THE OLD PAUPER.
“The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and his heart fretteth
against the Lord.”—PROV. xix. 3.
“It is very very hard in one’s old age to be driven to poverty, to be
neglected by one’s friends, forsaken by one’s children—left to wear out
a weary life in a hateful place like this!”
Such were the words of a miserable old man, who, bedridden and helpless,
was pouring out his complaint to a humane visitor at the workhouse.
“But, my friend,” replied the lady, “we must remember that these trials
are sent by a gracious and merciful God, who _does not afflict
willingly, nor grieve the children of men_.”
[Illustration: THE OLD PAUPER.]
“It’s all very well for those to talk who don’t know what trouble
means,” said old Sam Butler, in a tone of peevish irritability. “Where
is the mercy shown to me? I was once a strong, hearty young man—none
better at cricket or at football; and now I can’t so much as creep
across this hateful room! I had once my own well-stocked shop, with the
customers thronging in and out like bees; and now, but for the
workhouse, I shouldn’t have a roof over my head! I was once surrounded
by a wife and children—a thriving, goodly family; and now my wife’s in
her grave, and the children scattered over the world, and there’s not
one of them that so much as cares to inquire whether the old man’s dead
or alive! Oh! it’s very hard! it’s very very hard!”
“But there are some comforts and hopes of which neither old age nor
sickness, neither man’s neglect nor poverty can ever deprive us.”
“Don’t talk to me!” cried the old pauper, angrily. “I know all that
you’re going to say, but there’s neither comfort nor hope to me in these
things. I never found any in my better days, and I’m not likely to find
any now!”
The visitor looked shocked and distressed. She felt anxious to speak a
message of peace to the wretched old man; but his bitterness of spirit
and rebellion of will made her find it difficult to address him.
Thinking that to reflect on the trials of others might divert his mind
from his own, or give him an indirect lesson on resignation under them,
she said, after a few moments’ hesitation, “I have recently been
visiting one who has known much affliction—a poor man of the name of
Charles Hayes—”
“Charles Hayes!” interrupted the pauper; “as if I did not know him!—my
schoolfellow when I was a boy, and my neighbour for twenty long years! I
always said he would come to the workhouse—what with his bad health and
his silly scruples about turning an honest penny; thinking everything
wrong which did not square with his odd notions, and helping others when
he had scarcely enough for himself! I always said he would come to the
workhouse. And yet, see what a world this is!” continued Butler with a
burst of indignation; “no sooner is he quite laid on the shelf than the
gentry take to petting and pampering him as if he were one of
themselves! The squire gets him into an alms-house, the ladies send him
blankets and broth, the parson takes a pleasure in visiting him, and he
is watched day and night with as much care as if he were one of the
lords of the land!”
“Watched by an orphan whom he had generously brought up.”
“Other people have brought up children,” cried the pauper, with
something like a groan, “and have had no comfort in them. Charles Hayes
had never a child of his own, but he finds one like a daughter by his
sick-bed; he has always been poor, but now in his age I don’t believe
that he wants for anything—a friend seems to meet him wherever he turns;
and they say that in spite of his weakness and pain he calls himself
contented and happy! Oh! this is a bad world!—a miserable world! Why
should his lot be so different from mine? Why should he have peace, and
I have nothing but trouble? Why should his friends stick by him, and all
mine forsake me? Why, when I am wearing out my days in a workhouse,
should he rest in a home of his own?”
An answer was on the visitor’s lips, but consideration for the feelings
of the pauper prevented her from uttering it aloud—“Because _the
blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow
therewith_.” There would have been no use in attempting to point out to
the repining old man how godliness, even in this world, brings its
reward; nor did the lady know enough of the events of Butler’s life to
be aware how completely his present miseries were the natural
consequences of his own conduct. Self had ever been his first object; to
gratify self had been the business of his life. He had not served God in
the time of his health; he could not look to God in the hour of his
helplessness and need. He had done nothing to benefit man, and man cared
nothing for him now, though compassion might bring a few, like the
visitor at the workhouse, to spend some minutes beside him as a
disagreeable duty.
Yet Sam Butler had set out in life with no bad prospects. Blessed with
cheerful spirits, buoyant health, a fair education and good name, and
settled in a comfortable situation, he seemed likely to do well in the
world, and spend a very prosperous life.
The first great mistake which Butler made was that of marrying for
money. His master was old and infirm, and willing to give up his
business whenever his only daughter should marry one able to assist her
in carrying it on. Betsy was neither pleasing in person nor agreeable in
manner. She was proud, passionate, and self-willed, with a heart utterly
worldly, in which piety had never found a place. Sam cared nothing for
her, but he cared much for the shop; and, regardless of the command to
marry _only in the Lord_, he vowed to love and cherish until death a
woman whom he secretly despised. Degraded in his own eyes by his worldly
marriage, Butler was not long in discovering that he had sold his
happiness for gold. The comfort of a cheerful, peaceful home, was never
to be his. Whenever he crossed his own threshold, the first sound which
struck his ears was the voice of peevishness and ill-temper. What wonder
if he often passed his evenings at places which it would have been
better for him if he had never entered, and sought elsewhere for that
enjoyment which by his own hearth he never could find!
At this time Charles Hayes was the near neighbour of Sam Butler. He was
united to one who, like himself, was serving God with a humble heart,
and a cheerful, contented spirit. If Charles’s home was lowly, it was
peaceful; if he had little of this world’s goods, he had few of its
cares: labour and poverty might be his lot, but piety and love sweetened
all.
But affliction, from which even the most faithful servants of God are
not exempted, was sent to the cottage of Charles Hayes. His beloved
partner was suddenly called to her rest. Sore was the trial to the
Christian, when he stood by the grave of the young wife who had been
dearer to him than all the world beside, and who was worthy of all his
affection. But his was a sorrow _not without hope_. He looked forward,
even when grief bowed his heart to the dust, to a blessed reunion in a
land where parting shall never be known; though divided from his wife by
death, he could think of her as “not lost, but gone before;” and when
time had mellowed the sharpness of his pain, there was no earthly
pleasure for which he would have exchanged the sweet remembrance of
years spent in happiness with one who was now an angel in heaven!
Sam Butler had a family, and, as he would proudly say, there were no
children in all the village so healthy and handsome as his own. He was
by no means wanting in parental affection; and it was a pleasing sight
to see him in the evening, when the day’s business was over, with one
laughing little one perched on his shoulder, and another holding fast to
his hand, chasing the third down a daisy-mottled slope, while the
neighbourhood rang with the sound of their mirth. Sam made great
projects for his children, and built for them castles in the air without
end. Patrick was to get a grand education—perhaps go to the bar,
distinguish himself by his talents, and rise to the highest honours.
“We’ll see you Chancellor yet!” the proud father would cry, clapping his
boy on the back, when the little fellow, who was sharp and ready of wit,
had said something more flippant than usual.
Dan, according to Butler’s plans, should keep the shop—make money with
wonderful success—go to London, and in time become an alderman—feast
upon turtle, entertain princes, and perhaps end by being elected Lord
Mayor! As for Nina, his beautiful little Nina, Butler had still wilder
speculations for her.
But there was one thing which Butler had left out of all his
calculations. He never remembered that “man proposes, but God disposes;”
and that the blessing of the Almighty alone could make his children
either prosperous or happy. He neglected to _train up his children in
the way in which they should go_; or rather, he himself led his children
in the way in which they should _not_ go; and when old, they did not
depart from it.
Charles Hayes came to Butler one day, drawing along with him, by a firm
grasp on the shoulder, the half-resisting, terrified Patrick, who, with
lips blackened with cherries, and pockets dropping gooseberries, stood
before his father the picture of a self-convicted thief.
“I am very sorry to say,” began Charles, “that I have found your boy in
my garden, and, I fear, not for the first time. I thought it best to
bring him at once to his father, that he may receive from you such a
punishment as may make him a better and more honest boy.”
“Well,” said Butler, carelessly, “I’m sorry he has done mischief in your
garden, neighbour; but it’s the nature of boys to love fruit. We must
remember that we were children once.”
“It is not the fruit that I care for,” said Charles; “but it grieves me
to see the sin. Every river was a brook once, every oak an acorn; and
the boy who steals unheeded a cherry from a tree may end his days in
prison as a thief!”
Sam chucked his boy under the chin, told him to mind what he had heard,
and turned away with some jesting remark about the ease with which those
who have no children of their own can manage the children of others.
“_He that spareth the rod hateth his son_,” thought Charles Hayes, as he
slowly returned to his cottage.
Butler’s shop was one in which a variety of cakes and sweetmeats were
sold, and he invariably kept it open on Sundays. “I make more on that
day than on any other day in the week,” he used to say. “No one but a
fool would beggar himself for the sake of idle scruples I keep my
conscience in my till!”
Butler’s shop was, indeed, more full than usual on that day which we
have been commanded to _keep holy_. And did he benefit by disobedience?
He certainly thought that he did. His Nina dressed more gaily, his own
table was better supplied, his boys had more sports, he was enabled
himself to drink deeper, than if, like his neighbour, he had devoted his
Sabbaths to rest and religion. But was he really the better for his
unhallowed gains?—were his wife or his children the better? Oh, no! the
example which he set, the company which he kept, were surely and not
slowly corrupting and destroying the source of even his earthly
happiness. We have read of a Spanish general who was so fond of money
that the enemies into whose hands he had fallen tortured and killed him
by pouring melted gold down his throat, in mockery of his covetousness!
So Satan now often makes money unlawfully acquired the very means of
tormenting the miserable beings who have sold their conscience to obtain
it. There is no blessing on it, no blessing can be expected with it, and
it is not only at the judgment-day that ill-gotten wealth shall crush
its owner beneath its weight!
Butler had gradually acquired in the taverns, to which he had been
driven by the temper of his wife, a taste for spirituous liquors. He was
what is called “a jovial fellow;” and if his Sunday mornings were spent
in business, his Sunday evenings were spent in revels. He was fond of
placing his little Dan on the table, and calling for a song from the
child; and then, when the boy had set all present in a roar of laughter
by his fun, would reward him by giving him a sip from the brimming glass
which he himself loved too well. Poor boy! it had been better for him if
it had been poison that passed his lips!
Nina, too, was brought forward to be admired and flattered by her
father’s Sunday guests, and to have the seeds of folly and vanity
planted in a soil which was but too ready to receive them.
While Butler’s children were yet young, their mother died. Her death was
little regretted by her husband; and yet it proved to him no small
misfortune. Her temper had made his home uncomfortable, but she had
preserved in it something like order and regularity. She had had some
influence over her children; and though she had never used it to implant
in their young minds those principles which might have survived herself,
and guided them to virtue and happiness, yet that influence had been
some restraint, at least, on their outward conduct. Now all curb upon
them was taken away. They became each year more ungovernable and wild;
their extravagance emptied the purse of their father much faster than
his gains could fill it. If the sin of Sabbath-breaking made money seem
to flow readily into it, other sins, to which Sabbath-breaking gave
rise, made holes for that money to flow through. Butler became a poorer
and poorer man. He drank more, to drown thought, and so hastened the
ruin which he dreaded. He became so irregular in his habits that all
respectable customers gave him up. Companions he had still, but friends
he had none. He had trifled with his health, now it failed him; and
neither of his sons, though intelligent youths, were sufficiently steady
and regular to be fitted to take his place in the shop. Butler fell,
gradually fell, from one stage of ruin to another. He saw all his
comforts one by one disappear. A blight, a mildew was upon his fair
hopes; a worm was at the root of his joys. He lived to see his daughter,
once his pride, make a silly marriage, without his consent, to a
worthless, dissipated soldier, who carried her away to a distant land,
where her father never heard of her more. He lived to see his boys grow
up unprincipled men, undutiful sons,—the one a drunkard, the other a
thief! He lived to see his home in the hands of a stranger, and to be
himself, in his old age, compelled to seek the dreary shelter of a
workhouse.
Bitterly Butler murmured against the decrees of Providence, which he
believed had brought him to misery. Bitterly he complained of poverty
and desertion, and the feebleness of a broken constitution. And yet he
was but reaping as he had sowed! Self-indulgence, self-will,
self-worship, were but bearing their natural fruit; and what Butler
called his misfortunes were but the first instalment of the miserable
_wages of sin. The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and his heart
fretteth against the Lord._
There are no chains that bind
So close as chains of sin;
There are no foes we find
So stern as foes within.
God may send pain and loss
To those whom most He loves;
But heavier far than such a cross
The sinner’s burden proves!
’Tis guilt that barbs the dart,
’Tis guilt that binds the cord;
Yet the deceiving heart
Will fret against the Lord!
When mirth in anguish ends,
Man dreads the truth to own
That from the Lord all good descends,
Despair from sin alone!
[Illustration: [windmill]]