The Lights and Shadows of Real Life Part 57

"But you can keep it. I am sure you can," one friend, more importunate than the rest, would repeatedly urge. "You broke your first pledge, deliberately, because you believed that you were freed from the old desire, even in a latent form. Satisfied, from painful experience, that this is not the case, you will not again try so dangerous an experiment."

But Marshall would shake his head, sadly, in rejection of all arguments and persuasions.

"It may all seem easy enough for you," he would sometimes say, "who have never broken a solemn pledge; but you know not how utter a destruction of internal moral power such an act, deliberately done, effects. I am not the man I was, before I so wickedly violated that solemn compact made between myself and heaven--for so I now look upon it. While I kept my pledge, I had the sustaining power of heaven to bear me safely up against all temptations;--but since the very moment it was broken, I have had nothing but my own strength to lean upon, and that has proved to be no better than a broken reed, piercing me through with many sorrows."

To such declarations, in answer to arguments, and sometimes earnest entreaties made by his friends to induce him to renew his pledge, Mrs. Marshall would listen in silence, but with a sinking, sickening sensation of mind and body. All and more than she could say, was said to him, but he resisted every appeal--and what good could her weak persuasions and feeble admonitions do?

Day after day pa.s.sed on, and Marshall gradually gained more use of his limbs. In six weeks, he could walk without the aid of his crutches.

"I think I must try and get down to the store to-morrow," he said, to his wife, about this time. "This is a busy season, and I can be of some use there for two or three hours, every day."

"I don't think I would venture out yet," Mrs. Marshall said, looking at him, with an anxious, troubled expression of countenance, that she tried in vain to conceal.

"Why not, Jane?"

"I don't think you are strong enough, dear."

"O, yes, I am. And, besides, it will do me good to go out and take the fresh air. You know that it is now six weeks since I have been outside of the front door."

"I know it has. But--"

"But what, Jane?"

"You know what I would say, Jonas. You know the terrible fear that rests upon my heart like a night-mare."

And Mrs. Marshall covered her face with her hands, and gave way to tears.

A long silence followed this. At length Marshall said,

"I hope, Jane, that I shall be able to restrain myself. I am, at least, resolved to try."

"O, husband, if you will only try!" Mrs. Marshall e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed eagerly, lifting her tearful eyes, and looking him with an appealing expression in the face--"If you will only try!"

"I will try, Jane. But do not feel too much confidence in my effort.

I am weak--so weak that I tremble when I think of it--and remember what an almost irresistible influence I have to contend with."

"Why not take the pledge, again, Jonas?" said his wife, for the first time she had urged that recourse upon him.

"You have heard my reasons given for that, over and over again."

"I know I have. But they never satisfied me."

"You would not have me add the sin of a double violation of a solemn pledge to my already overburdened conscience?"

"No, Jonas. Heaven forbid!"

"The fear of that restrains me. I dare not again take it."

"Do you not deeply repent of your first violation?" the wife asked, after a few moments of earnest thought. "Heaven knows how deeply."

"And Heaven, that perceives and knows the depth and sincerity of that repentance, accepts it according to its quality. And just so far as Heaven accepts the sincere offering of a repentant heart, conscious of its own weakness, and mourning over its derelictions, is strength given for combat in future temptations. The bruised reed he will not break, nor quench the smoking flax. Hope, then, dear husband! you are not cast off--you are not rejected by Heaven."

"O, Jane, if I could feel the truth of what you. say, how happy I should be!--For the idea of sinking again into that hopeless, abandoned, wretched condition, out of which this severe affliction has lifted me, as by the hair of the head, is appalling!" was the reply, to his wife's earnest appeal.

"Trust me, dear husband,--there is truth in what I say. He who came down to man's lowest, and almost lost condition, that he might raise him up, and sustain him against the a.s.saults of his worst enemies, has felt in his own body all the temptations that ever can a.s.sail his children, and not only felt them, but successfully resisted and conquered them; so that, there is no state, however low, in which there is an earnest desire to rise out of evil, to which he does not again come down, and in which he does not again successfully contend with the powers of darkness. Look to Him, then, again, in a fixed resolution to put away the evils into which you have fallen, and you must, you will be sustained!"

"O, if I could but believe this, how eagerly would I again fly to the pledge!" Marshall said, in an earnest voice.

"Fly to it then, Jonas, as to a city of refuge; for it is true. You have felt the power of the pledge once-try it again. It will be strength to you in your weakness, as it has been before."

Still Marshall hesitated. While he did so, his wife brought him pens, ink and paper.

"Write a pledge and sign it, dear husband!" she urged, as she placed them before him. "Think of me--of the joy that it will bring to my heart--and sign."

"I am afraid, Jane."

"Can you stand alone?"

"I fear not."

"Are you not sure, that the pledge will restrain you some?"

"O, yes. If I ever take it again, I shall tremble under the fearful responsibility that rests upon me."

"Come with me, a moment," Mrs. Marshall said, after a thoughtful pause.

Her husband followed, as she led the way to an adjoining room, where two or three bright-eyed children were playing in the happiest mood.

"For their sakes, if not for mine, Jonas, sign the pledge again,"

she said, while her voice trembled, and then became choked, as she leaned her head upon his shoulder.

"You have conquered! I will sign!" he whispered in her ear.

Eagerly she lifted her head, arid looked into his face with a glance of wild delight.

"O, how happy this poor heart will again be!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, clasping her hands together, and looking upwards with a joyous smile.

In a few minutes, a pledge of total abstinence from all kinds of intoxicating drinks, was written out and signed. While her husband was engaged in doing this, Mrs. Marshall stood looking down upon each letter as it was formed by his pen, eager to see his name subscribed. When that was finally done; she leaned forward on the table at which he wrote, swayed to and fro for a moment or two, and then sank down upon the floor, lost to all consciousness of external things.

From that hour to this, Jonas Marshall has been as true to his second pledge, even in thought, as the needle to the pole. So dreadful seems the idea of its violation, that the bare recollection of his former dereliction, makes him tremble.

"It was a severe remedy," he says, sometimes, in regard to his broken legs; "and proved eminently successful. But for that, I should have been utterly lost."

THE WANDERER'S RETURN.