Part 29 (1/2)

”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.