CHAPTER XV.
WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH.
When Mr. Townsend came home from his store, after learning that a total wreck of his affairs had taken place, his mind was fully made up to shrink away like a coward from his duties and responsibilities in life, and not only leave his family helpless, friendless, and destitute, but entail upon them the keenest affliction. His hope in life was gone. He felt that there was an unseen, but all-potent and malignant power, whose anger he had by some means invoked; and, to fly from its persecutions, he resolved to end his earthly existence.
Not long after Eunice went up to her chamber, he came in and retired to his own room, firm in the purpose he had conceived. The more he thought about it, the more desirable did it seem as a means of relief. It would end at once and forever these hopeless struggles, and free him from burdens and responsibilities he was unable to bear. The death pangs would be but brief, and nothing in comparison to the anguish of mind he was enduring. Of what was beyond the dark bourn of time, he did not permit himself to think. It seemed to him as if there were nothing beyond, except what was dreamy and indistinct—as if he would sink into a lethargic calm, which would be heaven when compared with his present wild state of suffering.
“Has father come home yet?” suddenly fell upon his ears in the low, sweet voice of Eunice, speaking close by the door of his chamber.
He did not hear the reply, which was uttered in a lower tone. But the question, asked with such an expression of affectionate interest as it was, made his heart bound with a tender impulse. At the same time, his hand, which had just sought, in his pocket, the vial containing the fatal drug, was slowly withdrawn without accomplishing the mission upon which it had been sent.
“Has father come home yet?” He could not get the words out of his ears, nor the loving tones in which they were uttered.
“God bless the child!” he murmured, as thoughts of her and all she had done to lighten the burdens he had been called upon to bear, pressed themselves upon his mind. His meditated purpose was gone. He could not effect it then; that was impossible. The tones of his daughter’s voice had filled his mind with her presence, and in that presence he could not consummate the dreadful act he had meditated.
A few moments only passed, before there was a gentle tap at his door. To his reluctant “come in,” Eunice entered, and approached her father, who was seated in a remote part of the room. The expression of his face startled her. It was deeply depressed, but there was in it something more than depression.
“Dear father!” she said, as she drew close to his side, “you are in trouble. I have seen it for some time. Has all gone wrong again? Have your efforts failed?”
“Yes,” he replied, speaking with great bitterness, “all has gone wrong, and this hour I am a beggar!”
Eunice could with difficulty refrain from abandoning herself to tears at this announcement, made in such a despairing voice. But, by an effort, she controlled herself, and stood, for some time, silent by the side of her father. She could not trust herself to speak for more than the space of a minute. At last, she said,
“Others have met with as great misfortunes, and have passed through them; and so can we. Keep a brave heart, father; all will yet be well! It is possible for us to live at far less than our present expense. We can be just as happy in a smaller house; just as happy on a greatly reduced income.”
“But all is gone, Eunice! I have nothing. By a failure that occurred in the city, a short time ago, I lost every dollar that I had. And now I am done! To struggle is hopeless!”
“Oh, say not that!” replied Eunice, with energy. “Say not that! The darkest hour is just before the break of day. Hopeless? Oh, no! There is no condition in life so depressed that hopelessness need accompany it. How truly has it been said, that ‘despair is never quite despair.’ In this last and severest of all your trials, while every thing is dark around you, let me say, be of good cheer. We will stand by your side; we will hold up your hands; we will be cheerful in all extremities—nay, more, we will work with our own hands, if need be; others have to do it, and it will be no harder for us.”
In her enthusiasm, the beautiful face of the girl became almost radiant, and her father felt her presence like that of an angel.
“My dear child,” he said, in a voice all tremulous with emotion, “you come to me in my darkest moments, a spirit of comfort, and speak words of hope when I am sinking in despair. For this, if for nothing else, I should be thankful to heaven—and I am thankful!”
The strong man bowed his head, and though he struggled hard with his feelings, the tears gushed from his eyes.
“Dear father,” said Eunice, as soon as both had grown calm, for her tears mingled with those of her parent, “from heaven we receive every thing; and all that comes from heaven is good. Even reverses and afflictions are good, for they come as correctives of something in us that is evil, and whatever is evil causes unhappiness. Is it not good to have the causes of unhappiness removed, even if we suffer pain in the removal? We have spiritual diseases as well as natural diseases, and pain attends the one as well as the other, and both would produce death if not expelled. How beautifully has Mr. Carlton, over and over again, set this forth! Is it not better, far better, to lose our worldly goods, and to suffer in our natural feelings, if thereby we attain to spiritual riches, and are blessed with that deep peace, which the world gives not, neither can take away?”
“May that deep peace be your reward, Eunice,” returned Mr. Townsend, in a softened tone; “and it will be. Heaven would be unjust if you were wretched. You are the spirit of good in our family; the righteous in our city; and for your sake all will not be destroyed. I feel it. I will hope for a morning dawn upon this thick darkness.”
“It will dawn, father! Trust that it will; though not for my sake,” returned Eunice. “But we must be faithful in a wise disposition of what we have. We must be patient, industrious, prudent, and hopeful, and after the trial hour passes, the light will come.”
But little that Eunice said had been in her mind to say. She had not conned over a form of address to her father, but had come, with a loving heart, in the hope of saying something that would lift his mind above the trouble by which it was oppressed. She had spoke, as the Spirit gave her utterance—the spirit of yearning filial affection; and her words were true and eloquent, because they came from an over-full heart. And coming from the heart, they reached the heart, and their effect was good.
“Say nothing of all this, Eunice,” Mr. Townsend said, after his mind had grown calm, and his thoughts began to move in a healthier circle. “You have inspired me to a new trial. To-morrow, instead of abandoning all, hopelessly, I will make an effort to sustain myself.”
“And you will not conceal from me the result, even if it prove unsuccessful?”
“No, Eunice; you deserve my full confidence, and you shall have it.”
“Even if you continue in business, it will be reduced very much,” the daughter said, “after this entire loss of all your capital; and the profits will not meet our present expenses.”
“I fear not, Eunice;” and Mr. Townsend looked troubled.
“Therefore, we must live at a less expense.”
“But how can we? To me it is inconceivable.”
“Though not to me,” said Eunice, smiling. “We are now paying four hundred dollars for rent; half of this we may at least save, by going farther from the centre of the city, and taking a still smaller house. We must not think of appearances, father, but of what it is right for us to do.”
“Appearances, child!” returned the father; “I have long since ceased to care for them. But I do not think you could be comfortable in so small a house.”
“Such a house would be a paradise compared to this, if it brought peace of mind and a clear conscience, while this did not.”
“Two hundred dollars would be something; but not all we may be compelled to reduce. I have not much hope in the results of a business, so crippled for want of means as mine will be, even if it should be continued.”
“Much, very much more may be reduced,” said Eunice, confidently; “leave that to Eveline and me. Only let us know exactly the state of your affairs, and I am sure we will be able to sustain all by our mutual exertions.”
Far more cheerful than it had been for weeks, was the face of Mr. Townsend, when he met his family at the tea-table that evening. As soon as an opportunity for doing so occurred, with an inward shudder at the dreadful act he had contemplated, he destroyed the poisonous drug with which he had resolved to take his own life. As he did so, the image of Eunice arose in his mind, and he murmured, half audibly,
“My saviour!”
When Mr. Townsend went to his store on the next morning, he was surprised to find all the letters of notification to consignors and creditors, which he had written the day before, lying upon his desk.
“I am very sorry, sir,” said his clerk, “but I forgot entirely to throw these letters into the post-office last evening. I hope nothing serious will result from the delay.”
“It’s as well,” returned Mr. Townsend, suppressing any exhibition of feeling with an effort. “Circumstances have occurred that render it unnecessary to send them.”
“How providential!” was his mental ejaculation, as he turned from his clerk; and gathering up the letters, thrust them into his desk.
This was, perhaps, the first time in his life that his heart had felt and acknowledged the hand of a Divine Providence in any thing, and the acknowledgment, in this case, was more instinctive than rational. But the utterance in his mind of the word, and the involuntary acknowledgment of a “Providence,” came immediately into the perception of his thoughts, and transferred them from the incident of the letters, to that involving a matter of infinitely greater importance—no less than the salvation of his life itself. A shudder passed through every nerve, as he closed his eyes, and in the silence of a deeply thankful heart, acknowledged, rationally as well as feelingly, the Divine hand in what had occurred.
At that moment a light broke in upon his mind; a feeble light that only revealed all things that it fell upon indistinctly, but, by it he could see better than he had ever before seen, the nature of the ground upon which he was standing—the unsatisfying character of all mere natural things, and the priceless value of spiritual qualities and endowments, such as his daughter Eunice possessed. Sustained by them, a young and feeble girl, who had not been enough in the world to feel its rough contact or learn its selfish wisdom, was able to hold up the hands of a strong man, bowed down and helpless from the pressure of misfortune. Something of wonder and admiration filled his mind, for a few moments, as this truth forced itself upon him.
“Shall my child, a delicate, tender girl, be braver than I?” he said to himself. “Shall she stand up, resolutely, and with a bold front to the coming storm, and I shrink in the blast, and turn my back like a coward? No! This shall not be!”
In this better spirit did Mr. Townsend take up again his life-duties, and seek to save what could be saved in his business, rather than abandon all in impotent despair.