Henceforth I had a Christian brother in my little dumb charge: his love to Jesus Christ was fervent and full; his thoughts about him most beautiful. By degrees, I gave him some knowledge of our Lord"s mortal birth, his infancy, work, death, resurrection, and ascension; together with his coming to final judgment at the end of the world. * * *
Very great indeed was Jack"s emotion when he discovered that the Saviour in whom he was rejoicing was the object represented by the image he had been taught to bow down before. He resented it deeply: I was quite alarmed at the sudden and violent turn his feelings took against Popery.
* * * He spurned the whole system from him, as soon as the light of the gospel fell upon its deformities.
Returning from the chapel one day, soon after this, he came up to me under great excitement: he took up a clothes-brush, set it on one end, and with a ludicrous grimace bowed down before it, joining his hands in the att.i.tude of prayer and chattering after his fashion; then asking the brush if it could hear him, waiting in an att.i.tude of attention for its reply, and finally knocking it over and kicking it round the room, saying, "Bad G.o.d, bad G.o.d!" I guessed pretty well what it was all about; but as he concluded by snapping his fingers exultingly and seating himself without further remark, I spoke on other subjects.
Next morning, Jack was very animated, and came to me with an evident budget of new thoughts. He told me something very small came out of the ground, pointing in opposite directions; it grew: and then two more points appeared. I found he was describing the growth of a plant, and expecting some question, was all attention; but Jack was come to teach, not to learn. He soon showed that his tree had reached a great height and size; then he made as if shouldering a hatchet, advanced to the tree and cut it down. Next came a great deal of sawing, chopping, planing, and shaping, until he made me understand he had cut out a crucifix, which he laid by, and proceeded to make a stool, a box, and other small articles; after which he gathered up the chips, flung them on the fire, and seemed to be cheering himself in the blaze. I actually trembled at the proceeding; for where had he, who could not form or understand half a sentence, where had _he_ learned the Holy Spirit"s testimony as recorded by Isaiah?
The sequel was what I antic.i.p.ated: he feigned to set up the imaginary crucifix, and preparing to pray before it, checked himself, saying, "No;" then with animated seriousness reverted to the springing up of the little seedling, saying, "G.o.d made;" and as it grew, he described the fashioning of the trunk and branches and leaves most gracefully, still saying "G.o.d made;" he seemed to dip a pencil in color, to paint the leaves, repeating, "G.o.d made beautiful!" Then, that G.o.d made his hands too; and he came to the conclusion that the tree which G.o.d made, cut out by his hands which G.o.d made, could not be G.o.d who made them. Then he got very angry, and not satisfied with an unsubstantial object for his holy indignation to vent itself upon, he ran for the clothes-brush, and gave it a worse cuffing and kicking than before; ending with a solemn inquiry whether I worshipped crosses, etc., when I went to church.
I trembled to give the encouragement I longed to bestow. However, I distinctly intimated my detestation of idolatry, and confirmed his strong repudiation of it. He told me he would not go any more to chapel, but I told him, as well as I _could_, the almost certain consequences, and he then remembered that other boys had told him those who ate meat on Fridays would go to h.e.l.l. He became greatly distressed as the next Sabbath approached, but contrary to all my expectations returned from ma.s.s in excellent spirits. Pat told me, laughing, that Jack was become so musical he insisted on going to sit by the organ, that he might feel the vibration; and when alone with me, Jack joyfully told me that he had run up the stairs from the outer door to the organ- loft, and so escaped even the necessity of bowing down to the cross.
This plan he persisted in from that day. Some years afterwards I asked his brother if he had any suspicion at the time of the boy"s object in so doing: he answered, None at all; and that if he had, he would have forced him into the body of the ma.s.s-house, and compelled him to prostrate himself.
Early in the summer of 1824, I received a summons to return to England.
It was most unwelcome, for my heart was knit to Ireland, and to share the lot of her devoted people was its earnest desire. At home I had many old friends; but what were they to the beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, who had been my fellow-helpers for the last four years in the work of the Lord? All ties were weak to that, save one, the tie that bound me to my beloved brother. Him I had not seen for nine years: he had continued on the staff of the Portuguese army until the establishment of the Cortes, who dismissed all British officers; and then he settled in the interior of that country, cultivating some of the land which he had gallantly fought to rescue. It was a subject of continual sorrow to me that he was residing in the heart of an exclusively Popish country, far from every means of grace; not even a place of worship within many leagues, and wholly shut out from Christian intercourse. I knew that he had been equally dark with myself on the subject of religion; and truly can I say, that from the very hour of my being enabled to see the truth as it is in Jesus, my life had been a constant prayer for him, that G.o.d would make him a partaker in the like precious faith. There was now a prospect of his returning, and this added to the summons I have mentioned, made my way plain. The state of Jack"s mind, too, on the subject of Popery, helped to reconcile me, since I had made up my mind to take him with me if his parents would agree to it. There was no difficulty in bringing them to do so; they gave a willing, a grateful consent. His mother"s words, while tears rolled down her cheeks, were, "Take him; he is more your child than ours." His father remarked, "Why shouldn"t we let him go with you, seeing he would grieve to death if you left him behind?" When I began to state that I could not promise he would not openly embrace my religion, they interrupted me, repeating that he was my child more than theirs, and could never come to any harm under my care. Coward as I was, I did not use the opportunity then given to set before them their own danger, and commend the pure faith that I knew their child held. I had occasionally talked in a general way, and once very strongly, when the mother told me of the dreadful penances she had done, walking on her bare knees over a road strewed with pebbles, gla.s.s, and quicklime, to make her sufferings greater, in order to obtain from G.o.d and the saints the restoration of the boy"s hearing and speech. She was then pleading the power and holiness of her clergy, and their superiority to all the rest of the world. I looked from the window, and said, "See, there goes your bishop; now do you think this bright sun warms him more than it does any Protestant walking beside him?" "Troth, and I am sure it does,"
answered she. "What, do you think he has any particular advantage over other men in things that are common to all?" "That he has, being a holy bishop." "Well, now, if I call him up, and we all put our fingers together between these bars, do you think the fire would burn him less than us?" She hesitated; her husband burst into a laugh, and archly said, "I"ll engage his reverence wouldn"t try that same."
I was now to bid adieu to my pleasant haunts, chief among which was the lordly castle of Kilkenny, where I had pa.s.sed so very many delightful hours. Its n.o.ble owners were abroad, but by their favor I had a key to the private door beside the river, and full access to every part of the castle and its beautiful grounds. It was there I used to muse on days of Ireland"s bygone greatness, though not then well read in her peculiar history, and gradually I had become as Irish as any of her own children.
How could it be otherwise? I was not naturally cold-hearted, though circ.u.mstances had, indeed, greatly frozen the current of my warm affections, and I had learned to look with comparative indifference on whatever crossed my changeful path; but no one with a latent spark of kindly feeling can long repress it among the Irish. There is an ardor of character, an earnestness in their good will, a habit of a.s.similating themselves to the tastes and habits of those whom they desire to please --and that desire is very general--that wins on the affections of those who possess any, a grateful regard, and leaving on the scenes that have witnessed such intercourse, a sunshine peculiar to themselves. Reserve of manner cannot long exist in Irish society. I have met with some among the people of the land, who were cold and forbidding, insensible and unkind, but these were exceptions, establishing the rule by the very disagreeable contrast in which they stood out from all around them; and I never found these persons in the humbler cla.s.ses, where the unmixed Irish prevails. Hospitality is indeed the polestar of Ireland; go where you will, it is always visible; but it shines the brightest in the poor man"s cabin, because the potato that he so frankly, so heartily, so gracefully presses upon your acceptance is selected from a scanty heap, barely sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger in himself and his half-clad little ones. In this, as in all other particulars, a change for the worse has come over the people of late; priestly authority has interposed to check the outgoings of kindness from a warm-hearted people to those who are indeed their friends, and a painful, reluctant restraint is laid upon them; but the evil had not become evident at the time of my sojourn there, and I can only speak of them as the most respectful, most courteous and hospitable peasantry in the world.
At the same time they were in many respects the most degraded. Nothing could equal the depth of their abas.e.m.e.nt before an insolent priesthood, except the unblushing effrontery with which the latter lorded it over them. For any infraction of their arbitrary rules, the most cruel and humiliating penances were imposed. I knew an instance of a young woman, a Romanist, who engaged in the service of a Protestant family, and went out with them to America. While there, she was led to join in family worship, but without any intention of forsaking her own creed; neither had they attempted to draw her out of the net. On her return to Kilkenny she went to confession, and among other things divulged the fact of having heard the Bible read, and prayed in company with heretics. This was an enormity too great for the priest to deal with alone; so he ordered the girl off, fasting, to her original confessor, who then officiated in a chapel seven good Irish miles distant. On hearing the case, he ordered her to go thrice round the chapel on her bare knees, and then to set off, still fasting, and walk back to Kilkenny, there to undergo such additional penance as his reverend brother should see good to impose. The poor creature scarcely reached the town alive, through fatigue, exhaustion, and terror; she was ill for some time, and on her recovery subjected to further discipline. These particulars I had from one of her own friends and a bigoted Papist to boot, who told it in order to convince me that the girl had committed a very great sin.
I once asked a young man how he got on at confession--whether he told all his sins. He replied, "Sometimes I disremember a few, and if the priest, suspects it, he pulls my hair and boxes my ears, to help my memory." "And how do you feel when you have got absolution?" "I feel all right; and I go out and begin again." "And how do you know that G.o.d has really pardoned you?" "He doesn"t pardon me directly; only the priest does. He, the priest, confesses my sins to the bishop, and the bishop confesses them to the pope, and the pope sees the Virgin Mary every Sat.u.r.day night, and tells her to speak to G.o.d about it." "And you really believe this monstrous story?" "Why shouldn"t I? But it is no affair of mine, for, once I have confessed, all my sins are laid on the priest, and he must do the best he can to get rid of them. I am safe." Of such materials is the net composed that holds these people in bondage; and who can marvel that such prostration of mind before a fellow-mortal should lead to an abject slavery of the whole man, body, conscience, and understanding? We see the effects, and abhor them; but we do not go to the root of the matter.
The priest himself is equally enslaved; his oath binds him to an implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them is bound periodically to appear for personal examination and fresh instructions. The Propaganda is, of course, the _primum mobile_ of the system, set agoing by Satan himself. Hence the mischief that is perpetrated by the unhappy beings who form the operative section of this cunning concern--the handicraft men of blood. It is an awful spectacle, and one that we cannot long avert our eyes from contemplating with the deep interest that personal peril excites. All is preparing for a burst of persecution against the people of the Lord, and happy is he who shall be found armed with watching.
LETTER IX.
ENGLAND.
We started for Dublin with sorrowing hearts, for it was likely to be a long, if not a last farewell to friends who were endeared as well by a partic.i.p.ation in danger as in feeling. * * *
Jack had never before been beyond the environs of his native town, and I expected to see him much astonished by the splendid buildings of Dublin.
He regarded them however with indifference, because, as he said, they were not "G.o.d-mades;" while the scenery through which we had travelled, particularly the n.o.ble oaks on Colonel Bruen"s fine demesne, and the groups of deer reclining beneath their broad shadow, roused him to enthusiasm. It was wonderful to trace the exquisite perception of beauty as developed in that boy, who had never even been in a furnished room until he came to me. His taste was refined, and his mind delicate beyond belief: I never saw such sensitive modesty as he manifested to the last day of his life. Rudeness of any kind was hateful to him; he not only yielded respect to all, but required it towards himself, and really commanded it by his striking propriety of manner. He was, as a dear friend once remarked, a "G.o.d-made" gentleman, untainted with the slightest approach to any thing like affectation or c.o.xcombry: indeed he ridiculed the latter with much comic effect: and the words "Dandy Jack,"
would put him out of conceit with any article of apparel that drew forth the remark. He would answer the taunt with a face of grave rebuke, saying, "Bad Mam, bold Mam; Jack dandy? no; Jack poor boy." He had not, indeed, arrived at so copious a vocabulary when we left his home; but he was rapidly acquiring new words.
It was beautiful to see him at prayer. He had never kneeled down with us at Kilkenny; for any Romanist who had detected him doing so must have informed, and the priest would have commanded his removal. In Dublin he volunteered to join us, and as he kneeled with clasped hands, looking up towards heaven, the expression of his countenance was most lovely. A smile of childlike confidence and reverential love played over his features, now becoming most eloquent; his bristly hair had begun to a.s.sume a silky appearance, and was combed aside from a magnificent brow, while a fine color perpetually mantled his cheeks and changed with every emotion; his dark hazel eyes, large, and very bright, always speaking some thought that occupied his mind. He was rather more than twelve years old. In profile, he much resembled Kirke White when older; but the strongest likeness I ever saw of him is an original portrait of Edward VI., by Holbein, in my possession.
It was taken after consumption had set its seal on the countenance of that blessed young king, as it did on that of my dear dumb boy.
In Dublin, he had one adventure that afforded him much enjoyment. I went into an extensive toy-shop to make some purchase, and Jack, enchanted with the wonders around him, strolled to the further end, and into a little adjoining recess, well filled with toys. A great uproar in that direction made us all run to inquire the cause, and there was Jack, mounted on a first-rate rocking-horse, tearing away full gallop, and absolutely roaring out in the maddest paroxysm of delight, his hat fallen off, his arm raised, his eyes and mouth wide open, and the surrounding valuables in imminent peril of a general crash. The mistress of the shop was so convulsed with laughter that she could render no a.s.sistance, and it was with some difficulty I checked his triumphant career, and dismounted him. He gave me afterwards a diverting account of his cautious approach to the "good horse;" how he ascertained it was "bite, no; kick, no:" and gradually got resolution to mount it. He wanted to know how far he had rode, and also if he was a G.o.d-made? I told him it was wood, but I doubt whether he believed me. Thenceforth Dublin was a.s.sociated in his mind with nothing else; even at nineteen years of age he would say, if he met with the name, "Good Dublin, good horse; small Jack love good Dublin horse." The shipping pleased him greatly, and many of his beautiful drawings were representations of sailing vessels.
I had now been in Ireland five years and three months; and with what different feelings did I prepare to leave its green sh.o.r.es from those with which I first pressed them. Unfounded prejudice was succeeded by an attachment founded on close acquaintance with those among whom I had dwelt, contempt by respect, and dislike by the warmest, most grateful affection. I had scorned her poverty, and hated her turbulence. The first I now knew to be no poverty of soil, of natural resources, of mind, talent, or energy, but the effect of a blight, permitted to rest alike on the land and people, through the selfishness of an unjust, crooked policy, that made their welfare of no account in its calculations, nor would stretch forth a hand to deliver them from the dark dominion of Popery. Their turbulence was the natural fruit of such poverty, and of their being wholly under the influence of a party necessarily hostile to the interests of a Protestant state, and bent on subverting its ascendency. What Ireland was, I too plainly saw: what she might be, I clearly understood; and the guilt of my country"s responsibility lay heavy on my heart as I watched the outline of her receding coast.
Bristol was our destination; and for the ensuing year, Clifton became our abode. This period of my life was one of severe trial, which it is not necessary to particularize. Incipient derangement, which afterwards became developed, in a quarter where, if I did not find comfort and protection, I might expect their opposites, occasioned me much alarm and distress, while my brother"s protracted absence increased the trial.
Much secluded, I pursued my literary avocations, and watched the progress of Jack"s growth in knowledge and in grace. * * *
My sojourn at Clifton brought me into personal acquaintance with that venerable servant of G.o.d, Hannah More. We had for some time corresponded, and she had afforded me great encouragement in my humble labors, taking an especial interest in my attempts to instruct the deaf and dumb children. I had now the pleasure of showing her the progress made with Jack, who delighted her greatly, and who, to the last day of his mortal existence, most fondly cherished the memory of that sweet old lady. She was, indeed, one of the excellent of the earth, permitted long to beautify the church which she had so mainly helped to strengthen and advance, and to be an honor to the land where she had n.o.bly stood forth to repel the a.s.saults of revolutionizing impiety. I often wonder that so little stress is laid upon this branch of Mrs. More"s extensive labors.
We hear much of her schools, her charities, her letters, her devotional and educational publications, and all of these deserve the full celebrity that they have attained. But England should especially bear in mind her effective championship of the good cause, by means most admirably adapted to its furtherance among the most dangerous, and generally speaking the most unapproachable cla.s.s--a cla.s.s who congregated in ale-houses to hear the inflammatory harangues of seditious traitors, while as yet Bibles were scarce, religious tracts not in existence, and district visiting unthought of. In a lady of refined taste, and rare accomplishments in the higher style of writing, to volunteer in a work so new, and to furnish the press with a series of plain truths dressed in a most homely phrase, rendered attractive by lively narrative and even drollery, and the whole brought down to the level of coa.r.s.e, uninformed minds, while circulated in a form to come within the narrow means of the lowest mechanics--this was an enterprise worthy especial note, even had not G.o.d openly blessed it to the turning of that formidable tide. When I looked upon the placid but animated countenance of the aged saint, as she sat in her bow-window looking out upon the fair fields, the still inviolate sh.o.r.es of her beloved country, I thought more of her "Cheap Repository Tracts" than of all her other works combined. There lay the Bristol Channel, that n.o.ble inlet to our isle, by which the commerce of the world was even then finding its peaceful way to the great mart of Bristol; and there sat the aged lady, so long the presiding spirit of the place, with one hand, as it were, gathering the lambs of the flock into green pastures among the distant hills, that formed a beautiful feature in the landscape; with the other vigorously repulsing the wolf from the field. If I could have discovered, which I could not, a single trait of consciousness that she was a distinguished being, exalted into eminence by public acclaim, I must have conceived her to be dwelling upon this branch of her many privileges, that she had been a Deborah where many a Barak shrunk from the post of honor and skulked behind a woman. She took that lively interest in the public, secular affairs of her country that Jeremiah and Ezekiel did of old; and on the same plain ground--that where the state professes to be modelled and the executive to act on principles of G.o.d"s instilling, with a view that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us, nothing done by the state can be indifferent to the church, or unworthy the anxious watchful regard of Christians. To be called a carnal politician by those whose minds, at least on religious subjects, could contain, but one idea, was certainly a light affliction to balance against the joyous consciousness of having materially aided in preserving those cavillers" homes from the hand of the spoiler, and their Bibles from that of the Atheist.
When I saw Hannah More, she was really at ease in her possessions; and none who loved her less than the Lord himself did, would have laid a sorrow upon her grey hairs. Man would have decreed that such a full-ripe shock of corn should be brought into the garner without further ruffling or shaking. She had suffered exceedingly from rheumatism and other ailments, and yet more from the tongue of calumny and the hand of ingrat.i.tude. She was an ill.u.s.tration of that striking couplet,
"Envy will merit as its shade pursue, And, like the shadow, prove the substance true."
She had, however, triumphed over all by meekly committing her cause to Him who judgeth righteously; and now she seemed to be placed beyond the reach of further molestation, and about to end her useful life in peace.
But she had another lesson to give to the people of G.o.d, another fire in which to glorify him: and not long after I saw her reclining in that lovely retreat which had grown up about her, a perfect bower from slips and seeds of her own planting, as she delighted to tell us, she was actually driven out of her little paradise, compelled to leave the shadow of her nursling trees, and to cast a tearful farewell look on the smiling flowers, and to turn away from the bright sea and the waving line of her Cheddar hills, to find a lodging in the neighboring town; and all through treachery, domestic treachery against her whose whole life had been a course of unsparing beneficence towards others. Hannah More perhaps needed to be again reminded, that she must do all her works "as to the Lord," looking to him alone for acceptance of them; or if she needed it not, others did; and often since she entered into her Saviour"s presence, "to go no more out," has the scene of the last trial to which her generous, confiding, affectionate spirit was subjected, been blessed to the consolation of others. G.o.d"s children find that it is good for themselves that they should be afflicted; but they do not always remember how good it is for the church, that they should be so.
They look within, and seeing so much there daily, "justly deserving G.o.d"s wrath and condemnation," they lie still in his hand, willing and thankful to have the dross purged out, and the tin taken away. Their fellows look on, and not seeing the desperate wickedness of their hearts, but fondly believing them to be as near perfection as human frailty will permit, they argue, "If such a saint as ---- be thus chastened and corrected, what must a sinner like me expect?" So they learn watchfulness and fear in the day of prosperity; and when adversity comes, they are enabled more lovingly to kiss the rod. Oh, if we could see but a little of the Lord"s dealings, in all their bearings, how should we praise him for his goodness and the wonders that he doeth unto the children of men. What profit, what pleasure has he in afflicting us?
Surely it is, so to speak, more trouble to correct than to leave us alone; and he would not twine the small cords into a scourge, unless to cleanse and sanctify his temple.
I have said that my brother"s return home was delayed. A hurt received in shooting, with its consequences, detained him in Lisbon nearly a year; but his family came over, and I had a new delicious employment, a solace under many sorrows, an unfailing source of interest and delight, in teaching his eldest surviving boy the accomplishments of walking and talking. I almost expected Jack to be jealous of such a rival, but I wronged him: nothing could exceed his fondness for "baby boy," or the zeal of his Irish devotion to the little gentleman. Knowing that in the event of my removal, Jack must earn his bread by some laborious or servile occupation, I had kept him humble. He ate in the same room with us, because I never suffered him to a.s.sociate with servants; but at a side-table; and he was expected to do every little household work that befitted his age and strength. A kind shake of the hand, morning and evening, was his peculiar privilege; and the omission a punishment too severe to be inflicted, except on occasions of most flagrant delinquency, such as rebelling against orders, or expressing any angry emotion, to which he was const.i.tutionally liable, by yells and howls that almost frightened our hosts from their propriety. He had, of course, no idea of the strength of his own lungs, nor of the effect produced by giving them full play in a fit of pa.s.sion; but the commotion into which it threw the whole house seemed to flatter his vanity, and he became a vocalist on very trifling occasions. This neither agreed with our dear invalid landlady, nor was a fitting example for "baby boy," who speedily tried his own little treble in admiring imitation of Jack"s deafening ba.s.s; and recourse was at last had to the aid of a young friend, who bestowed a few gentle raps on his head with the bent end of a hooked cane, and then locked him up in a dark kitchen for half an hour, saying to me, rather regretfully, "I suppose my popularity is at an end now. Poor fellow, I shall be sorry to lose his affection." But this was so far from being the case, that to his closing scene Jack retained a grateful remembrance of the proceeding. He used to say, "Good Mr. W----; good little stick beat Jack"s head; made bad Jack good. Jack love good Mr. W----." At the very time, as soon as he saw his kind corrector after the business, he very gracefully and cordially thanked him, kissing his hand, with a bow, and saying, "Jack no more cry;" and as he really was hardly touched, and full well knew we had not the heart to be severe, it was a proof of that openness to rebuke which is a lovely mark of true Christianity.
Montgomery beautifully says,
"Prayer is the Christian"s vital breath, The Christian"s native air."
And so it eminently was with the dumb boy. Under every form of condition and circ.u.mstance, in health and sickness, in joy, in grief, in danger, in perplexity--over his food, his studies, his work, his amus.e.m.e.nts, he was ever turning a look of peculiar sweetness on me, with the two words, "Jack pray." He always smiled when so engaged, and a look of inexpressible eagerness, mingled with satisfaction and the triumph of one who feels that he has taken a secure stand, told me when he was praying, without any change of position, or looking up. There was always a mixture of anxiety in his aspect when he tried to make himself understood by his fellow-creatures; this gave place to something the reverse of anxiety when he was "talking to G.o.d," as he sometimes expressed it. He oftener looked down than up; and very often did I see his eye fixed upon the "baby boy," when, as his looks bespoke, and as he afterwards told me, he was "tell G.o.d" about him, and that he was too little to know about Jesus Christ yet. Many a prayer of that grateful dumb boy even now descends in blessings on the head of my brother"s "baby," and long may the hallowed stream continue to flow down, until they rejoice together before the throne of the Lamb.
One of Jack"s lovely thoughts was this: he told me that when little children began to walk, Jesus Christ held them by the hand to teach them; and that if they fell, he put his hand between their heads and the ground to prevent their being hurt. Then, as if he saw this proceeding, he would look up, and with the fondest expression say, "_Good_ Jesus Christ, Jack very much loves Jesus Christ." I hope you are not tired of Jack; I have much to tell about him. G.o.d made me the humble means of plucking this precious brand from the burning; and I owe it to the Lord to show what a tenfold blessing I reaped in it. Jack was not the only one of whom He has, in the dispensations of his providence, said to me, "Nurse this child for me, and I will give thee thy wages." I have found him a n.o.ble Paymaster.
And now I come to a period of my life that I have scarcely courage to go over. Many and sharp and bitter were the trials left unrecorded here; and shame be to the hand that shall ever DARE to lift the veil that tender charity would cast over what was G.o.d"s doing, let the instruments be what and who they might. It is enough to say, that even now I know there was not one superfluous stroke of the rod, nor one drop of bitter that could have been spared from the wholesome cup. Besides, he dealt most mercifully with me; those two rich blessings, health and cheerfulness, were never withdrawn. I had not a day"s illness through years of tribulation; and though my spirits would now and then fail, it was but a momentary depression; light and buoyant, they soon danced on the crest of the wave that had for an instant ingulfed them.
It is of joy I have to tell: safety, peace, prosperity, under the restored sunshine that had made my early career so bright. Never did a sister more fondly love a brother; never was a brother more formed to be the delight, the pride, the blessing of a sister. He was of most rare beauty from the cradle, increasing in loveliness as he grew up, and becoming the very model of a splendid man; very tall, large, commanding, with a face of perfect beauty, glowing, animated, mirthful--a gait so essentially military, that it was once remarked by an officer, "If B---- were disguised as a washerwoman, any soldier would give him the salute."
He had also served in the Peninsula with the highest possible credit, regarded by those in command as one of the best officers in the service, and most ardently loved by the men under him. Many a b.l.o.o.d.y battle-field had he seen; but never did a wound reach him. On one occasion--at Albuhera--his gallant regiment went into action 800 strong, and on the following day only 96 men were able to draw rations. He became on the field a lieutenant, from being the youngest ensign; and alike in all circ.u.mstances he shone out as an honor to his profession. He had also been an especial favorite with John VI. of Portugal, and the high polish of a court was superadded to all the rest, without in the smallest degree changing the exceedingly playful, unaffected joyousness of the most sunshiny character I ever met with.
Ten years" absence had produced the effect on my sisterly love that Burns describes:
"Time but th" impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear."
I had also many personal reasons for looking forward to his return with peculiar anxiety; and its uncertainty increased the feeling. I had been spending the day with a sick friend, and ran home at night to the lodging occupied by my mother and myself, and there I found my brother.
What a dream those ten years" trials appeared!
We remained but a short time in Clifton, and soon bent our way towards the metropolis, where he expected, as is usual, to dance a long and wearisome attendance on the Horse Guards, for a regimental appointment.
He had refused that of aid-de-camp to king John, with any military rank and t.i.tle that he might desire; preferring a half-pay unattached company in the British, to any thing that a foreign service could offer; but he was mistaken: his merits were well known to the Duke of York, and before he could well state to Sir Herbert Taylor his wishes, that estimable man told him he had only to select out of two or three regiments lately returned from foreign service, and he would be gazetted on the following Tuesday. He chose the 75th, and was immediately appointed to it, with leave to study for two years in the senior department of the Military college at Sandhurst, the better to qualify himself for a future staff situation.
A sweet cottage, standing isolated on the verge of Bagshot-heath, sheltered by tall trees and opening on a beautiful lawn, with a distant but full view of the college, became our abode. A delightful room was selected for me, with an injunction to sit down and make the most of my time while he was in the halls of study, that I might be at leisure to walk, to ride, to garden, to farm with him--my brother--my restored brother, whose eye beamed protection, and whose smile diffused gladness, and whose society was what in our happy childhood it had ever been, just instead of all the world to me. If one thing was wanting, and wanting it was, to knit us in a tie more enduring than any of this world"s bonds could possibly be, that very sense of want furnished a stimulus to more importunate prayer on his behalf. Some of the good people who for lack of a relay of ideas borrow one of their neighbors and ride it to death, treated me to a leaf from the book of Job"s comforters, when the calamity fell on me of that precious brother"s death, by telling me I had made an idol of him. It was equally false and foolish. An idol is something that either usurps G.o.d"s place, or withdraws our thoughts and devotions from him. The very reverse of this was my case. I had an additional motive for continually seeking the Lord, not only in prayer for the enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit on behalf of one so dear, but also for grace to walk most circ.u.mspectly myself, lest I should cast any stumbling-block in his way, or give him occasion to suspect that my religious profession was a name, and not a reality. That was surely a profitable idol which kept me always prayerful before G.o.d, watchful over myself, diligent in the discharge of duties, and in continual thanksgiving for the mercies I had received. Do I repent loving my brother so well? I wish it had been possible to love him better. These warm affections of the heart are among the sweetest relics of a lost Eden, and I would sooner tear up the flowers that G.o.d has left to smile in our daily path through a sin-blighted wilderness, far sooner than I would cease to cherish, to foster, to delight in the brighter, sweeter flowers of domestic love, carried to the full extent of all its endearing capabilities.
The Lord knoweth our frame; he deals with us not according to what we are not, but according to what we are. He sets before us various duties, and to the end that we may the better fulfil them, he gives us aids not contrary to, but accordant with our natural feelings. Men set up a standard, often a just and scriptural one, to which they sorrowfully confess that because of the weakness of their nature they cannot themselves attain; but according to which they sternly judge their neighbors. A person has a path a.s.signed to him, a steep ascent strewed with thorns and crowded with obstacles, before which he often pauses and waxes faint. G.o.d gives him a companion for his way, even as he sent forth the disciples two and two, and the pilgrim is cheered. He quickens his pace; another besides himself will be benefited by his progress, and if he fails, another will suffer in his loss. So he goes on thankful, rejoicing, and endued with double energy for the toilsome achievement.
But he sees a neighbor to whom the Lord has also granted help through human means, perhaps not exactly similar to that which he has received; he sees his neighbor likewise openly rejoicing in the possession of such a staff; and bringing him to the tests of that perfect law which requires an entire devotedness to and dependence on the Lord, he raises a cry of "mixed motives," "the arm of flesh," "idolatry," and so forth.
No doubt he is so far right, that perverse humanity will ever abuse G.o.d"s gifts, and often make them occasions of sin; but this outcry of the beam against the mote, which is so grievously prevalent in the religious world, is very unseemly. Oh, how infinitely more tender is the Lord to us than we to one another.
Hitherto, many impediments had been thrown in the way of my literary labors. Anxiety, apprehension, and the restlessness of feeling resulting from a continual change of abode, had broken the train of thought, and rendered my work very uncertain. Indeed, it would often have been wholly inadequate to my support, but for the watchful kindness of friends whom the Lord raised up to me, foremost among whom always stood the estimable Mr. Sandford, who never ceased to regard me with paternal affection and care. To he wholly independent was the first earthly wish of my heart; and now a fair opportunity was given of testing my willingness to labor diligently. The result was so far, satisfactory, that in the course of the two years and two months of my residence under my brother"s roof, I wrote the Rockite, the System, Izram, Consistency, Perseverance, Allen McLeod, Zadoc, and upwards of thirty little books and tracts, besides contributions to various periodicals. I was going on most prosperously, when an attempt was suddenly made from another quarter to establish a claim to the profits of my pen. The demand was probably legal, according to the strict letter of existing statutes, though circ.u.mstances would have weighed strongly in my favor. But it greatly reduced the value of my copyrights for the time being, and I found myself checked in my career at a juncture when it was especially my desire to go on steadily.