Hagar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Can my poor words and weak faith have
afforded any consolation or comfort?” said Nathan
Warburton, speaking to himself, as he sat in his
handsomely furnished apartment the evening after
the funeral. An expression of sad solemnity came
over his face, his eyes moistened, and he pulled the
leaves from a monthly rose that was on the table
by his side, and crushing them, one by one, dropped
them at his feet.

“What am I doing, and to what am I tending?”
he said. “Am I not proud, and self-willed, deficient
in religious feeling, and weak in every principle
and stay of virtue? To others I say `Be as
rocks, against temptation,' when myself am a very
reed. Men and women, infinitely better than I,
come around me and praise me for intellect and

eloquence and goodness—have I either? If it be
true that I was made to influence men's characters
and lives, as sometimes I am half persuaded by
this applause, how terrible a responsibility! God,
my Father! how awful thine ultimate anger, or how
sweet thy dear approval! Before it is forever too
late, can I not subdue this rebellious heart, and
crush out its defying and damning pride?”

His flushed warm brow, in which the veins were
now distended till they seemed like chords that
lashed him to madness, was leaning in his palm, and
for a while he was silent; but his turbulent thought
again became coherent, and in a soft and melancholy
monotone he went on, with a sincerity possible
only, perhaps, in solitary self examination:

“I preach repentance to others, when all I have
ever felt needs to be repented of. When life is gay
about me, and the sunshine of prosperity is over
all, the questionings of conscience are less distinct;
but when the world dwarfs in this funeral silence,
and the joyous light, and the laughing wind, are
stayed back by the pall, Satan binds my hands, and
the demons torture me as they will.”

Again he paused, but in a little while he said,
“Prayer is a sharp weapon, before which they
cannot stand,” and, falling on his knees, he besought
that the arms of everlasting love might be
about him, and lift him above the low temptations

of passion, into the serene comfort and confidence
of a religious life.

As he arose his countenance wore the expression
of one exhausted with some terrible conflict, of one
neither victorious nor yet wholly baffled. He
thrust away the hassock on which he had been
accustomed hitherto to kneel, as though sin were
in its use, and with a look in which there was
more of disdainful pride than of humility, stript off
from one of the fingers of his left hand two rings,
the glitter of which had long been pleasant to his
eyes, and cast them from him as one would shake
off a serpent. Passing the sumptuously cushioned
chair in which he usually read, he seated himself
in that which he least liked, and taking up a Book
of the Martyrs, was presently absorbed in its histories
of torment and triumph, of wrestling and
peace.

The wings of his faith expanded and grew strong
in the glow of old inspirations, as do those of a
young bird in the warmth and light of the sun;
and thought went upward with braver and braver
sweep and confidence, till the rack and the thong
lost their terror, and it seemed a little thing to die
for that religion for which he could not live.

What contradictions are in the best of us, what
blendings of weakness and strength, of timidity and
courage!

“A gentleman is waiting below, sir,” and the
servant who made the announcement bowed deferentially,
as he paused for a reply.

“Show him up,” said the clergyman, without
raising his eyes; but the man hesitated, half believing
he must have misapprehended the words—
unaccustomed to receive so direct and simple a
reply to similar announcements; for, if no card
were sent, Mr. Warburton was usually particular in
his inquiries whether the person waiting were a
gentleman, or had a plebeian air; and no matter
who came, friend or stranger, unless he was in a
genial mood, which was not very frequently the
case, the servant had directions to say he was not
at home; therefore it was no marvel he felt some
surprise at an answer and a manner which seemed
to indicate a new humor in his master, or an unprecedented
caprice.

As the door reöpened, and the stranger, a young
man of shuffling gait and uncouth appearance, presented
himself, an habitual smile of cold disdain
was visible, and, half rising, without offering his
hand, the preacher waited with a sort of impatient
civility for the intruder to make known whatever
business had brought him there.

“I have the honor of speaking to Mr. Warburton?”
he said, advancing, with awkward embarrassment.

A slight inclination of the head was the only
answer.

“My name is Arnold—Joseph Arnold.” The
preacher bowed again, and his smile, as he pointed
to a seat, was a little more placid.

But without accepting the proffered courtesy, the
young man said he had that day had the happiness
of listening to his wise counsel and moving eloquence,
such as could have come only from one
equally eminent in capacities and purity of heart,
and he had taken the liberty he supposed was
warranted by Mr. Warburton's profession, of seeking
an interview, the pleasures and advantages of
which would, of course, be his only. He trusted
to Mr. Warburton's goodness for such conversation
as would strengthen the resolutions induced by the
impressive beauty of the day's public discourse.

“You are quite too flattering,” the reässured and
now placable minister said, rising, and drawing the
easy chair near his own—for flattery seldom falls
on such stony ground as to be wholly choked out.
And as the stranger seated himself, he continued
to say that, if his poor ability had afforded a moment's
gratification or induced a single resolve of
duty, he had over-payment for all the suffering and
sorrow the day had cost him.

Arnold smiled, for if there were some truth in
the words, he could not but be aware of much

exaggeration in them, and he said he had only
ability to appreciate what was fine in other men,
without power of originating anything himself; but
that, if he might venture an opinion, he would say
the pleasure of creating, even aside from the conviction
of the happiness it gave others, must be
infinitely superior to every other.

“Doubtless, you are in some sort correct. Genius
must be its own reward. But after all, it is
only a bright curse, which, as it dazzles, bewilders
and blinds. I, however,” he said in a subdued
tone, “am not a man of genius, but merely a simple
clergyman, whom few have heard of, and whose
highest praise is that he has some earnestness in
his vocation. For the goodness you attribute to
me—God help me! I am not good.”

“A sweet fountain sendeth not forth bitter waters,
nor a bitter fountain sweet waters,” said
Arnold; “and the good words as well as the good
acts of a life are fruit of the promptings of the
heart.”

“True: good thoughts must have preceded
good words, at some time; but they may rise, like
the delicious cream, spreading themselves on the
surface, and leaving the under current worthless,
at best. We cannot accurately judge of what is
hidden by what is seen. My theory is that, even
in the best natures, the stars stand still sometimes,

in the horoscope of love, and the cold light
of intellect is mistaken for their radiance.”

“We must not expect perfection,” Arnold said,
“and, after all, it is not desirable, unless the whole
world were regenerated, for so soon as we attained
it our work here would be done. If you were
altogether good, for instance, how could you
soften your speech to the condition and necessities
of the bad; how could you reach the sinful or
suffering? How could you know their necessities,
if lifted, as it were, out of our common
humanity?”

“Our great example of perfection went about
doing good.”

“Yes; but he was divine, and yet subject to
the temptations of mortality, that he might minister
to mortal weakness, though, in his divinity,
strong enough to resist. The light given to
guide us must be broader and higher than that
within ourselves, else we had no need of it
at all.”

“But when, overcome by temptation, we seal
our doom, what motive have we to do good any
more?” And the preacher spoke as one might
who felt himself lost.

“There is none utterly lost—at least not here;
but a future, into which we may go through the
gate of repentance, where the past, however dark,

may be fought down. Weak, sinful as we are, we
are still almost omnipotent.”

Warburton smiled.

Arnold continued: “There is more goodness in
the world, more religion in the world, than men
are apt to believe. Did you ever proclaim a lofty
sentiment without seeing the light of approval
kindled in every countenance before you? Trust
in ourselves, and in human nature, is what we
need.”

“Can the reed defy the storm?” said Warburton;
“or can he trust in himself, whose intellect
enables him to perceive that which his heart does
not feel?”

Arnold smiled in turn. There was really no
clashing in their theories, and each talked for the
sake of drawing out the other. The difference in
their natures was, perhaps, that Arnold did not
mark out a course, and say this conduct will make
me a friend, and the friend will help me to some
object near my heart, therefore I will pursue it;
but more readily than Warburton he was apt to
seize whatever advantage came in his way, because
of his lower pride, and his inferior care for the
opinions of the world. I say lower pride, because
he had pride of a certain sort—a pride in seeming
unlike other men, in despising gentlemanly behavior,
and in affecting indifference to wealth and

social elevation—a very common and a very ignoble
pride, scarcely compatible with any genuine
bravery or virtue; while that of Warburton was
in all respects essentially different. In the ability
of other men to stand alone, to battle with circumstances
and warp them to their will, Arnold had
some confidence, though not all he affected; but in
his own powers he had little faith, and no energy to
push that little into action, but was always going
outside of himself, and indolently leaning on some
one, leaving the mind which he really possessed to
rust out unused.

Quick to recognize and appreciate talent, and
feeling, sometimes, conscious of equality with the
most brilliant persons into whose society he was
brought by chance or a momentary ambition, indolence,
ignorance, hopelessness, and diffidence, all
kept him down. He could feel what he could not
say—as Warburton could say what he could not
feel.

Never, perhaps, in his life, had he acted out his
nature more truly than to-day, in the various incidents
connected with this visit, the cost of which
to him no one might guess. Thrice at least he
passed the clergyman's house, for though he hated
the formula of life, and before a great mind bowed
in unaffected homage, diffidence and a mortifying
sense of his uncouth person and rude breeding

kept him back till, at length, defying himself, as it
were, and, it may be, irresistibly attracted by some
sort of affinity of soul, he sought and obtained this
interview; and there never had been and might
never be again in the course of the clergyman's
life an hour he could have selected more wisely
for his purpose.

There are processes, it is said, by which fire can
be drawn from ice; there are influences, superhuman
almost, to break the power of custom, and
strip naked the soul before the eyes of our fellows,
resist as we may. Only in certain states of feeling,
and when time and place and circumstance are all
propitious, may such things be, yet all of us at one
time or another, in affairs of trivial or of great
importance, are apt to feel in such combinations
the inevitable power of a destiny.

Thus these two natures, laying off some of their
pretenses, met and mingled.

“I was engaged with this book,” said Warburton,
turning the lettering toward his new acquaintance
and breaking the silence, which was becoming
embarrassing; “I was engaged with this book, on
your entrance, and debating with myself whether
one might not even become a martyr for the religion
he could not or would not practice in his
daily life.”

Arnold looked embarrassed, and he continued:

“A mad enthusiast, fancying wings of flame
most fit to bear a sinful soul to heaven—a man
of strong prejudice, rather than of strong faith,
might make this awful sacrifice as a testimony
of feeling, or an atonement for sin; or some, even,
for the glory of a name, register it in everlasting
fire.”

He paused a moment, and then continued, sorrowfully,
and as if speaking to himself, “There is
light, even in the religious walks of life—light
guiding to good deeds and great sacrifices—which
falls not from the beams of the cross.”

He seemed gazing in upon his own soul, as he
spoke, but presently, as if ashamed of his ill-concealed
emotion and partial confession, he directed
the conversation in a new channel, where it
flowed in a light, sparkling current, for which Arnold
had no capacity, and he therefore shortly took
his leave.

Warburton said, when he was left alone, “It is
a pity he has not more gentlemanly accomplishments,
but he has the same claim upon man and
God as I, or any one, and it is possible that in all
things to which we may be tempted by ambition
he will surpass me, though I were ten times as
proud, fastidious, and skilled in the commonplaces
of the world.”

He said rightly. Whatever the past, while the

mind and physical energy fall not yet to ruins, we
may go through the gate of repentance, and shape
our future as we will.

“Elsie, dear, forsaken Elsie! out of your love I
will crown myself, and your purity and innocence
shall be my guide.”