Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

enjoyments. "He has an ear for your complaints, a bottle for your tears." Go to him in prayer, bow with holy submission at his sovereign feet, and let the language of your hearts and tongues be "The will of the Lord be done."You have long since professed faith in Christ, and I trust you have not been deceived.-Now you have an opportunity to display the Christian graces-Your faith is put to the trialO may you find it more precious than that of gold-May you not stagger at the promise, through unbelief, but be strong in faith, giving glory to God"---So shall your sufferings be soon at an end; and you shall reap a long, blest harvest of eternal joy.

9. My dear children, your brother is dead, and soon to be conveyed to the house of silence and of death. The grave will soon close upon him and shut him from your sight till the last great rising day. Ask yourselves what would have been your state, had either of you been called in his steadWe hope it is well with him, and that he rests in the paradise of God? But would your lot have been thus happy ?--Let me exhort you to remember your creator in the days of your youth. "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Weep not so much for him that is dead as for your sins; that they may be pardoned.--God is willing to receive you, and make you his adopted children.

[ocr errors]

10. To the youth in general shall I say-here is a loud call to you. Yesterday that lifeless youth was as sprightly, and bid as fair for long life as any of you; but his immortal spirit has made a sudden exit, and left his body an evidence of the uncertainty of human life. Will you not take warning, by such alarming events? Will not those among you, who have neglected your souls till this hour, begin now to attend to your immortal concerns? O let me urge this upon you. Dare not procrastinate repentance another day."Awake to righteousness, and sin not." Dedicate the morning of life, and all your future years, to God. But such among you as profess the enjoyment of divine grace, let me entreat you to improve this providence for the good of your imperishable souls. Be up and doing; be looking for and hasting to the coming of your Lord; that when he appears, you may appear with him in glory. And may the God of all mercy grant it to us all, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

It hardly need be told, that this address composed the

mind of Charles; he retired satisfied, rejoicing in the wise and gracious administrations of heaven. Still he sympathised with the afflicted, and rejoiced that so many seemed to bear their calamities with Christian fortitude. He was now prepared to console others, and joyfully entered on that work, to employ himself during his stay.

CHAPTER XII.

WHEN the time appointed for his departure came, he set out again on his journey. He sighed when he left the village, so different from what he found it; and sent backward, as he rode, many looks of sympathy; though he had a hope, that this correction would be blest in its effects. Soon it disappeared, and the eye was turned on new objects. He had not gone far, before he was overtaken by a venerable old man. Their way, for some hours, lay through a deep valley, with a high mountain on either hand. Their sides were broken, wild, and irregular. In some places were seen lofty trees, which found a deep soil, even in the mountain's side. Some places were covered only with scanty shrubs, and others were quite bare. Frightful precipices were here and there seen-chasms, of various depths, yawned before the eye. The mountain hawk, and the long winged eagle, were seen darting on their prey. On one side of their road ran a stream of considerable bigness. It poured, with noisy haste, over high precipices of broken rocks, or rolled in whirling eddies at their feet, or flowed in a deep smooth channel, with silent majesty.

Soon they found the valley to extend its width, and saw a few scattered, mean looking cottages, on the brink of the river. Poverty seemed to have taken up her residence here. A considerable space of ground might have been cultivated, and nearly given support to the wretched cottagers. But instead of this, the lands lay barren, or overrun with bushes and weeds, unfenced and untilled; except here and there a small yard of potatoes, and those miserably taken care of. Large girls, in dirty ragged dress, were climbing trees, or riding the house. The boys, or rather young men, lay sun

ning themselves like black snakes, and almost as destitute of clothes. The old men went out sometimes to a neighboring town, and worked a day or two, and brought home their earnings on their backs; idling away their time till this was gone. They sometimes caught a few fish from the river, or some trifling game from the mountain, or lived miserably destitute of all the comforts of life. The children were as rude in manners as mean in appearance. How great the contrast, said Charles, between this and the village from whence I just came. It is true, said the old man, they seem to be in a very degraded condition; and there may be various causes assigned for their degradation. Some of them may be children of rich parents, who were never trained to any kind of business; they came into possession of great estates at their father's decease, and having never known the earning of property, they as little knew how to spend it. Being prodigal of what came so easy, they were soon reduced to poverty; and being totally unacquainted with any useful employment, they had no means of supporting themselves with dignity'; and feeling greatly mortified under so great a change of condition, their pride would not allow them to stay where they were brought up, and well known; hence, they are found on this secluded spot. Had these been rightly educated, they might have been affluent, charitable, and respected; but a false education has ruined them. How many parents are culpable in this particular! Supposing it a disgrace for their children to work, or be trained to any kind of business, they grow up in idleness, unfit to manage an estate, and unprepared for a reverse of fortune. But if parents are as rich as Cresus, they should not neglect to teach their sons and daughters some kind of business. For the obscurity and degrada tion here seen, are not the only evils which flow from this base neglect.

There may be some here also, who, falling into the hands of a fashionable robber, or what is the same, an unprincipled worldling, have been stripped of their patrimony and earnings, and being driven from house and home, have, through vexation and despair, fled to this lonely and miserable retreat. Others may be driven by misfortunes to these abodes of wretchedness and poverty-were once industrious and independent; but unavoidable losses overtook them, till they were reduced to want. They are fallen into deep discour agement, are dead to economy and ambition; and in the vi

olence of their grief and disappointment, have fled to this place, to pine and expire under their blasted hopes.

Idleness and intemperance may have occasioned others to take up their residence here. Some abuse the best education, and in defiance of precepts and examples to the contrary, become idle and intemperate. We cannot say but the wretched poverty of such is just.

Others who inhabit these miserable cottages, may have descended in a direct line of meanness, for many generations. They never knew a better state. Their education fitted them for what we see of their condition. They inherit from their parents, a love for rags, filth and poverty. Better circumstances would seem so strange to them, that they would feel like a pig in the parlor.

After these remarks, partly as they stopped, and partly as they slowly led their horses along the road, they resolved to visit some of these poor habitations. On doing this, they were surprised to find, that the Old Man had not been far from the truth in his conjectures. Having visited a number, and found the inside to correspond with what appeared outwardly, and seeing another at a little distance, and the children near it looking more cleanly and better dressed than their neighbor's, they entered, and found a woman, whose appearance indicated she deserved a better fate. She was about forty; clad in garments clean, but coarse and homely. A small table, two or three benches, a pot, a few wooden dishes, and two straw beds, with ordinary covering, made the chief part of her furniture; but every thing expressed neatness and industry. At their first entrance, she seemed a little surprised, what the coming of such visitors should mean; but soon conversed freely, in which she discovered good sense, a decent education, and that she had seen better days.

They desired to know her history, which, after some modest hesitation, she consented to give. I was born, said she, of wealthy, reputable parents, from whom I received a Christian education, and a decent estate. They both died when I was at the age of eighteen. At twenty I married a man of reputable character and good business. For some years we prospered, and became possessed of a handsome proper ty. My husband, at length, had a vessel and rich cargo seized and condemned by the British, which rendered him unable to meet promptly some demands. He had more proper

CHAPTER XIII,

THEY soon arrived at the open and cultivated country, which lay before them. It in general, bore the marks of wealth and industry. But there were some houses of mean appearance, the inhabitants of which were evidently vassals to some neighboring lord of the soil. They had either been cheated out of their estates by their lordly masters, or had not ambition enough to set up and maintain independence. Their political and religious opinions were derived from their master, and they never dared believe or vote, only as he said.

This was highly gratifying to these imperious task-masters. And nothing seemed wanting to complete their preeminence, but to change the republican form of government into an aristocracy; and make them and a few others, dignified noblemen; and make the honors of nobility hereditary in their families. It was a maxim with them, that the country never can be happy, while there remains so much EQUALITY among the people.

But the people of this place were not all made up of these two classes. Some of the rich among them hated these prin. ciples, and some of the middling class, were as offensive to those imperious wretches, as Mordicai was to Haman; and their aristocratical pride and fury would gladly have seen them hang on a gallows fifty cubits high. In short, thinking themselves the most respectable of the town, they treated all others with distance and contempt.

The following is a dialogue between Mrs. Aristocrat, and Mrs. Demo.

Mrs. Demo. Are your daughters to attend the ball this evening?

Mrs. Aristocrat. What! with the boys and girls of Mr. Republic, and his neighbors? No, I'll warrant you they are

not!

Mrs. D. Have they had no invitation?

Mrs. A. It would be a disgrace to them to be invited by such low bred families, and much more so, to associate with them.

Mrs. D. Why a disgrace, pray?

Mrs. A. You know that some of them are as poor as Job's turkeys, and none of them were rich a few years ago; and all of them work for a living.

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »