Amos Huntingdon Part 24

"All right, all right," cried Mr Harris: "and for my part I am not going to pry into your reasons for coming. You are one of the Lord's servants on an errand of mercy and self-denying love--I can see that; and you are welcome to my services and my silence."

Amos thanked him warmly, and his moderate luggage was soon deposited in the Scripture reader's dwelling.

The next morning, after an early breakfast, the two friends--for true friends they at once became in the bonds of the gospel, loving Christ's image in each other--set out for Orlando Vivian's lodging.

"You must be prepared for something very miserable," said the Scripture reader.

"I am prepared for anything," said the other calmly. But truly Amos was staggered when he entered the room where sat, in the midst of gloom and filth, the man who had been the cause of so much distress to him and his. The atmosphere was oppressive with the concentrated foulness of numberless evil odours. A bed there was in the darkest corner of the room on the floor. It looked as though composed of the refuse raked from a pig-sty, and thrust into a sack which had been used for the conveyance of dust and bones. Bolster or pillow it had none, but against the wall, where the bed's head was supposed to be, were three or four logs of rough wood piled together, over which was laid a faded cloak crumpled into a heap. Such was the only couch which the unhappy sufferer had to lay him down upon at night, or when weary of sitting in the high-backed, creaking armchair. Uncleanness met the eye on every side--in the one greasy plate, on which lay a lump of repulsive-looking food; in the broken-mouthed jug, which reeked with the smell of stale beer; in the window, whose bemired and cobwebbed panes kept out more light than they admitted; in the ceiling, between whose smoke-grimed rafters large rents allowed many an abomination to drop down from the crowded room above; in the three-legged table, which, being loose in all its decaying joints, reeled to and fro at every touch; in the spiders, beetles, and other self-invited specimens of the insect tribe, which had long found a congenial home in these dismal quarters. And there--worn, haggard, hungry, suffering, helpless--in the midst of all this desolation, sat the broken-down, shattered stroller, coughing every now and then as though the spasm would rend him in pieces.

The heart of Amos was touched at the terrible sight with a feeling of the profoundest pity, as he approached the chair occupied by the wreck of what might have been a man n.o.ble and good, loving and loved.

Anything like resentment was entirely lost in his desire to alleviate if he could the misery he saw before him.

"I have brought a friend to see you," said Mr Harris, stepping forward.

The sick man raised his head slowly, and, as his eyes fell on Amos, he trembled violently, and clutched his chair with a convulsive grasp.

Then a fit of coughing came on, and all were silent. "I will leave you together, if you please," said the Scripture reader after a pause to Amos. "You know where to find me if I am wanted," and he retired.

Long was it before the unhappy man could trust himself to speak. At last, having sipped a little of a soothing mixture which Mr Harris had brought him, he turned his face towards his brother-in-law, who had now taken a seat in front of him on a three-legged stool, and said, "Shall I tell you why I sent to you, Mr Huntingdon?" Amos inclined his head.

"It was," continued the sick man, "because I have insulted you, deceived you, entrapped you, and threatened your life. That would be in most cases the very reason why you should have been the very last person I should have sent to. But I believe you are _real_. I believe you are a true Christian, if there is such a thing. _I_ am not real. I am a sham, a cheat, a lie; my whole life has been a lie; my unbelief has been a lie. But, if there is truth in the Bible and in Christianity, I believe you have found it. I am sure that you are real and genuine. I felt it when I was deceiving you, and I feel it more and more the more I think about it. So, as I am told that it is part of the character of those who really take the Bible for their guide to return good for evil, I have sent to you."

He had uttered these words in broken sentences, and now sank back exhausted. When he had recovered himself sufficiently to listen, Amos, deeply moved, said kindly and earnestly, "You did right, my poor friend, to send to me; and now I am here, I must see what I can do for you."

"But, can you really forgive me?" said the other, fixing his dark eyes on his visitor. "Remember how I have behaved to yourself; remember how I have behaved to your sister. Can you really forgive me."

Amos made no immediate reply, but, taking out of his pocket a small New Testament which he had purposely brought with him, read in a clear, earnest voice the parable of the unmerciful servant, and, when he had finished it, added, "How could I ever hope for forgiveness from G.o.d if I could not forgive the transgressions of a poor fellow-sinner against myself? Yes, my poor brother, I do freely forgive you; and oh, let me have the happiness of seeing you seek forgiveness of Him who has still a place in his heart and in his kingdom for you."

The poor sufferer struggled in vain to conceal his strong emotion.

Tears, sobs would burst forth. A violent fit of coughing came on, and for a time Amos feared a fatal result. But at length the sick man regained composure and a lull from his cough, and then said, with slow and painful effort, "It is true. I believe your religion is true. I cannot doubt it. It is real, for you are real. It is real for you, but, alas! not real for me."

Amos was going to turn to another pa.s.sage in his New Testament, but the other waved his hand impatiently. "No more of that now," he said; "I have other things just at present on my mind. You know that I am a doomed man. The police are looking out for me; but I shall cheat them yet. Death will have me first. Yes, I am a dying man.--Of course _she_ has not come with you. Perhaps you have not told her that you were coming. Well, it's better she shouldn't come; there's fever about, and I have dragged her down low enough already. This is no place for her.

But I shall not be here long to trouble any of you. Will you tell her that I am sorry for my past treatment of her? and keep an eye on the children, will you, as you have done? Oh, don't let them come to this!"

Here the unhappy man fairly broke down.

When he had again partially recovered, Amos begged him to keep himself as quiet as he could, adding that all might yet be well, and that he must now leave him, but would return again in a few hours.

Having sought the good Scripture reader, and ascertained from him that the medical man gave no hopes of the unhappy man living more than a few days, Amos at once confided to his host the sad story of his sister's marriage and its consequences, and now asked his advice and help as to how he could make the remaining time of his brother-in-law's life as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would permit. Mr Harris at once threw himself heartily into the matter, and before night the dying man had been tenderly conveyed from his miserable quarters to the Scripture reader's own dwelling, where everything was at once done that could alleviate his sufferings and supply his wants.

That same evening Amos wrote to his sister in these brief words: "Orlando is dying. A few days will end all." He purposely added no words of persuasion, nor any account of his interview with her husband and what he had done for his comfort; for he feared that any such account from himself might just steel her heart against any appeal, and make her rest satisfied with what another was doing for the man whom she had vowed to love in sickness as well as in health. He knew that his sc.r.a.p of a letter must prove startling by its abruptness; but he had no wish that it should be otherwise. These startling words might rouse her to a sense of her duty; if they did not, he felt that nothing would.

Two days pa.s.sed over. Orlando Vivian grew weaker and weaker, but was full of grat.i.tude to Amos. He also listened with patience and respect when the Scripture was read to him or prayer offered by his side; but he made no remark at such times. It was on the morning of the third day after the patient's removal to his new abode that a hired carriage drew up at the Scripture reader's door, and, to Amos's great pleasure and thankfulness, brought his sister. Yes, and he could tell by her greeting of him and by her whole manner that a new light had dawned upon her heart and conscience, in which the idol of self had been seen by her in somewhat of its true deformity. "Oh, dear Amos!" she cried, as she wept on his shoulder, "pardon me; pity me. I have been wrong, oh, very wrong; but I hope, oh, I do hope that it is not yet quite too late!"

Fondly pressing her to him, her brother told her that she had his full and forgiving love; and then he gave her an account of what he had done since his arrival in Collingford, and told her that her husband was now in the same house as herself, and was receiving every attention and comfort. On hearing this, Julia Vivian would have at once rushed into the sick chamber, but Amos checked her, warning her of the effect such a sudden appearance might have on one in his exhausted and suffering condition. He must himself break the news of her coming gradually.

Entering the neat little bedroom, to his surprise Amos found his brother-in-law painfully agitated. "You have got a visitor," he said, in a voice scarcely audible. "I heard a carriage drive up to the door, and since then I have heard a voice. Oh, can it be? Yes; I see it in your eyes."

"Calm yourself, my poor brother," said Amos; "it is even as you suppose.

Julia has come, and I am truly thankful for it."

The humbled man tried to conceal his tears with his one uninjured hand, and said at last, "I think I can bear it now; let her come in."

On her brother's invitation Julia entered. The eyes of the two met,-- the eyes of the oppressor and the oppressed; but how changed in position now! The once down-trodden wife now radiant with health and beauty, a beauty heightened by its pa.s.sing cloud of tender sadness. The once overbearing, heartless husband now a stranded wreck. How haggard he looked! and how those hollow sunken eyes swam with a tearful look that craved a pity which they seemed at the same time to despair of! And could she give that pity? Had he not forsaken her and her children, and left them to grinding poverty? Had he not raised his hand against her and cruelly smitten her? Had he not laughed her to scorn? Had he not used her as a mere plaything, and then flung her aside, as the child does the toy which it has covered for a time with its caresses? He had done all this, and more; and now she was there before him, but out of his clutches, and able, without fear of harm to herself, to charge him with his past neglect and cruelty. Yes; the outraged wife could have done this, but the woman's heart that throbbed in her bosom forbade it.

She was the loving woman still, though the fountain of her love had been sealed for a time. Stealing gently up to his chair, lest any sudden movement should agitate him too much, and yet quivering all the while in every limb from suppressed excitement, she bowed herself over him, and gathered his head softly to her bosom, whispering, "Poor, dear Orlando, you are glad, are you not, to see me?" Then, as the huge rapid drops of the thunder-cloud, which has hung overhead for a time in the midst of oppressive stillness, patter at first on the leaves one by one, and then break into a sweeping deluge, so did a storm of weeping pour from the eyes and heart of that crushed and spirit-broken sinner. Hardly daring to place a hand with its pressure of answering love on the neck which that same hand had not long since disfigured with bruises and blood, he yet ventured at last to draw his wife closer to him, whispering, "It is too much." Sweetly soothing him, Julia helped him to dry his tears, and then sat down by his side, taking the hand of his uninjured arm in her own.

No one spoke again for a while. At last Mr Vivian roused himself to an effort, and, disengaging his hand, looked his wife steadily and sorrowfully in the face. "Tell me, Julia," he said, "tell me the truth,--tell me, can you really and from your heart forgive me?--nay, do not speak till you have heard me out,"--for she was about to give an eager reply. "Consider well. You know what I have been to you,--the brute, the tyrant, the traitor. Can you, then, in view of all the past, forgive me from your heart?"

"I can, I do, dear Orlando, from my very heart," she cried; "and surely I too have much to be forgiven."

"Not by me," he said earnestly. "And now," he added, "as you have a.s.sured me of your forgiveness, and as my days in this world can be but few,--nay, I know it, I know it,--I have two dying requests to make of you, and only two. Will you grant me them?"

"Oh yes, yes, dear husband, if they are in my power."

"They are perfectly within your power. The first is, that you would try and pay back part of my deep debt of grat.i.tude to your n.o.blest of brothers, who is standing there--to Amos Huntingdon, whom _I_ dare not call brother; and I will tell you how the payment is to be made--not in gold or silver, for he would not take such payment, but in giving yourself up to the service of that Saviour whom he has truly and courageously followed. That, I know, would be the only payment he would care to accept, and that will rejoice his heart. Will you promise?"

"Oh, that I will!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands pa.s.sionately together. "I have misunderstood, I have thwarted dear Amos shamefully, but now I can truly say, 'His people shall be my people, and his G.o.d my G.o.d.'"

"Thank you for that. My second request concerns our children. Promise me that you will not take them from under your brother's eye, and that you will strive to bring them up as he would have you; then I shall know that they will be spared such misery as this, that they will not need to be reminded, by way of warning, of the disgraceful example of their unworthy and guilty father."

"I promise, I promise!" cried the weeping wife, burying her face in her husband's bosom. When she raised her eyes to his again there was a sweet smile on her features as she said, "Dearest Orlando, all may yet be well, even should you be taken from us."

"For you, yes; for me, I cannot say," was his reply.

"Oh yes," she cried earnestly; "I am sure that dear Amos has put before you the way to the better land, open to us all through our loving Saviour; and I prayed last night--oh, so earnestly--that you might find that way."

"Thank you for that," he said mournfully; "it may be so; at any rate I have got thus far--I shall not cease to cry, so long as I have breath, 'G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner.'" And these were the last words on the poor penitent's lips.

For three days after this interview he lingered in much pain, but without a murmur. Whenever Mr Harris or Amos read the Word of G.o.d and prayed he was deeply attentive, but made no remark. Julia was constantly with him, and poured out her rekindled love in a thousand little tender services. At last the end came: there was neither joy nor peace, but there was not despair,--just one little ray of hope lighted the dark valley.

When the unostentatious funeral was over, Amos and his sister returned home cast down yet hopeful and trustful. That evening a subdued but happy little group gathered in Miss Huntingdon's private sitting-room, consisting of Amos, Julia, Walter, and their aunt. When Amos had answered many questions concerning the last days of his brother-in-law, Walter turned to his aunt and said, "Now, dear auntie, you have some examples of moral courage ready for us I am sure.--Amos, you are to be a good boy, and not to turn your back upon the teacher, as I see you are inclined to do. I know why; but it does not matter. Julia and I want doing good to, if you don't; so let us all attend."

"Yes," said Miss Huntingdon, "I know what you mean, and so of course does your brother; he does not wish to listen to his own praises, but he must not refuse to listen to the praises of others, even though their conduct may more or less resemble his own. I have some n.o.ble examples of moral courage to bring before you, for I have been thinking much on the matter since Amos and Julia left us. My heroes and heroines--for I have some of each s.e.x--will now consist of those who have braved death from disease or pestilence in the path of duty. And first of all, I must go back to our old example of moral heroism--I mean, to one who has already furnished us with a lesson--John Howard. That remarkable man was not satisfied with visiting the prisons, and bringing about reforms in them for the benefit and comfort of the poor prisoners. He wished to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow-creatures to a still greater extent; so he formed the plan of visiting the hospitals and lazarettos set apart for contagious diseases in various countries. Amongst other places he went to Smyrna and Constantinople when these cities were suffering from the plague. From Smyrna he sailed in a vessel with a foul bill of health to Venice, where he became an inmate of a lazaretto.

Here he was placed in a dirty room full of vermin, without table, chair, or bed. He employed a person to wash the room, but it was still dirty and offensive. Suffering here with headache and slow fever, he was removed to a lazaretto near the town, and had two rooms a.s.signed him, both in as dirty a state as that he had left. His active mind devised a plan for making these rooms more comfortable for the next occupant, and though opposed by the indolence and prejudices of the people about him, he contrived secretly to procure a quarter of a bushel of lime and a brush, and, by rising very early, and bribing his attendant to help him, contrived to have the place completely purified.

Now his object in thus exposing himself to infection and disease was not that he might gratify some crotchet, or get a name with the world, but that from personal experience of the unutterable miseries of such places as these lazarettos were, he might be better able to suggest the needful improvements and remedies. This he had set before himself as his work; to this he believed that duty called him; and that was enough for him.

Suffering, sickness, death, they were as nothing to him when weighed in the balance against high and holy duty."

"A n.o.ble hero indeed, dear auntie," cried Walter; "and now for another of the same sort."

"Well, my dear boy, my second example embraces many excellent men, all devoted to the same self-denying and self-sacrificing work,--I am now alluding to the Moravian missionaries. These truly heroic men, not counting their lives dear, left home and friends, not to visit sunny lands, where the charms of the scenery might in a measure make up for the toils and privations they had to undergo, nor to find among Arctic frosts and snows at any rate pure and refres.h.i.+ng breezes, though many of them did go forth into these inclement regions to carry the gospel of peace with them, and in so doing to endure the most terrible hards.h.i.+ps.

But the Moravians I am now speaking of are those who volunteered to enter the pest-houses and infected places from which they could never come forth again. Here they lived, and here they died, giving up every earthly comfort and attraction that they might set gospel truth before those whose infected and repulsive bodies made them objects of terror and avoidance to all but those self-renouncing followers of their Saviour. Here, indeed, moral courage has reached its height."

"How wonderful!" said Julia thoughtfully, and with a sigh; "_I_ could never have done it."

"No," said Miss Huntingdon; "nor does G.o.d commonly require such service from us. And yet, dear Julia, ladies as tenderly brought up as yourself have gone forth cheerfully to little short of certain death from pestilential airs, and have neither shrunk nor murmured when the call came. And this brings me to my last example of what I may call sublime moral courage or heroism. It is taken from the records of the Church Missionary Society. When first that society's n.o.ble work began, its agents went forth to settle among the poor negroes of Western Africa in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone. But the fever that hovered on the coast was enough to terrify any one who loved his life more than Christ.

In the first twenty years of that mission no fewer than fifty-three male and female missionaries died at their posts. In the year 1823, out of five who went out four died within six months, yet two years afterwards six presented themselves for that mission; and, indeed, since the formation of that mission there have never been men wanting--true heroes of the Lord Jesus Christ--who have willingly offered themselves for the blessed but deadly service. The women were as devoted as the men. A bright young couple, the Reverend Henry Palmer and his wife, landed at Sierra Leone on March 21, 1823. In the beginning of May, not two full months afterwards, the husband was dead; in June, just one month later, the wife was dead also. Yet neither spoke in their dying moments one word of regret, but gloried in the work and in the sacrifice they had been called to make. Another female missionary to the same parts, a widow, said: 'I have now lived one year in Africa, eight months of which I have been a widow; but I cannot resolve to leave Africa.'

Another, whose course was finished in twenty-two short days, said to her husband on her death-bed: 'Never once think that I repent of coming here with you.' Her only fear seemed to be lest her death should discourage others, or damp her husband's zeal.--I have now finished my examples. I am sure, dear children, that they are to the point; I mean, that they are examples of the sublimest moral courage--that courage which leads G.o.dly men and women not to shrink from duty though disease and death lie before them or hover over their path."

"Thank you, dearest auntie," said Walter; "you have indeed brought some glorious examples before us, and they just fit in with the conduct of our own dear hero here, who seems to wish us to forget that there ever was such a person as Amos Huntingdon, but he certainly won't succeed."

CHAPTER TWENTY.