Part 12

There is a vast amount of suffering in the world that escapes general observation. In the lanes and alleys of our populous cities, in the garrets and cellars of dilapidated buildings, there are pregnant cases of misery, degradation, and crime, of which those who live in comfortable houses, and pursue the ordinary duties of life, have neither knowledge nor conception. By mere chance, occasionally, a solitary instance of depravity and awful death is exposed, but the startling details which are placed before the community, are regarded as gross exaggerations. It is difficult for those who are unacquainted with human nature in its darkest aspects, to conceive the immeasurable depth to which crime may sink a human being,--and the task of attempting to delineate a faithful picture of such depravity, though it might interest the philosopher, would be revolting to the general reader. There are, however, cases of folly and error, which should be promulgated as warnings, and the incidents of the annexed sketch are of this character. Mysterious are the ways of Providence in punishing the transgressions of men,--and indisputable is the truth, that Death is the wages of Sin.

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Twenty years ago, no family in the fashionable circles of Philadelphia was more distinguished than that of Mr. L----: no lady was more admired and esteemed than his lovely and accomplished wife. They had married in early life, with the sanction of relations and friends, and under a conviction that each was obtaining a treasure above all price. They loved devotedly and with enthusiasm, and their bridal day was a day of pure and unadulterated happiness to themselves, and of pleasure to those who were present to offer their congratulations on the joyous event. The happy pair were the delight of a large circle of acquaintances. In her own parlor, or in the drawing-rooms of her friends, the lady was ever the admiration of those who crowded around her, to listen to the rich melody of her voice, or to enjoy the flashes of wit and intelligence which characterized her conversation.

Without the egotism and vanity which sometimes distinguish those to whom society pays adulation, and too prudent and careful in her conduct to excite any feeling of jealousy in the breast of her confiding husband, Mrs. L----'s deportment was in all respects becoming a woman of mind, taste, and polished education. Her chosen companion noticed her career with no feelings of distrust, but with pride and satisfaction. He was happy in the enjoyment of her undivided love and affection, and happy in witnessing the evidences of esteem which her worth and accomplishments elicited. Peace and prosperity smiled on his domestic circle, and his offspring grew up in loveliness, to add new pleasures to his career.

The youngest of his children was a daughter, named Letitia, after her mother, whom, in many respects, she promised to resemble. She had the same laughing blue eyes, the same innocent and pure expression of countenance, and the same general outline of feature. At an early age her sprightliness, acute observation, and aptitude in acquiring information, furnished sure evidences of intelligence, and extraordinary pains were taken to rear her in such a manner as to develope, advantageously, her natural powers. The care of her education devolved principally upon her mother, and the task was assumed with a full consciousness of its responsibility.

With the virtuous mother, whose mind is unshackled by the absurdities of extreme fashionable life, there are no duties so weighty, and at the same time so pleasing, as those connected with the education of an only daughter. The weight of responsibility involves not only the formation of an amiable disposition and correct principles, but in a great measure, the degree of happiness which the child may subsequently enjoy. Errors of education are the fruitful source of misery, and to guard against these is a task which requires judgment, and unremitting diligence. But for this labor, does not the mother receive a rich reward? Who may tell the gladness of her heart, when the infant cherub first articulates her name? Who can describe the delightful emotions elicited by the early development of her genius,--the expansion of the intellect when it first receives and treasures with eagerness, the seeds of knowledge? These are joys known only to mothers, and they are joys which fill the soul with rapture.

Letitia was eight years old, when a person of genteel address and fashionable appearance, named Duval, was introduced to her mother by her father, with whom he had been intimate when a youth, and between whom a strong friendship had existed from that period. Duval had recently returned from Europe, where he had resided a number of years. He was charmed with the family, and soon became a constant visitor. Having the entire confidence of his old friend and companion, all formality in reference to intercourse was laid aside, and he was heartily welcomed at all hours, and under all circumstances. He formed one in all parties of pleasure, and in the absence of his friend, accompanied his lady on her visits of amusement and pleasure,--a privilege which he sedulously improved whenever opportunity offered.

Duval, notwithstanding his personal attractions and high character as a 'gentleman,' belonged to a class of men which has existed more or less in all ages, to disgrace humanity. He professed to be a philosopher, but was in reality a libertine. He lived for his own gratification. It monopolized all his thoughts, and directed all his actions. He belonged to the school of Voltaire, and recognized no feeling of the heart as pure, no tie of duty or affection as sacred. No consideration of suffering, of heart-rending grief, on the part of his victim, were sufficient to intimidate his purpose, or check his career of infamy. Schooled in hypocrisy, dissimulation was his business: and he regarded the whole world as the sphere of his operations,--the whole human family as legitimate subjects for his villainous depravity.

That such characters,--so base, so despicable, so lost to all feelings of true honor,--can force their way into respectable society, and poison the minds of the unsullied and virtuous, may well be a matter of astonishment to those unacquainted with the desperate artfulness of human hearts. But these monsters appear not in their true character: they assume the garb and deportment of gentlemen, of philosophers, of men of education and refinement, and by their accomplishments, the suavity of their manners, their sprightliness of conversation, bewilder before they poison, and fascinate before they destroy.

If there be, in the long catalogue of guile, one character more hatefully despicable than another, it is the libertine. Time corrects the tongue of slander, and the generosity of friends makes atonement for the depredations of the midnight robber. Sufferings and calamities may be assuaged or mitigated by the sympathies of kindred hearts, and the tear of affection is sufficient to wash out the remembrance of many of the sorrows to which flesh is heir. But for the venom of the libertine, there is no remedy,--of its fatal consequences, there is no mitigation. His victims, blasted in reputation, are forever excluded from the pale of virtuous society. No sacrifice can atone for their degradation, for the unrelenting and inexorable finger of scorn obstructs their progress at every step. The visitation of death, appalling as is his approach to the unprepared, were a mercy, compared with the extent and permanency of this evil.

Duval's insidious arts were not unobserved by his intended victim. She noticed the gradual development of his pernicious principles, and shrunk with horror from their contaminating influence. She did not hesitate to communicate her observations to her husband,--but he, blinded by prejudice in favor of his friend, laughed at her scruples. Without a word of caution, therefore, his intercourse was continued,--and such was the weight of his ascendant power,--such the perfection of his deep laid scheme, and such his facility in glossing over what he termed _pardonable_, but which, in reality, were grossly licentious, indiscretions of language and conduct,--that even the lady herself was induced, in time, to believe that she had treated him unjustly. The gradual progress of licentiousness is almost imperceptible, and before she was aware of her error, she had drunk deeply of the intoxicating draught, and had well nigh become a convert to Duval's system of philosophy. Few who approach this fearful precipice are able to retrace their steps. The senses are bewildered,--reason loses its sway,--and a whirlpool of maddening emotions takes possession of the heart, and hurries the infatuated victim to irretrievable death. Before her suspicions were awakened, the purity of her family circle was destroyed. Duval enrolled on his list of conquests a new name,--_the wife of his bosom friend!_

An immediate divorce was the consequence. The misguided woman, who but late had been the ornament of society and the pride of her family, was cast out upon the world, unprotected, and without the smallest resource. The heart of the husband was broken by the calamity which rendered this step necessary, and he retired, with his children, to the obscurity of humble life.

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At a late hour on one of those bitter cold evenings experienced in the early part of January, of the present year, two females, a mother and daughter, both wretchedly clad, stood shivering at the entrance of a cellar, in the lower part of the city, occupied by two persons of color. The daughter appeared to be laboring under severe indisposition, and leaned for support on the arm of her mother, who, knocking at the door, craved shelter and warmth for the night. The door was half opened in answer to the summons, but the black who appeared on the stairs, declared that it was out of his power to comply with the request, as he had neither fire,--except that which was furnished by a handful of tan,--nor covering for himself and wife. The mother, however, too much inured to suffering to be easily rebuked, declared that herself and daughter were likely to perish from cold, and that even permission to rest on the floor of the cellar, where they would be protected, in some degree, from the 'nipping and eager air,' would be a charity for which they would ever be grateful. She alleged, as an excuse for the claim to shelter, that she had been ejected, a few minutes before, from a small room which, with her daughter, she had occupied in a neighboring alley, and for which she had stipulated to pay fifty cents per week, because she had found herself unable to meet the demand,--every resource for obtaining money having been cut off by the severity of the season. The black, more generous than many who are more ambitious of a reputation for benevolence, admitted the shivering applicants, and at once resigned, for their accommodation for the night, the only two seats in the cellar, and cast a fresh handful of tan upon the ashes in the fire place.

It was a scene of wretchedness, want, and misery, calculated to soften the hardest heart, and to enlist the feelings and sympathies of the most selfish. The regular tenants of the cellar were the colored man and his wife, who gained a scanty and precarious subsistence, as they were able, by casual employment in the streets, or in neighboring houses. Having in summer made no provision for the inclemencies of winter, they were then utterly destitute. They had sold their articles of clothing and furniture, one by one, to provide themselves with bread, until all were disposed of, but two broken chairs, a box that served for a table, and a small piece of carpeting, which answered the double purpose of a bed and covering. Into this department of poverty were the mother and daughter,--lately ejected from a place equally destitute of the comforts of life,--introduced. The former was a woman of about fifty years, but the deep furrows on her face, and her debilitated frame, betokened a more advanced age. Her face was wan and pale, and her haggard countenance and tattered dress, indicated a full measure of wretchedness. Her daughter sat beside her, and rested her head on her mother's lap. She was about twenty-five years of age, and might once have been handsome,--but a life of debauchery had thus early robbed her cheeks of their roses and prostrated her constitution. The pallidness of disease was on her face,--anguish was in her heart.

Hours passed on. In the gloom of midnight, the girl awoke from a disturbed and unrefreshing slumber. She was suffering from acute pain, and in the almost total darkness which pervaded the apartment, raised her hand to her mother's face. 'Mother,' said she, in faltering accents, 'are you here?'

'Yes, child: are you better?'

'No, mother,--I am sick,--sick unto death! There is a canker at my heart,--my blood grows cold,--the torpor of mortality is stealing upon me!'

'In the morning, my dear, we shall be better provided for. Bless Heaven, there is still one place which, thanks to the benevolent, will afford us sustenance and shelter.'

'Do not thank Heaven, mother: you and I are outcasts from that place of peace and rest. We have spurned Providence from our hearts, and need not now call it to our aid. Wretches, wretches that we are!'

'Be composed, daughter,--you need rest.'

'Mother, there is a weight of woe upon my breast, that sinks me to the earth. My brief career of folly is almost at an end. I have erred,--oh God! fatally erred,--and the consciousness of my wickedness now overwhelms me. I will not reproach you, mother, for laying the snare by which I fell,--for enticing me from the house of virtue,--the home of my heart-broken father,--to the house of infamy and death: but oh, I implore you, repent: be warned, and let penitence be the business of your days.'

The hardened heart of the mother melted at this touching appeal, and she answered with a half-stifled sigh:

'Promise me then, ere I die, that you will abandon your ways of iniquity, and endeavor to make peace with Heaven.'

'I do,--I do! But, alas my child, what hope is there for me?'

'God is merciful to all who ----'

The last word was inaudible. A few respirations, at long intervals, were heard, and the penitent girl sunk into the quiet slumber of death. Still did the mother remain in her seat, with a heart harrowed by the smitings of an awakened conscience. Until the glare of daylight was visible through the crevices of the door, and the noise of the foot passengers and the rumbling of vehicles in the street had aroused the occupants of the cellar, she continued motionless, pressing to her bosom the lifeless form of her injured child. When addressed by the colored woman, she answered with an idiot stare. Sensibility had fled,--the energies of her mind had relaxed, and reason deserted its throne. The awful incidents of that night had prostrated her intellect, and she was conveyed from the gloomy place, A MANIAC!

The Coroner was summoned, and an inquest held over the body of the daughter. In the books of that humane and estimable officer, the name of the deceased is recorded,--'LETITIA L----.'

B. M.

_Philadelphia_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.

It is a grand desideratum in all the affairs of life, to hold fast what we get. The business of evangelizing the world, is like the stone of Sisyphus, continually recoiling upon each successive generation. We want something like what the sailors call a Paul to the Capstan,--a sort of Ratchet. This is the business of Christian Education, and the problem is to devise such a system of religious training and instruction, as shall be best adapted to that end.

It must be admitted that hitherto but little has been done, notwithstanding that the blessings of the gospel are promised to believers and to their children also. It is not found that the care of pious parents, to infuse religious sentiments into the hearts of their children, is attended with any remarkable success. Indeed, there is often found a prejudice against religion, which seems to have grown up with them, and is eradicated with the more difficulty, because it has sprung up and rooted itself in a soil cleared from the rank weeds of vicious indulgence, and prepared to receive the seed of the spirit of God. This seed the enemy snatches away, and scatters the tares of enmity and rebellion in the place of it. They spring up in the night. They grow in darkness, shaded by the pall of a staid demeanor and assumed sobriety of deportment.

The promise is nevertheless often fulfilled in a remarkable manner, long after the anxious parent has gone to his rest, and the child, grown up to manhood, has taken his station among his fellows, in the affairs of life. Then it is, that the recollections of his youth, of the discipline and habits of his childhood come upon him, like a confused and troubled dream. Softened by time, as by distance, objects lose their asperities; any harshness which had once estranged him is forgotten, and he now comes to dwell, with sad and self-reproachful feelings, on his departure from the example of strictness, sobriety and gravity, which he had once renounced:--

"How gladly would the _man_ recall to life The _boy's_ neglected sire, whose sternest frown Was but the graver countenance of love."

Under the influence of such feelings, he often turns back into the path from which he strayed. But how much better never to have left it! How many sorrows has he in the mean time brought upon himself, by vicious self-indulgence! How much matter of repentance has he provided for his future life! How many has he led astray by evil counsels and evil example, who are still wandering in the mazy wilderness of sin, and may never recover the way that leads to heaven!

It is surely well to consider, whether there is no remedy for these evils. Every man is a priest in his own house, and is not only charged with the care of the souls of his children; but is bound also, as far as possible, to make them instruments of good to others. What should we say to him who should make his house a menagerie of ravenous and destructive beasts, to be turned out as they grow up to prey upon the flocks and herds of his neighbors? And what better is he who carefully adorns and accomplishes the persons and minds of his children, with all the graces of manners, intelligence and address, which give them so much power over the principles and conduct, and happiness, of their associates, without guarding against the abuse of this power, by impressing their hearts with the love of religion and virtue, and a sense of the value of the souls of others? They go forth as fiends of darkness, in the garb of angels of light, and contamination, and misery, and death, are the fruits of their intercourse with the children of men.

Of this fault, it is not pretended that christian parents are willingly guilty. They are not even careful in many instances, to impart the ornamental parts of education, which so much enhance the power of seduction, but they innocently supply an instrument hardly less powerful, in the familiarity with the language of the Bible, which is often acquired by those who have no taste for its doctrines. When the devil cannot robe himself in the rainbow garment of Ithuriel, he can, at least, "quote scripture for his purpose," and many a heart has been corrupted, and many a mind confounded by scraps and ends of texts, torn from their connexion, and uttered in derision by those who have been taught to get verses by rote--but not, as the good old phrase is, _by heart_. O! ever while we live, let us make our children learn the Bible BY HEART, or not at all, that when they speak its language, they may speak as one whose "mouth speaketh out of the fulness of his own HEART."