THE MINISTER’S FAREWELL.
A Sabbath day in New England. Who can describe it?—the sublime
stillness, the hush which falls on every living thing, filling the very
atmosphere with a spirit of prayer. The trees seem to wave their
branches as if they were palms, ready to be thrown along the pathway to
church, rendering it more holy. The birds, calmed by the profound quiet,
float through the air dreamily and without fear. So completely does the
spirit of God pervade the earth and sky, that whispered thanksgiving
seems the only language which would not break the charm of profound
holiness.
A morning like this dawned on the streets of New Haven, lighting them
half with sunshine, wrapping them half in shadows. Every house was
still, every footstep fell restrainedly on the sidewalk. The college
grounds were deserted, and lay spread out beneath the stooping elm-trees
one carpet of mossy greenness. Through this sacred calm, first one bell
and then another rung out a clear summons to church. Then the streets
filled with neatly-dressed people, family groups, couples walking close
together, and children excited by the bells into quicker steps than
their parents thought decorous.
A grave, subdued look was remarkable in all these people. Friends
scarcely ventured to smile a recognition as they met. The little girls
cast shy glances at each other’s bonnets, and looked down again demure
and conscience-stricken by their own wicked curiosity. Thus, the streets
that intersect Yale College grounds were threaded with a kind of life
that seemed like absolute stillness.
Into the various churches these devout people diverged, and directly
after the bells ceased ringing, the streets were empty again.
One place of worship, a small, new church, that had consolidated the
worshipers of a home-mission station, was more than usually full that
Sabbath. The young minister, a man so beloved and reverenced in his
congregation that a glow of blessings followed him wherever he moved,
was that day to take leave of his people. “It might be for years, and it
might be forever.” After building up the church and converting a handful
of inquirers into a thriving brotherhood, his health had gradually
broken down, and a long sea-voyage was deemed the only hope left to him.
It was not remarkable that the good people who entered the church should
pass up the aisles with sad countenances and lingering steps, or that
many a loving eye should grow misty as it turned on the minister, when
he appeared in the dim twilight around the altar more like a ghost than
a human being. With his eyes bent upon the ground, he saw no one, though
such yearning looks were fastened on him, but moved up to the sacred
desk and sunk to his knees, it would seem as much from weakness as
devotion.
All the ceremonies of that morning were doubly impressive from the
sadness that lay on the congregation. But when the clergyman spoke,—when
his altering tones were gathered up and poured forth upon the
audience,—one deep throb of sympathy beat from heart to heart, filling
the whole church with sorrow.
The discourse was a strange one. The pastor who had done so much for
them, whose lips had been so exemplary that he was considered “little
less than the angels,” seemed pleading with his people for forgiveness
of some great transgression,—for shortcomings and backslidings of which
no one believed him capable. As he warmed and grew more earnest, his
startling eloquence swelled over them like cries of loving anguish. His
voice thrilled with the pathos of unshed tears. There was no argument in
his sermons,—scarcely an attempt at method;—but every sentence went
trembling from soul to soul with solemnity and power.
When the sermon was over,—when the last farewell was taken and the
minister lifted his shaking hands in benediction,—the suppressed grief
broke out; sobs rose from various parts of the house, and tearful eyes
looked into each other claiming sympathy. Long after other worshipers
had left their sanctuaries, the congregation remained together, hovering
around the church, or standing sadly in the pews, waiting for the pastor
to come forth.
He tried to avoid these simple, loving people, whose wealth of affection
oppressed him, and there, in the dim vestry sat, motionless, with the
sacred vestments still shrouding his person, and the heart under them
ready to break.
He arose at last, slowly and sadly divested himself of gown and band,
cast one look around the little room, twice sacred to him, and went
drearily forth. The church was yet full. He recoiled a moment, trembling
with a new shock, then walked down the aisle with a mournful smile on
his lip, saying farewell, and hearing nothing but blessings till he came
to the door. There a sorrowing crowd gathered around him, swelling the
tide of anguish till speech forsook him, and, with a pathetic gesture,
he passed from among them. The pastor went home slowly, with his head
bent down, and his sorrowful eyes too weary for uplifting. A white
garment fluttered before him, footsteps lingered on the grass by the
unpaved street he was treading. At first he took no heed, but after a
little a subtle thrill stirred his heart, and he looked up. A fair young
girl was before him gliding over the grass with sorrowful slowness. She
paused an instant,—hesitated and turned as if to go back. Then he saw
her face clearly,—its troubled paleness and the look of suppressed tears
that left deep bluish shadows around the eyes, and a flush upon the
drooping lids.
They stood thus, face to face, looking at each other, with yearning
sorrow. The girl must have stepped forward first; for he stood
motionless. During one instant their hands clasped, neither spoke,—a
look—oh, how much more pathetic than words!—passed between them, and
they parted in painful quietness.
He stood mute and still a little time after she passed from his sight,
not in reflection, but dumb, as if his guardian angel had just looked
upon him and fled, after seeing what manner of man he was. Then he
turned suddenly, resolved to speak out the love that had so long slept,
a mute blessing in his innermost heart; but in the anguish of that
farewell she had walked rapidly, and the flutter of her cloud-like
garments among the shrubbery around a cottage-house which was her home,
sent back a shadowy farewell. Then the usual fiend that tortured him
came in, goading that sensitive conscience with its sharp memories.
“Who am I, and what am I, that this hand should thrill so after her
clasp,—or these lips dare to syllable her name,” he muttered,
despondently. “God forgive me this wild thought. Ah me! Hereafter, I
must lead a lonely life, and ask nothing of my Lord but mercy and
forgiveness.”
He lifted his eyes to heaven, and God’s light that fell from thence,
revealed how sad they were.
“It was only for a moment,” he murmured; “only for one little moment. I
do not struggle, Lord. I do not complain. Was not the divine Jesus
lonely as a man,—was not his holy nature tortured while in thraldom with
humanity? Is it hard, then, that I, so frail, so wicked, with sin
burning red on my forehead, should pass through life a lonely being,—an
exile whose hopes all lie in the hereafter?”
He looked back once more through the misty sorrow that vailed his eyes.
One of the cottage windows was open, and through it appeared a white
figure leaning out, as if eager to lessen the space that lay between her
and the unhappy object she was gazing on. She saw that he was regarding
her, but gave no signal that would have seemed sacrilegious on the holy
day; but, unconsciously, she stretched forth her arms, the wind caught
in her loose sleeves and they fluttered out like wings that quivered
with desire to flee towards him.
Then, with a deep sigh, the minister moved homeward, comforted, and
smitten with holy tenderness. It seemed to him as if for one little
moment an angel of God’s own sending had hovered over him.