A late writer tells us, that being on board the packet ship Silas
Richards, on his way from New York to Liverpool, the captain one day
opened the letter bags in the round house, to sort the contents; and
to amuse the passengers standing about him, read aloud some of the
most singular superscriptions, when he came to a letter which had a
seal with an epigraph on it which ran thus: “Mispah—Gen. xxxi. 49.”
“Here,” said he to a clergyman by, (the writer himself, I suppose,)
“this is for you to expound.” But the clergyman not being able to do
so, ran for his Bible, and soon returning with it open at the place
referred to, read out, “Mispah: the Lord watch between me and thee,
when we are absent one from another.” “Beautiful!” said one.
“Beautiful!” said another. “A gem! a gem!” exclaimed a third. “A gem
indeed!” cried all together. “And surely,” adds the writer, “the
brightest, most precious gem of all, was to find, in such a place and
circle, these prompt and full-souled expressions of sympathy on this
announcement of religion and christian piety. There were, indeed,
powerful tendencies to such sympathy in the circumstances of us all.
For who present, whether going _to_ or _from_ his home, did not feel
himself separated from those he loved, and loved most dear? And who,
with a wide and fitful ocean before him, tossing on its heaving bosom,
would not feel his dependence, and looking back or forward to home and
friends, lift up his aspirations to that high Providence who sits
enthroned in Heaven, and rules the land and sea, and breathe to him
the sweet and holy prayer—‘The Lord watch between me and mine, while
we are absent one from another?’”
These reflections are all just and natural enough; but they are,
perhaps, a little too vague and indefinite. At least, they do not
strike me as quite true to the text. For the word “watch” here does
not mean simply _protect_, but rather _witness_, and Laban’s idea when
he said “Mispah,” was, “may the Lord stand witness, and look out to
guard against any infraction of the covenant which has just been made
between us.” So the author wanders a little from the point of the
thing. And he does so again when he proceeds to ask, “And whose was
the hand that fixed this stamp of piety on this winged messenger of
love—of love that grows more ardent and more holy as it is distant and
long away from its object? The first post-mark was Quebec, and the
letter was directed to a quarter-master in London. Was it then, from a
wife to a husband? or from a sister to a brother? or what was the
relation?” Obviously, such a seal could be used with strict propriety
only by one who either was, or was engaged to be, married, to the
writ_ee_, and who might very nicely use it at once to assure and
remind the absent partner of that conjugal, or connubial fidelity
which they had vowed before God. At any rate, it must be felt, I
think, by every one, that it would have a peculiar charm when used by
a person who might happen to be in such a predicament. And taking the
thing in this light, and putting myself for a moment in the shoes of
the fair young _fiancée_ who has just set the seal to her letter, I
would expound or explain the motto upon it, something in this way:
O what can sooth the sorrow, love,
This anxious absence brings,
But to reflect that one above,
With overshadowing wings,
The witness of our plighted troth,
Will hear, and help, and keep us both?
O may he still our guardian be,
As he hath ever been!
And watch, my love, o’er me and thee,
While ocean rolls between!
And bring thee back, all perils past,
To make our bonds more sweetly fast!