Part 18 (1/2)
and, of course, can never care about you again.”
”I am glad to hear he is a priest,” said Mary, in a gentle voice; ”for I believe he will be more happy so than in any other situation in life. I am sure I wish him happy, for he was ever good and amiable.”
”But yet,” rejoined the old maid, ”he never made you any return for all your fondness for him. He never writes you any loving letters, nor cares whether you are living or dead, or else he would write, or send you some tokens of friends.h.i.+p.”
”You know a little too much, Amanda,” said Mary. ”I never asked him to write; and I know he loves me so far as to pray for me, and that's all he ever pretended to; and as for presents, I do not covet them, as I have got this beautiful one, a miniature of the mother of G.o.d, set in gold, which Paul presented to me when here last. See it here,” she said, drawing it from her bosom. ”I would not give this for all the presents in New York.”
”Idolatry! idolatry!” cried out Amanda. ”Idolatry!” cried out Calvin and the rest of the family. ”Idolatry! yes, as the Lord liveth,” groaned a hollow, dramatic voice, as he entered by the woodshed way to the dining room. It was that of Rev. Mr. Gulmore, who after a long absence, hearing the Romanizing tendencies that threatened to desolate this once stanch Presbyterian family, came, he said, ”with his sickle,” to cut down the c.o.c.kles, and ”weed out this once fertile but now overgrown garden.”
”What is this I have been hearing?” thundered the little thick man, stamping on the floor. ”Is it possible that my senses deceive me? or have I heard and seen the daughter of my friend, my Orthodox--once Orthodox--friend, draw forth her idolatrous bawble from her American bosom, and defend its use and veneration with her tongue? Is this true?
Tell me! Speak!”
There was a short pause after this short declamation, delivered in the most pa.s.sionate form. At length, Mr. Prying, senior, coolly answered, ”Yes, Mr. Gulmore, I 'spect Mary is lost to your church, and inclined to the Catholic system.”
”O Lord, forbid it!” cried the little thick man in white choker. ”It cannot be; we cannot allow it. I shall storm heaven with prayers. I shall do violence to the Lord. I shall catch hold of him, and not let him go till he give back this lamb to my bosom.”
Such were only _some_ of the expressions, blasphemously familiar, which this clerical mountebank made use of during a full half hour, that he almost electrified the whole company by his half-mad gesticulations and discourses. At length, when his legs began to fail, he got on his knees, or rather on his _heels_--a posture the Irish call ”on his _grugg_.” He prayed, and roared, and screamed, and he cried, as it were, shedding tears, to the alarm of the oldest members of the family, who feared he might burst a blood vessel, as he was a short-necked, plethoric, chunk of a man; and to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of Murty O'Dwyer and the younger members of the family, who, from the violence of the laughter that seized them, were in danger of meeting that fate from which the former wanted to save the parson.
This levity on the part of the youngsters did not escape the notice of his _weeping_ reverence; and he no sooner recovered himself than he administered a sharp reprimand to all concerned, but especially to Murty.
”I pity men of your country,” said he, addressing Murty,--who, it must be recollected, had made very great improvement in his education since we first introduced him to our readers,--”I pity men of your country, on account of the ignorance in which they are kept by the soul-destroying system of Popery that binds them down.”
”Indeed, Mr. Gulmore,” said Murty, ”I am sorry you don't take some other means, besides those not very enlightened prayers you have volunteered to favor us with, to dispel and instruct our ignorance.”
”Why, thou Papist boor, durst thou deny the power of prayer?”
”No, sir. I have great faith in prayer, especially the prayer of a 'just man;' but G.o.d forbid that I should regard your eccentric, indeed, I might say blasphemous, effusions as prayer! You talk of the 'ignorance'
of my countrymen! Ah, sir, I have no hesitation in saying the most ignorant among them would be ashamed of such silly-acting and disgusting cant as you have just now delivered.”
”I blame you not,” deluded Papist; ”you have not felt the 'power of prayer,' brought up in all the ignorance and idolatry of the 'scarlet lady.' But it is not for you I prayed or wrestled with the Lord, but for my beloved dove, this innocent victim of your idolatry and the h.e.l.lish arts of your church. Do you not feel the change of heart, Mary, my love?” he said, approaching near to the girl. ”Tell me, have I gained thee? Has the Lord heard my groanings, and sighs, and pet.i.tions for thy restoration to the creed of our Protestant fathers? Do, Mary dear, tell me the feelings of thy heart! Do, love, comfort me by the a.s.surance that I have gained thee!”
”Mr. Gulmore,” answered the good child, ”I thought you had long since ceased visiting us, and we hoped never again to be annoyed by your ministrations. Your conduct in combining with my step-sister here, in conjunction with the late postmaster of S----, to prevent Paul from holding correspondence, has disgusted, not only me, but even father, beyond the limits of reconciliation; and whatever I may think of your religion, be a.s.sured I have no two opinions about yourself.”
”O, she is lost, I greatly fear! Fallen is an angel from heaven! Save, save, O Lord!” cried the parson, as Mary Prying rose up from her seat and left the room.
The foregoing rebuke of the spirited girl brought this craven-hearted dominie at once to his senses, and during the remainder of the evening he was more rational in conduct and discourse, seeing that Mary was the darling of her father, who would allow the parson to make no reflections on the motives that actuated her in the steps she was about to take.
”I am afraid, parson,” said Murty, breaking the embarra.s.sing silence that continued for a few minutes, ”I am afraid the lady has eluded the forceful grasp of your powerful prayer. I guess she will become a nun, too, notwithstanding your great efforts to make her sing
”But I won't be a nun; I can't be a nun; I'm so fond of pleasure that I can't be a nun.”
”I greatly fear, yer riverince,” said he, affecting the broadest Irish brogue, ”y'ill have to phray a great deal yet afore you convart her from her resolution.”
”We must submit to the decree of the Lord in all that he has planned from the beginning of the world, Murty,” said the parson, resignedly.
”Think the Lord has decreed Mary for the nunnery, reverend and learned sir?” said Murty, affecting great politeness.
”Not exactly, Murty; but the Lord, by his inscrutable decree before the creation, has pa.s.sed sentence on all accountable beings: some he has delivered over to irremediable wrath, and others he has predestined to glory and bliss eternal; and no efforts of men can reverse these irrevocable decrees.”
”O, dreadful!” said Murty. ”I always heard that G.o.d willed all men to be saved; that it was in every man's power to avoid evil, and do good; that the giving of the commandments supposed the perfect liberty of men; and that, supposing the grace of G.o.d, all men had the means of salvation within their reach. If your system were true, all efforts of man to save himself would be useless, and all your pulpits and sermons would be worse than useless; for they would be a gross imposition, and a loss of time.”