in his little parish, an account of a journey he took; and how he was
"very warm and very dry;" and how he saw a fine orchard of peaches that
made his mouth water to look at them. "So," says he, "I came up to the
fence and looked all around, for I would not have touched one of them
_without leave_ for all the world. At last I spied a man, and says I,
'Mister, won't you give me some of your peaches?' So the man came and
gave me nigh about a hat full. And while I stood there eating, I said,
'Mister, how do you manage to keep your peaches?' 'Keep them!' said he,
and he stared at me; 'what do you mean?' 'Yes, sir,' said I; 'don't the
boys steal them?' 'Boys steal them!' said he. 'No, indeed!' 'Why, sir,'
said I, 'I have a whole lot full of peaches, and I cannot get half of
them'"--here the old man's voice grew tremulous--"'because the boys in
my parish steal them so.' 'Why, sir,' said he, 'don't their parents
teach them not to steal?' And I grew all over in a cold sweat, and I
told him 'I was afeard they didn't.' 'Why, how you talk!' says the man;
'do tell me where you live?' Then," said Father Morris, the tears
running over, "I was obliged to tell him I lived in the town of G."
After this Father Morris kept his peaches.
Our old friend was not less original in the logical than in the
illustrative portions of his discourses. His logic was of that familiar,
colloquial kind which shakes hands with common sense like an old friend.
Sometimes, too, his great mind and great heart would be poured out on
the vast themes of religion, in language which, though homely, produced
all the effects of the sublime. He once preached a discourse on the
text, "the High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity;" and from the
beginning to the end it was a train of lofty and solemn thought. With
his usual simple earnestness, and his great, rolling voice, he told
about "the Great God--the Great Jehovah--and how the people in this
world were flustering and worrying, and afraid they should not get time
to do this, and that, and t'other. But," he added, with full-hearted
satisfaction, "the Lord is never in a hurry; he has it all to do, but he
has time enough, for he inhabiteth eternity." And the grand idea of
infinite leisure and almighty resources was carried through the sermon
with equal strength and simplicity.
Although the old man never seemed to be sensible of any thing tending to
the ludicrous in his own mode of expressing himself, yet he had
considerable relish for humor, and some shrewdness of repartee. One
time, as he was walking through a neighboring parish, famous for its
profanity, he was stopped by a whole flock of the youthful reprobates of
the place:--
"Father Morris, Father Morris! the devil's dead!"
"Is he?" said the old man, benignly laying his hand on the head of the
nearest urchin; "you poor fatherless children!"
But the sayings and doings of this good old man, as reported in the
legends of the neighborhood, are more than can be gathered or reported.
He lived far beyond the common age of man, and continued, when age had
impaired his powers, to tell over and over again the same Bible stories
that he had told so often before.
I recollect hearing of the joy that almost broke the old man's heart,
when, after many years' diligent watching and nurture of the good seed
in his parish, it began to spring into vegetation, sudden and beautiful
as that which answers the patient watching of the husbandman. Many a
hard, worldly-hearted man--many a sleepy, inattentive hearer--many a
listless, idle young person, began to give ear to words that had long
fallen unheeded. A neighboring minister, who had been sent for to see
and rejoice in these results, describes the scene, when, on entering the
little church, he found an anxious, crowded auditory assembled around
their venerable teacher, waiting for direction and instruction. The old
man was sitting in his pulpit, almost choking with fulness of emotion as
he gazed around. "Father," said the youthful minister, "I suppose you
are ready to say with old Simeon, 'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, for my eyes have seen thy salvation.'" "_Sartin,
sartin_," said the old man, while the tears streamed down his cheeks,
and his whole frame shook with emotion.
It was not many years after that this simple and loving servant of
Christ was gathered in peace unto Him whom he loved. His name is fast
passing from remembrance, and in a few years, his memory, like his
humble grave, will be entirely grown over and forgotten among men,
though it will be had in everlasting remembrance by Him who "forgetteth
not his servants," and in whose sight the death of his saints is
precious.
THE TWO ALTARS,
OR TWO PICTURES IN ONE.
I. THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY, OR 1776.
The wellsweep of the old house on the hill was relieved, dark and clear,
against the reddening sky, as the early winter sun was going down in the
west. It was a brisk, clear, metallic evening; the long drifts of snow
blushed crimson red on their tops, and lay in shades of purple and lilac
in the hollows; and the old wintry wind brushed shrewdly along the
plain, tingling people's noses, blowing open their cloaks, puffing in
the back of their necks, and showing other unmistakable indications that
he was getting up steam for a real roistering night.
"Hurrah! How it blows!" said little Dick Ward, from the top of the mossy
wood pile.
Now Dick had been sent to said wood pile, in company with his little
sister Grace, to pick up chips, which, every body knows, was in the
olden time considered a wholesome and gracious employment, and the
peculiar duty of the rising generation. But said Dick, being a boy, had
mounted the wood pile, and erected there a flagstaff, on which he was
busily tying a little red pocket handkerchief, occasionally exhorting
Grace "to be sure and pick up fast."
"O, yes, I will," said Grace; "but you see the chips have got ice on
'em, and make my hands so cold!"
"O, don't stop to suck your thumbs! Who cares for ice? Pick away, I say,
while I set up the flag of liberty."
So Grace picked away as fast as she could, nothing doubting but that her
cold thumbs were in some mysterious sense an offering on the shrine of
liberty; while soon the red handkerchief, duly secured, fluttered and
snapped in the brisk evening wind.
"Now you must hurrah, Gracie, and throw up your bonnet," said Dick, as
he descended from the pile.
"But won't it lodge down in some place in the wood pile?" suggested
Grace, thoughtfully.
"O, never fear; give it to me, and just holler now, Gracie, 'Hurrah for
liberty;' and we'll throw up your bonnet and my cap; and we'll play, you
know, that we are a whole army, and I'm General Washington."
So Grace gave up her little red hood, and Dick swung his cap, and up
they both went into the air; and the children shouted, and the flag
snapped and fluttered, and altogether they had a merry time of it. But
then the wind--good for nothing, roguish fellow!--made an ungenerous
plunge at poor Grace's little hood, and snipped it up in a twinkling,
and whisked it off, off, off,--fluttering and bobbing up and down, quite
across a wide, waste, snowy field, and finally lodged it on the top of a
tall, strutting rail, that was leaning, very independently, quite
another way from all the other rails of the fence.
"Now see, do see!" said Grace; "there goes my bonnet! What will Aunt
Hitty say?" and Grace began to cry.
"Don't you cry, Gracie; you offered it up to liberty, you know: it's
glorious to give up every thing for liberty."
"O, but Aunt Hitty won't think so."
"Well, don't cry, Gracie, you foolish girl! Do you think I can't get it?
Now, only play that that great rail is a fort, and your bonnet is a
prisoner in it, and see how quick I'll take the fort and get it!" and
Dick shouldered a stick and started off.
* * * * *
"What upon _airth_ keeps those children so long? I should think they
were _making_ chips!" said Aunt Mehetabel; "the fire's just a going out
under the tea kettle."
By this time Grace had lugged her heavy basket to the door, and was
stamping the snow off her little feet, which were so numb that she
needed to stamp, to be quite sure they were yet there. Aunt Mehetabel's
shrewd face was the first that greeted her as the door opened.
"Gracie--what upon _airth_!--wipe your nose, child; your hands are
frozen. Where alive is Dick?--and what's kept you out all this
time?--and where's your bonnet?"
Poor Grace, stunned by this cataract of questions, neither wiped her
nose nor gave any answer, but sidled up into the warm corner, where
grandmamma was knitting, and began quietly rubbing and blowing her
fingers, while the tears silently rolled down her cheeks, as the fire
made the former ache intolerably.
"Poor little dear!" said grandmamma, taking her hands in hers; "Hitty
shan't scold you. Grandma knows you've been a good girl--the wind blew
poor Gracie's bonnet away;" and grandmamma wiped both eyes and nose, and
gave her, moreover, a stalk of dried fennel out of her pocket; whereat
Grace took heart once more.
"Mother always makes fools of Roxy's children," said Mehetabel, puffing
zealously under the tea kettle. "There's a little maple sugar in that
saucer up there, mother, if you will keep giving it to her," she said,
still vigorously puffing. "And now, Gracie," she said, when, after a
while, the fire seemed in tolerable order, "will you answer my question?
Where is Dick?"
"Gone over in the lot, to get my bonnet."
"How came your bonnet off?" said Aunt Mehetabel. "I tied it on firm
enough."
"Dick wanted me to take it off for him, to throw up for liberty," said
Grace.
"Throw up for fiddlestick! Just one of Dick's cut-ups; and you was silly
enough to mind him!"
"Why, he put up a flagstaff on the wood pile, and a flag to liberty, you
know, that papa's fighting for," said Grace, more confidently, as she
saw her quiet, blue-eyed mother, who had silently walked into the room
during the conversation.
Grace's mother smiled and said, encouragingly, "And what then?"
"Why, he wanted me to throw up my bonnet and he his cap, and shout for
liberty; and then the wind took it and carried it off, and he said I
ought not to be sorry if I did lose it--it was an offering to liberty."
"And so I did," said Dick, who was standing as straight as a poplar
behind the group; "and I heard it in one of father's letters to mother,
that we ought to offer up every thing on the altar of liberty--and so I
made an altar of the wood pile."
"Good boy!" said his mother; "always remember every thing your father
writes. He has offered up every thing on the altar of liberty, true
enough; and I hope you, son, will live to do the same."
"Only, if I have the hoods and caps to make," said Aunt Hitty, "I hope
he won't offer them up every week--that's all!"
"O! well, Aunt Hitty, I've got the hood; let me alone for that. It blew
clear over into the Daddy Ward pasture lot, and there stuck on the top
of the great rail; and I played that the rail was a fort, and besieged
it, and took it."
"O, yes! you're always up to taking forts, and any thing else that
nobody wants done. I'll warrant, now, you left Gracie to pick up every
blessed one of them chips."
"Picking up chips is girl's work," said Dick; "and taking forts and
defending the country is men's work."
"And pray, Mister Pomp, how long have you been a man?" said Aunt Hitty.
"If I ain't a man, I soon shall be; my head is 'most up to my mother's
shoulder, and I can fire off a gun, too. I tried, the other day, when I
was up to the store. Mother, I wish you'd let me clean and load the old
gun, so that, if the British should come----"
"Well, if you are so big and grand, just lift me out that table, sir,"
said Aunt Hitty; "for it's past supper time."
Dick sprang, and had the table out in a trice, with an abundant clatter,
and put up the leaves with quite an air. His mother, with the silent and
gliding motion characteristic of her, quietly took out the table cloth
and spread it, and began to set the cups and saucers in order, and to
put on the plates and knives, while Aunt Hitty bustled about the tea.
"I'll be glad when the war's over, for one reason," said she. "I'm
pretty much tired of drinking sage tea, for one, I know."
"Well, Aunt Hitty, how you scolded that pedler last week, that brought
along that real tea!"
"To be sure I did. S'pose I'd be taking any of his old tea, bought of
the British?--fling every teacup in his face first."
"Well, mother," said Dick, "I never exactly understood what it was about
the tea, and why the Boston folks threw it all overboard."
"Because there was an unlawful tax laid upon it, that the government had
no right to lay. It wasn't much in itself; but it was a part of a whole
system of oppressive meanness, designed to take away our rights, and
make us slaves of a foreign power."
"Slaves!" said Dick, straightening himself proudly. "Father a slave!"
"But they would not be slaves! They saw clearly where it would all end,
and they would not begin to submit to it in ever so little," said the
mother.
"I wouldn't, if I was they," said Dick.
"Besides," said his mother, drawing him towards her, "it wasn't for
themselves alone they did it. This is a great country, and it will be
greater and greater; and it's very important that it should have free
and equal laws, because it will by and by be so great. This country, if
it is a free one, will be a light of the world--a city set on a hill,
that cannot be hid; and all the oppressed and distressed from other
countries shall come here to enjoy equal rights and freedom. This, dear
boy, is why your father and uncles have gone to fight, and why they do
stay and fight, though God knows what they suffer, and----" and the
large blue eyes of the mother were full of tears; yet a strong, bright
beam of pride and exultation shone through those tears.
"Well, well, Roxy, you can always talk, every body knows," said Aunt
Hitty, who had been not the least attentive listener of this little
patriotic harangue; "but, you see, the tea is getting cold, and yonder I
see the sleigh is at the door, and John's come; so let's set up our
chairs for supper."
The chairs were soon set up, when John, the eldest son, a lad of about
fifteen, entered with a letter. There was one general exclamation, and
stretching out of hands towards it. John threw it into his mother's lap;
the tea table was forgotten, and the tea kettle sang unnoticed by the
fire, as all hands crowded about mother's chair to hear the news. It was
from Captain Ward, then in the American army, at Valley Forge. Mrs. Ward
ran it over hastily, and then read it aloud. A few words we may extract.
"There is still," it said, "much suffering. I have given away every pair
of stockings you sent me, reserving to myself only one; for I will not
be one whit better off than the poorest soldier that fights for his
country. Poor fellows! it makes my heart ache sometimes to go round
among them, and see them with their worn clothes and torn shoes, and
often bleeding feet, yet cheerful and hopeful, and every one willing to
do his very best. Often the spirit of discouragement comes over them,
particularly at night, when, weary, cold, and hungry, they turn into
their comfortless huts, on the snowy ground. Then sometimes there is a
thought of home, and warm fires, and some speak of giving up; but next
morning out come Washington's general orders--little short note, but
it's wonderful the good it does! and then they all resolve to hold on,
come what may. There are commissioners going all through the country to
pick up supplies. If they come to you, I need not tell you what to do. I
know all that will be in your hearts."
"There, children, see what your father suffers," said the mother, "and
what it costs these poor soldiers to gain our liberty."
"Ephraim Scranton told me that the commissioners had come as far as the
Three Mile Tavern, and that he rather 'spected they'd be along here
to-night," said John, as he was helping round the baked beans to the
silent company at the tea table.
"To-night?--do tell, now!" said Aunt Hitty. "Then it's time we were
awake and stirring. Let's see what can be got."
"I'll send my new overcoat, for one," said John. "That old one isn't cut
up yet, is it, Aunt Hitty?"
"No," said Aunt Hitty; "I was laying out to cut it over next Wednesday,
when Desire Smith could be here to do the tailoring.
"There's the south room," said Aunt Hitty, musing; "that bed has the two
old Aunt Ward blankets on it, and the great blue quilt, and two
comforters. Then mother's and my room, two pair--four comforters--two
quilts--the best chamber has got----"
"O Aunt Hitty, send all that's in the best chamber! If any company
comes, we can make it up off from our beds," said John. "I can send a
blanket or two off from my bed, I know;--can't but just turn over in it,
so many clothes on, now."
"Aunt Hitty, take a blanket off from our bed," said Grace and Dick at
once.
"Well, well, we'll see," said Aunt Hitty, bustling up.
Up rose grandmamma, with, great earnestness, now, and going into the
next room, and opening a large cedar wood chest, returned, bearing in
her arms two large snow white blankets, which she deposited flat on the
table, just as Aunt Hitty was whisking off the table cloth.
"Mortal! mother, what are you going to do?" said Aunt Hitty.
"There," she said; "I spun those, every thread of 'em, when my name was
Mary Evans. Those were my wedding blankets, made of real nice wool, and
worked with roses in all the corners. I've got _them_ to give!" and
grandmamma stroked and smoothed the blankets, and patted them down, with
great pride and tenderness. It was evident she was giving something that
lay very near her heart; but she never faltered.
"La! mother, there's no need of that," said Aunt Hitty. "Use them on
your own bed, and send the blankets off from that; they are just as good
for the soldiers."
"No, I shan't!" said the old lady, waxing warm; "'tisn't a bit too good
for 'em. I'll send the very best I've got, before they shall suffer.
Send 'em the _best_!" and the old lady gestured oratorically.
They were interrupted by a rap at the door, and two men entered, and
announced themselves as commissioned by Congress to search out supplies
for the army. Now the plot thickens. Aunt Hitty flew in every
direction,--through entry passage, meal room, milk room, down cellar, up
chamber,--her cap border on end with patriotic zeal; and followed by
John, Dick, and Grace, who eagerly bore to the kitchen the supplies that
she turned out, while Mrs. Ward busied herself in quietly sorting and
arranging, in the best possible travelling order, the various
contributions that were precipitately launched on the kitchen floor.
Aunt Hitty soon appeared in the kitchen with an armful of stockings,
which, kneeling on the floor, she began counting and laying out.
"There," she said, laying down a large bundle on some blankets, "that
leaves just two pair apiece all round."
"La!" said John, "what's the use of saving two pair for me? I can do
with one pair, as well as father."
"Sure enough," said his mother; "besides, I can knit you another pair in
a day."
"And I can do with one pair," said Dick.
"Yours will be too small, young master, I guess," said one of the
commissioners.
"No," said Dick; "I've got a pretty good foot of my own, and Aunt Hitty
will always knit my stockings an inch too long, 'cause she says I grow
so. See here--these will do;" and the boy shook his, triumphantly.
"And mine, too," said Grace, nothing doubting, having been busy all the
time in pulling off her little stockings.
"Here," she said to the man who was packing the things into a
wide-mouthed sack; "here's mine," and her large blue eyes looked
earnestly through her tears.
Aunt Hitty flew at her. "Good land! the child's crazy. Don't think the
men could wear your stockings--take 'em away!"
Grace looked around with an air of utter desolation, and began to cry.
"I wanted to give them something," said she. "I'd rather go barefoot on
the snow all day than not send 'em any thing."
"Give me the stockings, my child," said the old soldier, tenderly.
"There, I'll take 'em, and show 'em to the soldiers, and tell them what
the little girl said that sent them. And it will do them as much good as
if they could wear them. They've got little girls at home, too." Grace
fell on her mother's bosom completely happy, and Aunt Hitty only
muttered,--
"Every body does spile that child; and no wonder, neither!"
Soon the old sleigh drove off from the brown house, tightly packed and
heavily loaded. And Grace and Dick were creeping up to their little
beds.
"There's been something put on the altar of Liberty to-night, hasn't
there, Dick?"
"Yes, indeed," said Dick; and, looking up to his mother, he said, "But,
mother, what did you give?"
"I?" said the mother, musingly.
"Yes, you, mother; what have you given to the country?"
"All that I have, dears," said she, laying her hands gently on their
heads--"my husband and my children!"
II. THE ALTAR OF ----, OR 1850.
The setting sun of chill December lighted up the solitary front window
of a small tenement on ---- Street, in Boston, which we now have
occasion to visit. As we push gently aside the open door, we gain sight
of a small room, clean as busy hands can make it, where a neat, cheerful
young mulatto woman is busy at an ironing table. A basket full of
glossy-bosomed shirts, and faultless collars and wristbands, is beside
her, into which she is placing the last few items with evident pride and
satisfaction. A bright black-eyed boy, just come in from school, with
his satchel of books over his shoulder, stands, cap in hand, relating to
his mother how he has been at the head of his class, and showing his
school tickets, which his mother, with untiring admiration, deposits in
the little real china tea pot--which, as being their most reliable
article of gentility, is made the deposit of all the money and most
especial valuables of the family.
"Now, Henry," says the mother, "look out and see if father is coming
along the street;" and she begins filling the little black tea kettle,
which is soon set singing on the stove.
From the inner room now daughter Mary, a well-grown girl of thirteen,
brings the baby, just roused from a nap, and very impatient to renew his
acquaintance with his mamma.
"Bless his bright eyes!--mother will take him," ejaculates the busy
little woman, whose hands are by this time in a very floury condition,
in the incipient stages of wetting up biscuit,--"in a minute;" and she
quickly frees herself from the flour and paste, and, deputing Mary to
roll out her biscuit, proceeds to the consolation and succor of young
master.
"Now, Henry," says the mother, "you'll have time, before supper, to take
that basket of clothes up to Mr. Sheldin's; put in that nice bill, that
you made out last night. I shall give you a cent for every bill you
write out for me. What a comfort it is, now, for one's children to be
gettin' learnin' so!"
Henry shouldered the basket, and passed out the door, just as a
neatly-dressed colored man walked up, with his pail and whitewash
brushes.
"O, you've come, father, have you? Mary, are the biscuits in? You may as
well set the table, now. Well, George, what's the news?"
"Nothing, only a pretty smart day's work. I've brought home five
dollars, and shall have as much as I can do, these two weeks;" and the
man, having washed his hands, proceeded to count out his change on the
ironing table.
"Well, it takes you to bring in the money," said the delighted wife;
"nobody but you could turn off that much in a day."
"Well, they do say--those that's had me once--that they never want any
other hand to take hold in their rooms. I s'pose its a kinder practice
I've got, and kinder natural!"
"Tell ye what," said the little woman, taking down the family strong
box,--to wit, the china tea pot, aforenamed,--and pouring the contents
on the table, "we're getting mighty rich, now! We can afford to get
Henry his new Sunday cap, and Mary her mousseline-de-laine dress--take
care, baby, you rogue!" she hastily interposed, as young master made a
dive at a dollar bill, for his share in the proceeds.
"He wants something, too, I suppose," said the father; "let him get his
hand in while he's young."
The baby gazed, with round, astonished eyes, while mother, with some
difficulty, rescued the bill from his grasp; but, before any one could
at all anticipate his purpose, he dashed in among the small change with
such zeal as to send it flying all over the table.
"Hurrah! Bob's a smasher!" said the father, delighted; "he'll make it
fly, he thinks;" and, taking the baby on his knee, he laughed merrily,
as Mary and her mother pursued the rolling coin all over the room.