Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

“Presently, dears, but I want to have a little chat with your mothers first. Seen the newcomers yet, any of you? I mean those city people the Dawsons.”

“Yes,” said Miss Susan Bitterly, a staid single lady of no particular age. “I saw them both as I passed by their place yesterday, and can’t say I saw any thing particularly desirable about either of them. They say she has a piano. I wonder what she expects to do with it here?”

“Well, for my part,” said Mrs. Hardmoney, the portly wife of a well-to-do farmer in the neighborhood, “I don’t see what farmers’ wives have to do with them there sort of things. When I was a girl, we were taught another guess matter than to sit thumping pianys all day.”

“I think you’re rather hard on the poor young thing,” said kind, motherly Mrs. Holmes, as she smoothed down carefully her best dress, which she wore in honor of the occasion; “it must certainly be a hard thing for her to come to such a change, after having had every thing so comfortable about her all her life.”

“Well, for my part,” said Miss Chatterton, “I quite pity her. And they say she’s such a dear, sweet little thing – yes, children, I’ll be with you presently – and all the fault of her husband. Not that I ever heard she complained of him. By the way, Mrs. Holmes, how’s your husband’s rheumatism to-day? I’ve heard of a new remedy for it. Ah! my dear Mrs. Brown,” she added, turning to another of the party, “I saw Henry Cole only yesterday, and he told me they were all well at his father’s. But, as I was saying, they say it was all his fault – ”

“Maggie, are you never going to tell us that story?”

“Yes, dears, presently, when I’ve done here. Yes, she is quite a dear little thing, and Sally Irish, who lives with them, you know, says she’s so good and so gentle, and goes about every thing so nicely and so pleasantly, that she has quite won Sally’s heart already, and that, you know, is not very easy to do. It was only a day or two after they moved up, before they had got all fixed to rights, that she came up to Sally, who was washing out some things, and said to her, as she held out a bundle of nice muslins – ‘Do, Sally, please wash these out for me this time, and I will stand by whilst you do it and learn how, and then, you know, another time I can do it myself, and perhaps, in time, I may learn to do it almost as well as you, Sally.’”

“Well, I am glad to hear she’s not so set up with her piany and such nicknakeries as to be above being willing to help herself some. When I heard what a heap of help they had down there, I thought sure as how they were going to bring all their city notions as well as their piany down here into the country.”

“Why, what harm can there be in a piano,” said the oldest of the Holmes girls, before whose eyes visions of a boarding-school, and a piano, and such like things had been for some time dancing; “I can’t see what harm there can be in having a piano. For my part I think it must be very nice, and I mean to go over and see that dear, pretty Mrs. Dawson, and perhaps she will play on hers for me.”

“No doubt she will, my dear,” said Miss Susan Bitterly; “accomplished ladies like her when they’re settled down among such barbarians as we, are glad to find some one as accomplished as yourself with whom to associate.”

A tart reply arose to Susan Holmes’ tongue, but an opportune look from her mother arrested it.

“I should think,” resumed Mrs. Hardmoney, “that their help would eat up all they make at any time. The Gilbert farm was never a very profitable one, and this man, Dawson, they say, knows nothing about farming. He’s hired Sara Bromley and Jim Clodpole to work on the place. Sam told my old man he was to have a kind of management of things, for Dawson hardly knew the tines of the fork from the handle. We all know that Sam is a managing fellow, and if he don’t contrive to get more out of the place than Dawson, I’m mistaken.”

“I think you do Sam injustice,” said Mrs. Holmes. “Mr. Holmes told me that Mr. Dawson came to see him about hiring Sam, and that he took him on his recommendation. Dawson is to pay him high wages, but Sam is a smart hand, and if Dawson will only keep his eyes open, he may learn a good deal from him.”

“One thing is very certain,” broke in our friend, Miss Chatterton – “I shall go see her as soon as she’s fixed, and I hope all the neighbors will. From what Sally Irish told me, I’m sure she is not a bit uppish, but will be glad to see us all. And you know, Mrs. Holmes, you can give her some of your nice recipes for country dishes, and teach her so many things, if you choose, about managing her dairy, and I am certain, from what Sally says, she will be much obliged to you for doing so.”

“Well, my dear,” said the lady, addressed, “I have been thinking about it for some time, only I thought perhaps she would not care to have any visitors until she got quite settled and began to feel quite at home. It was only to-day Mr. Holmes told me he thought it would be neighborly for me to go, and he was sure she would take it quite kindly. Mr. Dawson and he are quite sociable, and he often drops in to see how things are getting on as he goes by, and Mr. Dawson consults with him a good deal about things and is quite thankful to him for his advice.”

Mr. Holmes was one of the principal men in that part of the world. In addition to the very fine farm on which he lived, he was the owner of two or three others, and had some very comfortable snug sums invested in mortgages, and some stocks. Mr. Holmes’ opinion on any subject was then that of a man entitled to be heard, for it is astonishing what an additional force of wisdom those little things called dollars, when counted in tens of thousands, and especially in hundreds of thousands, lend to their possessor. Should it chance that they should mount into millions, Solomon himself, could he revisit the earth, would not be more regarded than are their fortunate possessors – their words are cherished as the very oracles of wisdom, and their breath is as it were the divine afflatus – men who possess them may pass their lives without contributing in the slightest degree to the comfort or happiness of their fellow men, the very incarnation of selfish avarice; but should they after their death, unable to carry it with them, build and endow an hospital, a college or a library, their names immediately ascend to heaven in grateful pæans for their wondrous bounties, and they live in brick and marble for ages, whilst those whose lives have been past in one constant act of beneficence to their fellows, sink into their graves and are forgotten in a month.

Mr. Holmes’ opinions then, were of weight in the circle in which he moved, and his good lady re-echoing them, they bore down all feeling which the natural rancor of Miss Bitterly and the contracted views of Mrs. Hardmoney might have engendered in the breasts of the females around, against our sweet Maria. None of them had yet seen her; she had not been a month in their neighborhood, but they all had heard something good about her, and after wondering why the Dawsons had not yet been seen in any place of worship, and whether they didn’t mean to go, and if they did which – the conversation turned into other channels, and Maggie Chatterton at last yielded to the solicitations of the children to go over into their corner and tell them “that nice story.”

The village of Euston, though numbering less than a thousand inhabitants, was well supplied with places of public worship, for, as we have said, it was surrounded by a populous neighborhood. First, stood the old and venerable brick building, destitute of any ornament, unless the glazed ends of the blue-colored bricks scattered profusely through the walls could be called such, with its small, venerable porch. The building was, however, becoming too large for the worshipers, or rather the worshipers were becoming too few for the building, for the great dissension, some years previous, which rent the society in twain had reached here, and a large number had gone off to seek another building other than that in which, in contemplative silence, their sires and grandsires before them had worshiped. Then came the Baptists and Methodists, in their almost equally plain buildings but with large congregations, and the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, with more pretending buildings but much fewer numbers, brought up the rear.

It was not from want of a chance that the Protestant could not worship, and the number of emigrants in the neighborhood was so small that the chapel of the Roman Catholic had not yet appeared. Before removing to the country Dawson and his wife had been regular attendants on every Sunday morning, or at least on every not very wet or stormy Sunday morning, at a church of the Episcopal denomination. They went, especially the gentleman, more from a feeling that it was a tribute rendered to propriety than from any other motive. Not that he was an irreligious man; he was simply a careless one. Of religion in the abstract, he professed when he spoke of it, which was very seldom, great respect. He had never been led off either by reading or the influence of companionship to any thing beyond simple indifference. He saw that those who were called “religious people” – “church members” – most of them declined frequenting the opera, or the theatre, or ball-room. He could not understand this – he could not comprehend why what he considered the innocent pleasures of life were to be thus given up. It is true he often met these very persons in the concert-room, or at what he thought very large parties, provided there was no dancing – he could not understand those which he considered distinctions without a difference, except that the music of the concert-room would be improved by scenic representations in costume, or that the scandal of the tea-party might be advantageously broken in upon by the music of the dance. This was the reasoning of one who merely regarded the surface – beyond this he had not penetrated. Religion itself, as a vital, soul-giving principle, he had never studied. A large portion of the Bible was familiar to him – he admired the psalms of David for their exquisite pathos and simplicity – the sublimity of Isaiah, and the mournful imagery of Jeremiah had touched his fancy, but his heart had been unmoved, either by these or the gentle teachings and lofty morality of the New Testament. He read the Bible as he did the works of other great authors, to please his fancy, his imagination, but not as the Book in which choice of life and death, the mode of attaining the one and avoiding the other, is offered to mankind. Maria, like most women, possessed deeply religious sensibilities. The Bible was not to her a sealed book, and she was unconsciously most probably to herself, much influenced in her actions by its teachings. But her mode of life and that of her husband had not been such as to allow it to make any very deep impression on her. Had one charged her with being deficient in religious feeling she would have shrunk back from it with horror. But, in very truth, though the germs may have been planted in her heart, the requisite sun and rain had not yet reached them to mature them. With such views, they had not hastened their motions churchward, and, since their removal, were under some feeling of embarrassment at a first meeting with a congregation all strangers to them.

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CHAPTER V

On the Sunday succeeding the tea-party at Mrs. Holmes’, our hero and heroine solved the problem in regard to their church-going by appearing in the Episcopal church at Euston. Thus it was settled that they did intend to go to church, and also where they intended to go; two very important points for the gossips of the neighborhood. Mr. Dawson had called on the church-warden to obtain a pew a day or two before; the fact was duly communicated to his wife, and by her to some of the ladies of the congregation, so that when the Sunday morning arrived the new comers were duly expected. She would of course be dressed in her best silk dress, made in newest fashion; and her hat of the same material, would also be a glass in which the ladies of Euston could mould their own. Great was the surprise of sundry good ladies, who cast furtive glances over their shoulder, when a young lady of graceful mien and carriage, and who could be no other than the expected one, followed the warden, who politely pointed out their seats to the strangers, up the aisle. Attired in a simple, white muslin dress, with a plain straw hat, slightly trimmed with green ribbon, Maria, holding her little boy by the hand, disappointed expedition. There was no time for criticism, for immediately after the clergyman entered the desk, and as there was no grand preliminary flourish by the organ of some favorite aria from Rossini or Bellini, the services commenced.

They were conducted with an earnest fervor which chained and held the attention of all. There was no attempt at display, but the lofty and sublime beauty of the liturgy was brought out in all its force by the heartfelt utterance of the speaker. The congregation soon seemed to enter into the spirit of the rector. The responses were deep and fervent – the music, plain and unaccompanied by an instrument, seemed to the new arrivers, joined in as it was by the whole congregation, as more expressive of deep devotion than the more finished efforts of the choir, accompanied by a superb instrument, to which they had been accustomed. The sermon which followed was in keeping with what had passed. It was a plain, practical discourse on our duties here as connected with our state hereafter. There was no eloquence, but much earnestness – the sentences were not rounded and polished to the highest elegance of finish, but brief and pithy, and the language strong and nervous, went directly home to the heart and conscience. Although devoid of ornament, it was entirely free from any thing like commonplace, and proclaimed the utterer to be no commonplace man. A few months only settled in the place, he had already made a forcible impression on his people, as was apparent from their manner both during the prayers and the sermon.

Mr. Stapleton was indeed no ordinary man. His talents were more than usually fall to the common herd. They had been highly cultivated, and would fit him to adorn any position to which he might be called. His ambition was, however, to do good to his fellow man. To this all the energies of his mind and heart were directed. Holding sincerely to the distinctive principles of his own denomination, he could yet see in every man a brother. The road to heaven was not in his opinion over one narrow plank, which alone must be trodden in conformity with the creeds and synods of certain men in order to reach it. In his preaching as in his practice, it was justification by faith in a crucified Redeemer who died to save all who sincerely trusted in him. Where disease and sorrow were, there was the rector found – nor were his attentions confined to those who were called of his own denomination – it was enough for him to know that pain or suffering existed to draw him to its home. In humble imitation of his Divine Master, “he went about doing good.” The effects of this were already apparent in many cases – universal respect and esteem awaited him whenever he approached – the careless, the indifferent, the profane, all awarded to him a consistency of life and conduct in keeping with the doctrines and principles he enforced. The influence of such a life in a man placed in such a situation could not but be felt in the surrounding community, and especially among those whose spiritual guide he was – accordingly, already the fruits of it were beginning to be shown in a deeper, and more earnest spirit of devotion in his congregation. Their attendance on the regular services of the church was more numerous and more regular; increasing attention was given by them to the spiritual education of their children through the medium of the Sunday-schools into which he had breathed a renewed vitality.

Yet with all his energy and devotedness in his sacred calling Mr. Stapleton was no bigot, no ascetic. In the social circle no one contributed more largely to the entertainment and amusement of those around him. He took an active interest in the temporal affairs of those among whom he lived – he had a keen relish for the innumerable blessings with which God has strewed our pathway through life, recommending the use, but strongly deprecating the abuse of them; in a word, inculcating both by precept and example temperance in all things.

Such was the man upon whose ministrations the hero and heroine of our tale now for the first time attended. They were unknown to him except by reputation, their former history being familiar to him, and fear of intrusion having thus long deterred him from seeking an acquaintance, which must have been most agreeable to a man of as cultivated a mind and refined taste as his. Now, however, that they had enrolled themselves among his parishioners, the case was different, and in the discharge of his pastoral duties he could seek them out with propriety. This was accordingly done, and Dawson and his wife felt pleasure that among those who were likely to be their future life associates there was one so refined in taste, so cultivated in intellect, so gentlemanly in manner as their pastor. Nor was the pastor on his side less pleased. The charms of conversation with persons of refined taste and cultivation were a source of positive pleasure to him, and of relief to a mind worn by study and anxiety. The lighter literature in which Dawson delighted was not unknown to him, and from the shelves of his new friend (the “back-parlor” had been transformed into the “library”) he could obtain authors of rare merit which his own library did not afford. Maria’s piano and voice were always put into requisition at the pastor’s call, and thus in a comparatively short time an intimacy was established, which under other circumstances would in all probability have only been brought about in months, if not in years.

Let it not be supposed, however, that in his intercourse with the Dawsons, Mr. Stapleton ever lost sight of the great object of his life – the salvation of the souls of his fellow-men. The greater his intimacy became, the more he found himself the habitual frequenter of the house of his new friends, the deeper became his interest, the more anxious his desire to raise their thoughts from the concerns of time to those of eternity. Gradually and gently would he lead the conversation into channels which enabled him to dwell more and more on the thoughts that were nearest and dearest to himself. He found attentive listeners. There were no doubts of a sceptical kind to be overcome. Both Dawson and Maria yielded a belief of the head to all the doctrines of Christianity, to which they had been accustomed to listen from their childhood. With her, too, as she had increased in years, had – in her more thoughtful moments – increased an earnest respect for the precepts which were familiar to her. In the midst of all her former gaiety and splendor, she not unfrequently felt that she was created for some higher and nobler purpose than to pass her life in the frivolities of which she was the center. An aching void, filled – as she thought – first, by her husband, and then still fuller by her children, she could not but at times experience, as who of us has not. Stapleton now showed her that even these cherished objects of affection were not sufficient. These ties death might rend asunder – the cherished objects might be wrested from her, at any rate, for a season; but, that there was one, to whom, if she gave her affections, He never would part from her. To do this, it was not necessary for her to abate one iota of her domestic feelings – the love for those on earth and for Him in heaven were not only compatible with each other, but would actually increase the purity and devotion of each.

So sped away the fall and winter. The new comers had become perfectly at home in their new position. Many and various had been the neighborly calls upon them, which had been duly returned. Strange was the contrast between their new and old acquaintances in much of the outward forms of society, but they both found that beneath these plainer exteriors were frequently met with hearts as large and pure, and minds as strong and vigorous, if not as polished and cultivated, as those to which they had been accustomed. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had been invaluable adjuncts to both. The former had conveyed many an useful piece of practical knowledge to Dawson, who had entered on his new pursuits with a fixed determination to succeed, and with his mind unfettered by any of those prejudices arising from the fact that “his father had done so before him,” or that “it was the practice in their neighborhood,” was enabled to avail himself of all the improvements which modern skill and the experience of others now bring to the aid of the tiller of the soil. His life was passed in an even, quiet tenor. If his meals were not as luxurious as they once had been, labor of some kind gave to them a most excellent relish, and no butter was ever so good as that which he now ate, for the hands of Maria had made it; no pastry so light and delicious, for the same fair hands had prepared it; no bread so sweet, for she had kneaded it herself; and her light cakes, a recipe from Mrs. Holmes, were pronounced equal to those of that thrifty lady, whose housewifery was the theme of admiration the country round. Thus they conformed themselves to their circumstances; and, in so doing, enjoyed the many blessings Heaven still reserved for them. The children had thriven apace. Harry had learned not only to take care of himself without the assistance of Mrs. Harris and Jenny, but aspired to take charge of the cows, also; being never so happy as when permitted to assist in driving them to and from the pasture-grounds. Little Maria’s great delight, too, was to feed the “chickes,” and baby, left to roll about a good deal by itself, was fast attaining that happy period, when it is its glorious privilege to waddle up and down stairs alone, to the imminent danger of its own neck, and the perpetual alarm of all careful mammas.

But had the true seed sown by Mr. Stapleton produced no fruit during this time? – It had. An increased and more earnest attention to those things of which he spake was seen on the part of both Dawson and his wife. The mode of operation on their minds and hearts was different. He reasoned – she felt. With the almost unerring instinct of the female character she had reached her conclusions, whilst her husband was deliberating with slower reason. She felt that here was the something which was to fill that aching void in her heart, which, despite her ardent affection for her husband and children, she had long felt there. With her usual prompt determination she acted. She communicated her resolves to her husband, whose only reply was a warmer, more fervent kiss than usual. Thus sanctioned by her husband, in the early spring she made a public confession of her faith by joining in that communion a remembrance of a Saviour’s love from which she had before abstained.

Let it not, however, be supposed that this was the result of sudden and hasty determination. Many and earnest were her communings with her own mind. Long and earnest had been her conversations with Mr. Stapleton – attentive and careful her perusal of the sacred volume; and when, at last, after frequent and fervent prayer to God, for enlightenment and guidance, she fully determined to pursue the path she had considered, she felt her heart lightened of a load, and the peace of mind which the world can neither give nor take away.

One care now oppressed her – one desire actuated her: it was that her husband should also join with her in her new profession. To obtain this end was now her constant aim. Fervently did she address her prayers to God for such a consummation. Earnest and loving were her conversations with him. His head and his mind were (she knew) right; but his heart had been untouched. Well she knew, that for her sake he would do almost any thing – but for his own sake it was that the devoted wife, leaning upon his arm as they sometimes rambled together, or, at other times, with her hand resting in his pressed her gentle pleadings upon him. She opened for him such passages of the sacred volume as she thought most suited for him, and then, not unfrequently, retiring to the privacy of her own chamber would throw herself upon her knees, and pour out all her full, gushing soul to God in earnest prayer, that he would touch the heart of her husband and bring him to Him. (God answereth prayer.) Nor were hers in vain; and, oh! who could tell the unutterable joy of that fond heart when, at last, pressing her fondly to his heart, he avowed his determination to join her, on the following Sunday, in an open profession of his Saviour before men, adding —