AN OFFICIAL.
Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never
squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He
was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the
office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great
statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor
widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary
consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed
for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was,
not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage
the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no
philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act
so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who
elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended
to, whatever became of the poor. Accordingly, when he heard of any case
of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a
cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual;
but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle. He could
not betray his constituents, who elected him against his will, by any
act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted. "Even
the Lord," he used to say,--for he was a religious man,--"when he
created the sun, left spots in it." The best statesman must sometimes do
what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the
good of man. This district, since his election, now twice successively,
had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its
officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who
were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact,
be a work for man--progress and virtue. Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van
Stingey had "got religion," by which he was wonderfully enlightened,
having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six
months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held
near the village of M----ville.
"I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks," said he,
"there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the
church, I didn't have any knowledge of God. I used to pity these
emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I
reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these
Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great."
"Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old
mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no
sign of the Lord's displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself,
who were poor. In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that
riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that
'whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.'"
"O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand
the word of God."
"Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many
arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she
had."
"She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst
not look at, you know, Knicks."
"I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she
used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother
was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father
was Dutch."
"Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These
priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so,
that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction."
"Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my
mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to
destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I
were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion;
for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought
Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but
it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of
the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n;
and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged
to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that
her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant
Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the
Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all
baptized too."
"Indeed!" carelessly ejaculated our official. "I must call and see that
Bible of yours some day."
This conversation--which happened a few days before the death of our
emigrant widow--between his neighbor "Knicks" and our official shows
what an _enlightened gentleman_ he was. Since his elevation to office,
he also got promotion to another situation, which, though not so
lucrative as that of poormaster, in the course of time, by proper
management, promised to come to something. In a certain school house in
his vicinity, where the faithful were too poor, too irreligious, or too
pernicious to hire a preacher, our official held forth every Sunday, and
several evenings on the week days, at prayer meetings, protracted
meetings, and other roaring exercises. And to do him credit, his nasal
accent and piercing shrill voice made him a capital substitute for the
_hired_ regular Methodist preacher. He could be heard for nearly a mile
distant calling on the _brethern_ and _sistern_ to come to heaven.
"O, let us come!" he would cry; "we were made and intended for heaven. I
see the shining seats, I see the crystal fountains, I see the Lord
sitting on the throne. Come, sisters, come! I could embrace ye all for
the Lord's sake. I could hide ye in my bosom. O! O!"
There were some whose faith was not strong enough to place implicit
reliance on the veracity of this very enlightened "minister of the
word;" but the great majority believed, or pretended to believe, and
expressed their faith by crying out, "Glory! glo-ry! glo-r-y!"
If a more particular or personal description of our official is
required, we can state, from minute observation, that Mr. Van Stingey
was of the middle size, of thin, cadaverous appearance, short neck,
snake head, with lank, sandy hair, nose flat and simex-like, small eyes,
one of which he kept continually shut, as if he supposed himself a match
for the poor whom he had to deal with by keeping one "eye skinned,"
reserving the other for some important office in church or state, to
which he unquestionably aspired. Several times during the two months the
destitute widow and her family were reduced to penury and sickness. Our
worthy master was apprised of their condition by the neighbors; but he
always answered that the law did not allow him to spend any more, just
now; that these emigrants ought to remain at home; that they had no
right to this country; that he heard a very godly minister foretell last
year, at camp meeting, that the Romanists would yet have this country;
that too many were coming by millions; that he feared that they could
not be converted as fast as they were arriving; that they ought to be
made pay a heavy sum, or sent back. "In short," said he one day to poor
Mrs. Doherty, "I was not elected by them Irish paupers, and I never
expect to be."
"If every thing you say was as true as that last word, I think you would
be an honest man for wonst," said Mrs. Doherty; "for there is no fear
that an Irishman's or a Christian's vote will ever elect the like of
you. God forgive you this day!"
To suppose that any man could display such _bona fide_ ignorance as this
official did in the foregoing, would be to form an incorrect and
inadequate estimate of the human mind. The fact was that Van Stingey was
a false, low, cruel man, whose soul, steeped in the sensuality of his
past life, had lost all that was divine in its nature. His circumstances
were so reduced by his crimes and dissipation, that, being "too lazy to
work, and ashamed to beg," he assumed first the guise of religion to
gain popularity; and when he had "got religion," then the teachers of
the stuff which they call by that noble name, to keep it respectable,
procured him this office as a reward for his hypocrisy.
This was the official who startled the inmates of our house of mourning
about five o'clock in the morning, when, thrusting his head inside the
door, he cried out, "A corpse there, eh?"
"The Lord save us! Who are you, or what brings you here this hour o'
night?" said old granny Doherty, suspecting him as "nothing good."
"Like you Irish, allers asking questions," said he, discharging a mass
of tobacco almost in her face. "I am the poormaster; and, having
received a report that there was a dead pauper here, thought I would
have it put out of the way early, before the folks would get up."
"You are a very polite gintleman, God bless you. I hope she won't be
buried so soon. This is not the custom in any Christian country. After
to-morrow will be soon enough. You need not be in a hurry. We expect the
priest here to see to the children, as he has already left some help,
God bless him."
"She must be enterred this morning, having died with the ship fever, I
suppose. The citizens expect me to do my _dooty_; and that I will do, if
the Lord spares me."
"The dickens a ship fever nor no other fever she had; but the poor
woman's heart broke, seeing what she had come to in a strange country,"
said Mrs. Doherty, pityingly.
"Wal, wal, if she had trusted in the Lord, and knew the word of God, he
would not have deserted her as he has," hypocritically answered the
official.
"I beg your pardon, sir, don't judge rashly. She was not deserted by
God, but died content and happy, after all the rites of her holy
religion were administered to her," was the prompt reply.
"You think so; but I want to know how she could love God without the
Bible; and you Roman Catholics are not allowed its use."
"God help those that can't read so," said Mrs. Doherty. "There is no
chance for me or my old man, for neither of us can read it; but not so
Mrs. O'Clery, God be good to her. She had her Bible, and many more good
books."
"Yes, sir," said Paul, joining in the dialogue. "We have always had the
true Catholic Bible, and mother always read it on her knees."
"Wal, my good lad, you are _pooty_ smart; and now get you ready, with
the rest of you little critters, and come on the sleigh I will send for
you. Let's see how many of you there are. One, two, three, four--a great
lot of ye. As I was saying, be ready to come up to the county house till
I can get some folks to take ye in to keep till ye are of age."
"The priest, sir," said Paul, "promised to call to-day; and as he
already has left us a good sum of money, I know the good man will
provide for us till he writes to my uncle, who would be very sorry to
hear of our going to the poorhouse or the county house, though it may be
a better place."
"My young lad, you will be provided for by law, and don't fail to be
ready by ten o'clock," said the official, sternly, as he left the room.
In a few hours after, the body of the widow O'Clery was deposited in a
rough, unplaned pine coffin, and placed on board a two-horse, open
sleigh. The four orphans were stowed around in the same vehicle, and, in
care of a constable, the _cortege_ drove off at full speed to the
cemetery. By half past eleven, the remains of the widow were consigned
to their kindred earth, the few lumps of hard frozen clay on the surface
her only monument--the sobs, sighs, and prayers of her own dear children
the only requiem uttered over her lowly and soon-to-be-forgotten tomb.
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth now, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors." (Apoc. xiv. 13.)