Part 5

yet I rejoice with joy unspeakable that the present is still filled with many privileges and pleasures, and that I can with perfect trust refer the future to Him who appointeth all things in mercy. I wish most sincerely I could communicate something interesting to you, to redeem my miserable letters from the charge of perfect egotism, but I live so wholly out of the sphere of the interesting part of the world, that I am as ignorant of all that passes within it as those who know not that it exists. It is this reason which has often withheld me from writing you when indeed I wished for my own sake to indulge in it, and I think you will be fully convinced of the wisdom of my forbearance after the perusal of this.

"M.L.P."

And now another trial impended, to be followed by other and important changes in her condition of life. In the autumn of this year her grandmother died. For the event itself, so long expected and not to be lamented, she was prepared. But some of its circumstances were unusually trying, and she well knew that its consequences might be still more sad. Yet how little these considerations affected her, in comparison with the moral aspects and spiritual lessons of the change, may be seen in her own account of the last sickness, to N. C. S.

"_Boston, Sunday Night, October 12, 1817._

"You have so long indulged my selfish propensity of communicating to you every feeling that chances to be excited in my heart, that I find it difficult, when under the influence of any peculiar emotion, to resist the ever-present desire to impart all to you. But this would be the height of folly and weakness, and I therefore contend against it with all my powers. There are, however, certain kinds of feeling of such a doubtful nature, that the agency of some external power is absolutely necessary for the proper management of them. Of this nature, I am persuaded, are those by which I am now overpowered; and lest I should be too much led away by them, I must beg your assistance in ascertaining their origin and tendency. This may seem too systematic for any one who feels _much_, but the violence of the tempest has passed, and that deadly calm which always succeeds the raging of the elements naturally inclines the mind to thought and reflection.

"I have lived for the last few months in the hourly contemplation of a most striking picture of the end of human life, the termination of all its joys and sorrows, the annihilation of its hopes and wishes. This could not fail to impress with sadness a mind in full possession of its powers of enjoyment, and for a time to give it almost a disgust of all those pleasures and pursuits which must so soon fail before the dim eye and feeble energies of approaching age. It had, in a great degree, this effect on me; for the moments have been when I would willingly have surrendered life rather than live in the expectation of such an end,--to outlive the ability to engage in its duties. I now tremble at the thought of ever having suffered such feelings for a moment, to possess my mind. Continued and deep reflection on the object of all this, the comparative nothingness of every thing in this world, the hopes and prospects of another and better, meditation on the spiritual life, and occasional experience of the real happiness of that elevation of soul above earthly things which religion alone can impart, have overcome this melancholy, and sometimes produced almost a feeling of triumph. I have this evening been almost overwhelmed with a variety of emotions, of which this was the most prominent. Grandma has thought herself dying, and has been conversing with me on her approaching change with that most heavenly calmness which those only who rely on the mercy of God, through the merits of his Son, can experience at this trying hour. This, together with joining in prayer with her that we might all welcome this hour as she did, and her final parting with all in the house, has elevated my mind so much above this transitory scene, that I can scarcely believe I shall ever be so weak as again to be engrossed by it. I cannot describe the state of my mind. I never _felt_ so before, though I have often imagined that others have. It is almost a kind of transport at the thought that this mortal shall put on immortality, that there is within us an ethereal spark which can never be extinguished or grow dim, capable of rising superior to the pains and weakness which bend these frail bodies to the ground. O, it is a joy unspeakable! Viewed through this medium, death loses its sting, and the idea of a glorious immortality alone presents itself with the view of its approach.

"But alas! I can place no dependence on the continuance of my feelings beyond the moment that excites them. My life is a mere vision; the world in which I act has no connection with that in which I think. My pleasure, my happiness, is so far independent of the objects around me, that I can hardly associate them together. Having little else to do than meditate, I exist almost in imagination, and communicate so little with others on the subject of my thoughts, that it seems like living two beings; the greater part of my time is passed in this ideal world, and I am consequently unfitted to mix in the real one in which I am placed. This is a misfortune and a fault. Which has the greatest share of blame? It is most unfavorable to true Christian humility; for, as Mr. Channing says of the effects of a diseased imagination, 'We feel superiority to the world in ascending the airy height, and pride ourselves in this refinement of the mind. After arraying ourselves in the robes of glory, we cannot take the lowly seat which Christianity assigns us.' Thus, then, although this elevation above the objects of this vain world may be a right spirit when it rises from the pure flow of real piety, if it be only the enthusiasm of the moment, which rises for a time and then vanishes away, an abstract theory which would not be practised upon in the hour of temptation, it had better never have been. When we have once been imposed on, we know not what to trust. All my purposes of goodness and high resolves are as yet but theories, which I fear I should never put in practice should temptation assail me. O, I dare not be thus happy!

"MARY."

V.

CHANGES AT HOME.

The first change consequent upon the death of old Mrs. Lovell, was the leaving of the house in Pearl Street. This, to Mary, was not a small matter. It was not the mere moving of furniture, nor the living in one street rather than another, of the same town. It was the loss of the earliest and only HOME that she had ever known; and none are to be envied who cannot enter into the feelings which such an event must awaken in a heart like hers. With little of the romantic in her nature, and as great independence of the merely local and external as is often seen, her love of family and early friends, her memory of childhood and all its associations, the very changes and sufferings which had made so large a part of her life, were all identified with "that house" as the place of their birth, and bound her to it by the strongest chords. Within a month of the day of her grandmother's death, she wrote her last letter there, which, with the first that was written out of the house, will show what she felt, and why.

"_Boston, November, 1817._

"It is with many new and peculiar feelings that I attempt to write you for the last time from this blessed spot, rendered doubly sacred to me from having been the scene of that intimacy which ever has been, and I trust ever will be, one of the purest sources of happiness which it has pleased my Heavenly Father to bestow on me.... It has been _one_ of the happy effects of the trials which, during the last few years, have fallen to my lot, to produce a more unreserved acquaintance between us than under any other circumstances could have been effected. I bless them in all their influences, but particularly in this, that they have brought me the knowledge and affection of such a friend. I should blush at the recollection of the numberless follies, weaknesses, and sins which this frail heart has discovered to you, but I wish you to know me entirely; the candid confession of faults is the greatest proof of confidence I could give. But that delightful intercourse which has so much conduced to this must for a time be broken off, perhaps never again to be renewed in this changing world. Change of situation will necessarily preclude the possibility of that continued intercourse of thought and feeling, which has been the joy of the past. I cannot admit the idea that this will weaken the bonds that unite us, much less can I think it will break them. But I have been the creature of situation; my character (if any thing I possess can be entitled to the name) has been moulded by circumstances peculiar in their nature, and which will soon cease to exist. What I shall be in the wide world into which I am going to enter, I know not. I hope, yet fear to change. Without a guide to lead me in the right path, I fear my inexperienced steps will stray into some of the many fascinating, delusive snares which are found in every direction. My course has hitherto been over an old and beaten track, secure by its remoteness from all temptation. What, then, shall I do, when the whole host of the world's allurements are presented at once to my weakness?

"I wish I could describe to you the feelings which the very prospect of leaving this house excites in this poor, weak heart,--so weak that it cannot subdue or control its emotions. It would seem romantic and visionary to any one who had been accustomed to change; but this house supplied in a great measure the relation of instructor, parent, and friend. And it is true, that in every part are recorded by association the admonitions of those friends I have known in it, or lessons which the experience of repeated trials has impressed in indelible characters on these scenes. Here, when temptation assailed, and this frail heart was on the point of surrendering to it, would the remembrance of former good resolutions, presented by the very walls around me, recall my wandering virtue, and strengthen me to new exertions. And to that sacred retreat, that sanctuary of all my joys and sorrows, I owe, if not the creation, at least the preservation of the best feelings I possess. There I find the history of the most important moments of my life, for in that spot did the first sincere and heartfelt aspirations of my soul to its Creator find utterance; and there, too, have I always found support under trial, in prayer. It were an endless work to recount all the associations which attach me to this only home I have ever known; it would be to give you a minute account of every transaction which has taken place since I lived here.

"MARY."

* * * * *

"_Boston, December, 1817._

"For the first time since I left that loved spot in Pearl Street have I seated myself at my _desk_; and, although my object in now doing so was a very different one, I cannot resist the impulse which the sight of it gives, to renew the employment, so wont to be pursued at it, of pouring forth a few of my feelings to my friend. It is so long since I have had an opportunity to do so, and so various have been the occurrences, and still more various the feelings which it has been my lot to experience in the course of the last two months, that, though my mind is full of what I wish to communicate, I am as much at a loss what to write as if all was vacancy. This poor little, unconscious desk has carried me back, against my will, to scenes which it were wise seldom to think of. The last time I wrote at it was the last evening I spent in the I 'oaken parlor,' when all was sad and solitary. But I cannot dwell on it. I find in the record of that evening prophecies which are hourly fulfilling. I felt deeply impressed with a sense of insufficiency to meet with, and bear aright, the temptations which a life of indulgence would present. I felt that I was not fit for society, and I feel so still, but more sensibly, more truly, for it is now the lesson of experience, sad indeed. But a truce with such feelings;--it is not of them I wish to write. This wicked desk has conjured up the old complaining spirit which so used to haunt me whenever I attempted scribbling to you. I am happy, contented with any change that has or may take place. I only ask a less selfish, more disinterested frame of mind,--to be more independent of the opinion of others, when a consciousness of sincere endeavor to do right acquits me of actual transgression. Selfish are all my regrets, all my trials, and wherefore, then, trouble another with a detail of what self alone can sympathize in, or ameliorate, or cure? I will not;--for once, I will follow reason rather than inclination.

"The more I know of the world, the more I see of the beings who constitute what is so called, the more the hopes and wishes which excite and keep alive their energies sink into insignificance, and the more my own restlessness and anxiety about the cares and pursuits of life excite my astonishment and contempt. We surely were not placed in this world solely to be occupied by its allurements, or, without reference to the design of our Creator in placing us here, to pursue that which seems to us the most easy and pleasant path. And with our reasons convinced, how can we so unweariedly pursue that phantom happiness which has here no fixed abode? We acknowledge that nothing here can satisfy us, and yet vainly delude ourselves with the hope of soon attaining some ideal joy which, like the philosopher's stone, will convert all into solid happiness. One would think I had been disappointed in some fond hope, or found too late _my_ fancied joy a dream. But no, I am not disappointed, for I have never anticipated; and if aught I have said savors of this temper of mind, I would recall it.

"Mr. Colman advised me never to write in the evening, lest I should deceive myself and my friend with an exaggerated account of what in the light of day would prove false. I am half asleep, and therefore will take his advice, and I already find myself on the verge of the gulf,--self-deception.

"M. L. P."

To some it will seem strange, that one of such faith and principle, with no proneness or taste for the follies of the world, should express fear of "fascinating, delusive snares," or think for a moment of the "whole host of the world's allurements." But this will be understood by those who remember that strength does not lie in a sense of security, nor wisdom in assurance. It seems to have been ever a part of Mary Pickard's wisdom, to own her weakness. And more than this, the evil that she feared was not that coarse, palpable thing usually called "vice," but the invisible, subtle evil, so serious to the sensitive and pure mind, though by the many lightly regarded. "I fear not actual vice," she said at this very time, "but to become thoughtless, forgetful of duty, unmindful of my highest interests, is to my mind a more deadly sin than many which are accounted by the world _crimes_. It is this I most dread. My conscience, or, should that fail, my friends, would save me from the first, but who can control the thoughts of my heart?" Thus fearing, thus armed, she went out into the world, beginning at this point her life of self-guidance. Of her means of support we know little. She was not dependent. From her grandparents, to whom she had been so true a child, she received enough to enable her to assist her father in his depression, though it is evident that he took no more than was absolutely necessary, and that she retained enough for her wants, more than she used to the time of her marriage. This could have been accomplished, however, only by a uniform and strict economy, whose necessity she never regretted, except as it curtailed her charities.

And now began a life of business and of motion. Since her return from England, at the age of five, Mary had been from home very little, and only for her schooling. Hereafter she is to become a traveller, to a greater degree than was then common for a lady, and greater than she desired. Her journeyings, we infer, were always more for others than herself; either for the gratification of friends, or in aid of her father. For she seems to have become, in various ways, his active as well as domestic helper, and was intrusted by him, we should judge from their letters, with important business. For some purpose of this kind, in the year following our last date, she went, for the first time, to New York. And the account she gives of the preparations and the journey, while it shows what changes there have been since, shows also how much there was on her mind and her hands. She speaks of getting but four hours for sleep from having "so great a variety of occupation,--so much for my poor, weak head to think of." And then, half playfully, half in earnest, she writes of being "at last equipped for a journey probably of two months." But we must give a part of the letter itself; showing, as it does, how near to her, even in her busiest moments and most fatiguing labors, were the higher cares of the mind and the soul.

"I am glad of having a great deal to do; any thing that will call my little powers into exercise gives me a transient feeling of consequence, which, as it is highly flattering to vanity, produces rather pleasant sensations. I will not enter on the subject of leaving home, and setting out on an expedition fraught with untried temptations, and presenting even in the most favorable view a scene of life little calculated to satisfy my taste or warm my heart. But I believe there may be instruction found in every situation, and I hope that seeing eyes and an understanding heart will be given me, to discern and improve it. I cannot tell you how much more I feel than I ever did before, at leaving home;--I cannot; it is in vain to attempt so vast a subject at such a time. I have been highly favored the last two Sundays in hearing two of Mr. Channing's most delightful sermons, which I hope will not be soon forgotten. Last Sunday was the anniversary of many eventful days to me. The first Sabbath in September has for many years been a memorable day to me, and this last, I think, exceeds them all. It is three months since I have been at home on Communion-day, and the coldness which I had felt creeping through my very soul gave me a feeling of hope that I should find something to excite and elevate my affections. I never felt more entirely humbled to the dust, or more sensible of the immense privilege we enjoy, in having such a man to guide us on our way. But I am so excessively weary that I cannot write more,--scarcely to assure you of the warm affection of your

"M. L. P."

The journey to New York, by way of Providence and Norwich, was "a week's work," though it seems to have been all used in travelling, but with many "adventures" and delays incident to the beginning of steamboats,--against which, notwithstanding the discomforts and perils, Mary expresses herself "not so prejudiced that I should be unwilling to step on board one again." The letters she writes from the great city, so new and strange, are almost exclusively business letters to her father, and his replies show that he had given her important commissions, to be discharged in person, and in her own discretion. Directions are given for the sale or purchase, not only of muslins and moreens, but also of skins, saltpetre, and the like. And at the end of several weeks, in which she seems not to have indulged herself in much recreation, she speaks of returning as soon as she "has seen the city."