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Georg Ebers - "Uarda, Volume 6."

W. H. Leathem - "The Comrade In White"

Archbishop Wake - "Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Volume 6, Clement"

Unknown - "The Number e"

Charlemont

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Charlemont




"The fact, sir. They go by no other name among themselves; and
you may suppose, if they are not ashamed of the name, they are not
unwilling to perform the doings of the devil. Indeed, they are busy
doing his business from morning to night--and night to morning.
They don't stop for the sabbath. They work on Sunday the same as
any other day, and if they take any rest at all it is on Saturday,
which would show them to be a kind of Jews."

"Good Lord deliver us!" ejaculated the widow.

"Where, O! where?" exclaimed the Brother Cross with similar earnestness.
The game was too pleasant for Alfred Stevens. He pursued it.

"In such cities," he continued, "as New York and Philadelphia,
thousands of these persons are kept in constant employ sending
forth those books of falsehood and folly which fill the hearts of
the young with vain imaginings, and mislead the footsteps of the
unwary. In one of these establishments, four persons preside, who
are considered brothers; but they are brothers in sin only, and
are by some supposed to be no other. They have called themselves
after the names of saints and holy men; even the names of the
thrice blessed apostles, John and James, have been in this fashion
abused; but if it be true that the spirits of evil may even in
our day as of old embody themselves in mortal shape for the better
enthralling and destruction of mankind, then should I prefer to
believe that these persons were no other than the evil demons who
ruled in Ashdod and Assyria. Such is their perseverance in evil--such
their busy industry, which keeps a thousand authors (which is but
another name for priests and prophets) constantly at work to frame
cunning falsehoods and curious devices, and winning fancies, which
when printed and made into books, turn the heads of the young and
unwary, and blind the soul to the wrath which is to come."

The uplifted hands of the widow Cooper still attested her wonder.

"Lord save us!" she exclaimed, "I should not think it strange
if Sister Thackeray had some of these very books. Do ask, Brother
Cross, when you go to see her. She speaks much of books, and I see
her reading them whenever I look in at the back window."

John Cross did not seem to give any heed to the remark of the old
woman. There was a theological point involved in one of the remarks of
Alfred Stevens which he evidently regarded as of the first importance.

"What you say, Alfred Stevens, is very new and very strange to me,
and I should think from what I already know of the evil which is
sometimes put in printed books, that there was indeed a spirit of
malice at work in this way, to help the progress and the conquests
of Satan among our blind and feeble race. But I am not prepared to
believe that God has left it to Satan to devise so fearful a scheme
for prosecuting his evil designs as that of making the demons
of Ashdod and Assyria take the names of mortal men, while teeming
to follow mortal occupations. It would be fearful tidings for our
poor race were this so. But if so, is it not seen that there is
a difference in the shapes of these persons. If either of these
brothers who blasphemously call themselves John and James, after
the manner of the apostles, shall be in very truth and certainty
that Dagon of the Philistines whom Jehovah smote before his altar,
will he not be made fishlike from the waist downward, and will
this not be seen by his followers and some of the thousands whom
he daily perverts to his evil purposes and so leads to eternal
destruction?"

"It may be that it is permitted to such a demon to put on what
shape he thinks proper," replied Stevens; "but even if it is not,
yet this would not be the subject of any difference--it would
scarcely prevent the prosecution of this evil purpose. You are to
remember, Mr. Cross--"

"John Cross--plain John Cross, Alfred Stevens," was the interruption
of the preacher.

"You are to remember," Stevens resumed, "that when the heart is full
of sin, the eyes are full of blindness. The people who believe in
these evil beings are incapable of seeing their deformities."

"That is true--a sad truth."

"And, again," continued Stevens, "there are devices of mere mortal
art, by which the deformities and defects of an individual may be
concealed. One of these brothers, I am told, is never to be seen
except seated in one position at the same desk, and this desk is
so constructed, as to hide his lower limbs in great part, while
still enabling him to prosecute his nefarious work."

"It's clear enough, Brother Cross," exclaimed the widow Cooper,
now thoroughly convinced--"it's clear enough that there's something
that he wants to hide. Lord help us! but these things are terrible."

"To the weak and the wicked, Sister Cooper, they are, as you say,
terrible, and hence the need that we should have our lamps trimmed
and lighted, for the same light which brings us to the sight of
the Holy of Holies, shows us the shape of hatefuless, the black
and crouching form of Satan, with nothing to conceal his deformity.
Brother Stevens has well said that when the heart is full of sin,
the eyes are full of blindness; and so we may say that when the
heart is full of godliness, the eyes are full of seeing. You can
not blind them with devilish arts. You can not delude them as to
the true forms of Satan, let him take any shape The eye of godliness
sees clean through the mask of sin, as the light of the sun pierces
the thickest cloud, and brings day after the darkest night."

"Oh! what a blessed thing to hear you say so."

"More blessed to believe, Sister Cooper, and believing, to pray
with all your heart for this same eye of godliness. But we should
not only pray but work. Working for God is the best sort of prayer.
We must do something in his behalf: and this reminds me, Sister
Cooper, that if there is so much evil spread abroad in these books,
we should look heedfully into the character of such as fall into
the hands of the young and the unmindful of our flock."

"That is very true; that is just what I was thinking of, Brother
Cross. You can not look too close, I'm thinking into such books as
you'll find at the house of Widow Thackeray. I can give a pretty
'cute guess where she gets all that sort of talk, that seems so
natural at the end of her tongue."

"Verily, I will speak with Sister Thackeray on this subject,"
responded the pastor--"but your own books, Sister Cooper, and those
of your daughter Margaret--if it is convenient, I should prefer to
examine them now while I am here."

"What! Margaret's books! examine Margaret's books!"

"Even so, while I am present and while Brother Stevens is here,
also, to give me his helping counsel in the way of judgment."

"Why, bless us, Brother Cross, you don't suppose that my daughter
Margaret would keep any but the properest books? she's too sensible,
I can tell you, for that. She's no books but the best; none, I'll
warrant you, like them you'll find at Widow Thackeray's. She's not
to be put off with bad books. She goes through 'em with a glance
of the eye. Ah! she's too smart to be caught by the contrivances
of those devils, though in place of four brothers there was four
thousand of 'em. No, no! let her alone for that--she's a match for
the best of 'em."

"But as Brother Stevens said," continued John Cross, "where sin
gets into the heart, the eye is blinded to the truth. Now--"

"Her eye's not blinded, Brother Cross, I can tell you. They can't
cheat her with their books. She has none but the very best. I'll
answer for them. None of them ever did me any harm; and I reckon
none of them'll ever hurt her. But I'm mistaken, if you don't have
a real burning when you get to Mrs. Thackeray's."

"But, Sister Cooper--" commenced the preacher.

"Yes, Brother Cross," replied the dame.

"Books, as I said before, are of two kinds."

"Yes, I know--good and bad--I only wonder there's no indifferent
ones among 'em," replied the lady.

"They should be examined for the benefit of the young and ignorant."

"Oh, yes, and for more besides, for Mrs. Thackeray's not young,
that's clear enough; and I know there's a good many things that
she's not ignorant of. She's precious knowing about many things
that don't do her much good; and if the books could unlearn her,
I'd say for one let her keep 'em. But as for looking at Margaret's
books--why, Brother Cross, you surely know Margaret?"

The preacher answered meekly, but negatively.

"Ain't she about the smartest girl you ever met with?" continued
the mother.

"God has certainly blessed her with many gifts," was the reply,
"but where the trust is great, the responsibility is great also."

"Don't she know it?"

"I trust she does, Sister Cooper."

"You may trust every bit of it. She's got the smartness, the same
as it is in books--"

"But the gift of talents, Sister Cooper, is a dangerous gift."

"I don't see, Brother Cross, how good things that come from God
can be dangerous things."

"If I could see the books, Sister Cooper;--I say not that they are
evil--"

John Cross began in tones that denoted something like despair;
certainly dissatisfaction was in them, when Alfred Stevens, who
had long since tired of what was going on, heard a light footfall
behind him. He turned his eyes and beheld the fair maiden, herself,
the propriety of whose reading was under discussion, standing in the
doorway. It appeared that she had gathered from what had reached
her ears, some knowledge of what was going on, for a smile of
ineffable scorn curled her classic and nobly-chiselled mouth, while
her brow was the index to a very haughty volume. In turning, Alfred
Stevens betrayed to her the playful smile upon his own lips--their
eyes met, and that single glance established a certain understanding
between them.

Her coming did not avail to stifle the subject of discussion. John
Cross was too resolute in the prosecution of his supposed duty, to
give up the cause he had once undertaken. He had all the inveteracy
of the stout old puritan. The usual introduction over and he resumed,
though he now addressed himself to the daughter rather than the
mother. She scarcely heard him to the end.

"The books were my father's, Mr. Cross; they are valuable to me
on that account. They are dear to me on their own. They are almost
my only companions, and though I believe you would find nothing in
them which might be held detrimental, yet I must confess, if there
were, I should be sorry to be made acquainted with the fact. I
have not yet discovered it myself, and should be loath to have it
shown by another."

"But you will let me see them, Margaret?"

"Yes, sir, whenever you please. I can have no objection to that,
but if by seeing them you only desire an opportunity to say what I
shall read and what not, I can only tell you that your labor will
be taken in vain. Indeed, the evil is already done. I have not a
volume which I have not read repeatedly."

It is needless to add that Brother Cross was compelled to forego his
book examination at the widow Cooper's, though strongly recommended
there to press it at Widow Thackeray's. Alfred Stevens was a mute
observer during the interview, which did not last very long after
the appearance of Margaret. He was confirmed in all his previous
impressions of her beauty, nor did the brevity of the conference
prevent him from perceiving her intense self-esteem, which under
certain influences of temperament is only another name for vanity.
Besides they had exchanged glances which were volumes, rendering
unnecessary much future explanation. She had seen that he was
secretly laughing at the simple preacher, and that was a source
of sympathy between them. She was very much in the habit of doing
the same thing. He, on the other hand, was very well satisfied
that the daughter of such a mother must be perverse and vain; and
he was moralist enough to know that there is no heart so accessible to
the tempter as the proud and wilful heart. But few words had passed
between them, but those were expressive, and they both parted, with
the firm conviction that they must necessarily meet again.






CHAPTER IX.

HOW THE TOAD GRINS UPON THE ALTAR.





Shall we go the rounds with our pastor? Shall we look in upon him
at Mrs. Thackeray's, while, obeying the suggestion of the widow
Cooper, he purges her library of twenty volumes, casting out the
devils and setting up the true gods? It is scarcely necessary.
Enough to know that, under his expurgatorial finger, our beloved
and bosom friend, William Shakspere, was the first to suffer.
Plays! The one word was enough. Some lying histories were permitted
to escape. The name of history saved them! Robinson Crusoe was
preserved as a true narrative; and Swift's Tale of a Tub escaped,
as it was assumed (there being no time to read any of the books,
and in this respect John Cross showed himself much more of a
professional critic than he conjectured) to be a treatise on one
branch of the cooperage business, and so, important to domestic
mechanics in a new country. The reader will remember the manner in
which the library of the knight of La Mancha was disposed of. He
would err, however, if he supposed that John Cross dismissed
the books from the window, or did anything farther than simply to
open the eyes of Mrs. Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the
company she kept. That sagacious lady did not think it worth while
to dispute the ipse dixit of a teacher so single-minded, if not
sagacious. She bowed respectfully to all his suggestions, promised
no longer to bestow her smiles on the undeserving--a promise of no
small importance when it is remembered that, at thirty-three, Mrs.
Thackeray was for the first time a widow--and that night she might
have been seen laughing heartily with Mesdames Ford and Quickly at
the amorous pertinacity of the baffled knight of Eastcheap.

Under the paternal wing of John Cross, Alfred Stevens obtained
the desired entree into the bosom of the flock. He was everywhere
admitted with gladness--everywhere welcomed as to a home; and the
unsophisticated old teacher by whose agency this was effected,
congratulated his congregation and himself, on leaving the village,
that he had left in it a person so full of grace, and one who,
with the blessing of God, was so likely to bring about the birth
of grace in others. The good old man bestowed long and repeated
counsels upon his neophyte. The course of study which he prescribed
was very simple. The Bible was the Alpha and the Omega--it was
the essential whole. It would be well to read other books if they
could be had--Clarke and Wesley were, of course, spoken of--but
they could be done without. The word of God was in the one volume,
and it needed no help from commentators to win its way and suffice
the hungering and thirsting soul.

"If you could lay hands upon the book of sermons written by Brother
Peter Cummins, which his wife had printed, I'm thinking it would
serve, next to God's own blessed word, to put you in the right way.
It's been a great helping to me, Alfred Stevens, that same book of
sermons; and, I reckon it's because it's so good a book that it's
not printed now. I don't see it much about. But I'll get you one
if I can, and bring or send it to you, soon enough to help you to
the wisdom that you're a seeking after. If it only wakes the spirit
in you as it did in me--if it only stirs you up with the spirit of
divine love--you'll find it easy enough to understand the teachings
of the holy volume. All things become clear in that blessed light.
By its help you read, and by its working you inwardly digest all
the needful learning. The Lord be with you, Alfred Stevens, and
bring to perfect ripening your present undertaking."

"Amen!" was the solemn response of the hypocrite, but we need not
say what an irreverent and unholy thought lay at the bottom of his
mind in making this ejaculation.

Before the departure of John Cross, the latter had made terms with
Squire Hinkley for the board and lodging of Brother Stevens and
his horse. Hinkley would have preferred taking nothing, considering
the praiseworthy purpose of the supposed theological student; but
Stevens shrunk from receiving such an obligation with a feeling
of pride, which yet had no scruples at practising so wretched an
imposture. He insisted upon making compensation, or upon leaving
the house; and, not to incur this risk, Hinkley consented to receive
a weekly sum in payment; but the charge was considerably smaller,
as we may suppose, than it would have been had the lodger simply
appeared as an inoffensive traveller, practising no fraud and making
no professions of religion.

Having effected all these arrangements, to his own satisfaction and
seemingly that of all others, John Cross departed once more into
the wilderness on his single-hearted ministry of love. A sturdy
and an honest worker was he in the tabernacle, with a right mind
if not a very wise one; and doing more good in his generation, and
after the fashion of his strength, than is often permitted to the
stall-fed doctors of his vocation.

The reader will suppose that the old man has been already gone some
seven days. Meanwhile, the young student has fairly made himself
at home in Charlemont. He has a snug room, entirely to himself, at
Squire Hinkley's, and, by the excellent care of the worthy dame, it
is provided with the best bedding and the finest furniture. Her
own hands sweep it clean, morning and night, for the incipient
parson; she makes up the bed, and, in customary phrase, puts it in
all respects to rights. His wants are anticipated, his slightest
suggestion met with the most prompt consideration; and John Cross
himself, humble and unexacting as he was, might have felt some
little twinges of mortal envy could he have known that his protege
promised to become a much greater favorite than himself.

This, indeed, seemed very likely to be the case. A good young
man in the sight of the ladies is always a more attractive person
than a good old man. Dame Hinkley, though no longer young herself,
remembered that she had been so, and preserved all her sympathies,
in consequence, for young people. She thought Alfred Stevens so
handsome, and he smiled so sweetly, and he spoke so genty, and,
in short, so great had been his progress in the affections of his
hostess in the brief space of a single week, that we are constrained
to confess ourselves rejoiced that she herself was an old woman,
as well on her own account as on that of her worthy spouse.

Her good man was very well satisfied, whether from confidence or
indifference, that such should be the case. Her attentions to the
young stranger probably diverted them from himself. But not so with
William Hinkley--the son. We have already had some glimpses of the
character of this young man. We may now add that the short week's
residence of Stevens in Charlemont had increased the soreness at
his heart. In that week he had seen fairly established that intimacy
between his rival and the lady of his love which seemed to give
the death-blow to any pretensions of his. He had seen them meet;
had seen them go forth together; beheld their mutual eyes, and,
turning his own inward, saw how deeply his heart was concerned
in the probable sympathies of theirs. Then, to turn to his own
habitation, and to behold THAT, mother and all, devoted to the same
absolute stranger; to pass unheeded in the presence of those whom
he best loved--over whom natural ties gave him inalienable rights;
to feel himself put aside for one only known of yesterday; to look
with yearning, and meet eyes only of disregard and indifference!
Such being the suggestions of his jealous and suffering nature, it
is surely no matter of wonder that the youth grew melancholy and
abstracted.

Our adventurer was snugly seated in the little but select chamber
which had been given him in the house of Squire Hinkley. A table,
neatly spread with a cotton cover, stood before him: a travelling-portfolio
was opened beneath his hand, with a broad sheet of paper, already
well written over, and waiting nothing but his signature, and perhaps
the postscript. He was absorbed unusually in his cogitations, and
nibbled into bits the feathery end of the gray goosequill of which he
had been making such excellent use. While he meditates, unseeing,
we will use the liberty of an old acquaintance to scan the letter--for
such it is--which he has been writing. Perhaps we shall gather from
it some matters which it may concern us yet to know:--

"Dear Barnabas: The strangest adventure--positively the very
strangest--that ever happened to a son of Murkey's, will keep me
from the embraces of the brethren a few weeks longer. I am benighted,
bewildered, taken with art-magic, transmuted, TRANSMOGRIFIED, not
myself nor yet another, but, as they say in Mississippi, 'a sort
of betweenity.' Fancy me suddenly become a convert to the bluest
presbyterianism, as our late excellent brother Woodford became,
when he found that he could not get Moll Parkinson on any other
terms--and your guess will not be very far from the true one. I
am suddenly touched with conviction. I have seen a light on my way
from Tarsus. The scales have fallen from my eyes. I have seen the
wickedness of my ways, and yours too, you dog; and, having resolved
on my own repentance, I am taking lessons which shall enable me to
effect yours. Precious deal of salt will it need for that! Salt river
will fall, while its value rises. But the glory of the thing--think
of that, my boy! What a triumph it will be to revolutionize
Murkey's!--to turnout the drinkers and smokers, and money-changers;
to say, 'Hem! my brethren, let us pay no more taxes to sin in this
place!' There shall be no more cakes and ale. Ginger shall have no
heat i' the mouth there; and, in place of smoking meats and tobacco,
give you nothing but smoking methodism! Won't that be a sight and
a triumph which shall stir the dry bones in our valley--ay, and
bones not so dry? There shall be a quaking of the flesh in sundry
places. Flam will perish in the first fit of consternation; and if
Joe Burke's sides do not run into sop and jelly, through the mere
humor of the thing, then prophecy is out of its element quite.

"Seriously, you dog, I have become a theological student! Don't you
see proofs of my progress in my unctuous phraseology. I was taken
suddenly upon the highway--a brand plucked from the burning--and to
be stuck up on high, still lighted, however, as a sort of lantern
and lighthouse to other wayfarers--wandering rogues like yourself,
who need some better lights than your own if it only be to show you
how to sin decently. I am professedly a convert to the true faith,
though which that is, I think, has not well been determined among
you at Murkey's, or, indeed, anywhere else. I believe the vox
populi, vox Dei, still comprises the only wholesome decision which
has yet been made on the subject. The popular vote here declares it
to be methodism; with you it is baptism or presbytenanism--which?
I am a flexible student, however, and when I meet you again at
Murkey's, shall be prepared to concur with the majority.

"But, in sober fact, I am a professor--actually recognised by
my neighbors as one of the elect--set apart to be and do mighty
things. How I came so, will call for a long story, which I defer
to another occasion. Enough to tell you that an accidental rencontre
with a silly old preacher (whose gullet I filled with raw brandy,
which I recommended to him, under another name, as a sovereign
remedy against flatulence, and which nearly strangled him he took
such a premeditated swallow), brought me into one of the loveliest
little villages in all this western country, and there I saw many
things--among others--a woman!--

"A woman!--that one word, you dog, will explain the mystery--will
show you why I am thus transmuted, TRANSMOGRIFIED, and in 'a state
of betweenity.' Nothing less, I assure you, could make me disguise
myself after the present fashion; wear the sanctimonious and sour
phiz which the common law of modern religion prescribes, and keep
me much longer from the pleasanter communion of such glorious
imps, as I suppose, are, even now, beginning to gather in the dingy
smoke-room of our sovereign Murkey. But this woman, you will ask.
Ay, ay, but you shall have no answer yet. It shall be enough for
you that she is a queen of Sheba, after her own fashion. A proud,
imperious, passionate creature--tall, really beautiful--and so
majestic! You should see the flashing of her eyes to know what sort
of a thing is moral lightning. Her face kindles up in an instant.
She is an intensifier, and like most such, cursedly smart. Young
too--scarce eighteen, I think; queer too--almost tyrannical at
times--but full of blood, of unregulated passions, moody, capricious,
and, of course, easy game, if the sportsman knows anything of
the habits of the bird. She is a country-girl, but no hoyden. Her
intensity of character, her pride and great self-esteem, have made
her a solitary. Unsophisticated in some respects, she is yet not
to be surprised. In solitude, and a taste for it, she has acquired
a sort of moral composure which makes her secure against surprise.
I am really taken with the girl, and COULD love her, I tell you--nay,
do love her--so long as love can keep himself--out of a state of
bondage! I do not think, at this moment, that I shall violate any
of the laws of the conventicle, like small-witted Brother Woodford;
though, so far as the woman is concerned, I should leave it without
argument to the free vote of all the Lads of Fancy that ever gather
round Murkey's round table, if my justification for turning traitor,
would not prove immeasurably more complete than his.

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