Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 29

"Stanley--I feel that I am dying. Death is awful, my dear friend, but it is neither surprising nor terrible. I have been too long accustomed steadily to contemplate it at a distance, to start from it now it is near.

"As a man, I have feared death. As a Christian, I trust I have overcome this fear. Why should I dread that, which mere reason taught me is not an extinction of my being, and which revelation has convinced me will be an improvement of it? An improvement, oh how inconceivable!

"For several years I have habituated myself every day to reflect for some moments on the vanity of life, the certainty of death, the awfulness of judgment, and the duration of eternity.

"The separation from my excellent wife, is a trial from which I should utterly shrink, were I not sustained by the Christian hope.

When we married, we knew that we were not immortal. I have endeavored to familiarize to her and to myself the inevitable separation, by constantly keeping up in the minds of both the idea that one of us _must_ be the survivor. I have endeavored to make that idea supportable by the conviction that the survivors.h.i.+p will be short--the re-union certain--speedy--eternal. O _praeclarum diem_![5] etc., etc. How gloriously does Christianity exalt the rapture, by enn.o.bling the objects of this sublime apostrophe!"

[Footnote 5: See this whole beautiful pa.s.sage in Cicero de Senectute]

"Friday the 20th.

"As to the union of my son with Lucilla, you and I, my friend, have long learned from an authority higher than that cla.s.sical one, of which we have frequently admired the expression, and lamented the application, that long views and remote hopes, and distant expectations become not so short-sighted, so short-lived a creature as man.[6] I trust, however; that our plans have been carried on with a complete conviction of this brevity; with an entire acquiescence in the will of the great arbiter of life and death. I have told Charles it is my wish that he should visit you soon after my death. I durst not command it--for this incomparable youth, who has sacrificed so much to his father, will find he has a mother worthy of still greater sacrifices. As soon as he can prevail on himself to leave her, you will see him. May he and your Lucilla behold each other with the eyes with which each of us views his own child! If they see each other with indifference, never let them know our wishes. It would perplex and hamper those to whom we wish perfect freedom of thought and action. If they conceive a mutual attachment, reveal our project. In such minds, it will strengthen that attachment. The approbation of a living and the desire of a deceased parent will sanctify their union. I must break off through weakness."

[Footnote 6: Horace, in speaking of the brevity and uncertainty of life, seldom fails to produce it as an incentive to sensual indulgence. See particularly the fourth and eleventh Odes of the first book.]

"Monday, 23d.

"I resume my pen, which I thought I had held for the last time. May G.o.d bless and direct our children! Infinite wisdom permits me not to see their union. Indeed my interest in all earthly things weakens. Even my solicitude for this event is somewhat diminished.

The most important circ.u.mstance, if it have not G.o.d for its object, now seems comparatively little. The longest life with all its concerns, shrinks to a point in the sight of a dying man whose eye is filled by eternity. Eternity! Oh my friend, Eternity is a depth which no geometry can measure, no arithmetic calculate, no imagination conceive, no rhetoric describe. The eye of a dying Christian seems gifted to penetrate depths hid from the wisdom of philosophy. It looks athwart the dark valley without dismay, cheered by the bright scene beyond it. It looks with a kind of chastised impatience to that land where happiness will be only holiness perfected. There all the promises of the gospel will be accomplished. There afflicted virtue will rejoice at its past trials, and acknowledge their subservience to its present bliss.

The secret self-denials of the righteous shall be recognized and rewarded. And all the hopes of the Christian shall have their complete consummation."

"Sat.u.r.day, 28th.

"My weakness increases--I have written this at many intervals. My body faints, but in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Oh Stanley! if pain is trying, if death is awful to him who knows in whom he has trusted; how is pain endured, how is death encountered by those who have no such support?"

"Tuesday the 31st.

"I am better to-day. If I experience little of that rapture which some require, as the sign of their acceptance, I yet have a good hope through grace. Nay, there are moments when I rejoice with joy unspeakable. I would not produce this joy as any certain criterion of my safety, because from the nature of my disease, there are also moments when my spirits sink, and this might equally furnish arguments against my state, to those who decide by frames and feelings. I think my faith as sound, my pardon as sure, when these privileges are withdrawn, as when I enjoy them."

"Friday, 3d April.

"Stanley: my departure is at hand. My eternal redemption draweth nigh. My hope is full of immortality. This is my comfort--not that my sins are few or small, but that they are, I humbly trust, pardoned, through him who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Faithful is HE that has promised, and HIS promises are not too great to be made good--for Omniscience is my promiser, and I have Omnipotence itself for my security. Adieu!"

On the cover was written, in Mr. Stanley's hand, "He died three days after!"

It is impossible to describe the mingled and conflicting emotions of my soul, while I perused this letter. Grat.i.tude that I had possessed such a father; sorrow, that I had lost him; transport, in antic.i.p.ating an event which had been his earnest wish for almost twenty years; regret, that he was not permitted to witness it; devout joy, that he was in a state so superior to even _my_ sense of happiness; a strong feeling of the uncertainty and brevity of _all_ happiness; a solemn resolution that I would never act unworthy of such a father; a fervent prayer that I might be enabled to keep that resolution: all these emotions so agitated and divided my whole mind, as to render me unfit for any society, even for that of Lucilla. I withdrew, gratefully pressing Mr. Stanley's hand; he kindly returned the pressure, but neither of us attempted to speak.

He silently put my father's packet into my hands. I shut myself into my apartment, and read, for three hours, letters for which I hope to be the better in time and in eternity. I found in them a treasure of religious wisdom, excellent maxims of human prudence, a thorough acquaintance with life and manners, a keen insight into human nature in the abstract, and a nice discrimination of individual characters; admirable doc.u.ments of general education, the application of those doc.u.ments to my particular turn of character, and diversified methods for improving it. The pure delight to which I looked forward in reading these letters with Lucilla, soon became my predominant feeling.

I returned to the company with a sense of felicity, which the above feelings and reflections had composed into a soothing tranquillity. My joy was sobered without being abated. I received the cordial congratulations of my friends. Mrs. Stanley behaved to me with increased affection: she presented me to her daughter, with whom I afterward pa.s.sed two hours. This interview left me nothing to desire but that my grat.i.tude to the Almighty Dispenser of happiness might bear some little proportion to his blessings.

As I was pa.s.sing through the hall after dinner, I spied little Celia peeping out of the door of the children's apartment, in hope of seeing me pa.s.s. She flew to me, and begged I would take her in to the company.

As I knew the interdict was taken off, I carried her into the saloon where they were sitting. She ran into Lucilla's arms, and said, in a voice which she meant for a whisper, but loud enough to be heard by the whole company, "Do, dear Lucilla, forgive me, I will never say another word about the curricle, and you sha'n't go to the Priory since you don't like it." Lucilla found means to silence her, by showing her the pictures in the "Peac.o.c.k at Home;" and without looking up to observe the general smile, contrived to attract the sweet child's attention to this beautiful little poem, in spite of Sir John, who did his utmost to widen the mischief.

CHAPTER XLIII.

The next day, in the afternoon, Dr. Barlow called on us. By the uncommon seriousness of his countenance I saw something was the matter. "You will be shocked," said he, "to hear that Mr. Tyrrel is dying, if not actually dead. He was the night before last seized with a paralytic stroke. He lay a long time without sense or motion; a delirium followed. In a short interval of reason he sent, earnestly imploring to see me. Seldom have I witnessed so distressing a scene.

"As I entered the room he fixed his gla.s.sy eyes full upon me, quite unconscious who I was, and groaned out in an inward hollow voice--'Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl, for your miseries are come upon you.' I asked how he did. He replied still from St. James: 'How? why my gold and silver are cankered, the rust of them shall witness against me; they eat up my flesh as it were fire.'

"I was astonished," continued Dr. Barlow, "to see so exact a memory coupled with so wild an imagination. 'Be composed, sir,' said I, seeing he began to recollect me, 'this deep contrition is a favorable symptom.'

'Dr. Barlow,' replied he, grasping my hand with a vehemence which corresponded with his look, 'have you never heard of riches kept by the owner thereof to his hurt? Rest.i.tution! Doctor, rest.i.tution! and it must be immediate, or it will be too late.' I was now deeply alarmed.

'Surely, sir,' said I, 'you are not unhappily driven to adopt St.

James's next words--forgive me but--you can not surely have defrauded.'

'O no, no,' cried he, 'I have been what the world calls honest, but not what the Judge of quick and dead will call so. The rest.i.tution I must make is not to the rich, for any thing I have _taken_ from them, but to the poor, for what I have _kept_ from them. Hardness of heart would have been but a common sin, in a common man; but I have been a professor, Doctor, I will not say a hypocrite, for I deceived myself as much as others. But oh! how hollow has my profession been!'

"Here seeing him ready to faint," continued Dr. Barlow, "I imposed silence on him, till he had taken a cordial. This revived him, and he went on.

"'I was miserable in my early course of profligacy. I was disappointed in my subsequent schemes of ambition. I expected more from the world than it had to give. But I continued to love it with all its disappointments. Under whatever new shape it presented its temptations, it was still my idol. I had always loved money; but other pa.s.sions more turbulent had been hitherto predominant. These I at length renounced.

Covetousness now became my reigning sin. Still it was to the broken cistern that I cleaved. Still it was on the broken reed that I leaned.

Still I was unhappy, I was at a loss whither to turn for comfort. Of religion I scarcely knew the first principles.

"'In this state I met with a plausible, but ill-informed man. He had zeal, and a sort of popular eloquence; but he wanted knowledge, and argument, and soundness. I was, however, struck with his earnestness, and with the importance of some truths which, though common to others, were new to me. But his scheme was hollow and imperfect, and his leading principle subversive of all morality.'

"Here Mr. Tyrrel paused. I intreated him to spare himself; but after a few deep groans he proceeded.

"'Whether his opinions had made _himself_ immoral I never inquired. It is certain they were calculated to make his hearers so. Instead of lowering my spiritual disease, by prescribing repentence and humility, he inflamed it by cordials. All was high, all was animating all was safe! On no better ground than my avowed discontent, he landed me at one in a security so much the more fatal, as it laid asleep all apprehension. He mistook my uneasiness for a complete change. My talking of sin was made a subst.i.tute for my renouncing it. Proud of a rich man for a convert, he led me to mistake conviction for conversion. I was buoyed up with an unfounded confidence. I adopted a religion which promised pardon without repentance, happiness without obedience, and heaven without holiness. I had found a short road to peace. I never inquired if it were a safe one.'

"The poor man now fell back, unable to speak for some minutes. Then rallying again, he resumed, in a still more broken voice:

"'Here I stopped short. My religion had made no change in my heart, it therefore made none in my life. I read good books, but they were low and fanatical in their language, and Antinomian in their principle. But my religious ignorance was so deplorable, that their novelty caught strong hold of me.'

"I now desired him," continued Dr. Barlow, "not to exhaust himself further. I prayed with him. He was struck with awe at the holy energy in the office for the sick, which was quite new to him. He owned he had not suspected the church to be so evangelical. This is no uncommon error.

Hot-headed and superficial men, when they are once alarmed, are rather caught by phrases than sentiments, by terms than principles. It is this ignorance of the doctrines of the Bible and of the church, in which men of the world unhappily live, that makes it so difficult for us to address them under sickness and affliction. We have no common ground on which to stand; no intelligible medium through which to communicate with them. It is having both a language and a science to learn at once."

In the morning Dr. Barlow again visited Mr. Tyrrel. He found him still in great perturbation of mind. Feeling himself quite sensible, he had begun to make his will. He had made large bequests to several charities.

Dr. Barlow highly approved of this; but reminded him, that though he himself would never recommend charity as a commutation or a bribe, yet some immediate acts of bounty, while there was a possibility of his recovery, would be a better earnest of his repentance than the bequeathing his whole estate when it could be of no further use to himself. He was all acquiescence.