Trumps

CHAPTER XLII. — CLEARING AND CLOUDY.

It was summer again, and Aunt Martha sat sewing in the hardest of wooden chairs, erect, motionless. Yet all the bleakness of the room was conquered by the victorious bloom of Amy’s cheeks, and the tender maidenliness of Amy’s manner, and the winning, human, sympathetic sweetness which was revealed in every word and look of Amy, who sat beside her aunt, talking.

“Amy, Lawrence Newt has been here.”

The young woman looked almost troubled.

“No, Amy, I know you did not tell him,” said Aunt Martha. “I was all alone here, as usual, and heard a knock. I cried, ‘Who’s there?’ for I was afraid to open the door, lest I should see some old friend. ‘A friend,’ was the reply. My knees trembled, Amy. I thought the time had come for me to be exposed to the world, that the divine wrath might be fulfilled in my perfect shame. I had no right to resist, and said, 'Come in!’ The door opened, and a man entered whom I did not at first recognize. He looked at me for a moment kindly—so kindly, that it seemed to me as if a gentle hand were laid upon my head. Then he said, ‘Martha Darro.’ ‘I am ready,’ I answered. But he came to me and took my hand, and said, ‘Why, Martha, have you forgotten Lawrence Newt?’”

She stopped in her story, and leaned back in her chair. The work fell from her thin fingers, and she wept—soft tears, like a spring rain.

“Well?” said Amy, after a few moments, and her hand had taken Aunt Martha’s, but she let it go again when she saw that it helped her to tell the story if she worked.

“He said he had seen you at the window one day, and he was resolved to find out what brought you into Front Street. But before he could make up his mind to come, he chanced to see me at the same window, and then he waited no longer.”

The tone was more natural than Amy had ever heard from Aunt Martha’s lips. She remarked that the severity of her costume was unchanged, except that a little strip of white collar around the throat somewhat alleviated its dense gloom. Was it Amy’s fancy merely that the little line of white was symbolical, and that she saw a more human light in her aunt’s eyes and upon her face?

“Well?” said Amy again, after another pause.

The solemn woman did not immediately answer, but went on sewing, and rocking her body as she did so. Amy waited patiently until her aunt should choose to answer. She waited the more patiently because she was telling herself who it was that had brought that softer light into the face, if, indeed, it were really there. She was thinking why he had been curious to know the reason that she had come into that room. She was remembering a hundred little incidents which had revealed his constant interest in all her comings, and goings, and doings; and therefore she started when Aunt Martha, still rocking and sewing, said, quietly,

“Why did Lawrence Newt care what brought you here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Aunt Martha.”

Miss Amy looked as indifferent as she could, knowing that her companion was studying her face. And it was a study that companion relentlessly pursued, until Amy remarked that Lawrence Newt was such a generous gentleman that he could get wind of no distress but he instantly looked to see if he could relieve it.

Finding the theme fertile, Amy Waring, looking, with tender eyes at her relative, continued.

And yet with all the freedom with which she told the story of Lawrence Newt’s large heart, there was an unusual softness and shyness in her appearance. The blithe glance was more drooping. The clear, ringing voice was lower. The words that generally fell with such a neat, crisp articulation from her lips now lingered upon them as if they were somehow honeyed, and so flowed more smoothly and more slowly. She told of her first encounter with Mr. Newt at the Widow Simmers’s—she told of all that she had heard from her cousin, Gabriel Bennet.

“Indeed, Aunt Martha, I should like to have every body think of me as kindly as he thinks of every body.”

She had been speaking for some time. When she stopped, Aunt Martha said, quietly,

“But, Amy, although you have told me how charitable he is, you have not told me why he wanted to come here because he saw you at the window.”

“I suppose,” replied Amy, “it was because he thought there must be somebody to relieve here.”

“Don’t you suppose he thinks there is somebody to relieve in the next house, and the next, and has been ever since he has had an office in South Street?”

Amy felt very warm, and replied, carelessly, that she thought it was quite likely.

“I have plenty of time to think up here, my child,” continued Aunt Martha. “God is so good that He has spared my reason, and I have satisfied myself why Lawrence Newt wanted to come here.”

Amy sat without replying, as if she were listening to distant music. Her head drooped slightly forward; her hands were clasped in her lap; the delicate color glimmered upon her cheek, now deepening, now paling. The silence was exquisite, but she must break it.

“Why?” said she, in a low voice.

“Because he loves you, Amy,” said the dark woman, as her busy fingers stitched without pausing.

Amy Waring was perfectly calm. The words seemed to give her soul delicious peace, and she waited to hear what her aunt would say next.

“I know that he loves you, from the way in which he spoke of you. I know that you love him for the same reason.”

Aunt Martha went on working and rocking. Amy turned pale. She had not dared to say to herself what another had now said to her. But suddenly she started as if stung. “If Aunt Martha has seen this so plainly, why may not Lawrence Newt have seen it?” The apprehension frightened her.

A long silence followed the last words of Aunt Martha. She did not look at Amy, for she had no external curiosity to satisfy, and she understood well enough what Amy was thinking.

They were still silent, when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said the clear, hard voice of Aunt Martha.

The door opened—the two women looked—and Lawrence Newt walked into the room. He shook hands with Aunt Martha, and then turned to Amy.

“This time, Miss Amy, I have caught you. Have I not kept your secret well?”

Amy was thinking of another secret than Aunt Martha’s living in Front Street, and she merely blushed, without speaking.

“I tried very hard to persuade myself to come up here after I saw you at the window. But I did not until the secret looked out of the window and revealed itself. I came to-day to say that I am going out of town in a day or two, and that I should like, before I go, to know that I may do what I can to take Aunt Martha out of this place.”

Aunt Martha shook her head slowly. “Why should it be?” said she. “Great sin must be greatly punished. To die, while I live; to be buried alive close to my nearest and dearest; to know that my sister thinks of me as dead, and is glad that I am so—”

“Stop, Aunt Martha, stop!” cried Amy, with the same firm tone in which, upon a previous visit, in this room, she had dismissed the insolent shopman, “how can you say such things?” and she stood radiant before her aunt, while Lawrence Newt looked on.

“Amy, dear, you can not understand. Sons and daughters of evil, when we see that we have sinned, we must be brave enough to assist in our own punishment. God’s mercy enables me tranquilly to suffer the penalty which his justice awards me. My path is very plain. Please God, I shall walk in it.”

She said it very slowly, and solemnly, and sadly. Whatever her offense was, she had invested her situation with the dignity of a religious duty. It was clear that her idea of obedience to God was to do precisely what she was doing. And this was so deeply impressed upon Amy Waring’s mind that she was perplexed how to act. She knew that if her aunt suspected in her any intention of revealing the secret of her abode, she would disappear at once, and elude all search. And to betray it while it was unreservedly confided to her was impossible for Amy, even if she had not solemnly promised not to do so.

Observing that Amy meant to say nothing, Lawrence Newt turned to Aunt Martha.

“I will not quarrel with what you say, but I want you to grant me a request.”

Aunt Martha bowed, as if waiting to see if she could grant it.

“If it is not unreasonable, will you grant it?”

“I will,” said she.

“Well, now please, I want you to go next Sunday and hear a man preach whom I am very fond of hearing, and who has been of the greatest service to me.”

“Who is it?”

“First, do you ever go to church?”

“Always.”

“Where?”

Aunt Martha did not directly reply. She was lost in reverie.

“It is a youth like an angel,” said she at length, with an air of curious excitement, as if talking to herself. “His voice is music, but it strikes my soul through and through, and I am frightened and in agony, as if I had been pierced with the flaming sword that waves over the gate of Paradise. The light of his words makes my sin blacker and more loathsome. Oh! what crowds there are! How he walks upon a sea of sinners, with their uplifted faces, like waves white with terror! How fierce his denunciation! How sweet the words of promise he speaks! ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’”

She had risen from her chair, and stood with her eyes lifted in a singular condition of mental exaltation, which gave a lyrical tone and flow to her words.

“That is Summerfield,” said Lawrence Newt. “Yes, he is a wonderful youth. I have heard him myself, and thought that I saw the fire of Whitfield, and heard the sweetness of Charles Wesley. I have been into the old John Street meeting-house, where the crowds hung out at the windows and doors like swarming bees clustered upon a hive. He swayed them as a wind bends a grain-field, Miss Amy. He swept them away like a mountain stream. He is an Irishman, with all the fervor of Irish genius. But,” continued Lawrence Newt, turning again to Aunt Martha, “it is a very different man I want you to hear.”

She looked at him inquiringly.

“His name is Channing. He comes from Boston.”

“Does he preach the truth?” she asked.

“I think he does,” answered Lawrence, gravely.

“Does he drive home the wrath of God upon the sinful, rebellious soul?” exclaimed she, raising both hands with the energy of her words.

“He preaches the Gospel of Christ,” said Lawrence Newt, quietly; “and I think you will like him, and that he will do you good. He is called—”

“I don’t care what he is called,” interrupted Aunt Martha, “if he makes me feel my sin.”

“That you will discover for yourself,” replied Lawrence, smiling. “He makes me feel mine.”

Aunt Martha, whose ecstasy had passed, seated herself, and said she would go, as Mr. Newt requested, on the condition that neither he nor Amy, if they were there, would betray that they knew her.

This was readily promised, and Amy and Lawrence Newt left the room together.

CHAPTER XLIII. — WALKING HOME.

“Miss Amy,” said Lawrence Newt, as they walked slowly toward Fulton Street, “I hope that gradually we may overcome this morbid state of mind in your aunt, and restore her to her home.”

Amy said she hoped so too, and walked quietly by his side. There was something almost humble in her manner. Her secret was her own no longer. Was it Lawrence Newt’s? Had she indeed betrayed herself?

“I didn’t say why I was going out of town. Yet I ought to tell you,” said he.

“Why should you tell me?” she answered, quickly.

“Because it concerns our friend Hope Wayne,” said Lawrence. “See, here is the note which I received this morning.”

As he spoke he opened it, and read aloud:

“MY DEAR MR. NEWT,—Mrs. Simcoe writes me that grandfather has had a stroke of paralysis, and lies very ill. Aunt Dinks has, therefore, resolved to leave on Monday, and I shall go with her. She seems very much affected, indeed, by the news. Mrs. Simcoe writes that the doctor says grandfather will hardly live more than a few days, and she wishes you could go on with us. I know that you have some kind of association with Pinewood—you have not told me what. In this summer weather you will find it very beautiful; and you know how glad I shall be to have you for my guest. My guest, I say; for while grandfather lies so dangerously ill I must be what my mother would have been—mistress of the house. I shall hardly feel more lonely than I always did when he was active, for we had but little intercourse. In case of his death, which I suppose to be very near, I shall not care to live at the old place. In fact, I do not very clearly see what I am to do. But there is One who does; and I remember my dear old nurse’s hymn, ‘On Thee I cast my care.’ Come, if you can.

“Your friend,

“HOPE WAYNE.”

Lawrence Newt and Amy walked on for some time in silence. At length Amy said,

“It is just one of the cases in which it is a pity she is not married or engaged.”

“Isn’t that always a pity for a young woman?” asked Lawrence, shooting entirely away from the subject.

“Theoretically, yes,” replied Amy, firmly, “but not actually. It may be a pity that every woman is not married; but it might be a greater pity that she should marry any of the men who ask her.”

“Of course,” said Lawrence Newt, dryly, “if she didn’t love him.”

“Yes, and sometimes even if she did.”

Amy Waring was conscious that her companion looked at her in surprise as she said this, but she fixed her eyes directly before her, and walked straight on.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Newt; “I see. You mean when he does not love her.”

“No, I mean sometimes even when they do love each other,” said the resolute Amy.

Lawrence Newt was alarmed. “Does she mean to convey to me delicately that there may be cases of true mutual love where it is better not to marry?” thought he. “Where, for instance, there is a difference of age perhaps, or where there has been some other and earlier attachment?”

“I mean,” said Amy, as if answering his thoughts, “that there may sometimes be reasons why even lovers should not marry—reasons which every noble man and woman understand; and therefore I do not agree with you that it is always a pity for a girl not to be married.”

Lawrence Newt said nothing. Amy Waring’s voice almost trembled with emotion, for she knew that her companion might easily misunderstand what she said; and yet there was no way to help it. At any rate, thought she, he will see that I do not mean to drop into his arms.

They walked silently on. The people in the street passed them like spectres. The great city hummed around them unheard. Lawrence Newt said to himself, half bitterly, “So you have waked up at last, have you? You have found that because a beautiful young woman is kind to you, it does not follow that she will one day be your wife.”

Neither spoke. “She sees,” thought Lawrence Newt, “that I love her, and she wishes to spare me the pain of hearing that it is in vain.”

“At least,” he thought, with tenderness and longing toward the beautiful girl that walked beside him—“at least, I was not mistaken. She was nobler and lovelier than I supposed.”

At length he said,

“I have written to ask Hope Wayne to go and hear my preacher to-morrow. Miss Amy, will you go too?”

She looked at him and bowed. Her eyes were glistening with tears.

“My dearest Miss Amy,” said Lawrence Newt, impetuously, seizing her hand, as her face turned toward him.

“Oh! please, Mr. Newt—please—” she answered, hastily, in a tone of painful entreaty, withdrawing her hand from his grasp, confused and very pale.

The words died upon his lips.

“Forgive me—forgive me!” he said, with an air of surprise and sadness, and with a voice trembling with tenderness and respect. “She can not bear to give me the pain of plainly saying that she does not love me,” thought Lawrence; and he gently took her hand and laid her arm in his, as if to show that now they understood each other perfectly, and all was well.

“At least, Miss Amy,” he said, by-and-by, tranquilly, and with the old cheerfulness, “at least we shall be friends.”

Amy Waring bent her head and was silent. It seemed to her that she was suffocating, for his words apprised her how strangely he had mistaken her meaning.

They said nothing more. Arm in arm they passed up Broadway. Every moment Amy Waring supposed the merchant would take leave of her and return to his office. But every moment he was farther from doing it. Abel Newt and Grace Plumer passed them, and opened their eyes; and Grace said to Abel,

“How long has Amy Waring been engaged to your Uncle Lawrence?”

When they reached Amy’s door Lawrence Newt raised her hand, bent over it with quaint, courtly respect, held it a moment, then pressed it to his lips. He looked up at her. She was standing on the step; her full, dark eyes, swimming with moisture, were fixed upon his; her luxuriant hair curled over her clear, rich cheeks—youth, love, and beauty, they were all there. Lawrence Newt could hardly believe they were not all his. It was so natural to think so. Somehow he and Amy had grown together. He understood her perfectly.

“Perfectly?” he said to himself. “Why you are holding her hand; you are kissing it with reverence; you are looking into the face which is dearer and lovelier to you than all other human faces; and you are as far off as if oceans rolled between.”

CHAPTER XLIV. — CHURCH GOING.

The Sunday bells rang loud from river to river. Loud and sharp they rang in the clear, still air of the summer morning, as if the voice of Everardus Bogardus, the old Dominie of New Amsterdam, were calling the people in many tones to be up and stirring, and eat breakfast, and wash the breakfast things, and be in your places early, with bowed heads and reverend minds, and demurely hear me tell you what sinners you always have been and always will be, so help me God—I, Everardus Bogardus, in the clear summer morning, ding, dong, bell, amen!

So mused Arthur Merlin, between sleeping and waking, as the bells rang out, loud and low—distant and near—flowing like a rushing, swelling tide of music along the dark inlets of narrow streets—touching arid hearts with hope, as the rising water touches dry spots with green. Come you, too, out of your filthy holes and hovels—come to church as in the days when you were young and had mothers, and you, grisly, drunken, blear-eyed thief, lisped in your little lessons—come, all of you, come! The day has dawned; the air is pure; the hammer rests—come and repent, and be renewed, and be young again. The old, weary, restless, debauched, defeated world—it shall sing and dance. You shall be lambs. I see the dawn of the millennium on the heights of Hoboken—yea, even out of the Jerseys shall a good thing come! It is I who tell you—it is I who order you—I, Everardus Bogardus, Dominie of New Amsterdam—ding, dong, bell, amen!

The streets were quiet and deserted. A single hack rattled under his window, and Arthur could hear its lessening sound until it was lost in the sweet clangor of the bells. He lay in bed, and did not see the people in the street; but he heard the shuffling and the slouching, the dragging step and the bright, quick footfall. There were gay bonnets and black hats already stirring—early worshippers at the mass at St. Peter’s or St. Patrick’s—but the great population of the city was at home.

Except, among the rest, a young man who comes hastily out of Thiel’s, over Stewart’s—a young man of flowing black hair and fiery black eyes, which look restlessly and furtively up and down Broadway, which seems to the young man odiously and unnaturally bright. He gains the street with a bound. He hurries along, restless, disordered, excited—the black eyes glancing anxiously about, as if he were jealous of any that should see his yesterday was not over, and that somehow his wild, headlong night had been swept into the serene, open bay of morning. He hurries up the street; tossing many thoughts together—calculating his losses, for the black-haired young man has lost heavily at Thiel’s faro-table—wondering about payments—remembering that it is Sunday morning, and that he is to attend a young lady from the South to church—a young lady whose father has millions, if universal understanding be at all correct—thinking of revenge at the table, of certain books full of figures in a certain counting-room, and the story they tell—story known to not half a dozen people in the world; the black-eyed youth, in evening dress, alert, graceful, but now meandering and gliding swiftly like a snake, darts up Broadway, and does not seem to hear the bells, whose first stroke startled him as he sat at play, and which are now ringing strange changes in the peaceful air: Come, Newt! Come, Newt! Abel Newt! Come, Newt! It is I, Everardus, Dominie Bogardus—come, come, come! and be d——d, ding, dong, bell, amen-n-n-n!

Later in the morning the bells rang again. The house doors opened, and the sidewalk swarmed with well-dressed people. Boniface Newt and his wife sedately proceeded to church—not a new bonnet escaping Mrs. Nancy, while May walked tranquilly behind—like an angel going home, as Gabriel Bennet said in his heart when he passed her with his sister Ellen leaning on his arm. The Van Boozenberg carriage rolled along the street, conveying Mr. and Mrs. Jacob to meditate upon heavenly things. Mrs. Dagon and Mrs. Orry passed, and bowed sweetly, on their way to learn how to love their neighbors as themselves. And among the rest walked Lawrence Newt with Amy Waring, and Arthur Merlin with Hope Wayne.

The painter had heard the voice of the Dominie Bogardus, which his fancy had heard in the air; or was he obeying another Dominie, of a wider parish, whose voice he heard in his heart? It was not often that the painter went to church. More frequently, in his little studio at the top of a house in Fulton Street, he sat smoking meditative cigars during the Sunday hours; or, if the day were auspicious, even touching his canvas!

In vain his sober friends remonstrated. Aunt Winnifred, with whom he lived, was never weary of laboring with him. She laid good books upon the table in his chamber. He returned late at night, often, and found little tracts upon his bureau, upon the chair in which he usually laid his clothes when he retired—yes, even upon his pillow. “Aunt Winnifred’s piety leaves its tracts all over my room,” he said, smilingly, to Lawrence Newt.

But when the good lady openly attacked him, and said,

“Arthur, how can you? What will people think? Why don’t you go to church?”

Arthur replied, with entire coolness,

“Aunt Winnifred, what’s the use of going to church when Van Boozenberg goes, and is not in the least discomposed? I’m afraid of the morality of such a place!”

Aunt Winnifred’s eyes dilated with horror. She had no argument to throw at Arthur in return, and that reckless fellow always had to help her out.

“However, dear aunt, you go; and I suppose you ought to be quite as good a reason for going as Van Boozenberg for staying away.”

After such a conversation it fairly rained tracts in Arthur’s room. The shower was only the signal for fresh hostilities upon his part; but for all the hostility Aunt Winnifred was not able to believe her nephew to be a very bad young man.

As he and his friends passed up Broadway toward Chambers Street they met Abel Newt hastening down to Bunker’s to accompany Miss Plumer to Grace Church. The young man had bathed and entirely refreshed himself during the hour or two since he had stepped out of Thiel’s. There was not a better-dressed man upon Broadway; and many a hospitable feminine eye opened to entertain him as long and as much as possible as he passed by. He had an unusual flush in his cheek and spring in his step. Perhaps he was excited by the novelty of mixing in a throng of church-goers. He had not done such a thing since on summer Sunday mornings he used to stroll with the other boys along the broad village road, skirted with straggling houses, to Dr. Peewee’s. Heavens! in what year was that? he thought, unconsciously. Am I a hundred years old? On those mornings he used to see—Precisely the person he saw at the moment the thought crossed his mind—Hope Wayne—who bowed to him as he passed her party. How much calmer, statelier, and more softly superior she was than in those old Delafield days!

She remembered, too; and as the lithe, graceful figure of the handsome and fascinating Mr. Abel Newt bent in passing, Arthur Merlin, who felt, at the instant Abel passed, as if his own feet were very large, and his clothes ugly, and his movement stupidly awkward—felt, in fact, as if he looked like a booby—Arthur Merlin observed that his companion went on speaking, that she did not change color, and that her voice was neither hurried nor confused.

Why did the young painter, as he observed these little things, feel as if the sun shone with unusual splendor? Why did he think he had never heard a bird sing so sweetly as one that hung at an open window they passed? Nay, why in that moment was he almost willing to paint Abel Newt as the Endymion of his great picture?

CHAPTER XLV. — IN CHURCH.

They turned into Chambers Street, in which was the little church where Dr. Channing was to preach. Lawrence Newt led the way up the aisle to his pew. The congregation, which was usually rather small, to-day quite filled the church. There was a general air of intelligence and shrewdness in the faces, which were chiefly of the New England type. Amy Waring saw no one she had ever seen before. In fact, there were but few present in whose veins New England blood did not run, except some curious hearers who had come from a natural desire to see and hear a celebrated man.

When our friends entered the church a slow, solemn voluntary was playing upon the organ. The congregation sat quietly in the pews. Chairs and benches were brought to accommodate the increasing throng. Presently the house was full. The bustle and distraction of entering were over—there was nothing heard but the organ.

In a few moments a slight man, wrapped in a black silk gown, slowly ascended the pulpit stairs, and, before seating himself, stood for a moment looking down at the congregation. His face was small, and thin, and pale; but there was a pure light, an earnest, spiritual sweetness in the eyes—the irradiation of an anxious soul—as they surveyed the people. After a few moments the music stopped. There was perfect silence in the crowded church. Then, moving like a shadow to the desk, the preacher, in a voice that was in singular harmony with the expression of his face, began to read a hymn. His voice had a remarkable cadence, rising and falling with yearning tenderness and sober pathos. It seemed to impart every feeling, every thought, every aspiration of the hymn. It was full of reverence, gratitude, longing, and resignation:

When he had read it and sat down again, Hope Wayne felt as if a religious service had already been performed.

The simplicity, and fervor, and long-drawn melody with which he had read the hymn apparently inspired the choir with sympathy, and after a few notes from the organ they began to sing an old familiar tune. It was taken up by the congregation until the church trembled with the sound, and the saunterers in the street outside involuntarily ceased laughing and talking, and, touched by some indefinable association, raised their hats and stood bareheaded in the sunlight, while the solemn music filled the air.

The hymn was sung, the prayer was offered, the chapter was read; then, after a little silence, that calm, refined, anxious, pale, yearning face appeared again at the desk. The preacher balanced himself for a few moments alternately upon each foot—moved his tongue, as if tasting the words he was about to utter—and announced his text: “Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you.”

He began in the same calm, simple way. A natural, manly candor certified the truth of every word he spoke. The voice—at first high in tone, and swinging, as it were, in long, wave-like inflections—grew gradually deeper, and more equally sustained. There was very little movement of the hands or arms; only now and then the finger was raised, or the hand gently spread and waved. As he warmed in his discourse a kind of celestial grace glimmered about his person, and his pale, thoughtful face kindled and beamed with holy light. His sentences were entirely simple. There was no rhetoric, no declamation or display. Yet the soul of the hearer seemed to be fused in a spiritual eloquence which, like a white flame, burned all the personality of the speaker away. The people sat as if they were listening to a disembodied soul.

But the appeal and the argument were never to passion, or prejudice, or mere sensibility. Fear and horror, and every kind of physical emotion, so to say, were impossible in the calmness and sweetness of the assurance of the Divine presence. It was a Father whose message the preacher brought. Like as a father so the Lord pitieth His children, said he, in tones that trickled like tears over the hearts of his hearers, although his voice was equable and unbroken. He went on to show what the children of such a Father must needs be—to show that, however sinful, and erring, and lost, yet the Father had sent to tell them that the doctrine of wrath was of old time; that the eye for the eye, and the tooth for the tooth, was the teaching of an imperfect knowledge; that a faith which was truly childlike knew the Creator only as a parent; and that out of such faith alone arose the life that was worthy of him.

Wandering princes are we! cried the preacher, with a profound ecstasy and exultation in his tone, while the very light of heaven shone in his aspect—wandering princes are we, sons of the Great King. In foreign lands outcast and forlorn, groveling with the very swine in the mire, and pining for the husks that the swine do eat; envying, defying, hating, forgetting—but never hated nor forgot; in the depths of our rage, and impotence, and sin—in the darkest moment of our moral death, when we would crucify the very image of that Parent who pities us—there is one voice deeper and sweeter than all music, the voice of our elder brother pleading with that common Father—“Forgive them, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

He sat down, but the congregation did not move. Leaning forward, with upraised eyes glistening with tears and beaming with sympathy, with hope, with quickened affection, they sat motionless, seemingly unwilling to destroy the holy calm in which, with him, they had communed with their Father. There were those in the further part of the church who did not hear; but their mouths were open with earnest attention; their eyes glittered with moisture; for they saw afar off that slight, rapt figure; and so strong was the common sympathy of the audience that they seemed to feel what they could not hear.

Lawrence Newt did not look round for Aunt Martha. But he thought of her listening to the discourse, as one thinks of dry fields in a saturating summer rain. She sat through the whole—black, immovable, silent. The people near her looked at her compassionately. They thought she was an inconsolable widow, or a Rachel refusing comfort. Nor, had they watched her, could they have told if she had heard any thing to comfort or relieve her sorrow. From the first word to the last she gazed fixedly at the speaker. With the rest she rose and went out. But as she passed by the pulpit stairs she looked up for a moment at that pallid face, and a finer eye than any human saw that she longed, like another woman of old looking at another teacher, to kiss the hem of his garment. Oh! not by earthquake nor by lightning, but by the soft touch of angels at midnight, is the stone rolled away from the door of the sepulchre.

CHAPTER XLVI. — IN ANOTHER CHURCH.

While thus one body of Christian believers worshipped, another was assembled in the Methodist chapel in John Street, where Aunt Martha usually went.

A vast congregation crowded every part of the church. They swarmed upon the pulpit stairs, upon the gallery railings, and wherever a foot could press itself to stand, or room be found to sit. As the young preacher, Summerfield, rose in the pulpit, every eye in the throng turned to him and watched his slight, short figure—his sweet blue eye, and his face of earnest expression and a kind of fiery sweetness. He closed his eyes and lifted his hands in prayer; and the great responsibility of speaking to that multitude of human beings of their most momentous interests evidently so filled and possessed him, that in the prayer he seemed to yearn for strength and the gifts of grace so earnestly—he cried, so as if his heart were bursting, “Help, Lord, or I perish!” that the great congregation, murmuring with sobs, with gasps and sighs, echoed solemnly, as if it had but one voice, and it were muffled in tears, “Help, Lord, or I perish!”

When the prayer was ended a hymn was sung by all the people, to a quick, martial melody, and seemed to leave them nervously awake to whatever should be said. The preacher, with the sweet boyish face, began his sermon gently, and in a winning voice. There was a kind of caressing persuasion in his whole manner that magnetized the audience. He grew more and more impassioned as he advanced, while the people sat open-mouthed, and responding at intervals, “Amen!”

“Ah! sinner, sinner, it is he, our God, who shoots us through and through with the sharp sweetness of his power. It is our God who scatters the arrows of his wrath; but they are winged with the plumes of the dove, the feathers of softness, and the Gospel. Oh! the promises! the promises!—Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Yes, patriarch of white hairs, of wasted cheeks, and tottering step! the burden bears you down almost to the ground to-day—into the ground to-morrow. Here stands the Judge to give you rest. Yes, mother of sad eyes and broken spirit! whose long life is a sorrowful vigil, waiting upon the coming of wicked sons, of deceitful daughters—weary, weary, and heavy laden with tribulation, here is the Comforter who shall give you rest. And you, young man, and you, young maiden, sitting here to-day in the plenitude of youth, and hope, and love, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, for the dark day cometh—yea, it is at hand!”

So fearfully did his voice, and look, and manner express apprehension, as if something were about to fall upon the congregation, that there was a sudden startled cry of terror. There were cries of “Lord! Lord! have mercy!” Smothered shrieks and sobs filled the air; pale faces stared at each other like spectres. People fell upon their knees, and cried out that they felt the power of the Lord. “My soul sinks in deep waters, Selah;” cried the preacher, “but they are the waters of grace and faith, and I am convicted of all my sins.” Then pausing a moment, while the vast crowd swayed and shook with the tumult of emotion, with his arms outspread, the veins on his forehead swollen, and the light flashing in his eyes, he raised his arms and eyes to heaven, and said, with inexpressible sweetness, in tones which seemed to trickle with balm into the very soul, as soft spring rains ooze into the ground, “Yea, it is at hand, but so art thou! Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly; and when youth, and hope, and love have become dead weights and burdens in these young hearts, teach them how to feel the peace that passeth understanding. Draw them to thee, for they, wearily labor: they are heavily laden, gracious Father! Oh, give them rest!”

“Come!” he exclaimed, “freely come! It is the eternal spring of living water. It is your life, and it flows for you. Come! come! it is the good shepherd who calls his flock to wander by the still waters and in the green pastures. Will you abide outside? Then, woe! woe! when the night cometh, and the shepherd folds his flock, and you are not there. Will you seek Philosophy, and confide in that? It is a ravening wolf, and ere morning you are consumed. Will you lean on human pride—on your own sufficiency? It is a broken reed, and your fall will be forever fatal. Will you say there is no God?”—his voice sank into a low, menacing whisper—“will you say there is no God?” He raised his hands warningly, and shook them over the congregation while he lowered his voice. “Hush! hush! lest he hear—lest he mark—lest the great Jehovah”—his voice swelling suddenly into loud, piercing tones—“Maker of heaven and earth, Judge of the quick and the dead, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the eternal Godhead from everlasting to everlasting, should know that you, pitiable, crawling worm—that you, corrupt in nature and conceived in sin! child of wrath and of the devil! say that there is no God! Woe, woe! for the Judge cometh! Woe, woe! for the gnashing of teeth and the outer darkness! Woe, woe! for those who crucified him, and buffeted him, and pierced him with thorns! Woe, woe! for the Lord our God is a just God, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. But oh! when the day of mercy is past! Oh! for the hour—sinner, sinner, beware! beware!—when that anger rises like an ingulfing fiery sea, and sweeps thee away forever!”

It seemed as if the sea had burst into the building; for the congregation half rose, and a smothered cry swept over the people. Many rose upright with clasped hands and cried, “Hallelujah!” “Praise be to God!” Others lay cowering and struggling upon the seats; others sobbed and gazed with frantic earnestness at the face of the young apostle. Children with frightened eyes seized the cold hands of their mothers. Some fainted, but could not be borne out, so solid was the throng. Their neighbors loosened their garments and fanned them, repeating snatches of hymns, and waiting for the next word of the preacher. “The Lord is dealing with his people,” they said; “convicting sinners, and calling the lost sheep home.”

The preacher stood as if lifted by an inward power, beholding with joy the working of the Word, but with a total unconsciousness of himself. The young man seemed meek and lowly while he was about his Father’s business. And after waiting for a few moments, the music of his voice poured out peace upon that awakened throng.

“‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Yes, fellow-sinners, rest. For all of us, rest. For the weariest, rest. For you who, just awakened, tremble in doubt, rest. For you, young woman, who despairest of heaven, rest. For you, young man, so long in the bondage of sin, rest. Oh! that I had the wings of a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. Brother, sister, it shall be so. To your weary soul those wings shall be fitted. Far from the world of grief and sin, of death and disappointment, you shall fly away. Deep in the bosom of your God, you shall be at rest. That dove is his holy grace. Those wings are his tender promises. That rest is the peace of heaven.