MENTAL PROSTRATION.
Mr. Carlton, minister of the church to which the family of Mr. Townsend
belonged, learned, through the newspapers, on the next day, the deep
affliction that had been sustained; and, prompted by a sense of duty,
repaired immediately to the house of mourning. He found the merchant
alone, pacing the floor of the darkened parlor.
“My dear sir,” he said, as he took the hand of the wretched man, “I
need not say how deeply I sympathize with you in this melancholy
bereavement, the fact of which I learned but half an hour ago. To lose
so good a son, in the first ripe years of manhood, is, indeed, an
affliction, and one for which there seems, at first, no solace.”
“There is none, Mr. Carlton,” returned the father, with something stern
and indignant in the tone of his voice.
“Say not so, Mr. Townsend,” replied the minister. “There is a balm for
every wound--a solace for every affliction. He who sends sorrow, will
surely send the power to bear it, and enable the sufferer, like the
bee, to extract honey even from a noxious plant. All that we are made
to endure here, is for our good.”
“So it is said, but I cannot believe it, Mr. Carlton. Is it good for me
to lose my son? Is it good that the very hope and pride of my family
should be stricken down, like a young and goodly tree, by the lightning
of heaven? No, it is not good!”
“God, in his very essence, is goodness, Mr. Townsend. His very
nature, as well as his name, is love. Too wise to err, too good to be
unkind, every event that takes place under his Divine appointment
or permission, must, in some way, regard man’s highest and best
interest--in other words, his eternal interest.”
“But what has the death of my son to do with my eternal interest?”
asked the merchant. “I must own that I see no connection between the
two things whatever.”
“The connection between acts and events in time, Mr. Townsend, and
effects which are spiritual, can rarely, if ever, be traced in the
present; but, notwithstanding this, nothing is truer than that whatever
occurs in a man’s life, whether it be a prosperous or adverse event,
a joyous or afflictive dispensation, is permitted or ordained for his
good--not his natural, but his spiritual good.”
“It may be, but I cannot understand it,” said Mr. Townsend, sadly.
“Reflect, but for a moment,” urged the minister, “and I am sure it
will be plain to your mind. We are spiritually organized beings, the
creatures of a wise, good, and eternal God, who has stamped upon our
souls the impress of immortality. We are not made for time, but for
eternity; and, therefore, time to us and all that appertains to it,
must refer to and involve what is eternal. The great error of our lives
is, a resting in the things of time and sense as real and substantial
things, and to be most desired, when they are only intended to be the
means of our spiritual purification and elevation. To so rest is to
look down at the things that are beneath, and which will perish in a
little while, instead of looking upward at those substantial things
which endure forever. Now, from the very nature of our Heavenly Father,
he must ever be seeking to lift our minds above these natural and
unsubstantial affections, into the love of such things as are eternal;
and in order to do this, he finds it often necessary to break our
natural loves, as with a hammer of iron, lest they become so selfish
and inordinate as to extinguish all love for what is good and true,
and thus render us unfitted for the pure, unselfish joys of heaven. It
is far better for us, Mr. Townsend, to suffer the destruction of our
natural hopes, and the blighting of our natural affections, if by these
means eternal hopes are rekindled in our minds, and the love of things
spiritual and eternal formed in our hearts.”
To this, Mr. Townsend was silent. Only to a limited extent did he feel
it to be true, and as far as he saw it did his heart rebel against it.
He had no affection for any thing beyond this world, and the crossing
and crushing of these affections, he felt to be the greatest calamity
he could suffer. The things of this world were good enough for him,
and he was content to enjoy them forever, if the boon could only be
granted; any interference with this enjoyment he could not but feel as
uncalled for and arbitrary.
This was his state of mind, which had changed, at least, in one
important feature during the lapse of two years. There was a time,
when, in the pride of success and conscious power, he had fully
believed, with the fool, as well as said in his heart, “There is no
God.” But, he had realized, by painful and disheartening experiences,
that there was an invisible and all-potent Being, who governed in the
affairs of men, and determined the course of events at will. Against
such interference, as he impiously felt it to be, his heart arose,
angry and rebellious.
Mr. Carlton, who remembered the conversation held with the merchant
two years previously, saw precisely the change that had taken place.
He was aware that Mr. Townsend had met with a number of heavy
losses in business, and these, with the distressing bereavement now
sustained, fully explained the cause of his altered state. He had hope,
notwithstanding the present aspect of his thoughts and feelings, that,
in the end, light would break in upon the darkness of his mind, and
peace reign where all was now agitation.
The minister’s interview with the other members of the family,
except Eunice, was little more satisfactory than that held with Mr.
Townsend. Time enough had not elapsed for the stricken heart of the
mother to react under the dreadful blow. To all Mr. Carlton’s words of
consolation, tears were her only response. And it was just the same
with Eveline. But Eunice seemed to forget her own pain of mind in the
sympathetic concern she felt for her mother and father, and in her
efforts to dry up their tears, her own ceased to flow. Thus it is,
that in attempting to sustain others in affliction, our own hearts are
comforted. Love is doubly blessed.
“They are passing through deep waters,” said Mr. Carlton to himself,
thoughtfully, as he pursued his way homeward, “but they will not be
overwhelmed. They are in the fire of affliction, but the Refiner and
Purifier sits by, and not an atom of what is good and true in them
shall be consumed. It is painful now, but I trust that I shall yet see
them come forth with rejoicing.”
For some weeks Mr. Townsend had no heart to enter into any of the
details of his business, nor to look at what was passing around him in
the business world. He experienced a mental prostration that approached
almost to paralysis. And it was the same with his wife, who, since
the news of her son’s death, had not left her chamber, nor spoken a
cheerful word.
But, only for a short time longer, did this continue. Then there came
another blow, sudden and appalling, that struck them down to the very
earth.