Part 9

As their grief appeared too singular to use any of the common methods which that passion generally adopts to gain relief from its own inflictions, I felt anxious to ascertain the specific cause of its excitement; and, on returning to the rectory, I asked Mr. Ingleby to give us the history of the deceased.

"She was," he said, "the eldest daughter of an opulent farmer, who resides about half-a-mile off; an extremely handsome and accomplished girl; and, from the elegance of her manners, and her intellectual attainments, she was fitted to move in the most polite circles. But though she stood without a rival in the whole hamlet, she was either unconscious of her superiority, or had too much good sense to display it. She would visit the sick, instruct the children of the poor, or perform any other work of mercy. In her the passion of selfishness was annihilated, and she lived to bless others. But she wanted the grace of pure religion to give the finishing polish to her attractive charms: and had she possessed this at an earlier period of her life, she might still have been, what she once was, the glory of her father's house.

"About four years ago, a young gentleman of rank and fortune, but of dissipated habits, obtained an introduction to her; an intimacy was formed, which soon ripened, in her unsuspecting breast, into an ardent attachment. Her parents, who ought to have guarded her against the cruel monster, did all in their power to encourage his visits; and on one occasion, when I ventured to suggest that I suspected the purity of his intentions, they were offended. But the veil of deception, which he had thrown over his professions, was very unexpectedly rent asunder; and with a levity and insolence of manner, which rarely occur in the annals of human treachery, he tore himself away from her, leaving her the dupe of her own credulity, and the victim of her own grief. Abandoned by one she loved, and thrown as an orphan on the world, even while her parents were still living, she withdrew from society, and, like the stricken deer, sought a tranquil death in a gloomy shade. Her health gradually declined, and it was thought proper to try if change of air and change of scene would not become the means of restoring it. She went, with a younger sister, to Teignmouth, to spend the winter; but on her return we all perceived that she was hastening to the tomb.

"I called to see her a few days after her return, and was both astonished and delighted to find that, during her residence at Teignmouth, she had given almost undivided attention to the momentous claims of religion. 'Though, Sir,' she said, 'I have had the privilege of attending your ministry from my early childhood, and have had my mind, at various times, most powerfully impressed by the truth, which I have heard you preach, yet I never understood the plan of salvation till recently. I used to admit the importance of religion, but _now I feel it_; and though I cannot say that I have attained to any high degree of eminence in knowledge or enjoyment, yet light has broken in upon my understanding, and I am permitted to indulge a good hope through grace. How astonishing! I was sent to Teignmouth for the recovery of my health, which I have not obtained; _but there I found the pearl of great price_' (Rom. xi. 33).

"I asked her if anything of a particular nature occurred while she was at Teignmouth, to force on her attention the great question relating to her personal salvation? when she gave me the following statement:--

"'When out for a walk one evening, I ran into a roadside cottage, for shelter against a very heavy shower of rain. I there saw a young person, about my own age, dying of a decline; and in a short time her physician came, who is a very godly man, and I overheard part of their conversation. I heard her say, I am not now afraid of dying or of death. I know by the loss of this frail life I shall gain immortal life in heaven--a life of happiness, where there will be no sin, or sorrow, or pain, or poverty, or death.'

"'I called,' she added, 'the next day, with a few jellies and oranges, but I found the cottage in a state of great confusion and sorrow, for she died just before I entered it. On the following Sabbath her funeral sermon was preached at the Dissenting chapel, and I heard it. The text made a deep impression on my heart, as I thought it applicable to myself--"_Her sun went down while it was yet day_." From that hour I gave an undiverted attention to the apostolic injunction--"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling;" and I trust, Sir, I can now say I do believe in the Son of God, and hope He will save me. I may live to outlive my affliction, and the poignant sufferings which have been the cause of it; but it is very doubtful. What a mercy that I am now prepared for death and its issue.'

"She grew better as the spring advanced; the influence of religious principle moderated the violence of her mental anguish; her spirits regained their natural vivacity; she resumed her customary habits of going about doing good, and again mingled amongst the living; but now her preference was to the excellent of the earth, who love and fear God. So great was the change in her appearance, that we all flattered ourselves that the fatal disease had received a check, and that she would yet live to bless us with her presence and her example. But the disorder, which we thought subdued, was silently spreading itself through her whole frame; and having taken a fresh cold, it attacked her with greater violence, and within the space of three weeks she was taken from us. At my last interview with her, which was only a few hours before her decease, she said, 'I am not _now_ afraid to die. The subject has long been familiar to me. It is divested of all its terrors. "I know that my Redeemer liveth." I enjoy His presence this side the Jordan, and doubt not but the waters will divide when He calls me to pass through.'

"On seeing her mother weep, and her father retiring in sorrow from the 'post of observation,' she said with great composure, 'My dear parents, weep not for me. I shall soon, very soon be released from all my pain, and see Him, "whom having not seen, I love; in whom, though I see Him not, yet believing, I rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." I leave you in this vale of sorrow, to ascend the mount of bliss; and I hope you will follow me. And O! that he who has been the guilty cause of my early death, may obtain mercy in that day when we must stand together before the judgment-seat.' She spoke but little after this, and at seven o'clock the same evening she said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,' smiled, and expired.

"Since her death her parents, who are virtuous, but not pious, have been inconsolable; they reproach themselves in the bitterest terms for the inducements which they threw in the way of the murderer of their daughter and the destroyer of their happiness; and though they have no doubt of her present felicity, yet, being ignorant of the nature of that felicity, and having no animating prospect of attaining it themselves, they sorrow as others who have no hope. I have visited them several times since the dear deceased left us; but grief has taken such an entire possession of their mind, that the words of consolation seem to aggravate its violence, and I fear, unless mercy interpose to prevent it, that the grave will soon be opened to receive them."

"Nothing," said Mr. Stevens, "gives such buoyancy to the mind, in the season of affliction, as communion with God. This holy exercise induces resignation, as well as submission to His will; raises up the soul above the conflicting elements of sorrow, into the tranquil regions of peace; and, by associating it with the unseen, yet not unfelt realities of the eternal world, makes it unwilling to look for permanent and substantial happiness amidst the fleeting possessions of earth."

"I was present," said Mrs. Stevens, "when my dear sister, Mrs. Lewellin, lost her Eliza. She wept as she followed her remains to the tomb; but she did not repine. She said to me, after the rites of sepulture were performed, as we sat together in the room in which the dear girl expired, 'If it had been the will of the Lord to have spared my child, I would have received her back with grateful joy; but as He has taken her to Himself, I can bow and say,

'I welcome all thy sov'reign will, For all that will is love; And when I know not what thou dost, I'll wait the light above.'"

"Religion," said Mr. Ingleby, "has a fine effect on the soul in the day of prosperity; but its excellency is most visible in the season of adversity; then it shines with peculiar radiance, demonstrating its superhuman origin, by the omnipotence of its power in moderating the intensity of grief, and inspiring the soul with a hope full of immortality."

SATURDAY EVENING AT FAIRMOUNT.

It was on a fine summer evening, when taking a solitary ramble, that I seated myself on the stump of an old elm tree, gazing on the splendour of the heavens and the beauties of the earth; thinking of the mysterious period when there was no sun, or moon, or stars; when there was no material universe or created beings; that I unconsciously fell into the following train of reflection. Here I am; but how came I here? Am I the child of chance, or the offspring of a wise and beneficent Creator? When I see a machine, I feel conscious that it was constructed by an artist; and can I suppose that the more curious mechanism of my body was formed by chance? Was it chance that placed my eye in the only proper position in the body to guide the motion of my hands and my feet; that stationed around it so many guards to keep it from injury; that has given it a mysterious power to travel over a wide and extended surface without fatigue; and to receive the exact form and colour of external objects on the dark canvas spread out behind the lens, without intermixture or confusion? Was it chance that constructed my ear for the nice discrimination of sounds; that let fall the ray of intelligence on my understanding; and gave to my fancy its capabilities to adorn the conceptions of my mind with the drapery of a beauteous imagery? And was it chance that gave to my tongue the sense of taste and the gift of speech? Impossible! I trace contrivance in all these astonishing arrangements and endowments, which demonstrates the existence of a God who made me. Was it chance that placed the sun in the centre of the planetary system; that impressed laws on those unconscious bodies which revolve around it, which keep them from deviating from their mysterious course; that set bounds to the sea, which it cannot pass; that gave to the air I breathe a salubrious and elastic quality; and enriched the earth with a prolific power? Impossible! In all these mighty works I trace the operations of intelligence and design. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." All nature is full of God. He shines in the brightness of the sun,

----"Refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees."

And does not the visible creation display the goodness of God? Pain is not the object of contrivance, which would have been the case had the Creator been a malevolent being. The eye is formed for the purpose of vision, not to be injured by the atom floating in the air; the ear for hearing, not for aching; the hand and the foot to be active and useful, not to be lacerated by instruments of torture.

The sun was now creeping gently down the western horizon; the sky was clear and bright, as on the eve of the first day of the creation; no sounds broke in upon my calm serenity, except the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep penned in a neighbouring fold; and, just as I was rising to a more glorious theme of contemplation, my attention was arrested by the appearance of a gentleman, who was walking along the bank of a river, gliding through the vale beneath me. His manner was singular. Now he advanced with hurried steps the distance of fifty yards, then suddenly stopped, looked round him, advanced again, again stopped, stood motionless, then approached the brink of the river, receded, walked up to the edge again, paused, appeared wrapped in deep and solemn thought, retraced his steps, abruptly stopped, fixed his cane in the ground, threw down his gloves, took off his hat, advanced, and fell. During the whole of these apparently mysterious movements, my sympathies were excited, and I was making every necessary preparation to save a soul from death. My feelings were too violently agitated to allow of cool reflection; but I could not refrain from paying the tributary sigh to that unknown cause of woe which appeared to be hurrying an intelligent and accountable being out of a world on which I had been gazing with so much delight, and sending him, stained with the blood of his own life, into another and a changeless economy of existence.

As soon as I saw him fall, I rushed forward; and, as the river was not more than a few hundred yards distant from me, I felt conscious that I should be able to reach him in time to save his life; but just as I was going to leap over the stile that stood midway between us, I saw him raising himself on his knees. I drew back, and looking through the hedge, I perceived that he had not fallen into the river, but among the high rushes that grew on its brink, and that he was not meditating the destruction of his own life, but the rescue of a little lamb, that had accidentally slipped into the stream. The transition of my mind from one of the most awful subjects of contemplation, to a touching incident of human benevolence, was not less gratifying to my feelings than the sudden hushing of the midnight tempest is to the mariner, who, having lost his compass, can steer his vessel only by the light of the polar star.

Curiosity impelled me to watch the movements of this stranger, and I beheld him cautiously removing the weeds which were entwined around the exhausted lamb, and then carrying it to its dam, which, I imagined from her bleating, instinctively knew the danger from which her offspring had been delivered. This sight brought to my recollection the language of the prophet, who represents the Redeemer as gathering the lambs with his arms, and carrying them in his bosom.

On perceiving the stranger advancing towards the stile which I intended to cross, I again seated myself on my former post of observation, and soon had the gratification of seeing him saunter up the lane. He was a young man, on whom the God of nature had bestowed a fine exterior form; and who by an action, which he was not conscious I had witnessed, had strongly prepossessed me in his favour. I arose on his coming near me; we exchanged the customary bow of polite recognition; and, after passing a few cursory remarks on the varied scenery around us, we moved onwards together, and were soon engaged in a very interesting and important discussion.

"I have, Sir," he said, "left the bustling city, in which I have spent the greater part of my life, to survey for myself those rural beauties and employments which I have been accustomed to view through the medium of the press."

"No fancy," I observed, "can paint the beauties of nature, in all their varied forms, and hues, and rich combinations. The landscape pleases when on the canvas; but there is no life, no motion, no sound, all which are necessary to make the representation really correct."

"True, Sir, but we are much indebted to the pencil for introducing rural scenes and scenery into our crowded cities, by which we are told, through the medium of the eye, that there are living beauties in nature which _we may see_. This is my first visit to the country. I have been wandering about for several weeks, travelling from village to village, and penetrating into woods and forests; trying to make myself familiar with the manners and habits, the sentiments and feelings, of the various orders of rustic life. I have conversed with the opulent and indigent farmer; with the man who holds the plough, and the man who drives the team; with the shepherd and the woodman; I have looked into their houses and their huts, and have investigated their plans of domestic economy; and I think I shall now return home with a more correct opinion of the actual state of things that I once entertained. The beauties of nature are more beautiful than I anticipated; but I have searched in vain for that rural simplicity, and innocence, and joy, which ancient and modern poets have described in such glowing colours. For simplicity, I have found rudeness; for innocence, low cunning; for contentment, murmuring dissatisfaction; for sportive playfulness, almost universal lamentation. To quote the language of a poet who first introduced scepticism into my unsuspecting breast:--

'I grant, indeed, that fields and flocks have charms For him that grazes, or for him that farms: But, when amid such pleasing scenes, I trace The poor, laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray, On their bare heads and dewy temples play; While some, with feeble hands, and fainter hearts, Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts-- Then, shall I dare these real ills to hide, In tinsel trappings of poetic pride?'"

"I have often been charmed with the pastoral life of the poets, but I have never found a counterpart to their descriptions. _Their_shepherdesses are clothed with the verdant beauty of paradisaical innocence, and their shepherds are men of genius; the sky beneath which their ewes lamb and their dogs sleep, knows nothing of the war of elements; but when I visit the actual spots from whence they collect their enchanting imagery, I see the ponderous cloud overhanging the defenceless fold; and am soon convinced that

'No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country's beauty or their nymphs rehearse.'"

"The poets have long been practising an illusion on our credulity; and though, after the deception is discovered, we may continue to admire their highly-wrought descriptions, yet, the charm of reality having vanished, we feel dissatisfied."

"It is to be lamented," I replied, "that poets are not the only writers who try to impose on the credulity of their readers. The reading world, as it is called, revolves in a fictitious region; and hence, when its inhabitants come forth amidst the scenes of real life, they are apt to think, and feel, and talk, and act, like beings descended from an aerial planet."

"Your observation, Sir, is perfectly correct; but, in my opinion, no writers are so deserving of severe censure as religious writers. They represent as fact, what we know is fable; as real, what our intuitive sense teaches us is imaginary; and, by a dexterity which belongs exclusively to their order they try to beguile us of our innocent recreations, which they denounce as impure and pernicious, and enforce on us exercises at which our generous nature recoils; and have the effrontery to tell us, that if we wish for happiness we must seek for it in religion."

"That there has been deception practised by _some_ religious writers no one can deny; but I cannot subscribe to every part of your sweeping charge. For if your remarks are to be admitted in their fullest extent of application, they would go to the entire banishment of all religion from society, which would be a fearful calamity--the experience of all ages and countries proves that no social fabric can be held in order and in harmony, unless its various parts are compressed together by the force of religious opinions and sanctions."

"Not, Sir, to the banishment of the religion of nature, which is simple and pure, but to the banishment of the religion of revelation, which is mystical and corrupt."

"And pray, my dear Sir, what is this religion of nature, which you say is so simple and pure? It is something of which I have heard, but I never saw its form or heard its voice."

"Why, Sir, it is that view of the perfections of the Deity which we discover in His visible works, and the consequent impressions which they make on our minds. How vast the power which has sprung yon azure arch over our revolving globe! What wisdom is displayed in the adaptation of every part of the creation to accomplish some obvious design! And it is evident, from the subservience of all things to the comfort and happiness of living beings, that goodness is an essential attribute of the Deity. It is in this vast temple, where he unveils his glory, that I offer up my orisons and my incense; and not on altars built by human hands, or within temples consecrated by priestly incantations."

"I agree with you, that power, and wisdom, and goodness, are displayed in the works of God, and that we may worship him either in the glen or on the mountain top, beside the running stream or within the recesses of pathless woods; but, as we are sinners, can we indulge any hope of mercy, unless he condescend to promise us forgiveness? And tell me from what part of the _visible creation_ has the sound of mercy ever proceeded?"

"Why, Sir, we may presume that He who has made provision for all our temporal wants, has made provision also for our moral ones."

"We know, Sir, that the supreme magistrate feeds and clothes the state prisoner, but are we to presume, from this circumstance, that he will also remit his sentence of condemnation?"

This question produced a momentary embarrassment; but, after a short pause, he said, "I grant that a promise of mercy would be a more substantial basis for hope than a mere presumption resting on analogical reasoning."

"I thank you for this frank admission; and I think if you will investigate the subject, free from prejudice, you will find that the promise has been given."

"I know that the writers of your Scriptures have incorporated the promise of forgiveness in their scheme of religion; but I can never bring my mind to believe that they were authorized to do so by the Deity. I never can believe in the truth of Christianity. It is impossible."

"But, Sir, you will admit that it may be true, though you do not believe it?"

"Why, yes; my scepticism does not prove it false, any more than your faith proves it true."

"Now, let me suppose for a moment that it is true--in what an awful dilemma are you placed! Be candid. Are you convinced, by an unbiassed and dispassionate investigation of the evidences of Christianity, that the system is false?"

"Why, no; I have never examined them; and for this reason, I have never thought it worth while; because I cannot reconcile your doctrine of the atonement with the dictates of reason."

"But, suppose the _fact_ of the atonement be established by proper, _valid evidence_, will your inability to reconcile it with the dictates of reason be any logical argument against it?"

"Most certainly it will, unless you require me to believe what I can neither understand nor comprehend; and, allow me to ask, what practical effect can be produced by the admission of any doctrine or supposed fact which is incomprehensible?"

"You believe in the existence of God; and that belief induces you to pay him homage; but can you comprehend the nature of his essence, or the _modus_ of his existence?"