University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Hillhouse's Judgment.

It has become necessary to advance the season to the
beginning of the month of October, which corresponds to
our own April. In a temperate climate, this would mark
the opening of spring; and the reviving hopes of a new and
genial season would find a place in every bosom. Not so
at Sealer's Land. So long as the winter was at its height,
and the clear, steady cold continued, by falling into a system
so prepared as to meet the wants of such a region,
matters had gone on regularly, if not with comfort; and,
as yet, the personal disasters were confined to a few frozen
cheeks and noses, the results of carelessness and wanton
exposure, rather than of absolute necessity. But one who
had seen the place in July, and who examined it now,
would find many marks of change, not to say of deterioration.

In the first place, a vast deal of snow had fallen; fallen,
indeed, to such a degree, as even to cover the terrace,
block up the path that communicated with the wreck, and
nearly to smother the house and all around it. The winds
were high and piercing, rendering the cold doubly penetrating.

The thermometer now varied essentially, sometimes
rising considerably above zero, though oftener falling
far below it. There had been many storms in September,
and October was opening with a most blustering and wintry
aspect. In one sense, however, the character of the season
had changed; the dry, equal cold, that was generally supportable,
having been succeeded by tempests that were
sometimes a little moist, but oftener of intense frigidity.
Of course the equinox was past, and there were more than
twelve hours of sun. The great luminary showed himself
well above the northern horizon; and though his circuit
described an arch that did not promise soon to bring him
near the zenith at meridian, it was a circuit that seemed
about to enclose Sealer's Land, by carrying the orb of day
so far south, morning and evening, as to give it an air of
travelling round the spot.

These changes had not occurred without suffering and
danger. Enormous icicles were suspended from the roof
of the house, reaching to the ground, the third and fourth
successions of these signs of heat and cold united, the
earlier formations having been knocked down and thrown
away. Mountains of drifted snow were to be seen in places,
all along the shore; and wreaths that threatened fearful
avalanches were suspended from the cliffs, waiting only for
the increase of the warmth, to come down upon the rocks
beneath. Once already had one of these masses fallen on
the wreck; and the Oyster Pond men had been busy for a
week digging into the pile, in order to go to the rescue of
the Vineyarders. There was much generosity and charitable
feeling displayed in this act; for, owing to the obstinate
adherence of Daggett and his people to what they deemed
their rights, Roswell had finally been compelled to cut to
pieces the upper works of his own schooner to obtain fuel
that might prevent his own party from freezing to death.
The position of the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond was to be
traced only by a high mound of snow, which had been
arrested by the obstacle she presented to its drift; but her
bulwarks, planks, deck, top-timbers, stern-frame—in short,
nearly all of the vessel above water, had actually been taken
to pieces, and carried within the covering of the verandah
mentioned, in readiness for the stoves!

To render the obstinacy of the other crew more apparent,
Daggett had been obliged to do the same! Much of
his beloved craft had already disappeared in the camboose,
and more was likely to follow. This compelled destruction,
however, rather increased than lessened his pertinacity.
He clung to the last chip; and no terms of compromise
would he now listen to at all. The stranded wreck was
his, and his people's; while the other wreck belonged to
the men from Oyster Pond. Let each party act for itself,
and take care of its own. Such were his expressed opinions,
and on them he acted.

This state of things had not been brought about in a
day. Months had passed; Roswell had seen his last billet
of wood put in the camboose; had tried various experiments
for producing heat by means of oil, which so far succeeded
as to enable the ordinary boiling to be done, thereby saving
wood; but, when a cold turn set in, it was quickly found
that the schooner must go, or all hands perish. When this
decree went forth, every one understood that the final preservation
of the party depended on that of the boats. For
one entire day the question had been up in general council,
whether or not the two whale-boats should be burnt, with
their oars and appurtenances, before the attack was made
on the schooner itself. Stimson settled this point, as he
did so many others, Roswell listening to all he said with a
constantly increasing attention.

“If we burn the boats first,” said the boat-steerer, “and
then have to come to the schooner a'ter all, how are we
ever to get away from this group? Them boats wouldn't
last us a week, even in our best weather; but they may
answer to take us to some Christian land, when every rib
and splinter of the Sea Lion is turned into ashes. I would
begin on the upper works of the schooner first, Captain
Gar'ner, resarvin' the spars, though they would burn the
freest. Then I would saw away the top-timbers, beams,
decks, transoms, and everything down within a foot of the
water; but I wouldn't touch anything below the copper,
for this here reason: unless Captain Daggett sets to work
on his craft and burns her up altogether, we may find
mater'als enough in the spring to deck over ag'in the poor
thing down there in the cove, and fit her out a'ter a fashion,

and make much better weather of it in her than in our
boats. That's my opinion, sir.”

It was decided that this line of conduct should be pursued.
The upper works of the schooner were all taken out
of her as soon as the weather permitted, and the wood was
carried up and stored in the house. Even with this supply;
it was soon seen that great economy was to be used, and
that there might be the necessity of getting at the vessel's
bottom. As for the schooner, as the people still affectionately
called the hull, or what was left of the hull, everything
had been taken out of her. The frozen oil was carried up
to the house in chunks, and used for fuel and lights. A
good deal of heat was obtained by making large wicks of
canvass, and placing them in vessels that contained oil;
though it was very far from sufficing to keep life in the
men during the hardest of the weather. The utmost
economy in the use of the fuel that had been so dearly obtained,
was still deemed all-essential to eventual preservation.
Happily, the season advanced all this time, and the
month of October was reached. The intercourse between
the crews had by no means been great during the two solemn
and critical months that were just past. A few visits
had been exchanged at noon-day, and when the thermometer
was a little above zero; but the snow was filling the
path, and as yet there were no thaws to produce a crust on
which the men might walk.

About a month previously to the precise time to which
it is our intention now to advance the more regular action
of the legend, Macy had come over to the house, attended
by one man, with a proposal on the part of Daggett for the
two crews to occupy his craft, as he still persisted in calling
the wreck, and of using the house as fuel. This was previously
to beginning to break up either vessel. Gardiner
had thought of this plan in connection with his own
schooner, a scheme that would have been much more feasible
than that now proposed, on account of the difference
in distance; but it had soon been abandoned. All the
material of the building was of pine, and that well seasoned;
a wood that burns like tinder. No doubt there would
have been a tolerably comfortable fortnight or three weeks

by making these sacrifices; then would have come certain
destruction.

As to the proposal of Daggett, there were many objections
to it. A want of room would be one; want of provisions
another; and there would be the necessity of transporting
stores, bedding, and a hundred things that were
almost as necessary to the people as warmth; and which
indeed contributed largely to their warmth. In addition
was the objection just mentioned, of the insufficiency of
the materials of the building; an objection which was just
as applicable to a residence in one vessel as a residence in
the other. Of course the proposition was declined.

Macy remained a night with the Oyster Ponders, and
left the house after breakfast next morning; knowing that
Daggett only waited for his return with a negative, to commence
breaking up the wreck. The mate was attended by
the seaman, returning as he had arrived. Two days later;
there having been a slight yielding of the snow under the
warmth of the noon-day sun; and a consequent hardening
of its crust in the succeeding night, Roswell and Stimson
undertook to return this visit, with a view to make a last
effort to persuade Daggett to quit the wreck and come over
to the house altogether. When they had got about half-way
between the two places, they found the body of the
seaman, stiff, frozen hard, and dead. A quarter of a mile
further on, the reckless Macy, who it was supposed greatly
sustained Daggett in his obstinacy, was found in precisely
the same state. Both had fallen in the path, and stiffened
under the terrible power of the climate. It was not without
difficulty that Roswell reached the wreck, and reported
what he had seen. Even this terrible admonition did not
change Daggett's purpose. He had begun to burn his
vessel, for there was now no alternative; but he was doing
it on a system which, as he explained it to Roswell, was
not only to leave him materials with which to construct a
smaller craft in the spring, but which would allow of his
inhabiting the steerage and cabin as long as he pleased.

In some respects the wreck certainly had its advantages
over the house. There was more room for exercise, the
caverns of the ice being extensive, while they completely
excluded the wind, which was now the great danger of the

season. It was doubtless owing to the wind that Macy and
his companion had perished. As the spring approached,
these winds increased in violence; though there had been
slight symptoms of their coming more blandly, even at the
time when their colder currents were really frightful.

A whole month succeeded this visit of Roswell's, during
which there was no intercourse. It was September, the
March of the antarctic circle, and the weather had been
terrific during most of the period. It was during these
terrible four weeks that Roswell completed his examination
of the all-important subject Mary had marked out for him,
and which Stimson had so earnestly and so often placed
before his mind. The sudden fate of Macy and his companion,
the condition of his crew, and all the serious circumstances
with which he was surrounded, conspired to
predispose him to inquiry; and what was equally important
in such an investigation, to humility. Man is a very different
being in high prosperity from what he becomes when
the blows of an evil fortune, or the visitations of Divine
Providence alight upon him. The skepticism of Roswell
was more the result of human pride, of confidence in himself,
than in any precept derived from others, or of any
deep reasoning process whatever. He conceived that the
theory of the incarnation of the Son of God was opposed
to philosophy and experience, it is true; and, thus far, he
may be said to have reasoned in the matter, though it was
in his own way, and with a very contracted view of the
subject; but pride had much more to do with even this
conclusion, than a knowledge of physics or philosophy. It
did not comport with the respect he entertained for his
own powers, to lend his faith to an account that conflicted
with so many of the opinions he had formed on evidence
and practice. Credulous women might have their convictions
on the truth of this history, but it was not necessary
for men to be as easily duped. There was something even
amiable and attractive in this weakness of the other sex,
that would ill comport, however, with the greater sternness
of masculine judgment. Roswell, as he once told Stimson,
hesitated to believe in anything that he could not comprehend.
His God must be worshipped for the obvious truth
of his attributes and existence. He wished to speak with

respect of things that so many worthy people reverenced;
but he could not forget that Providence had made him a
reasoning creature; and his reason must be convinced.
Stephen was no great logician, as the reader will easily
understand; but Newton possessed no clearer demonstration
of any of his problems than this simple, nay ignorant,
man enjoyed in his religious faith, through the divine illumination
it had received in the visit of the Holy Spirit.

That gloomy month, however, had not been thrown away.
All the men were disposed to be serious; and the reading
of the bible, openly and aloud, soon became a favourite
occupation with every one of them. Although Roswell's
reading was directed by the marks of Mary, all of which
had reference to those passages that touched on the Divinity
of the Saviour, he made no comments that betrayed his incredulity.
There is a simple earnestness in the narrative
portions of the Gospel that commends its truth to every
mind, and it had its effect on that of Roswell Gardiner;
though it failed to remove doubts that had so long been
cherished, and which had their existence in pride of reason,
or what passes for such, with those who merely skim
the surface of things, as they seem to exist around them.

On the evening of that particular day in October, to
which we desire now to advance the time, and after the
most pleasant and cheerful afternoon and sunset that any
on the island had seen for many months, Roswell and Stimson
ventured to continue their exercise on the terrace, then
again clear of impediments, even after the day had closed.
The night promised to be cold, but the weather was not
yet so keen as to drive them to a shelter. Both fancied
there was a feeling of spring in the wind, which was from
the north-east, a quarter that brought the blandest currents
of air into those seas, if any air of that region deserved
such a term at all.

“It is high time we had some communications with the
Vineyarders,” said Roswell, as they turned at that end of
the terrace which was nearest to the wreck. “A full month
has passed since we have seen any of them, or have heard
a syllable of their doings or welfare.”

“It's a bad business this separation, Captain Gar'ner,”
returned the boat-steerer; “and every hour makes it worse.

Think how much good might have been done them young
men had they only been with us while we've been reading
the book of books, night and morning, sir!”

“That good book seems to fill most of your thoughts,
Stephen—I wish I could have your faith.”

“It will come in time, sir, if you will only strive for it.
I'm sure no heart could have been harder than mine was,
until within the last five years. I was far worse as a Christian,
Captain Gar'ner, than I consider you to be; for while
you have doubts consarning the Divinity of our Blessed
Lord, I had no thought of any one of the Trinity. My
only God was the world; and sich a world, too, as a poor
sailor knows. It was being but little better than the
brutes.”

“Of all the men with me, you seem to be the most contented
and happy. I cannot say I have seen even a sign
of fear about you, when things have been at the worst.”

“It would be very ungrateful, sir, to mistrust a Providence
that has done so much for me.”

“I devoutly wish I could believe with you that Jesus was
the Son of God!”

“Excuse me, Captain Gar'ner; it's jist because you do
not devoutly wish this, that you do not believe. I think I
understand the natur' of your feelin's, sir. I had some
sich once, myself; though it was only in a small way. I
was too ignorant to feel much pride in my own judgment,
and soon gave up every notion that went ag'in Scriptur'.
I own it is not accordin' to natur', as we know natur', to
believe in this doctrine; but we know too little of a thousand
things to set up our weak judgments in the very face
of revelation.”

“I am quite willing to believe all I can understand,
Stephen; but I find it difficult to credit accounts that are
irreconcilable with all that my experience has taught me to
be true.”

“They who are of your way of thinkin', sir, do not deny
that Christ was a good man and a prophet; and that the
apostles were good men and prophets; and that they all
worked miracles.”

“This much I am willing enough to believe; but the
other doctrine seems contrary to what is possible.”

“Yet you have seen, sir, that these apostles believed
what you refuse. One thing has crossed my mind, Captain
Gar'ner, which I wish to say to you. I know I'm but an
ignorant man, and my idees may be hardly worth your notice;
but sich as they be, I want to lay 'em afore you. We
are told that these apostles were all men from a humble
class in life, with little l'arnin', chosen, as it might be, to
show men that faith stood in need of no riches, or edication,
or worldly greatness, of any sort. To me, sir, there
is a wholesome idee in that one thing.”

“It gives us all a useful lesson, Stephen, and has often
been mentioned, I believe, in connection with the doctrines
of Christianity.”

“Yes, sir—so I should think; though I don't remember
ever to have heard it named from any pulpit. Well, Captain
Gar'ner, it does not agree with our notions to suppose
that God himself, a part of the Ruler and Master of the
Universe, should be born of a woman, and come among
sinners in order to save 'em from his own just judgments.”

“That is just the difficulty that I have in believing what
are called the dogmas of Christianity on that one point.
To me, it has ever seemed the most improbable thing in
the world.”

“Just so, sir — I had some sort of feelin of that natur'
myself once. When God, in his goodness, put it into my
heart to believe, however, as he was pleased to do in a fit
of sickness from which I never expected to rise, and in
which I was led to pray to him for assistance, I began to
think over all these matters in my own foolish manner.
Among other things, I said to myself, `is it likely that any
mortal man would dream of calling Christ the Son of God,
unless it was put into his mind to say so?' Then comes
the characters of them men, who all admit were upright
and religious. How can we suppose that they would agree
in giving the same account of sich a thing, unless what
they said had been told to them by some tongue that they
believed?”

Roswell smiled at Stephen's reasoning, which was not
without a certain point, but which an ingenious man might
find the means of answering in various ways.

“There is another thing, sir, that I've read in a book,”

resumed the boat-steerer, “which goes a great way with
me. Jesus allowed others to call him the Son of God,
without rebuking them for doing so. It does really seem
that they who believe he was a good man, as I understand
is the case with you, Captain Gar'ner, must consider this
as a strong fact. We are to remember what a sin idolatry
is; how much all ra'al worshippers abhor it; and then set
that feelin' side by side with the fact that the Son did not
think it robbery to be called the equal of the Father. To
me, that looks like a proof that our belief has a solid foundation.”

Roswell did not reply. He was aware that it would not
be just to hold any creed responsible for the manner in
which a person like Stimson defended it. Still, he was
struck with both of this man's facts. The last, he had often
met in books; but the first was new to him. Of the two,
this novel idea of the improbability of the apostles' inventing
that which would seem to be opposed to all men's notions
and prejudices, struck him more forcibly than the
argument adduced from the acquiescende of the Redeemer
in his own divinity. The last might be subject to verbal
criticism, and could possibly be explained away, as he
imagined; but the first appeared to be intimately incorporated
with the entire history of Christ's ministrations on
earth. These were the declarations of John the Baptist,
the simple and unpretending histories of the Gospels, the
commentaries of St. Paul, and the venerable teachings of
the church through so many centuries of varying degrees
of faith and contention, each and all going to corroborate
a doctrine that, in his eyes, had appeared to be so repugnant
to philosophy and reason. Wishing to be alone, Roswell
gave an order to Stimson to execute some duty that
fell to his share, and continued walking up and down the
terrace alone for quite an hour longer.

The night was coming in cold and still. It was one of
those last efforts of winter in which all the terrible force
of the season was concentrated: and it really appeared as
if nature, wearied with its struggle to return to a more
genial temperature, yielded in despair, and was literally
returning backwards through the coldest of her months.
The moon was young, but the stars gave forth a brightness

that is rarely seen, except in the clear cold nights of a high
latitude. Each and all of these sublime emblems of the
power of God were twinkling like bright torches glowing
in space; and the mind had only to endow each with its
probable or known dimensions, its conjectural and reasonable
uses, to form a picture of the truest sublimity in which
man is made to occupy his real position. In this world,
where, in a certain sense, he is master, where all things
are apparently under his influence, if not absolutely subject
to his control; where little that is distinctly visible is to be
met with that does seem to be created to meet his wants,
or to be wholly at his disposal, one gets a mistaken and
frequently a fatal notion of his true place in the scale of
the beings who are intended to throng around the footstool
of the Almighty. As the animalculæ of the atmospheric
air bear a proportion to things visible, so would this throng
seem to bear a proportion to our vague estimates of the
spiritual hosts. All this Roswell was very capable of feeling,
and in some measure of appreciating; and never before
had he been made so conscious of his own insignificance,
as he became while looking on the firmament that
night, glowing with its bright worlds and suns, doubtless
the centres of other systems in which distance swallowed
up the lesser orbs.

Almost every one has heard or read of that collection
of stars which goes by the name of the Southern Cross.
The resemblance to the tree on which Christ suffered is
not particularly striking, though all who navigate the
southern hemisphere know it, and recognize it by its imputed
appellation. It now attracted Roswell's gaze; and
coming as it did after so much reading, so many conversations
with Stephen, and addressing itself to one whose heart
was softened by the fearful circumstances that had so long
environed the sealers, it is not surprising that it brought
our young master to meditate seriously on his true condition
in connection with the atonement that he was willing
to admit had been made for him, in common with all of
earth, at the very moment he hesitated to believe that the
sufferer was, in any other than a metaphorical sense, the
Son of God.

It is not our intention to describe more of the religious

feelings of Mary and her suitor, or to enter farther into
any disquisition on subjects of this nature, than may be
absolutely necessary to elucidate the facts of our history.
In order to do the last distinctly, however, we shall endeavour
to make a very brief analysis of the process of reasoning,
and we may add of feeling too, that was at work in
Roswell Gardiner's mind and heart, as he paced the terrace
that night, after Stimson had left him.

We suppose that a sense of humility is the first healthful
symptom that shows itself in every man's moral regeneration.
A meek appreciation of his own station and character
disposes him to receive revelation with respect, and to have
faith in things that are not seen. Perhaps no one over
whom the sword of fate was not actually suspended by a
hair, was ever better placed to admit the lessons of humility
than was Roswell Gardiner at that very moment. Modest
he always was, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and
this without professions or grimaces; but he had a high
idea of the human understanding, and revolted at believing
that which did violence to all his experience and preconceived
opinions. This was the weak spot in his character,
which time, with an increasing knowledge of men and
things, or some merciful teaching of Divine Providence,
could alone remove.

Roswell certainly did not converse with Stimson in the
expectation of being much instructed; but the humble and
uneducated boat-steerer had been at a school that raises
the dullest intellect far above all the inferences of philosophy.
He had faith, without which no man is truly wise;
no man learned, in the highest interest of his being. Under
the guidance of this leader, Stephen occasionally threw out
an idea that struck the mind of his officer by its simplicity
and force, and helped to complete that change for which
circumstances, reading, and reflection had now been many
months preparing the way. The day preceding this walk
on the terrace, Roswell observed to Stimson that he had
difficulty in believing in a Deity he could not comprehend;
meaning merely that his reason must be satisfied in a doctrine
like that of the incarnation.

“Well, sir, that's not my feelin',” answered Stephen,
earnestly. “A Deity I could understand would be no God

for me. Where there is the same knowledge, there is too
much companionship, like, for worship and reverence.”

“But we are told that man was created after the image
of God.”

“In his likeness, Captain Gar'ner — with some of the
Divine Spirit, but not with all. That makes him different
from the brutes, and immortal. I have convarsed with a
clergyman who thinks that the angels, and archangels, and
other heavenly beings, are far before even the Saints in
Heaven, such as have been only men on 'arth.”

The idea of not having a Deity that he could not
comprehend had long been one of Roswell Gardiner's
favourite rules of faith. He did not understand by this
pretending dogma, that he was, in any respect, of capacity
equal to comprehend with that of the Divine Being, but
simply that he was not to be expected or required to believe
in any theory which manifestly conflicted with his
knowledge and experience, as both were controlled by the
powers of induction he had derived directly from his
Creator. In a word, his exception was one of the most
obvious of the suggestions of the pride of reason, and just
so much in direct opposition to the great law of regeneration,
which has its very gist in the converse of this feeling
—Faith.

As our young master paced the terrace alone, that idea
of the necessity of the Creator's being incomprehensible to
the created, recurred to him. The hour that succeeded
was probably the most important in Roswell Gardiner's
life. So intense were his feelings, so active the workings
of his mind, that he was quite insensible to the intensity
of the cold; and his body keeping equal motion with his
thoughts, if one may so express it, his frame actually set at
defiance a temperature that might otherwise have chilled it,
warmly and carefully as it was clad.

Truly there were many causes existing at that time and
place, to bring any man to a just sense of his real position
in the scale of created beings. The vault above Roswell
was sparkling with orbs floating in space, most of them far
more vast than this earth, and each of them doubtless
having its present or destined use. What was that light,
so brilliant and pervading throughout space, that converted

each of those masses of dark matter into globes clothed
with a glorious brightness? Roswell had seen chemical
experiments that produced wonderful illuminations; but
faint, indeed, were the most glowing of those artificial
torches, to the floods of light that came streaming out of
the void, on missions of millions and millions of miles.
Who, and what was the Dread Being—dread in his Majesty
and Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy — who
used these exceeding means as mere instruments of his
pleasure? and what was he himself, that he should presume
to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition to a
revelation supported by miracles that must be admitted to
come through men inspired by the Deity, or rejected altogether?

In this frame of mind Roswell was made to see that
Christianity admitted of no half-way belief; it was all true,
or it was wholly false.

And why should not Christ be the Son of God, as the
Fathers of the Church had perseveringly, but so simply
proclaimed, and as that church had continued to teach for
eighteen centuries? Roswell believed himself to have been
created in the image of God; and his much-prized reason
told him that he could perpetuate himself in successors;
and that which the Creator had given him the power to
achieve, could he not in his own person perform? For
the first time, an inference to the contrary seemed to be
illogical.

Then the necessity for the great expiation occurred to
his mind. This had always been a stumbling-block to
Roswell's faith. He could not see it; and that which he
could not see he was indisposed to believe. Here was the
besetting weakness of his character; a weakness which did
not suffer him to perceive that could he comprehend so
profound a mystery, he would be raised far above that very
nature in which he took so much pride. As he reflected
on this branch of the subject, a thousand mysteries, physical
and moral, floated before his mind; and he became
aware of the little probability that he should have been
endowed with the faculties to comprehend this, the greatest
of them all. Had not science gradually discovered the
chemical processes by which gases could be concentrated

and disengaged, the formation of one of those glittering
orbs above his head would have been quite as unintelligible
a mystery to him, as the incarnation of the Saviour. The
fact was, that phenomena that were just as mysterious to
the human mind as any that the dogmas of Christianity
required to be believed, exist hourly before our eyes without
awakening skepticism, or exciting discussion; finding
their impunity in their familiarity. Many of these phenomena
were strictly incomprehensible to human understandings,
which could reason up to a fountain-head in each
case; and there it was obliged to abandon the inductive
process, purely for the want of power to grapple with the
premises which control the whole demonstration.

Could Mary Pratt have known what was going on in
Roswell Gardiner's soul that night, her happiness would
have been as boundless as her gratitude to God. She would
have seen the barrier that had so long interposed itself to
her wishes broken down; not by any rude hand, but by the
influence of those whisperings of the Divine Spirit, which
open the way to men to fit themselves for the presence of
God.