Part 5 (1/2)
Camilla Cain.
She was from Baltimore, and had the fair face and gentle voice peculiar to most Baltimore women. Her organization was delicate but elastic--one of the sort that bends easily, but is hard to break. In her eyes was that look of wistful sadness so often seen in holy women of her type.
Timid as a fawn, in the cla.s.s-meeting she spoke of her love to Jesus and delight in his service in a voice low and a little hesitating, but with strangely thrilling effect. The meetings were sometimes held in her own little parlor in the cottage on Dupont street, and then we always felt that we had met where the Master himself was a constant and welcome guest. She was put into the crucible. For more than fifteen years she suffered unceasing and intense bodily pain. Imprisoned in her sick chamber, she fought her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs lost their use, the patient face waxed more wan, and the traces of agony were on it always; the soft, loving eyes were often tear washed. The fires were hot, and they burned on through the long, long years without respite. The mystery of it all was too deep for me; it was too deep for her. But somehow it does seem that the highest suffer most:
The sign of rank in Nature Is capacity for pain, And the anguish of the singer Makes the sweetness of the strain.
The victory of her faith was complete. If the inevitable why? sometimes was in her thought, no shadow of distrust ever fell upon her heart. Her sick-room was the quietest, brightest spot in all the city. How often did I go thither weary and faint with the roughness of the way, and leave feeling that I had heard the voices and inhaled the odors of paradise! A little talk, a psalm, and then a prayer, during which the room seemed to be filled with angel-presences; after which the thin, pale face was radiant with the light reflected from our Immanuel's face.
I often went to see her, not so much to convey as to get a blessing. Her heart was kept fresh as a rose of Sharon in the dew of the morning. The children loved to be near her; and the pathetic face of the dear crippled boy, the pet of the family, was always brighter in her presence. Thrice death came into the home-circle with its shock and mighty wrenchings of the heart, but the victory was not his, but hers.
Neither death nor life could separate her from the love of her Lord. She was one of the elect. The elect are those who know, having the witness in themselves. She was conqueror of both--life with its pain and its weariness, death with its terror and its tragedy. She did not endure merely, she triumphed. Borne on the wings of a mighty faith, her soul was at times lifted above all sin, and temptation, and pain, and the sweet, abiding peace swelled into an ecstasy of sacred joy. Her swimming eyes and rapt look told the unutterable secret. She has crossed over the narrow stream on whose margin she lingered so long; and there was joy on the other side when the gentle, patient, holy Camilla Cain joined the glorified throng.
O though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died!
Lone Mountain.
The sea-wind sweeps over the spot at times in gusts like the frenzy of hopeless grief, and at times in sighs as gentle as those heaved by aged sorrow in sight of eternal rest. The voices of the great city come faintly over the sand-hills, with subdued murmur like a lullaby to the pale sleepers that are here lying low. When the winds are quiet, which is not often, the moan of the mighty Pacific can be heard day or night, as if it voiced in m.u.f.fled tones the unceasing woe of a world under the reign of death. Westward, on the summit of a higher hill, a huge cross stretches its arms as if embracing the living and the dead-the first object that catches the eye of the weary voyager as he nears the Golden Gate, the last that meets his lingering gaze as he goes forth upon the great waters. O sacred emblem of the faith with which we launch upon life's stormy main--of the hope that a.s.sures that we shall reach the port when the night and the tempest are past! When the winds are high, the booming of the breakers on the cliff sounds as if nature were impatient of the long, long delay, and had antic.i.p.ated the last thunders that wake the sleeping dead. On a clear day, the blue Pacific, stretching away beyond the snowy surf-line, symbolizes the sh.o.r.eless sea that rolls through eternity. The Cliff House road that runs hard by is the chief drive of the pleasure-seekers of San Francisco. Gayety, and laughter, and heart-break, and tears, meet on the drive; the wail of agony and the laugh of gladness mingle as the gay crowds dash by the slow-moving procession on its way to the grave. How often have I made that slow, sad journey to Lone Mountain--a Via Doloroso to many who have never been the same after they had gone thither, and coming back found the light quenched and the music bushed in their homes! Thither the dead Senator was borne, followed by the tramping thousands, rank on rank, amid the booming of minute-guns, the tolling of bells, the measured tread of plumed soldiers, and the roll of drums. Thither was carried, in his rude coffin, the ”unknown man” found dead in the streets, to be buried in potter's-field. Thither was borne the hard and grasping idolater of riches, who clung to his coin, and clutched for more, until he was dragged away by the one hand that was colder and stronger than his own. Here was brought the little child, out of whose narrow grave there blossomed the beginnings of a new life to the father and mother, who in the better life to come will be found among the blessed company of those whose only path to paradise lay through the valley of tears. Here were brought the many wanderers, whose last earthly wish was to go back home, on the other side of the mountains, to die, but were denied by the stern messenger who never waits nor spares.
And here was brought the mortal part of the aged disciple of Jesus, in whose dying-chamber the two worlds met, and whose death-throes were demonstrably the birth of a child of G.o.d into the life of glory.
The first time I ever visited the place was to attend the funeral of a suicide. The dead man I had known in Virginia, when I was a boy. He was a graduate of the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute, and when I first knew him he was the captain of a famous volunteer company. He was as handsome as a picture--the admiration of the girls, and the envy of the young men of his native town. He was among the first who rushed to California on the discovery of gold, and of all the heroic men who gave early California its best bias none was knightlier than this handsome Virginian; none won stronger friends, or had brighter hopes. He was the first State Senator from San Francisco. He had the magnetism that won and the n.o.bility that retained the love of men. Some men push themselves forward by force of intellect or of will--this man was pushed upward by his friends because he had their hearts. He married a beautiful woman, whom he loved literally unto death. I shall not recite the whole story.
G.o.d only knows it fully, and he will judge righteously. There was trouble, rage, and tears, pa.s.sionate partings and penitent reunions--the old story of love dying a lingering yet violent death. On the fatal morning I met him on Was.h.i.+ngton street. I noticed his manner was hurried and his look peculiar, as I gave him the usual salutation and a hearty grasp of the hand. As be moved away, I looked after him with mingled admiration and pity, until his faultless figure turned the corner and disappeared.
Ten minutes afterward he lay on the floor of his room dead, with a bullet through his brain, his hair dabbled in blood. At the funeral-service, in the little church on Pine street, strong men bowed their heads and sobbed. His wife sat on a front seat, pale as marble and as motionless, her lips compressed as with inward pain; but I saw no tears on the beautiful face. At the grave the body had been lowered to its resting-place, and all being ready, the attendants standing with uncovered heads, I was just about to begin the reading of the solemn words of the burial service, when a tall, blue-eyed man with gray side-whiskers pushed his way to the head of the grave, and in a voice choked with pa.s.sion, exclaimed:
”There lies as n.o.ble a gentleman as ever breathed, and he owes his death to that fiend!” pointing his finger at the wife, who stood pale and silent looking down into the grave.
She gave him a look that I shall never forget, and the large steely-blue eyes flashed fire, but she spoke no word. I spoke:
”Whatever maybe your feelings, or whatever the occasion for them, you degrade yourself by such an exhibition of them here.”
”That is so, sir; excuse me, my feelings overcame me,” he said, and retiring a few steps, he leaned upon a branch of a scrub-oak and sobbed like a child.
The farce and the tragedy of real life were here exhibited on another occasion. Among my acquaintances in the city were a man and his wife who were singularly mismatched. He was a plain, unlettered, devout man, who in a prayer-meeting or cla.s.s-meeting talked with a simple-hearted earnestness that always produced a happy effect.
She was a cultured woman, ambitious and worldly, and so fine-looking that in her youth she must have been a beauty and a belle. They lived in different worlds, and grew wider apart as time pa.s.sed by--he giving himself to religion, she giving herself to the world. In the gay city circles in which she moved she was a little ashamed of the quiet, humble old man, and he did not feel at home among them. There was no formal separation, but it was known to the friends of the family that for months at a time they never lived together. The fas.h.i.+onable daughters went with their mother. The good old man, after a short sickness, died in great peace. I was sent for to officiate at the funeral-service.
There was a large gathering of people, and a brave parade of all the externals of grief, but it was mostly dry-eyed grief, so far as I could see. At the grave, just as the sun that was sinking in the ocean threw his last rays upon the spot, and the first shovelful of earth fell upon the coffin that had been gently lowered to its resting-place, there was a piercing shriek from one of the carriages, followed by the exclamation:
”What shall I do? How can I live? I have lost my all! O! O! O!”
It was the dead man's wife. Significant glances and smiles were interchanged by the bystanders. Approaching the carriage in which the woman was sitting, I laid my hand upon her arm, looked her in the face, and said:
”Hus.h.!.+”
She understood me, and not another sound did she utter. Poor woman! She was not perhaps as heartless as they thought she was. There was at least a little remorse in those forced exclamations, when she thought of the dead man in the coffin; but her eyes were dry, and she stopped very short.
Another incident recurs to me that points in a different direction. One day the most noted gambler in San Francisco called on me with the request that I should attend the funeral of one of his friends, who had died the night before. A splendid-looking fellow was this knight of the faro-table. More than six feet in height, with deep chest and perfectly rounded limbs, jet black hair, brilliant black eyes, clear olive complexion, and easy manners, he might have been taken for an Italian n.o.bleman or a Spanish Don. He had a tinge of Cherokee blood in his veins. I have noticed that this cross of the white and Cherokee blood often results in producing this magnificent physical development. I have known a number of women of this lineage, who were very queens in their beauty and carriage. But this noted gambler was illiterate. The only book of which he knew or cared much was one that had fifty-two pages, with twelve pictures. If he had been educated, he might have handled the reins of government, instead of presiding over a nocturnal banking inst.i.tution.