Part 16 (1/2)
I see the good old mother of the household now. Always neat in her dress,--erect in form,--kind,--thoughtful, self-possessed. You could not know her long, and not perceive that she was a pre-eminent representative of the wife and parent. Her love for others had its true source, the love of G.o.d. Thence it flowed gently a stream of tenderness for her family, and then spread freely far and wide to all others. Her religion was of a very grand character. She knew, in all the trials of life, what it was to have her Creator for her Rock,--to have His rod and His staff. Real to her indeed, the divine love which brought our Redeemer to our form from Heaven, and caused Him to expiate our sins on the cross.
Once we were speaking hopelessly, of some reprobate. The opinion was advanced, or implied, that he was never to be reformed. I never forgot the sorrow she manifested, and her heart-felt but gentle reproof, while she corrected us in the abiding spirit of the hope in Christ for any one who yet lives. While the lamp holds out to burn, she asked, could not he return?
She was one of the most unpretending Christians, and therefore her deep piety could not be concealed. When she was unconscious of the revelation, she taught us in a living subject of the Lord, the power that can be given for holiness in this scene, where all gold can be well tried in the fire.
She was ever busy. In hours of ease she had her knitting-needle. How pleasant it was to see her at her work, in the warm days of summer, as she sat in her high-backed chair on the piazza which overlooked the River. With the steamboats, then beginning their course, she was never satisfied. ”The boats with sails,” she said, ”glided away so natural like: but with the steamboats it was all forced work.” No doubt she often regarded these different vessels, as emblematic of those who moved under gentle and approved agencies, and those who were out of harmony with nature around us,--the working of the hands that are infinite in power,--those who cared only for hire, and needed, in order to their activity, some of those goads which happily abound for the idle.
The aged woman came to us what she was, to remind us what endless influences are ever ready to mould us to increasing piety, and love for others. To the sick and sorrowing out of her household she had been an angel of charity. Her life had been a golden cord. He had strung it for her with jewels from the mine. Is that mine exhausted? The glories we know lie near at hand for all that will gather them.
Well can I realize after the lapse of years, the sorrow of the aged wife when it was manifest that my old friend must soon close his eyes on the world for ever. There he lay, his strong form promising hope, which the decision of the physician denied. Could he be dying, who was bound to the scene around him by so many ties? As he had gained these fields by such a life of labor, and held them so firmly in his grasp, as every tree seemed so surely his, as you felt the impress of his firm and undisputed will in all the arrangements of his broad farm, you might ask can all these bonds which bind him here be sundered? But G.o.d sunders all, as he will, in a moment.
And now he was on the verge of the world to come. In infancy his life had hung by the most attenuated thread. Was it better for him that he was to die an old man, one who had pa.s.sed through life's trials, had received such endless mercies, had so many calls to so many duties? Or would it have been better for him that he had died in infancy, pa.s.sing to the ineffable joy, but to less glory and honor than those who have borne the cross, endured in true manly toil, the burden and heat of the day in the vineyard of the Master?
It was in a quiet house, quiet as one so soon to be forsaken of its owner, that we a.s.sembled to receive with him the precious emblems of the great sacrifice made for us, in infinite love. If he received consolation, it was indeed given also to the aged wife. Her quiet sorrow, without a tear, was reverent, and full of submission. Its evenness,--not rising or falling with every hope or fear,--was a seal of its great depth. You read in her fixed countenance that she had the past with all its memories, and the future with all its solitude clearly before her. She was henceforth to be as the shattered vase, just waiting some small trial of its strength, to fall to pieces. But the lamp within was to burn on, and fed with ever increasing supplies of aliment for its flame, to glow with increasing radiance. Such lights in the temple of G.o.d never go out.
My aged friends! your ashes lie where you hoped that your mortal remains would find their resting-place. Years have pa.s.sed, and yet I recall you to remembrance more affectionately, than when I stood by your opened grave. One cause of this, is, I presume, that the more I become acquainted with men, the more I learn to value those who have risen in their integrity, above the low level of ordinary character.
Changed is your dwelling. A vast and costly pile occupies the place where once it stood. But could you, the former inhabitants, of that which has undergone such alteration, reappear among us, we should recognize what is eternal in its nature. What is of earth, alters and pa.s.ses away. But love, and truth, and faith, all the n.o.bleness given by the Redeemer,--these endure. These are extended and glorified in the world to come.
XI.
_DR. SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE._
When I was at Princeton College, Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith was its president. A learned and able man, and an eloquent preacher, blameless in his life, his influence was great, not only over his college, but far and wide over the surrounding country.
I trust that it is one of the merits of our Republic, that truly great and good men will always have this influence and respect. Surely we have cast off those impediments to human progress which exist in other lands, where tributes due to real merit are paid to men for their acc.u.mulation of riches. Our offices in the states will almost always be bestowed on the deserving. The tricks of the politician will be generally unknown, because our people will hold them in abhorrence. In the old countries legislative bodies have felt the force of bribes. But I will boldly turn prophet here, and say, that no such practices will ever be known in such deliberative bodies in New Jersey. I can imagine the shame which the pure-minded people of this common-wealth must be ready to visit on one proven guilty of such a detestable enormity. Indeed he would incur the risk of being burnt alive at the stake.
The influence which Dr. Smith attained by the purest means, he exercised for the public good. His mind was of a philosophic cast, and he abhorred all superst.i.tion. Hence he was always eager to dispel the errors of the ignorant, and to remove the fears excited by diseased imaginations.
One day I was plodding over a page of Sophocles. No doubt it contained beauties whose discovery would repay toil. I was, however, unable to say, as I pondered it, lexicon by my side, with the Frenchman, ”hang these ancients, they are always antic.i.p.ating our bright thoughts,” for I was not yet able to compare the idea of the Greek with the scintillations of genius which had flashed through my mind, and which were laid up for the future edification of the world, because I could not determine what the old dramatist had intended to say to us.
While I was in this state of most unpleasant perplexity, there was a knock at my door. I knew it at once to be that of our tutor. He informed me that the great doctor wished to see me and the rest of my cla.s.s at his study.
We were thus invited,--that is, we had as strict a summons as any soldiers could receive from their commander,--to appear at his residence, the famous house under whose roof so many ill.u.s.trious men have found shelter. Long may it stand!
It could not take much time to collect the designated young gentlemen together. Before we met, each individual brain was greatly exercised with speculations, concerning the cause of our being thus summoned to the study of our venerable head. When we were a collective body the various streams of conjecture being thrown in a torrent together, the effervescence exceeded all my powers of description.
It was a trying hour when any one of us had to come face to face with Dr. Smith.
We were not aware that any evil deed had been committed of late in the college. We all felt a bold conviction of individual innocence. Indeed, all college fellows are innocent always, until they are proved to be guilty.
One poor fellow, whose s.h.a.ggy head could never be reduced to smooth order by comb or brush, more than the tossing waves are subdued to a placid mirror by the shadows of pa.s.sing clouds, with a nose that always reminded you of a sun-dial, and an eye, which sometimes gave him the nickname of Planet, from its ceaseless twinkling,--had indeed some troubles of conscience concerning a duck which had been killed, cooked, and eaten in his room a few nights before, after he had taken a long rural ramble in the evening. He had some reasonable fear that he could not produce the bill of its sale for the scrutiny of the President, should it be demanded. Still, on the whole, we were calm. All felt the necessity of a general suns.h.i.+ne of countenances. It was our wisdom to look as if we expected some compliment from the head of the college.
Indeed, one fellow, who had a manly, harmless wildness in him, whom all loved and confided in, who was a good and kind adviser of us all,--whose intense life was a good element for the formation of the n.o.ble minister which he afterwards became,--was audibly preparing a reply to the doubtfully antic.i.p.ated commendation of the President. It contained the most ludicrous a.s.sertion of our great modesty, and sense of unworthiness,--in which he said, we all most cordially concurred,--while in the presence in which we stood. Curiosity was in every mind. No one had the slightest clue, which appeared to guide us satisfactorily one step in the darkness.
But we reached the door of the study. One of the most respectful knocks ever given proclaimed our presence,--or rather inquired if we could be admitted. The fine, manly voice which we so well knew, called on us to enter. We were received with that courteous dignity which characterized the doctor. All scanned the n.o.ble head, and no thunder-clouds were there. It is something to have seen Dr. Smith in the pulpit, in the cla.s.s-room, or in the study. He was somewhat taller than men in general, and had a frame of fine proportions. His countenance easily kindled with intelligence. A large blue eye seemed to search your secret thoughts--and yet in all manliness of inquiry--promising cordial sympathy with all that was elevated, and a just indignation at the contemplation of any moral evil. His brow was s.p.a.cious. His whole face spoke of hard study--polish of mind--of patient thought--of one who walked among men as a king. His voice was full and harmonious. His address was dignified and urbane. The stranger must trust him, and his friends confided in him, not to discover that he ever could forsake them.
Before he spoke we were at our ease. Our surprise took a new channel as he entered on the business of the hour.
”Gentlemen,” said he, ”I have sent for you, that I might have your co-operation in a plan, which may greatly benefit a worthy farmer, and remove superst.i.tious fears from some ignorant minds.
”Mr. Hollman, who has a farm about two miles from the college, cannot persuade any of the laboring families to reside in a lonely stone house on his property. It is a dwelling that should be a comfortable, happy home. The situation is rather picturesque; standing, as it does, near the shade of a thick wood, and on the bank of a small stream which empties into our cla.s.sical run. The people say that the house is haunted. Family after family has forsaken it in dread. I have not had patience to listen to the various narratives told concerning it. One man who is quite intelligent, and evidently honest, declares that he will take his oath that he has heard terrible noises at midnight, and has smelt strange fumes.