christian mothers there are many who
pretend they have the fire of faith and divine love like the brave
Machabean woman; but when the sore hour of real separation comes, the
soft, loving heart bends and weeps. Nature, corrupt nature, resists
the arrangements of God, and nature triumphs in the maternal tie. The
spirit of Madeleine had made the sacrifice of her son, but the rude
hand of nature swept the fibres of her heart and tore them asunder.
Night has gathered around the house of Cassier. Sleep has brought the
silence of the tomb on the inmates. One alone is awake; gentle sobs
tell of a heart struggling with its own desires, but a faint ray of
moonlight shows him seeking strength on his knees before a crucifix.
Guide him, ye angels, in the sublime destiny to which Heaven calls!
Treasure up those tears of affection; they are pearls for a crown in
eternity! A long, farewell look at the old homestead, and Louis has
fled.
In the night, when all were asleep, he stole down-stairs and into the
silent street. The moon brightened the tears of his farewell; only
his guardian angel saw to register for his eternal crown, the inward
struggle in which he had trampled on every tie of affection and
pleasure. Disappearing in the narrow streets, he disappears also from
the pages of our narrative until, in the extraordinary vicissitudes
of time, he makes his appearance again in a scene both touching and
edifying.
The morning dawn revealed the broken circle, the vacant chair in the
family. Cassier was confused. Whilst others wept he moved about in
deep thought. Stoic in his feelings and hardened in sympathies, he
still felt all the tender anxieties of an affectionate parent. There
are moments in the career of even the greatest sinners when sleeping
conscience is roused to remorse. The shock the old man received in
the loss of his amiable child opened his eyes to the unhappy state of
his own soul; every act of ridicule he cast on the religious tendencies
of Louis became arrows of memory to sting him with regret.
But these were transient moments of a better light. As meteors, darting
across the sky, illumine for a few seconds the dark vault of heaven,
and in the sudden exit of their brilliant flash seem to leave greater
darkness in the night, thus the impulses of grace shot across the soul
of Cassier; he struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly
lapsed into the awful callousness which characterizes the relapses of
confirmed guilt; he pretended to smile at his weakness, and found a
sorry relief in cursing and scoffing at everything the virtuous love.
Yet he offered immense rewards for information that would bring him in
presence of the boy whose form he loved, but whose virtue he despised.
Like the pagan persecutors of old, he vainly hoped, by fear or the
tinsel of gold, to win back to the world and sin the magnanimous youth
who had broken through the stronger argument of a mother's tears.
Messengers were dispatched in every direction; the police scoured the
roads for miles outside the city; friends and acquaintances were warned
not to harbor the truant.
A week passed, and no cheerful tidings came to lessen the gloom of
bereavement. That Providence which made Louis a vessel of election
had covered him with its protective shield, and bore him like a vessel
under propitious winds to the port of his destination.
In all the soft tenderness of girlhood the two sisters lamented their
absconding brother. They, too, had been unkind to him. The sweet,
patient smile that ever met their taunts, the mild reproof when they
concealed his beads or prayer-book, his willingness to oblige on all
occasions, were remembered with tears. When sitting by the mother's
bed, the conversation invariably turned on Louis. In cruel fancy
they deepened the real sorrow of separation by casting imaginary
misfortunes on the track of the absent boy. One would sigh with the
ominous PERHAPS.
"Poor Louis is now hungry!"
"Perhaps he is now lying sick and footsore on the side of some highway,
without a friend, without money."
"Perhaps he has fallen in with robbers and is stripped of the few
articles of dress he took with him."
"Perhaps he is now sorry for leaving us," sighed the tender-hearted
Aloysia, "and would give the world to kiss again his poor sick mamma!"
But futile tears flowed with each surmise. No welcome messenger
returned to bring tidings of the missing youth.
'Tis thus we love virtue; we sigh over departed worth when its
brilliancy has faded from our sight.