over his eyes, and the tears dropped silently on his pillow.
"George! _dear_ George!" said James, bending over him.
"It's my friends--it's my father--my mother," said he, faintly.
"Jesus Christ will watch over them," said James, soothingly.
"O, yes, I know he will; for _he_ loved his own which were in the world;
he loved them unto the end. But I am dying--and before I have done any
good."
"O, do not say so," said James; "think, think what you have done, if
only for _me_. God bless you for it! God _will_ bless you for it; it
will follow you to heaven; it will bring me there. Yes, I will do as you
have taught me. I will give my life, my soul, my whole strength to it;
and then you will not have lived in vain."
George smiled, and looked upward; "his face was as that of an angel;"
and James, in his warmth, continued,--
"It is not I alone who can say this; we all bless you; every one in this
place blesses you; you will be had in everlasting remembrance by some
hearts here, I know."
"Bless God!" said George.
"We do," said James. "I bless him that I ever knew you; we all bless
him, and we love you, and shall forever."
The glow that had kindled over the pale face of the invalid again faded
as he said,--
"But, James, I must, I ought to tell my father and mother; I ought to,
and how can I?"
At that moment the door opened, and Uncle Lot made his appearance. He
seemed struck with the paleness of George's face; and coming to the side
of the bed, he felt his pulse, and laid his hand anxiously on his
forehead, and clearing his voice several times, inquired "if he didn't
feel a little better."
"No, father," said George; then taking his hand, he looked anxiously in
his face, and seemed to hesitate a moment. "Father," he began, "you know
that we ought to submit to God."
There was something in his expression at this moment which flashed the
truth into the old man's mind. He dropped his son's hand with an
exclamation of agony, and turning quickly, left the room.
"Father! father!" said Grace, trying to rouse him, as he stood with his
arms folded by the kitchen window.
"Get away, child!" said he, roughly.
"Father, mother says breakfast is ready."
"I don't want any breakfast," said he, turning short about. "Sally, what
are you fixing in that 'ere porringer?"
"O, it's only a little tea for George; 'twill comfort him up, and make
him feel better, poor fellow."
"You won't make him feel better--he's gone," said Uncle Lot, hoarsely.
"O, dear heart, no!" said Aunt Sally.
"Be still a' contradicting me; I won't be contradicted all the time by
nobody. The short of the case is, that George is goin' to _die_ just as
we've got him ready to be a minister and all; and I wish to pity I was
in my grave myself, and so----" said Uncle Lot, as he plunged out of the
door, and shut it after him.
It is well for man that there is one Being who sees the suffering heart
_as it is_, and not as it manifests itself through the repellances of
outward infirmity, and who, perhaps, feels more for the stern and
wayward than for those whose gentler feelings win for them human
sympathy. With all his singularities, there was in the heart of Uncle
Lot a depth of religious sincerity; but there are few characters where
religion does any thing more than struggle with natural defect, and
modify what would else be far worse.
In this hour of trial, all the native obstinacy and pertinacity of the
old man's character rose, and while he felt the necessity of submission,
it seemed impossible to submit; and thus, reproaching himself,
struggling in vain to repress the murmurs of nature, repulsing from him
all external sympathy, his mind was "tempest-tossed, and not comforted."
It was on the still afternoon of the following Sabbath that he was sent
for, in haste, to the chamber of his son. He entered, and saw that the
hour was come. The family were all there. Grace and James, side by side,
bent over the dying one, and his mother sat afar off, with her face hid
in her apron, "that she might not see the death of the child." The aged
minister was there, and the Bible lay open before him. The father walked
to the side of the bed. He stood still, and gazed on the face now
brightening with "life and immortality." The son lifted up his eyes; he
saw his father, smiled, and put out his hand. "I am glad _you_ are
come," said he. "O George, to the pity, don't! _don't_ smile on me so! I
know what is coming; I have tried, and tried, and I _can't_, I _can't_
have it so;" and his frame shook, and he sobbed audibly. The room was
still as death; there was none that seemed able to comfort him. At last
the son repeated, in a sweet, but interrupted voice, those words of
man's best Friend: "Let not your heart be troubled; in my Father's house
are many mansions."
"Yes; but I _can't help_ being troubled; I suppose the Lord's will must
be done, but it'll _kill_ me."
"O father, don't, don't break my heart," said the son, much agitated. "I
shall see you again in heaven, and you shall see me again; and then
'your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.'"
"I never shall get to heaven if I feel as I do now," said the old man.
"I _cannot_ have it so."
The mild face of the sufferer was overcast. "I wish he saw all that _I_
do," said he, in a low voice. Then looking towards the minister, he
articulated, "Pray for us."
They knelt in prayer. It was soothing, as _real_ prayer always must be;
and when they rose, every one seemed more calm. But the sufferer was
exhausted; his countenance changed; he looked on his friends; there was
a faint whisper, "Peace I leave with you"--and he was in heaven.
We need not dwell on what followed. The seed sown by the righteous often
blossoms over their grave; and so was it with this good man. The words
of peace which he spoke unto his friends while he was yet with them came
into remembrance after he was gone; and though he was laid in the grave
with many tears, yet it was with softened and submissive hearts.
"The Lord bless him," said Uncle Lot, as he and James were standing,
last of all, over the grave. "I believe my heart is gone to heaven with
him; and I think the Lord really _did_ know what was best, after all."
Our friend James seemed now to become the support of the family; and the
bereaved old man unconsciously began to transfer to him the affections
that had been left vacant.
"James," said he to him one day, "I suppose you know that you are about
the same to me as a son."
"I hope so," said James, kindly.
"Well, well, you'll go to college next week, and none o' y'r keepin'
school to get along. I've got enough to bring you safe out--that is, if
you'll be _car'ful_ and _stiddy_."
James knew the heart too well to refuse a favor in which the poor old
man's mind was comforting itself. He had the self-command to abstain
from any extraordinary expressions of gratitude, but took it kindly, as
a matter of course.
"Dear Grace," said he to her, the last evening before he left home, "I
am changed; we both are altered since we first knew each other; and now
I am going to be gone a long time, but I am sure----"
He stopped to arrange his thoughts.
"Yes, you may be sure of all those things that you wish to say, and
cannot," said Grace.
"Thank you," said James; then, looking thoughtfully, he added, "God help
me. I believe I have mind enough to be what I mean to; but whatever I am
or have shall be given to God and my fellow-men; and then, Grace, your
brother in heaven will rejoice over me."
"I believe he does _now_," said Grace. "God bless you, James; I don't
know what would have become of us if you had not been here."
"Yes, you will live to be like him, and to do even more good," she
added, her face brightening as she spoke, till James thought she really
must be right.
* * * * *
It was five years after this that James was spoken of as an eloquent and
successful minister in the state of C., and was settled in one of its
most thriving villages. Late one autumn evening, a tall, bony,
hard-favored man was observed making his way into the outskirts of the
place.
"Halloa, there!" he called to a man over the other side of a fence;
"what town is this 'ere?"
"It's Farmington, sir."
"Well, I want to know if you know any thing of a boy of mine that lives
here?"
"A boy of yours? Who?"
"Why, I've got a boy here, that's livin' _on the town_, and I thought
I'd jest look him up."
"I don't know any boy that is living on the town. What's his name?"
"Why," said the old man, pushing his hat off from his forehead, "I
believe they call him James Benton."
"James Benton! Why, that is our minister's name!"
"O, wal, I believe he _is_ the minister, come to think on't. He's a boy
o' mine, though. Where does he live?"
"In that white house that you see set back from the road there, with all
those trees round it."
At this instant a tall, manly-looking person approached from behind.
Have we not seen that face before? It is a touch graver than of old, and
its lines have a more thoughtful significance; but all the vivacity of
James Benton sparkles in that quick smile as his eye falls on the old
man.
"I _thought_ you could not keep away from us long," said he, with the
prompt cheerfulness of his boyhood, and laying hold of both of Uncle
Lot's hard hands.
They approached the gate; a bright face glances past the window, and in
a moment Grace is at the door.
"Father! _dear_ father!"
"You'd _better_ make believe be so glad," said Uncle Lot, his eyes
glistening as he spoke.
"Come, come, father, I have authority in these days," said Grace,
drawing him towards the house; "so no disrespectful speeches; away with
your hat and coat, and sit down in this great chair."
"So, ho! Miss Grace," said Uncle Lot, "you are at your old tricks,
ordering round as usual. Well, if I must, I must;" so down he sat.
"Father," said Grace, as he was leaving them, after a few days' stay,
"it's Thanksgiving day next month, and you and mother must come and stay
with us."
Accordingly, the following month found Aunt Sally and Uncle Lot by the
minister's fireside, delighted witnesses of the Thanksgiving presents
which a willing people were pouring in; and the next day they had once
more the pleasure of seeing a son of theirs in the sacred desk, and
hearing a sermon that every body said was "the best that he ever
preached;" and it is to be remarked, that this was the standing
commentary on all James's discourses, so that it was evident he was
going on unto perfection.
"There's a great deal that's worth having in this 'ere life after all,"
said Uncle Lot, as he sat by the coals of the bright evening fire of
that day; "that is, if we'd only take it when the Lord lays it in our
way."
"Yes," said James; "and let us only take it as we should, and this life
will be cheerfulness, and the next fulness of joy."
LOVE _versus_ LAW.
How many kinds of beauty there are! How many even in the human form!
There are the bloom and motion of childhood, the freshness and ripe
perfection of youth, the dignity of manhood, the softness of woman--all
different, yet each in its kind perfect.
But there is none so peculiar, none that bears more the image of the
heavenly, than the beauty of _Christian old age_. It is like the
loveliness of those calm autumn days, when the heats of summer are past,
when the harvest is gathered into the garner, and the sun shines over
the placid fields and fading woods, which stand waiting for their last
change. It is a beauty more strictly moral, more belonging to the soul,
than that of any other period of life. Poetic fiction always paints the
old man as a Christian; nor is there any period where the virtues of
Christianity seem to find a more harmonious development. The aged man,
who has outlived the hurry of passion--who has withstood the urgency of
temptation--who has concentrated the religious impulses of youth into
habits of obedience and love--who, having served his generation by the
will of God, now leans in helplessness on Him whom once he served, is,
perhaps, one of the most faultless representations of the beauty of
holiness that this world affords.
Thoughts something like these arose in my mind as I slowly turned my
footsteps from the graveyard of my native village, where I had been
wandering after years of absence. It was a lovely spot--a soft slope of
ground close by a little stream, that ran sparkling through the cedars
and junipers beyond it, while on the other side arose a green hill, with
the white village laid like a necklace of pearls upon its bosom.
There is no feature of the landscape more picturesque and peculiar than
that of the graveyard--that "city of the silent," as it is beautifully
expressed by the Orientals--standing amid the bloom and rejoicing of
nature, its white stones glittering in the sun, a memorial of decay, a
link between the living and the dead.
As I moved slowly from mound to mound, and read the inscriptions, which
purported that many a money-saving man, and many a busy, anxious
housewife, and many a prattling, half-blossomed child, had done with
care or mirth, I was struck with a plain slab, bearing the inscription,
"_To the memory of Deacon Enos Dudley, who died in his hundredth year_."
My eye was caught by this inscription, for in other years I had well
known the person it recorded. At this instant, his mild and venerable
form arose before me as erst it used to rise from the deacon's seat, a
straight, close slip just below the pulpit. I recollect his quiet and
lowly coming into meeting, precisely ten minutes before the time, every
Sunday,--his tall form a little stooping,--his best suit of
butternut-colored Sunday clothes, with long flaps and wide cuffs, on one
of which two pins were always to be seen stuck in with the most reverent
precision. When seated, the top of the pew came just to his chin, so
that his silvery, placid head rose above it like the moon above the
horizon. His head was one that might have been sketched for a St.
John--bald at the top, and around the temples adorned with a soft flow
of bright fine hair,--
"That down his shoulders reverently spread,
As hoary frost with spangles doth attire
The naked branches of an oak half dead."
He was then of great age, and every line of his patient face seemed to
say, "And now, Lord, what wait I for?" Yet still, year after year, was
he to be seen in the same place, with the same dutiful punctuality.
The services he offered to his God were all given with the exactness of
an ancient Israelite. No words could have persuaded him of the propriety
of meditating when the choir was singing, or of sitting down, even
through infirmity, before the close of the longest prayer that ever was
offered. A mighty contrast was he to his fellow-officer, Deacon Abrams,
a tight, little, tripping, well-to-do man, who used to sit beside him
with his hair brushed straight up like a little blaze, his coat buttoned
up trig and close, his psalm book in hand, and his quick gray eyes
turned first on one side of the broad aisle, and then on the other, and
then up into the gallery, like a man who came to church on business, and
felt responsible for every thing that was going on in the house.
A great hinderance was the business talent of this good little man to
the enjoyments of us youngsters, who, perched along in a row on a low
seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally to diversify the
long hour of sermon by sundry small exercises of our own, such as making
our handkerchiefs into rabbits, or exhibiting, in a sly way, the apples
and gingerbread we had brought for a Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears
of some discreet meeting-going dog, who now and then would soberly
pitapat through the broad aisle. But woe be to us during our contraband
sports, if we saw Deacon Abrams's sleek head dodging up from behind the
top of the deacon's seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread, and
handkerchiefs vanished, and we all sat with our hands folded, looking as
demure as if we understood every word of the sermon, and more too.
There was a great contrast between these two deacons in their services
and prayers, when, as was often the case, the absence of the pastor
devolved on them the burden of conducting the duties of the sanctuary.
That God was great and good, and that we all were sinners, were truths
that seemed to have melted into the heart of Deacon Enos, so that his
very soul and spirit were bowed down with them. With Deacon Abrams it
was an _undisputed fact_, which he had settled long ago, and concerning
which he felt that there could be no reasonable doubt, and his bustling
way of dealing with the matter seemed to say that he knew _that_ and a
great many things besides.
Deacon Enos was known far and near as a very proverb for peacefulness of
demeanor and unbounded charitableness in covering and excusing the
faults of others. As long as there was any doubt in a case of alleged
evil doing, Deacon Enos _guessed_ "the man did not mean any harm, after
all;" and when transgression became too barefaced for this excuse, he
always guessed "it wa'n't best to say much about it; nobody could tell
what _they_ might be left to."
Some incidents in his life will show more clearly these traits. A
certain shrewd landholder, by the name of Jones, who was not well
reported of in the matter of honesty, sold to Deacon Enos a valuable lot
of land, and received the money for it; but, under various pretences,
deferred giving the deed. Soon after, he died; and, to the deacon's
amazement, the deed was nowhere to be found, while this very lot of land
was left by will to one of his daughters.
The deacon said "it was very extraor'nary: he always knew that Seth
Jones was considerably sharp about money, but he did not think he would
do such a right up-and-down wicked thing." So the old man repaired to
'Squire Abel to state the case, and see if there was any redress. "I
kinder hate to tell of it," said he; "but, 'Squire Abel, you know Mr.
Jones was--was--_what he was_, even if he _is_ dead and gone!" This was
the nearest approach the old gentleman could make to specifying a heavy
charge against the dead. On being told that the case admitted of no
redress, Deacon Enos comforted himself with half soliloquizing, "Well,
at any rate, the land has gone to those two girls, poor lone critters--I
hope it will do _them_ some good. There is Silence--we won't say much
about her; but Sukey is a nice, pretty girl." And so the old man
departed, leaving it as his opinion that, since the matter could not be
mended, it was just as well not to say any thing about it.
Now, the two girls here mentioned (to wit, Silence and Sukey) were the
eldest and the youngest of a numerous, family, the offspring of three
wives of Seth Jones, of whom these two were the sole survivors. The
elder, Silence, was a tall, strong, black-eyed, hard-featured woman,
verging upon forty, with a good, loud, resolute voice, and what the
Irishman would call "a dacent notion of using it." Why she was called
_Silence_ was a standing problem to the neighborhood; for she had more
faculty and inclination for making a noise than any person in the whole
township. Miss Silence was one of those persons who have no disposition
to yield any of their own rights. She marched up to all controverted
matters, faced down all opposition, held her way lustily and with good
courage, making men, women, and children turn out for her, as they would
for a mail stage. So evident was her innate determination to be free and
independent, that, though she was the daughter of a rich man, and well
portioned, only one swain was ever heard of who ventured to solicit her
hand in marriage; and he was sent off with the assurance that, if he
ever showed his face about the house again, she would set the dogs on
him.
But Susan Jones was as different from her sister as the little graceful
convolvulus from the great rough stick that supports it. At the time of
which we speak she was just eighteen; a modest, slender, blushing girl,
as timid and shrinking as her sister was bold and hardy. Indeed, the
education of poor Susan had cost Miss Silence much painstaking and
trouble, and, after all, she said "the girl would make a fool of
herself; she never could teach her to be up and down with people, as she
was."
When the report came to Miss Silence's ears that Deacon Enos considered
himself as aggrieved by her father's will, she held forth upon the
subject with great strength of courage and of lungs. "Deacon Enos might
be in better business than in trying to cheat orphans out of their
rights--she hoped he would go to law about it, and see what good he
would get by it--a pretty church member and deacon, to be sure! getting
up such a story about her poor father, dead and gone!"
"But, Silence," said Susan, "Deacon Enos is a good man: I do not think
he means to injure any one; there must be some mistake about it."
"Susan, you are a little fool, as I have always told you," replied
Silence; "you would be cheated out of your eye teeth if you had not me
to take care of you."
But subsequent events brought the affairs of these two damsels in closer
connection with those of Deacon Enos, as we shall proceed to show.
It happened that the next door neighbor of Deacon Enos was a certain old
farmer, whose crabbedness of demeanor had procured for him the name of
_Uncle Jaw_. This agreeable surname accorded very well with the general
characteristics both of the person and manner of its possessor. He was
tall and hard-favored, with an expression of countenance much resembling
a north-east rain storm--a drizzling, settled sulkiness, that seemed to
defy all prospect of clearing off, and to take comfort in its own
disagreeableness. His voice seemed to have taken lessons of his face, in
such admirable keeping was its sawing, deliberate growl with the
pleasing physiognomy before indicated. By nature he was endowed with one
of those active, acute, hair-splitting minds, which can raise forty
questions for dispute on any point of the compass; and had he been an
educated man, he might have proved as clever a metaphysician as ever
threw dust in the eyes of succeeding generations. But being deprived of
these advantages, he nevertheless exerted himself to quite as useful a
purpose in puzzling and mystifying whomsoever came in his way. But his
activity particularly exercised itself in the line of the law, as it was
his meat, and drink, and daily meditation, either to find something to
go to law about, or to go law about something he had found. There was
always some question about an old rail fence that used to run "a
_leetle_ more to the left hand," or that was built up "a _leetle_ more
to the right hand," and so cut off a strip of his "_medder land_," or
else there was some outrage of Peter Somebody's turkeys getting into his
mowing, or Squire Moses's geese were to be shut up in the town pound, or
something equally important kept him busy from year's end to year's end.
Now, as a matter of private amusement, this might have answered very
well; but then Uncle Jaw was not satisfied to fight his own battles, but
must needs go from house to house, narrating the whole length and
breadth of the case, with all the _says he's_ and _says I's_, and the _I
tell'd him's_ and _he tell'd me's_, which do either accompany or flow
therefrom. Moreover, he had such a marvellous facility of finding out
matters to quarrel about, and of letting every one else know where they,
too, could muster a quarrel, that he generally succeeded in keeping the
whole neighborhood by the ears.
And as good Deacon Enos assumed the office of peace-maker for the
village, Uncle Jaw's efficiency rendered it no sinecure. The deacon
always followed the steps of Uncle Jaw, smoothing, hushing up, and
putting matters aright with an assiduity that was truly wonderful.
Uncle Jaw himself had a great respect for the good man, and, in common
with all the neighborhood, sought unto him for counsel, though, like
other seekers of advice, he appropriated only so much as seemed good in
his own eyes.
Still he took a kind of pleasure in dropping in of an evening to Deacon
Enos's fire, to recount the various matters which he had taken or was to
take in hand; at one time to narrate "how he had been over the milldam,
telling old Granny Clark that she could get the law of Seth Scran about
that pasture lot," or else "how he had told Ziah Bacon's widow that she
had a right to shut up Bill Scranton's pig every time she caught him in
front of her house."