Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

cooler a man is, the better, in religion as in every thing else. This ranting, spasmodic piety is my abhorrence. Who wants to see a man all in a fluster about the gravest subject in the world; that which you term his eternal welfare ?'

[ocr errors]

It is true,' as you say, that great actions are performed under the influence of powerful excitement; but it is an habitual excitement, thoroughly inwrought into the soul; and so far from interfering with the cool exercise of the reason, gives it the widest, highest, and freest play. Such is the excitement which the love of great principles, or a lofty ambition, gives a man. But the momentary excitement which is raised in a 'revival' is not the thing. It dies away generally in a week after, although a man may, for consistency's sake, (that is, fear of the world,) drag out a whole life with a mask over his face; bitterly repenting all the while that he ever committed himself in the way he did before the public. Oh, the mock piety of which the world is full, is a stench in the nostrils of a true man! He loathes it as he would a dead carcass, and turns from it with a shudder! Give me frozen indifference, or absolute atheism, rather than this stupendous falsehood!

'You, my dear Parson, are somewhat different from other ministers whom I know. You dare to speak out what you feel, without stopping to ask what your people will say of you for it. There are some who seem to watch the drift of public opinion, and the different tendencies of their people, so as always to be on the popular side, whether it be right or wrong. But after all, what good will my protest against them do? They are men, like their fellows, and I suppose must take the surest way to get a living, and keep soul and body together. The world will wag on, and gradually improve, century after century, though not by their help. They are as falsehearted and cringing as the great mass of mankind, and ought not to be found fault with because they show out their nature.'

'You are a confirmed fault-finder, I fear,' said the Parson. If you knew the trials of the pulpit you would mingle a little pity with your contempt. We do all we can, as well as we can, and get illwill for our reward. If we are faithful to rebuke sin, we are hated. If lenient, we are despised. Between two stools, we come to the ground.'

'A clergyman of the Unitarian faith told me of a poor fellow who was frightened out of the pulpit, by the dread of its self-denying and onerous duties. He was a theological student at Cambridge, and in his senior year. Doctor Kirkland was then President of the University, and one day took opportunity, in his study, to give the young candidate some wholesome advice for his future life.

You have,' said the President, many trials to undergo, Mr. Jones, in the profession which you have chosen. Economy of time, labor and money, however, will soften many of them. You will most probably settle in the country, on a small salary. You will get tired of living alone as I do, and then you will get married. Your wife's dresses, your house-rent, your pig, your horse and cow, and perhaps children, will be much more expensive than a bachelor's life at a

boarding-house. The salary which was before hardly sufficient will then be totally inadequate, without the strictest economy. You must strive to please your people so that your salary may be promptly paid. Be very careful in your life, and intercourse with your parishioners, or you will make enemies. But above all things be economical. Each week you will have cares enough to make an old man of you; but hardest of all will be the trial when Saturday comes and finds your two sermons for the next day yet unwritten. This will be the hardest of all. But the sermons must be penned. Even in writing them you must practice economy. And now let me warn you to use it on every occasion, or your hopes of usefulness will be dissipated. Remember this one piece of advice, and you will always be grateful to me for the suggestion: When Saturday afternoon comes, and you sit down to write your sermons, and find your thoughts coming slowly, and good for nothing when they do come, don't get out of patience, and fidget about in your chair, or you will wear out your whatd'ye-call-'ems!"

Mr. Jones was so intimidated at the prospect of clerical trials and this strict economy, that he fled in dismay from the profession, and became at last a doctor of medicine.

The Parson's anecdote tempered the Squire's acidity, so that he declared himself unwilling farther to pursue a topic which the Parson's good humor had so happily evaded. The Doctor smiled, but the lieutenant was still gazing into the fire. Martha here came in to arrange the table with a cloth, and bring on the sandwich and wine-glasses; while the Squiré opened a panel of the side-board to get a choice bottle of wine and some old Taburas.'

[ocr errors]

While Martha was going out, the lieutenant followed her with his eyes, and said, as she shut the door, Well, Jack, you have a pretty servant there; but that has nothing to do with what I have been thinking about this evening. Some other time we will converse on

what has interested me not a little.'

The sandwiches, wine, and cigars disappeared as the clock showed a quarter to ten; and after his friends were gone, the Squire opened his chamber door, threw some ashes on the grate, turned down the lamp, and found his way to bed completely in the dark; and that night had a puzzling dream; wherein the grate-full of glowing coals held a bout at quarter-staff with the Tattleton Gazette;' and the village steeple danced on a snow-bank with Mrs. Otis, the housekeeper; while Martha, metamorphosed, ' Boz'-wise, into the library clock, was ticking, in plain words: Be eco-nomi-cal! be eco-nomical !'

[ocr errors]

VOL. XXX.

YOUNG LOV'E.

TRUE gentle love is like the summer dew,
Which falls around when all is still and hush;
And falls unseen, until its bright drops strew

With odors herb and flower, and bank and bush :

Oh, Love! when womanhood is in the flush,
And man a young and unspotted thing,

His first-breathed word, and her half-conscious blush,
Are fair as light in heaven, or flowers in spring.

3

[blocks in formation]

*OAK LODGE,' the residence of JAMES ROBINSON, Esq., Iowa City.

[blocks in formation]

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph's Trail. On the evening of the twenty-third of May we encamped near its junction with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants. We had ridden long that afternoon, trying in vain to find wood and water, until at length we saw the sunset sky-reflected from a pool encircled by bushes and a rock or two. It lay in the bottom of a hollow, the smooth prairie gracefully rising in ocean-like swells on every side. We pitched our tents by it; not however before the keen eye of Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object upon the faintly-defined outline of the distant swell. But in the moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, nothing could be clearly distinguished. As we lay around the fire after supper, a low and distant sound, strange enough amid the loneliness of the prairie, reached our ears; peals of laughter, and the faint voices of men and women. For eight days we had not encountered a

human being; and this singular warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely wild and impressive.

About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the hill on horseback, and splashing through the pool, rode up to the tents. He was enveloped in a huge cloak, and his broad felt-hat was weeping about his ears with the drizzling moisture of the evening. Another followed: a stout, square-built, intelligent-looking man, who announced himself as leader of the emigrant party, encamped a mile in advance of us. About twenty wagons, he said, were with him; the rest of his party were on the other side of the Big Blue, waiting for a woman who was in the pains of child-birth, and quarrelling meanwhile among themselves.

These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken, although we had found abundant and melancholy traces of their progress throughout the whole course of the journey. Sometimes we passed the grave of one who had sickened and died on the way. The earth was usually torn up, and covered thickly with wolf-tracks. Some had escaped this violation. One morning, a piece of plank, standing upright on the summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice; and riding up to it, we found the following words very roughly traced upon it, apparently by a red-hot piece of iron:

MARY ELLIS.

DIED MAY 7TH, 1845.

AGED TWO MONTHS.

Such tokens were of common occurrence. Nothing could speak more for the hardihood, or rather infatuation, of the adventurers, or the sufferings that await them upon the journey.

We were late in breaking up our camp on the following morning, and scarcely had we ridden a mile when we saw, far in advance of us, drawn against the horizon, a line of objects stretching at regular intervals along the level edge of the prairie. An intervening swell soon hid them from sight, until, ascending it a quarter of an hour after, we saw close before us the emigrant caravan, with its heavy white wagons creeping on in their slow procession, and a large drove of cattle following behind. Half a dozen yellow-visaged Missourians, mounted on horseback, were cursing and shouting among them; their lank angular proportions, enveloped in brown homespun, evidently cut and adjusted by the hands of a domestic female tailor. As we approached, they greeted us with the polished salutation: How are ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or California?'

As we pushed rapidly past the wagons, children's faces were thrust out from the white coverings to look at us; while the careworn, thin-featured matron, or the buxom girl, seated in front, suspended the knitting on which most of them were engaged to stare at us with wondering curiosity. By the side of each wagon stalked the proprietor, urging on his patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along, inch by inch, upon their interminable journey. It was easy to see that fear and dissension prevailed among them; some of the

« ZurückWeiter »