Charlemont

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The laughter was a quiet chuckle, not to be heard by vulgar ears;
it subsided in the gorges of his throat. The idea of really getting
up a sermon tickled him. He muttered over texts, all that he could
remember; and proceeded to turn over the phrases for an introduction,
such as, unctuous with good things in high degree, he fancied would
be particularly commendable to his unsuspecting hearers. Alfred
Stevens had no small talent for imitation, he derived a quiet sort
of pleasure, on the present occasion, from its indulgence.

"I should have made a famous parson, and, if all trades fail, may
yet. But, now that I am here, what's to come of it? It's not so
hard to put on a long face, and prose in scripture dialect; but,
cui bono? Let me see--hem! The girl is pretty, devilish pretty--with
such an eye, and looks so! There's soul in the wench--life--and
a passion that speaks out in every glance and movement. A very
Cressid, with a cross of Corinne! Should she be like her of Troy?
At all events, it can do no harm to see what she's made of!

"But I must manage warily. I have something to lose in the business.
Frankfort is but fifty miles from Charlemont--fifty miles--and
there's Ellisland, but fourteen. Fourteen!--an easy afternoon ride.
That way it must be done. Ellisland shall be my post-town. I can
gallop there in an afternoon, drop and receive my letters, and be
back by a round-about which shall effectually baffle inquiry. A
week or two will be enough. I shall see, by that time, what can be
done with her; though still, cautiously, Parson Stevens!--cautiously."

The farther cogitations of Stevens were subordinate to these, but
of the same family complexion. They were such as to keep him wakeful.
The Bible which had been placed upon his table, by the considerate
providence of his hostess, lay there unopened; though, more than
once, he lifted the cover of the sacred volume, letting it fall again
suddenly, as if with a shrinking consciousness that such thoughts
as at that moment filled his mind were scarcely consistent with
the employment, in any degree, of such a companion. Finally, he
undressed and went to bed. The hour had become very late.

"Good young man," muttered worthy Mrs. Hinkley to her drowsy
spouse, in the apartment below, as she heard the movements of her
guest-"good young man, he's just now going to bed. He's been studying
all this while. I reckon Brother Cross has been sound this hour."

The light from Stevens's window glimmered out over the cabbage-garden,
and was seen by many an ancient dame as she prepared for her own
slumbers.

"Good young man," said they all with one accord. "I reckon he's
at the Bible now. Oh! he'll be a blessed laborer in the vineyard,
I promise you, when Brother Cross is taken."

"If it were not for the cursed bore of keeping up the farce beyond
the possibility of keeping up the fun, such a rig as this would
be incomparably pleasant; but"--yawning--"that's the devil! I get
monstrous tired of a joke that needs dry nursing!"

Such were the last muttered words of Parson Stevens before he
yielded himself up to his slumbers. Good young man--charitable old
ladies--gullible enough, if not charitable! But the professions
need such people, and we must not quarrel with them!

CHAPTER VIII.

PAROCHIAL PERFORMANCES.

The poor, conceited blackguards of this ungracious earth have
a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in
nature, corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their
own little spheres. If we have a toothache, we look for a change
of weather; our rheumatism is a sure sign that God has made his
arrangements to give us a slapping rain; and, should the white
bull or the brown heifer die, look out for hail, or thunderstorm,
at least, as a forerunner of the event. Nothing less can possibly
console or satisfy us for such a most unaccountable, not to
say unnatural and unwarrantable, a dispensation. The poets have
ministered largely to this vanity on the part of mankind. Shakspere
is constantly at it, and Ben Jonson, and all the dramatists. Not
a butcher, in the whole long line of the butchering Caesars, from
Augustus down, but, according to them, died in a sort of gloom
glory, resulting from the explosion of innumerable stars and rockets,
and the apparitions of as many comets! "Gorgons, and hydras, and
chimeras dire," invariably announce the coming stroke of fate; and
five or seven moons of a night have suddenly arisen to warn some
miserable sublunarian that orders had been issued that there should
be no moon for him that quarter, or, in military and more precise
phrase, that he should have no "quarters" during that moon. Even our
venerable and stern old puritan saint, Milton--he who was blessed
with the blindness of his earthly eye, that he should be more
perfectly enabled to contemplate the Deity within--has given way to
this superstition when he subjects universal nature to an earthquake
because Adam's wife followed the counsels of the snake.

A pretty condition of things it would be, if stars, suns, and
systems, were to shoot madly from their spheres on such occasions!
Well might the devil laugh if such were the case! How he would chuckle
to behold globes and seas, and empires, fall into such irreverend
antics because some poor earthling, be he kingling or common sodling,
goes into desuetude, either by the operation of natural laws, or
the sharp application of steel or shot! Verily, it makes precious
little difference to the Great Reaper, by what process we finally
become harvested. He is sure of us, though no graves gape, no stars
fall, no comets rush out, like young colts from their stables,
flinging their tails into the faces of the more sober and pacific
brotherhood of lights. But, denied the satisfaction of chuckling
at such sights as these, his satanic majesty chuckles not the less
at the human vanity which looks for them. Nay, he himself is very
likely to suggest this vanity. It is one of his forms of temptation
--one of his manoeuvres; and we take leave, by way of warning, to
hint to those worthy people, who judge of to-morrow's providence
by the corns of their great toe, or their periodical lumbago, or
the shooting of their warts, or the pricking of their palms, that
it is in truth the devil which is at the bottom of all this, and
that the Deity has nothing to do in the business. It is the devil
instilling his vanities into the human heart, in that form which
he thinks least likely to prove offensive, or rouse suspicion. The
devil is most active in your affairs, Mrs. Thompson, the moment
you imagine that there must be a revolution on your account in the
universal laws of nature. At such a moment your best policy will be
to have blood let, take physic, and go with all diligence to your
prayers.

There was no sort of warning on the part of the natural to the
moral world, on the day when Alfred Stevens set forth with the
worthy John Cross, to visit the flock of the latter. There was
not a lovelier morning in the whole calendar. The sun was alone
in heaven, without a cloud; and on earth, the people in and about
Charlemont, having been to church only the day before, necessarily
made their appearance everywhere with petticoats and pantaloons
tolerably clean and unrumpled. Cabbages had not yet been
frost-bitten. Autumn had dressed up her children in the garments
of beauty, preparatory to their funeral. There was a good crop of
grain that year, and hogs were brisk, and cattle lively, and all
"looking-up," in the language of the prices current. This was long
before the time when Mr. M---- made his famous gammon speeches; but
the people had a presentiment of what was coming, and to crown the
eventful anticipations of the season, there was quite a freshet in
Salt river. The signs were all and everywhere favorable. Speculation
was beginning to chink his money-bags; three hundred new banks, as
many railways, were about to be established; old things were about
to fleet and disappear; all things were becoming new; and the serpent
entered Charlemont, and made his way among the people thereof,
without any signs of combustion, or overthrow, or earthquake.

Everybody has some tolerable idea of what the visitation of a
parson is, to the members of his flock. In the big cities he comes
one day, and the quarterly collector the next. He sits down with
the "gude wife" in a corner to themselves, and he speaks to her in
precisely the same low tones which cunning lovers are apt to use.
If he knows any one art better than another, it is that of finding
his way to the affections of the female part of his flock. A subdued
tone of voice betrays a certain deference for the party addressed.
The lady is pleased with such a preliminary. She is flattered again
by the pains he takes in behalf of her eternal interests; she is
pretty sure he takes no such pains with any of her neighbors. It
is a sign that he thinks her soul the most becoming little soul in
the flock, and when he goes away, she looks after him and sighs,
and thinks him the most blessed soul of a parson. The next week
she is the first to get up a subscription which she heads with her
own name in connection with a sum realized by stinting her son of
his gingerbread money, in order to make this excellent parson a
life-member of the "Zion African Bible and Missionary Society, for
disseminating the Word among the Heathen." The same fifty dollars
so appropriated, would have provided fuel for a month to the starving
poor of her own parish.

But Brother Cross gets no such windfalls. It is probable that he never
heard of such a thing, and that if he did, he would unhesitatingly
cry out, "Humbug," at the first intimation of it. Besides, his voice
was not capable of that modulation which a young lover, or a city
parson can give it. Accustomed to cry aloud and spare not, he
usually spoke as if there were some marrow in his bones, and some
vigor in his wind-bags. When he came to see the good wife of his
congregation, he gave her a hearty shake of the hand, congratulated
her as he found her at her spinning-wheel; spoke with a hearty
approbation, if he saw that her children were civil and cleanly;
if otherwise, he blazed out with proper boldness, by telling her
that all her praying and groaning, would avail nothing for her
soul's safety, so long as Jackey's breeches were unclean; and that
the mother of a rude and dirty child, was as sure of damnation, as
if she never prayed at all. He had no scruples about speaking the
truth. He never looked about him for the gentle, easy phrases, by
which to distinguish the conduct which he was compelled to condemn.
He knew not only that the truth must be spoken, and be spoken by
him, if by anybody, but that there is no language too strong--perhaps
none quite strong enough--for the utterance of the truth. But it must
not be supposed, that John Cross was in any respect an intolerant,
or sour man. He was no hypocrite, and did not, therefore, need to
clothe his features in the vinegar costume of that numerous class.
His limbs were put into no such rigid fetters as too often denote
the unnatural restraints which such persons have imposed upon their
inner minds. He could laugh and sing with the merriest, and though
he did not absolutely shake a leg himself, yet none rejoiced more
than he, when Ned Hinkley's fiddle summoned the village to this
primitive exercise.

"Now, Alfred Stevens," said he, the breakfast being over, "what
say'st thou to a visit with me among my people. Some of them know
thee already; they will all be rejoiced to see thee. I will show
thee how they live, and if thou shouldst continue to feel within
thee, the growing of that good seed whose quickening thou hast
declared to me, it will be well that thou shouldst begin early to
practise the calling which may so shortly become thine own. Here
mightest thou live a space, toiling in thy spiritual studies, until
the brethren should deem thee ripe for thy office; meanwhile, thy
knowledge of the people with whom thou livest, and their knowledge
of thee, would be matter of equal comfort and consolation, I trust,
to thee as to them."

Alfred Stevens expressed himself pleased with the arrangement.
Indeed, he desired nothing else.

"But shall we see all of them?" he demanded. The arch-hypocrite
began to fear that his curiosity would be compelled to pay a heavy
penalty to dullness.

"The flock is small," said John Cross. "A day will suffice, but I
shall remain three days in Charlemont, and some I will see to-day,
and some to-morrow, and some on the day after, which is Wednesday."

"Taken in moderate doses," murmured Stevens to himself, "one may
stand it."

He declared himself in readiness, and the twain set forth. The
outward behavior of Stevens was very exemplary. He had that morning
contrived to alter his costume in some respects to suit the situation
of affairs. For example, he had adopted that slavish affectation
which seems to insist that a preacher of God should always wear
a white cravat, so constructed and worn as to hide the tips of
his shirt collar. If they wore none, they would look infinitely
more noble, and we may add, never suffer from bronchitis. In his
deportment, Stevens was quite as sanctified as heart could wish.
He spoke always deliberately, and with great unction. If he had to
say "cheese and mousetrap," he would look very solemn, shake his
head with great gravity and slowness, and then deliberately and
equally emphasizing every syllable, would roll forth the enormous
sentence with all the conscious dignity of an ancient oracle. That
"cheese and mousetrap," so spoken, acquired in the ears of the hearer,
a degree of importance and signification, which it confounded them
to think they had never perceived before in the same felicitous
collocation of syllables. John Cross was not without his vanities.
Who is? Vanity is quite as natural as any other of our endowments.
It is a guaranty for amiability. A vain man is always a conciliatory
one. He is kind to others, because the approbation of others is a
strong desire in his mind. Accordingly, even vanity is not wholly
evil. It has its uses.

John Cross had his share, and Alfred Stevens soon discovered that
he ministered to it in no small degree. The good old preacher took
to himself the credit of having effected his conversion, so far as
it had gone. It was his hand that had plucked the brand from the
burning. He spoke freely of his protege, as well before his face as
behind his back. In his presence he dwelt upon the holy importance of
his calling; to others he dilated upon the importance of securing
for the church a young man of so much talent, yet of so much devotion:
qualities not always united, it would seem, among the churchlings
of modern times.

Alfred Stevens seemed to promise great honor to his teacher. That
cunning which is the wisdom of the worldling, and which he possessed
in a very surprising degree, enabled him to adopt a course of
conduct, look, and remark, which amply satisfied the exactions of
the scrupulous, and secured the unhesitating confidence of those
who were of a more yielding nature. He soon caught the phraseology
of his companion, and avoiding his intensity, was less likely to
offend his hearers. His manner was better subdued to the social
tone of ordinary life, his voice lacked the sharp twang of the
backwoods man; and, unlike John Cross, he was able to modulate it
to those undertones, which, as we have before intimated, are so
agreeable from the lips of young lovers and fashionable preachers.
At all events, John Cross himself, was something more than satisfied
with his pupil, and took considerable pains to show him off. He was
a sort of living and speaking monument of the good man's religious
prowess.

It does not need that we should follow the two into all the abodes
which they were compelled to visit. The reader would scarcely
conceal his yawns though Stevens did. Enough, that a very unctuous
business was made of it that morning. Many an old lady was refreshed
with the spiritual beverage bestowed in sufficient quantity to
last for another quarter; while many a young one rejoiced in the
countenance of so promising a shepherd as appeared under the name
of Alfred Stevens. But the latter thought of the one damsel only.
He said many pleasant things to those whom he did see; but his mind
ran only upon one. He began to apprehend that she might be among
the flock who were destined to wait for the second or last day's
visitation; when, to his great relief, John Cross called his
attention to the dwelling of the widow Cooper, to whom they were
fast approaching.

Stevens remarked that the dwelling had very much the appearance of
poverty--he did not fail to perceive that it lacked the flower-garden
in front which distinguished the greater number of the cottages in
Charlemont; and there was an appearance of coldness and loneliness
about its externals which impressed itself very strongly upon his
thoughts, and seemed to speak unfavorably for the taste of the
inmates. One is apt to associate the love of flowers with sweetness
and gentleness of disposition, and such a passion would seem
as natural, as it certainly would be becoming, to a young lady of
taste and sensibility. But the sign is a very doubtful one. Taste
and gentleness may satisfy themselves with other objects. A passion
for books is very apt to exclude a very active passion for flowers,
and it will be found, I suspect, that these persons who are most
remarkable for the cultivation of flowers are least sensible to the
charms of letters. It seems monstrous, indeed, that a human being
should expend hours and days in the nursing and tendance of such
stupid beauties as plants and flowers, when earth is filled with
so many lovelier objects that come to us commended by the superior
sympathies which belong to humanity. Our cities are filled with
the sweetest orphans--flowers destined to be immortal; angels in
form, that might be angels in spirit--that must be, whether for
good or evil--whom we never cultivate--whom we suffer to escape our
tendance, and leave to the most pitiable ignorance, and the most
wretched emergencies of want. The life that is wasted upon dahlias,
must, prima facie, be the life of one heartless and insensible,
and most probably, brutish in a high degree.

But Alfred Stevens had very little time for further reflection.
They were at the door of the cottage. Never did the widow Cooper
receive her parson in more tidy trim, and with an expression of
less qualified delight. She brought forth the best chair, brushed
the deerskin-seat with her apron, and having adjusted the old man
to her own satisfaction as well as his, she prepared to do a like
office for the young one. Having seated them fairly, and smoothed
her apron, and gone through the usual preliminaries, and placed
herself a little aloof, on a third seat, and rubbed her hands, and
struggled into a brief pause in her brisk action, she allowed her
tongue to do the office for which her whole soul was impatient.

"Oh, Brother Cross, what a searching sermon you gave us yesterday.
You stirred the hearts of everybody, I warrant you, as you stirred
up mine. We've been a needing it for a precious long time, I
tell you; and there's no knowing what more's a wanting to make us
sensible to the evil that's in us. I know from myself what it is,
and I guess from the doings of others. We're none of us perfect,
that's certain; but it's no harm to say that some's more and some's
not so perfect as others. There's a difference in sin, Brother
Cross, I'm a thinking, and I'd like you to explain why, and what's
the difference. One won't have so much, and one will have more; one
will take a longer spell of preaching, and half the quantity will
be a dose to work another out clean, entire. I'm not boastful for
myself, Brother Cross, but I do say, I'd give up in despair if I
thought it took half so much to do me, as it would take for a person
like that Mrs. Thackeray."

"Sister Cooper," said brother Cross, rebukingly, "beware of the
temptation to vain-glory. Be not like the Pharisee, disdainful
of the publican. To be too well pleased with one's self is to be
displeasing to the Lord."

"Oh, Brother Cross, don't be thinking that I'm over and above
satisfied with the goodness that's in me. I know I'm not so good.
I have a great deal of evil; but then it seems to me there's a
difference in good and a difference in evil. One has most of one
and one has most of another. None of us have much good, and all of
us have a great deal of sin. God help me, for I need his help--I
have my own share; but as for that Mrs. Thackeray, she's as full
of wickedness as an an egg's full of meat."

"It is not the part of Christianity, Sister Cooper," said John Cross
mildly, "to look into our neighbors' accounts and make comparisons
between their doings and our own. We can only do so at great risk
of making a false reckoning. Besides, Sister Cooper, it is business
enough on our hands, if we see to our own short-comings. As for Mrs.
Thackeray, I have no doubt she's no better than the rest of us, and
we are all, as you said before, children of suffering, and prone
to sin as certain as that the sparks fly upward. We must only watch
and pray without ceasing, particularly that we may not deceive
ourselves with the most dangerous sin of being too sure of our own
works. The good deeds that we boast of so much in our earthly day
will shrivel and shrink up at the last account to so small a size
that the best of us, through shame and confusion, will be only too
ready to call upon the rocks and hills to cover us. We are very
weak and foolish all, Sister Cooper. We can't believe ourselves
too weak, or too mean, or too sinful. To believe this with all our
hearts, and to try to be better with all our strength, is the true
labor of religion. God send it to us, in all its sweetness and
perfection, so that we may fight the good fight without ceasing."

"But if you could only hear of the doings of Mrs. Thackeray,
Brother Cross, you'd see how needful it would be to put forth all
your strength to bring her back to the right path."

"The Lord will know. None of us can hide our evil from the eyes
of the Lord. I will strive with our sister, when I seek her, which
will be this very noon, but it is of yourself, Sister Cooper, and
your daughter Margaret, that I would speak. Where is she that I
see her not?"

This was the question that made our quasi hierophant look up with
a far greater degree of interest than he had felt in the long and
random twattle to which he had been compelled to listen. Where was
she--that fair daughter? He was impatient for the answer. But he
was not long detained in suspense. Next to her neighbors there was
no subject of whom the mother so loved to speak as the daughter,
and the daughter's excellences.

"Ah! she is up-stairs, at her books, as usual. She does so love
them books, Brother Cross, I'm afraid it'll do harm to her health.
She cares for nothing half so well. Morning, noon, and night, all
the same, you find her poring over them; and even when she goes out
to ramble, she must have a book, and she wants no other company.
For my part I can't see what she finds in them to love so; for
except to put a body to sleep I never could see the use they were
to any person yet."

"Books are of two kinds," said Brother Cross gravely. "They are
useful or hurtful. The useful kinds are good, the hurtful kinds
are bad. The Holy Bible is the first book, and the only book, as
I reckon it will be the book that'll live longest. The 'Life of
Whitefield' is a good book, and I can recommend the sermons of that
good man, Brother Peter Cummins, that preached when I was a lad,
all along through the back parts of North Carolina, into South
Carolina and Georgia. I can't say that he came as far back into
the west as these parts; but he was a most faithful shepherd. There
was a book of his sermons printed for the benefit of his widow and
children. He died, like that blessed man, John Rogers, that we see
in the primer-books, leaving a wife with eleven children and one
at the breast. His sermons are very precious reading. One of them
in particular, on the Grace of God, is a very falling of manna in
the wilderness. It freshens the soul, and throws light upon the
dark places in the wilderness. Ah! if only such books are printed,
what a precious world for poor souls it would be. But they print
a great many bad books now-a-days."

The natural love of mischief which prevailed in the bosom of Alfred
Stevens now prompted him to take part in the conversation at this
happy moment. The opportunity was a tempting one.

"The printers," said he, "are generally very bad men. They call
themselves devils, and take young lads and bring them up to their
business under that name!"

The old lady threw up her hands, and John Cross, to whom this
intelligence was wholly new, inquired with a sort of awe-struck
gravity--

"Can this be true, Alfred Stevens? Is this possible?"

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