Part 2

The period at length arrived. In the gloom of the dark ages there had been one agent unceasing in its efforts, whose step, silent as the tread of death, was yet as certain in its progress. Unsuspected, and apparently chained down by its opposers, it had been collecting the materials of another great explosion. It had fitted and prepared them, till their energy was irresistible, and then buried them beneath the ponderous but rotten fabric of the Popish faith. The materials are ready and the time has come! It is now that there arises another and a human agent--one, whose daring spirit and unconquerable firmness, proclaim him of no common order--who bears in his hand the torch that is destined to awaken these energies to fury, and as he hurls it to its purpose, stands forth the chosen one of heaven in this mighty undertaking. Need we say that it was Luther! His is indeed, a lofty elevation in the long line of the Reformers. His too is a name, imperishable, in the pages of Christianity! His the conceded title of a universal benefactor.

It was impossible, however, upon the ordinary principles of human nature, that the Reformation, glorious as was its influence, should be at once complete. The wave that had swept over the corruptions of the Romish church, had also borne forward and deposited the dregs of its pollution. By degrees, a spurious philosophy took possession of a large part of the intellect of continental Europe, and the deep degeneracy of the Papal system, which still claimed the exclusive honors of christianity, gave plausibility to an attack upon the whole of revealed religion. In the midst of this incipient regeneration of the world, there is one, a proud and mighty empire, that remains aloof! In the very heart of Christendom she has reared a temple, beautiful in its proportions and eloquent with grandeur!--whose worshipers are not of heaven. The dark banner of Infidelity is unfurled above it. On its entrance is written the inscription, that “there is no God,”--and the prayer that ascends within it is an insult and a mockery. And where now is that Christianity which the Reformation introduced? Is its purity again to be perverted and its throne usurped? We answer that it has not slumbered. Already is it going forth to battle with the giant form of Heresy. Animated with the spirit of its author, it is purifying this temple of abominations--washing out this impious inscription in the blood of a polluted nation. It has reared again the altar of a purer faith.

It is not with feelings of vanity but with a sense of the most solemn responsibilities, that we look upon the era which is now opening on the world, as probably the last great stage in the progressive advancement of our race. Shall we hail it as the greatest of all eras? Does it not, in the long line of ages, stand forth as a brilliant and attractive point, collecting by its brightness, every ray of knowledge and of science, to disseminate them wider through the nations of the earth? With all that we have to deplore of remaining ignorance and superstition on the one hand--and of restless and misapplied activity on the other--what age has ever witnessed such cheering prospects for the cause of Freedom and Christianity? As we look back on the past we see each succeeding revolution, sweeping away abuses and reading a great moral lesson to mankind!--while all have been pointing to the era, which seems now to have arrived, THE UNION OF WELL-REGULATED FREEDOM, AND A PURER FAITH, and all are eloquent in proof of the position we have labored to establish. How delightful to trace in part, the mighty experiment of sixty centuries, and find in it one harmonious system of events!--to follow out a golden chain, down through the darkness of the past, binding the disjointed fragments of society into one vast phalanx, moving ever onward! How animating to behold the incipient disenthrallment of a world!--to see Christianity coming forth purified and strengthened from the conflict, and hand in hand with freedom, leading on our race towards the perfection of their nature.

Whether the future progress of society will again be broken by sudden and disastrous changes--or will go on to rise by a gradual succession of elevations, we cannot determine. The sky that now bends over it so bright and beautiful may yet be clouded--the thunder of another revolution may be heard, and the lightnings of a mighty power may shake it to its center. These changes if they come, will hurry it along a burning track to its destined elevation. The promised redemption of our race, we trust is near at hand. It may be when the sun that now rides in light above us, shall look down on others who are soon to fill our places--while the temples of our worship are unshaken in their strength--when the stone that marks the place of our deposit, shall not yet have crumbled. But, sooner or later, that period will arrive. It will be an era, glorious beyond conception. The patriot and christian of that favored age, as he stands amidst its brightness and ministers at the altar of regulated freedom and uncorrupted faith, gifted with that prophetic vision which connects the future with the past--will trace the golden chain that binds our system to the throne of God, and while he mourns over the suffering and degradation which has marked our world, will yet adore that wisdom, which

From seeming evil, still educes good And better thence, and better yet again In infinite progression.

FRAGMENT.

_Excellence of the Christian Principle set forth, and recommended._

[From an unpublished work.]

If thou would’st lay thee in the grave at last, And die as dies the good man; if thy heart In that sad hour would feel its sympathies Sweeten’d, and soothed by solitary thought; Let thy whole life with virtuous actions teem, With virtue’s law compare. Thou can’st not live Too pure, or o’er thy smallest actions keep Too close restraint. Thou can’st not think too oft, There is a never, never sleeping eye Which reads thy heart, and registers thy thoughts; Thou can’st not say too oft--‘Teach me to know My end, that I may feel how short it is’-- Nor can’st thou lie too frequent, or too low Before that cross whereon the Saviour hung-- A blameless sacrifice. It is his fate, And by his disobedience invoked, That man shall view the sepulchre with dread; That when he looks into its narrow depths, Its gloom--its cheerlessness; and, spurning earth, Reflection lifts the separating veil Which hides the future, undissembled awe Shall grasp his soul, and will not be dispell’d. Yet in this chalice hath a provident God Commingled blessings. He hath mark’d a path, And promis’d peace to him who walks therein, And safety through the portals of the grave: And though thorns weary, and temptations press To win him into crime--his word is sure, And it will save him. Our emotions take Their hues from the complexion of the heart, As landscapes their variety from light; And he who pays his conscience due regard, Is virtue’s friend, and reaps a sure reward. He who has train’d his heart with lib’ral care, Has robb’d the sable tyrant of his crown, And torn the robe of terror from his breast. Death cannot fright him; he has that within Which, as the needle to the Arctic kept By law immutable, his mind upbears, And fastens where earth’s influence cannot reach: Let loose the cohort of diseases--rend The finest shoots of passion from his heart-- Snap ev’ry tie of common sympathy, And let the adverse and remorseless waves Of disappointment roar against his breast-- And you have struck some rock on Newstra’s coast, With but the heavings of a summer’s sea. His spirit knows no thraldom, and it takes A flight sublime, where earth hath never power.

There is a half-way virtue in the world Which is the world’s worst enemy; its bane; Its with’ring curse. It cheats it with a show-- But offers nought of substance, when is sought Its peaceful fruits. It suffers men in power To let the young aspirant rise or fall As chance directs. The rich man fosters it; And for the favor, it shuts up his ears Against the cry of virtuous penury; Or bids him dole out with a miserly hand, A farthing, where a thousand should be thrown And proffer’d kindly. The lone orphan’s cries, The widow’s wail in impotence, perchance Secure a few unmeaning tears--but not The pity which administers relief. Words flow as freely as a parrot talks At tales of suffering; and tears may fall As free as Niobe’s; but not a sacrifice The heart accepts, nor pleasure is forgone, Which marks the principle of virtue there, Or such as finds acceptance in the skies. Who pays with pity, all my debt of love-- Who weeps for me, yet never sees my lack-- Who says be clothed, yet never proffers aught-- He’s not my fellow, nor deserves the name.

A feeble virtue is a vice, adorn’d With virtue’s semblance. ’Tis a negative And useless quality. It exempts from wo Insufferable, yet grudges perfect bliss; And he but tricks him in a knave’s attire, Who boasts no other. He’s but half the man Who, when temptation stares him in the face, Assents, yet trembles to be overcome! Such men do things by halves, and never do Aught with an earnest soul. They fool away A life, in which the good and evil mix So equal, that the sum is neutralized; And Justice on their sepulchres inscribes No sterner truth, than when she writes--a blank. Why linger then betwixt the two extremes-- The passive puppet of each circumstance? Why pure, and dev’lish--mortal, and immortal-- Too good for earth--and yet unfit for Heaven? Why not at once, dispel these baneful mists, Thrust from thy path, the arts and blandishments Which win to wickedness; and rise at once With a proud moral freedom, until thou Can’st stand upon the stars--and see to Heaven?

*

THE SCIOT GIRL.

----“I cannot bear To be the scorned and trampled thing I am In this degraded land. Its very skies, That smile as if but festivals were held Beneath their cloudless azure, weigh me down With a dull sense of bondage.”--_Hemans._

The inhabitants of the once beautiful island of Scio, were among the last to rise against their oppressors and throw off the Turkish yoke. A combination of causes prevented them from taking part in the revolt when it first broke out. The spirit of enterprise and commerce, while it enriched and refined the people, had withdrawn them, by degrees, from those warlike habits which had distinguished many of the neighboring isles. They were immediately under the coast of Asia Minor, from whence, without a moment’s warning, they might be overwhelmed by hordes of merciless barbarians. They could not look out upon their vine-clad hills and their cultivated fields, where the orange, citron and pomegranate bloomed in oriental richness, and think that the fair scene should be polluted by the horrors of a desolating war. Learning and religion were protected. They were prosperous and happy under a government which, to _them_ at least, had been an indulgent one, and they wisely preferred their present safety to the uncertain chance of future benefit. The young men of the island, many of whom had been educated in the universities of France and Italy, with the generous impulse of their age, hastened, at the first cry, to join the ranks of the revolters; and we may well imagine that many, who were themselves unable to take up arms, prayed for the success of the cause and aided it in secret.

A year had now passed, and such was the situation of Scio.

It was an evening in the month of March, when a young Greek might be seen hastening along the beach in the direction of the principal town of the island. In the dress of the person--which was that of the higher class of citizens--there was nothing remarkable; but in his manner there was much to draw attention. His countenance was marked by an expression of cool and high-strung desperation. He strode on, as if to escape from the burthen of some intolerable thought, and muttered to himself from between his close set teeth. We may catch the import of his words.

“Well, well! it is over; and in sooth, she carried it nobly for one so young; but that pride shall have a fall, my haughty beauty,--and that stripling Antonio, too--by the cross! to be outwitted, circumvented, thus--that _he_ should step in and pluck the fruit I had coveted so long. Most excellent Constantine! truly thy wits have grown sharp of late to be thus miserably foiled by a beardless boy, and thine own egregious self conceit.--Fool! fool!” He paused for an instant, and a demoniac scowl passed across his features. “Ay, revenge----and she shall kneel to me even as I knelt to her, and pray to me in her agony and I will not hear her. Wo to those who would trifle with the proffers of Constantine.”

That night he disappeared from the island, and his absence excited little remark and less regret. Of his history scarcely any thing was known; but the mystery with which he chose to envelope his early days, his unbounded prodigality of wealth, and the recklessness of his character, gave rise to a strong suspicion, that his life had been one of desperate and unlawful courses.

And who was she against whom that fearful malediction had been uttered? A gentle spiritual being, unfit for the stormy waves on which she had been cast, destined to struggle with difficulty against them, and perhaps, ere long, to float away on the wilderness of waters, a withered and a broken thing. Surrounded with all that wealth could bring, she had grown up, shadowed from the gaze of the world, beautiful and accomplished in person, but still more lovely, if possible, in her intellectual being. To her the literature of the present and the past were unfolded, and she drank deeply of all that is high or impassioned therein. But most she loved to dwell upon the records of her country, and her young blood would thrill as she read of the ancient glory of her people, of their triumphs in arts and arms, of their bards, and warriors, and sages, and she wept when she beheld the degeneracy of their descendants. The beautiful in nature “haunted her like a passion.” She loved the Egean and its isles and the blue sky above them, because they were beautiful themselves, but still more because antiquity had hallowed them. And she was wont to steal away from her companions, and in some shady nook made pleasant by the dashing of a mountain rivulet, to read the stories of the ‘olden time,’ till consciousness stole from her and she lived and moved an actor in the scene. On one thus constituted, the first tidings of the revolt struck like an electric shock. The day-dream of her existence seemed to be on the eve of its accomplishment. Already, in imagination, she saw the chains falling from her nation, and Greece, with her bright coronet of isles, smiling in her recovered independence and happiness. She saw the ruined temples and altars reconstructed, and the statues of the renowned of old, restored to their long deserted niches. She lamented that she too might not grasp the lance and wield the sword. But all the interest of an actual combatant was hers. Her soul was with Niketas, among the passes of the Morea, with Miaulis and Canaris in their desperate engagements by sea, and her prayers were daily with God, that he would crown their efforts with success. She mingled no longer in the song or dance, she was no longer seen in the masque or revel of the festival--a high and holy enthusiasm filled her soul, and

“The boon that nature gave her at her birth, Her own original gaiety of heart”

was gone. As a mother watches with intense solicitude, the varying pulses of a dying child, so did Zara watch the rising and sinking fortunes of the cause to which she had bound her happiness forever.

It was the night on which commences our story, and Zara is gazing out upon the sea, and the evening breeze that comes in through the lattice, lifts her dark hair and caresses her cheek, as if conscious of the beauty around which it played. The scene through which she had passed, and which had resulted so bitterly to one, had vanished entirely from her mind. The stars were looking down from an unclouded sky, and the waves made music as they broke upon the shore, but both were equally unmarked by her. She thought of her lover beyond the sea, she watched him in all the hazards of a fierce contest, she heard his voice, nerving with confidence his fainting friends and sending dismay into the ranks of the enemy. She saw him driving the Moslem before him, now he is among the thickest of the foe, he struggles valiantly, the infidels hem him in on every side, Holy Virgin preserve him, he is down!--she was suddenly aroused from her painful thoughts. A light boat, containing a single individual, shot rapidly round a curve of the shore, and glided into the dark, smooth water of the little bay that lay beneath her window. A moment after a rich, manly voice rose gaily on the air:--

Lady, from thy lofty bower Look not out so tearfully, Lady know, this joyous hour, From beyond the star-lit sea Brings thy lover back to thee, Brings him, love, to life and thee!

That voice! it was Antonio’s--a moment more and she is in his arms.

“Ah recreant!” said she, smiling fondly upon him, “is this your boasted patriotism? What sends you from your post in the hour of danger?”

“Can you ask, Zara, and do you forget, that it is a whole year, an age since I have seen you?”

“It is indeed a long weary time, and it has changed you much, Antonio.”

“In all things else, perhaps, but not in my devotion to you. But you are paler, Zara, than when we parted, and your voice is more low and melancholy than I have ever heard it. I fear you have not lived happily as you were wont. A soldier’s mistress should never repine at his absence.”

“I could not be gay, while Greek swords were striking for liberty, and while you, Antonio, were hazarding your life; but now that you are here, and I listen to you and see you.”----

----“And feel this warm kiss upon your cheek.”----

“I am happy indeed.”

“You have lived too much in your own sad fancies, and while I remain I must contrive some diversion for you. Suppose we excite a conspiracy in Scio, by way of amusement.”

“Oh delightful!”

“Yes, and so romantic. You shall assume the manly toga; the costume of an Albanian chief will become that dark beauty of yours right well; and with your eloquence of words and looks we shall soon get up an insurrection. To tell the truth, Zara,” he continued more seriously, “it was not love alone that brought me here; our cause is going forward nobly, and the Sciots must give to it all their strength and influence. These degenerate countrymen of ours must be awakened from their lethargy, and I have come to rouse them.” And thus, from trifling to serious, from serious to trifling, he wandered on, and Zara was sad no longer.

Time passed, and Antonio had not appealed to his countrymen in vain. The Sciots responded to his call, and were only waiting a favorable opportunity to evince their patriotism. At this juncture, history informs us that two adventurers, with troops from Samos, landed on the island. The Sciots rose. A considerable force sent out against them was repulsed, and the whole body of the Turks were finally driven into the citadel and there besieged. The Greeks, however, had no means of securing their advantage from want of cannon to batter down the walls, and they were forced to wait in anxious suspense, till artillery might be sent them from abroad. Their hopes were frustrated, and all their plans destroyed by the arrival of a Turkish fleet of fifty sail, which anchored in the bay, and immediately began to bombard the town. Their faithless allies, the Samians, at the first appearance of the enemy, had deserted them, and sought safety in flight. Under the guns of the castle thousands of Turkish troops were disembarked. Some resistance was attempted, but all resistance was in vain. Hordes of barbarians rolled on and thronged the coast, fit instruments for the horrible tragedy which had been planned in the divan of the sultan, and was now soon to be enacted.

That day had worn wearily with Zara. Hour after hour she had heard the firing of cannon from the fleet; she knew that the Turks were landing; she had seen at a distance, troops passing and re-passing across the country, and her lover came not. A thousand doubts, a thousand misgivings, harassed her mind. The sun had set, and yet she had received no tidings from Antonio. The booming of the cannon broke incessantly on her ear, and sounded like a knell to all her hopes. Her anxiety was now increased to agony. Her heart beat with joy as she heard a quick step along the corridor. It approached the apartment. Was that her lover’s step? The door opened, and a stranger stood before her.

“I have come!”

“I know you not; who are you?”

“You will know me sooner than you think--one whom you _once_ despised, one whom your scorn has made a seared and blasted thing. But I bear no malice, lady; no, I am merciful compared with you. I have come to save you. Listen! the people of Scio are doomed to inevitable, indiscriminate massacre.” A red light fell across the room. “Hah! at work so soon? Lady, do you doubt me, look! Scio is in flames! The work of pillage and slaughter has commenced. The fiends will soon be here--a boat lies moored below, in which I will convey you to a place of safety--away! away!”

“Villain! no. What means that Moslem dress? Apostate from your country and your God! If I must perish, I will perish here; not to thee will I owe my safety.”

“No! well, listen to me, and be calm as I am: mark me. ’Twas _I_ who urged upon the Sultan the strong necessity of taking summary vengeance on the Sciots. ’Twas _I_ who poured upon the shore these swarms of merciless barbarians. ’Twas _I_ who ordered the burning of yonder town. ’Twas I that _slew thy lover_--perhaps you like me better now.”

“Miscreant! back, lay not your hand upon me. Oh God!” She caught a slender dagger from her girdle, and assumed an attitude of self-defense. “I am not so weak and timid as you think.”

“This is folly: I am wasting time.” He seized her by the wrist, and with a smile of pity, forced the weapon from her delicate hand. She fainted.

The last words of gratuitous cruelty, “’twas I that slew thy lover,” false as they were, had done their office, and Constantine, lifting her in his arms, bore her swiftly away.

As long as it was possible, Antonio, with a few brave Greeks, made head against the enemy. He saw that the enterprise in which he had toiled so long had failed, but he could not bear tamely to relinquish the field. Overpowering numbers at length forced him to retire, and he sullenly watched from a distance the landing of the enemy. From what he had already witnessed of Turkish warfare, he soon suspected the scene that would ensue. The thought of Zara flashed upon his mind--giving a few brief orders to those under his command, he hastened towards her home. What he heard and saw by the way increased his alarm. Yells and groans, and the report of musketry, rose from the city, while, here and there, the flames had begun to burst forth. Now and then, a crowd of women and children, frantic with fear, crossed his path, seeking for safety in the country. He hurries forward--the house is now in sight, but all is dark and desolate; he crosses the threshold--no one answers to his call; he reaches her apartment--it is empty.

He hastens again from the house. Following with his eye the path that led to the shore, he caught a glance of Constantine moving swiftly forward with his burden.