Mrs Reichardt's story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer
wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that
at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her
sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her
frame.
I thought a good deal about her narrative, and wondered much that men
could be got to leave their comfortable homes, and travel thousands and
thousands of miles across the fathomless seas, with the hope of
converting a nation of treacherous savages, by whom they were sure to be
slaughtered at the first outbreak of ill-feeling.
I could not but admire the character of Reichardt--in all his actions he
had exhibited a marked nobility of nature. He would not present himself
before the woman who had the strongest claims upon his gratitude, till
he had obtained a position and a reputation that should, in his opinion,
make him worthy of her; and though he had a presentiment of the fate
that would overtake him, he fulfilled his duties as a missionary with a
holy enthusiasm that made him regard his approaching martyrdom as the
greatest of all earthly distinctions. I felt regret that I had not
known such a man. I knew how much I had lost in having missed such an
example.
My having heard this story, led me into much private communing with
myself respecting religion. I could consider myself little better than
a savage, like the brutal Sandwich Islanders; my conduct to Jackson had
been only in a degree less inhuman than that these idolaters had shown
to their teacher when he was in their power. I fancied at the time that
I served him right, for his villainous conduct to my father, and brutal
conduct to me: but God having punished him for his misdeeds, I felt
satisfied I had no business to put him to greater torment as
satisfaction for my own private injuries. I fancied God might have been
angry with me, and had kept me on the island as a punishment for my
offences; and I had some conversation with Mrs Reichardt on this point.
"Nothing," she observed, "can excuse your ill-feeling towards Jackson;
he was a bad man, without a doubt, and he deserved condign punishment
for his usage of your parents; but the Divine founder of our religion
has urged us to return good for evil."
"Yes," I answered readily, "but I should have suffered as bad as my
father and mother, had I not prevented his doing me mischief."
"You do not know that you were to suffer," she replied. "Jackson,
without such terrible punishment as he brought upon himself, might
eventually have become contrite, and have restored you to your friends
as well as enabled you to obtain your grandfather's property. God
frequently performs marvellous things with such humble instruments; for
he hath said, `there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth, than over ninety-nine just men.'"
"Surely, this is raising the wicked man over the good," I cried.
"Not at all," she replied. "The repentant is one gained from the ranks
of the great enemy--it is as one that was lost and is found again--it is
a soul added to the blessed. Therefore the joy in heaven is abundant at
such a conversion. The just are the natural heirs of heaven--their
rights are acknowledged without dispute--their claim is at once
recognised and allowed, and they receive their portion of eternal joy as
a matter of course, without there being any necessity for exciting those
demonstrations of satisfaction which hail the advent of a sinner saved."
"I don't think such a villain as Jackson would ever go to heaven," I
observed.
"`Judge not, lest ye be judged,'" she answered; "that is a text that
cannot be too often impressed upon persons anxious to condemn to eternal
torment all those they believe to be worse than themselves. It is great
presumption in us poor creatures of clay, to anticipate the proceedings
of the Infinite Wisdom. Let us leave the high prerogative of judgment
to the Almighty Power, by whom only it is exercised, and in our opinions
of even the worst of our fellow-creatures, let us exercise a
comprehensive charity, mingled with a prayer that even at the eleventh
hour, they may have turned from the evil of their ways, and embraced the
prospect of salvation, which the mercy of their Creator has held out to
them."
In this and similar conversations, Mrs Reichardt would endeavour to
plant in my mind the soundest views of religion; and she spoke so well,
and so convincingly, that I had little trouble in understanding her
meaning, or in retaining it after it had been uttered.
It was not, as I have before stated, to religion only that she led my
thoughts, although that certainly was the most frequent subject of our
conversation. She sought to instruct me in the various branches of
knowledge into which she had acquired some insight, and in this way I
picked up as much information respecting grammar, geography, astronomy,
writing, arithmetic, history, and morals, as I should have gained had I
been at a school, instead of being forced to remain on a desolate
island.
I need not say that I still desired to leave it. I had long been tired
of the place, notwithstanding that, from our united exertions, we
enjoyed many comforts which we could not have hoped for. Our hut we had
metamorphosed into something Mrs Reichardt styled a rustic cottage,
which, covered as it was with flowers and creepers, really looked very
pretty; and the garden added greatly to its pleasant appearance: for
near the house we had transplanted everything that bore a flower that
could be found in the island, and had planted some shrubs, that, having
been carefully nurtured, made rapid growth, and screened the hut from
the wind.
I had built a sort of outhouse for storing potatoes and firewood, and a
fowl-house for the gannets, which were now a numerous flock; and had
planted a fence round the garden, so that, as Mrs Reichardt said, we
looked as if we had selected a dwelling in our own beloved England, in
the heart of a rural district, instead of our being circumscribed in a
little island thousands of miles across the wide seas, from the home of
which we were so fond of talking.
Although my companion always spoke warmly of the land of her birth, and
evidently would have been glad to return to it, she never grieved over
her hard fate in being, as it were, a prisoner on a rock, out of reach
of friends and kindred; indeed, she used to chide me for being impatient
of my detention, and insensible of the blessings I enjoyed.
"What temptations are we not free from here?" she would say. "We see
nothing of the world; we cannot be contaminated with its vices, or
suffer from its follies. The hideous wars--the terrible revolutions--
the dreadful visitations of famine and pestilence--are completely
unknown to us. Robbery, and murder, and fraud, and the thousand other
phases of human wickedness, we altogether escape. There was a time,
when men, for the purpose of leading holy lives, abandoned the fair
cities in which they had lived in the enjoyment of every luxury, and
sought a cave in some distant desert, where, in the lair of some wild
beast, with a stone for a pillow, a handful of herbs for a meal, and a
cup of water for beverage, they lived out the remnant of their days in a
constant succession of mortifications, prayers, and penitence.
"How different," she added, "is our own state. We are as far removed
from the sinfulness of the world, as any hermit of the desert, whilst we
have the enjoyment of comforts to which they were strangers."
"But probably," I observed, "these men were penitents, and went into the
desert as much to punish their bodies for the transgressions of the
flesh, as to acquire by solitary communion, a better knowledge of the
spirit than they were likely to obtain in their old haunts."
"Some were penitents, no doubt," she answered, "but they, having
obtained by their sanctity an extraordinary reputation, induced others,
whose lives had been blameless, to follow their example, and in time the
desert became colonised with recluses, who rivalled each other in the
intensity of their devotions and the extent of their privations."
"Would it not have been more commendable," I asked, "if these men had
remained in the community to which they belonged, withstanding
temptation, and employed in labour that was creditable to themselves,
and useful to their country?"
"No doubt it would,"--she replied; "but religion has unfortunately, too
often been the result of impulse rather than conviction; and at the
period to which we are referring, it was thought that sinful human
nature could only gain the attributes of saintship by neglecting its
social duties, and punishing its humanity in the severest manner. Even
in more recent times, and at the present day, in Catholic countries, it
is customary for individuals of both sexes, to abandon the world of
which they might render themselves ornaments, and shut themselves up in
buildings constructed expressly to receive them, where they continue to
go through a course of devotions and privations till death puts an end
to their voluntary imprisonment.
"In this modified instance of seclusion," she added, "there are features
very different from our own case. We are not forced to impoverish our
blood with insufficient diet, or mortify our flesh with various forms of
punishment. We do not neglect the worship of God. We offer up daily
thanks for His loving care of us, and sing His praises in continual
hymns; and instead of wasting the hours of the day in unmeaning
penances, we fill up our time in employments that add to our health,
comfort, and happiness; and that enable us the better to appreciate the
goodness of that Power who is so mindful of our welfare."
"Have you no wish, then, to leave this island?" I inquired.
"I should gladly avail myself of the first opportunity that presented
itself, for getting safely to England," she replied. "But I would wait
patiently the proper time. It is not only useless repining at our
prolonged stay here, but it looks like an ungrateful doubting of the
power of God to remove us. Be assured that He has not preserved us so
long, and through so many dangers, to abandon us when we most require
His interposition in our favour."
I endeavoured to gather consolation from such representations: but
perhaps young people are not so easily reconciled to what they do not
like, as are their elders; for I cannot say I succeeded in becoming
satisfied with my position.