Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark:
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
VAUGHAN.
The good old vicar of Cheddar, and the aged partner of his trials and
his consolations, survived the melancholy war which brought so much
public misery on the nation, and so much private affliction on
themselves, for many years. They continued to dwell in the same small
cottage, in which, after the ejectment of Noble, they found their
first refuge, unknowing and unknown. Their means were slender, but
their wants were few; and they were rich in the graces of divine
contentment.
As with advancing years the strength necessary for manual labour
declined, there came such little improvement of circumstances as
enabled the worthy man to dispense with such exertion; and the toil of
Peter was lightened by the assistance of a younger labourer. Noble
himself walked regularly every Sunday of his life to attend divine
service at a small village church distant from his cottage about a
mile and a half; and old Peter and he sat together in the back seats
under the gallery. His wife being feeble on her limbs, and dim of
sight, remained at home; and it was Noble’s pleasure to bring back to
her the text of the sermon and the matter of the discourse.
This church was served by a Puritan divine, who held a benefice five
miles on the other side of it, and rode over to the hamlet for one
full service in the afternoon. The lord of the manor was a nobleman
who had been distinguished during the war; and who, after the close of
hostilities in Ireland and the establishment of the protectorate, had
retired to this mansion and estate, where he led a very secluded life,
seldom stirring beyond his park wall. But he was a pious and
charitable man, well spoken of by his servants, and by the poor of
the village as a Christian master and a considerate landlord.
There was something very fine and very affecting in the consideration,
that an aged minister, ejected for conscience-sake, should sit every
Sabbath as a humble and loving Christian listener, under the ministry
of one young enough to be his son, and to find in him a helper of his
joy.
The young man knew not whom it was his privilege thus to strengthen
and comfort; for there was a meekness and a shy reserve about Noble,
and an enjoined silence to Peter, which repressed and baffled
curiosity. They just knew so much as that one was a deprived
clergyman; but whether he had been turned out for scandal, or what his
story might be, none cared to discover more particularly;--he was an
accustomed sight.
It so chanced that, one Sunday, when the congregation was assembled at
the usual hour the young minister was not forthcoming. All persons had
taken their seats. The lord of the manor was in his pew; and, after a
long pause, the singing was begun, in the expectation that perhaps he
would yet arrive time enough to conduct the worship; but the psalm was
concluded, and he did not appear.
There was an evident disappointment on the countenances of all the
people; and the grave nobleman, after leaning over his pew, and
summoning the clerk, decided to sit down again, and linger yet a
little time. Another psalm was given out and sung through,--still no
minister arrived.
At last, moved by a constraining principle of love to the great and
Divine shepherd of all Christian flocks, and by a pure love to the
souls of the people, Noble came forward with lowliness and composure,
and told the clerk quietly that, being himself an ordained minister,
he did not feel it right to let the people go empty away, without
offering in such manner as he could to feed them; and that if there
was no objection he was ready to go up into the pulpit. To this
arrangement there was an immediate assent from the nobleman, to whom
the clerk referred it; and old Noble, for the first time since the
day when he was driven from Cheddar with blows and insults, found
himself in the place and office of an ambassador for Christ.
He was manifestly supported in this moment by the spirit of power,
love, and of a sound mind. His prayer was serious, simple, and plain
as the utterance of a child. Out of the abundance of his heart he
offered up his petitions with reverent fervency and confiding love.
The chapter which he selected for reading was the fourth chapter of
the first Epistle of John; and, taking the tenth verse of this chapter
for his text, he declared fully and freely that blessed message of
pardon, reconciliation, and peace, which it is the most precious
privilege of the Christian minister to deliver, and to deliver which
is a duty of sacred and perpetual obligation. Mercy and grace fell
softly from his lips, and distilled like the gentle dew upon the
hearts of all his hearers.
The poorest and least instructed could understand every thing he said;
the most learned and advanced among them found a master in Israel,
walking with a secure footing on the very summits of the mount of
God. Unseen by Noble, the young minister entered, when he was in the
middle of his discourse, and stood with rapt, devout, and breathless
attention to its close. The rugged old warlike nobleman had early
risen, and leaned over his pew with eyes fixed upon the preacher, and
half the congregation were in the like posture of attention. Of all
this Noble was utterly unconscious: his own gaze was perfectly
abstracted; he saw nothing, he thought of nothing but the Divine love.
He magnified it; he set it forth in the chaste radiance and the
heavenly light of Scripture language and Scripture imagery. He
commended it to the hearts of all around him, by speaking of it
experimentally, gratefully. He showed what the world and society would
be if subjected to its influence: drew the mournful contrast daily
presented to the eye; and, towards the close, he drew aside, as it
were, the curtains of the skies, and displayed the world of light, and
the redeemed of the Lord walking, as angels, in an air of glory. When
he had concluded, he kneeled down to pray: his few first words,
though not quite so loud as his sermon, which had been preached in
very subdued and quiet tones, were distinctly audible; but, then, they
became faint and unintelligible, his grey head bowed down upon his
pale hands, and both rested without motion upon the dark cushion of
the pulpit.
The young minister was the first to perceive his condition, and the
first to run to his succour. With the aid of Peter, he brought him
down and out into the summer air, and laid him on the grass, and
loosened his vest; but the body itself was no longer any thing but a
put-off garment:--the spirit was far off, breathing already the air of
that Eden which is above.
The young minister accompanied Peter back to the cottage with the
precious remains, and, leaving them at a few yards’ distance, entered
first, and broke the loss to his aged partner. She felt it deeply: but
as all the circumstances attending it were truly and tenderly related,
the grief of the woman yielded to the faith of the Christian; and,
while tears rolled down her withered cheeks, she was enabled to bless
and praise her God.
From that day, to the hour of her death, that youthful minister took
her to his own home, and was to her as a son.
The very same day which witnessed the sudden and solemn removal of the
good old vicar of Cheddar brought a summons to his base and
hypocritical successor in that vicarage. As the crafty and bitter
bigot was crossing his yard with a more hasty step than usual, his
foot tripped against the edge of the BROKEN FONT, which he had put in
the ground near his ash-heap, to hold water for his fowls. He fell to
the ground with such violence as to produce a compound fracture of his
thigh; and, after the lingering torments of a very long confinement,
died in the greatest agony of body, and in hopeless terror of mind.
While this unhappy wretch lay upon his bed, in the first week after
his accident, the body of Noble was brought to Cheddar for interment
by the young Puritan divine, of whom we have spoken in the foregoing
part of the chapter. The whole village poured forth to meet the body:
the large hearted young minister performed the funeral service; and,
indifferent to what the rigid party might say or think, he read over
the grave of the departed vicar that solemn and sweet office for the
burial of the dead which was, in those days, a forbidden charity to
men who had suffered cheerfully the loss of all things rather than
give up the sacred ritual of their church, or take the covenant which
the faction in authority would have tyrannically imposed upon their
conscience. The dropping of a leaf might have been heard in the green
churchyard as that service was read; and a crowd stood listening with
bare heads and serious eyes. When the last rite was done, and the
earth was filled into the grave, fresh and verdant sods, which had
been most carefully cut in a neighbouring paddock, were placed over it
orderly and firm, and these again were so thickly strewn over with the
choicest summer flowers as to be almost concealed by the profusion,
while a fragrant and grateful incense, more pleasant than “precious
ointment poured out,” filled all the place with a sweet promise, that
the name of the righteous should live.