University of Virginia Library

THE MISSIONARIES.

On a fine morning in May 18—, two of those large
boats in which families emigrating to the west descend
our rivers, were seen slowly floating down
the Ohio. Built of rough heavy timber, and
intended to move only with the current, those unwieldy
vessels, lay silent and motionless on the
wave, that bore them gently towards their destination.
At a small village—or rather at a spot
intended to be occupied as such—the boats were
brought to the shore and moored, and the passengers
began to mingle with the people, whom curiosity
had drawn to the landing place. It was a missionary
family, proceeding to its station among the Osage
Indians, that halted thus in the wilderness, to receive
a foretaste of the scenes that awaited them in
the distant forest.

The place at which they had stopped was a level
plain, of rich alluvion, from which the timber had
been cleared for the space of a mile along the river,
and nearly that depth into the forest. A cluster of
cabins, recently built, of rough logs, to which the
bark still adhered, presented to the eyes of our travellers,

a specimen of human existence, more nearly
approaching the rudeness of savage life, than any
thing they had yet seen. There was nothing here
to recall to memory their own lovely homes—the
beautiful villages of New England. There was no
green spot, shaded with venerable trees, hallowed
to the repose of the dead—no church, pointing its
spire to heaven, and offering a holy refuge to the
living. Here were no rural embellishments, indicating
taste, and neatness, and enjoyment—no domestic
trees, no honey-suckle bowers, nor any of
those ornaments which beautify the village, and
give to the humblest cottage an air of elegance.
Gardens, and orchards, and meadows, there were
none, nor any dwelling that seemed to have been
endeared to a human being by the name of home.
The ground, newly cleared, was thickly set with
stumps, and covered with a rank growth of weeds.
The frail and unsightly cabins, standing apart from
each other, and destitute of out-houses and enclosures,
seemed to be, as they really were, the
temporary residence of an unsettled people. But
cheerless as this spot appeared, to those who had
been accustomed to all the comforts, and many of the
luxuries of life, it was such as all new towns in the
west had once been; such, perhaps, as the hamlets
were on the shores of the Atlantic, where the voices
of the pilgrims first ascended in prayer to Him
who had brought them in safety out of the land of
persecution.

And yet the scene was not destitute of attraction.

Art had done little to spoil, and nothing to embellish
it, but nature had been prodigal of her bounties.
As the travellers stood on the bank, they beheld the
“beautiful river” for miles above and below them,
rolling gently along, with a surface as smooth as
polished crystal. The shores were slightly curved,
swelling out on the one side, and receding upon the
other, so as to exhibit a series of long and graceful
bends. The banks, as far the eye could reach, were
low, and subject to inundation by the spring floods;
but the vegetation which formed their chief beauty,
was rich beyond description. Springing from a
deep alluvion soil, the forest trees reared their immense
trunks to an amazing height, while their interwoven
branches and foliage, formed an impenetrable
shade. The hues of the forest were as various
as they were beautiful. Here was the melancholy
cypress, with a dark trunk and sombre leaf, and the
tall sycamore with a stem of snowy whiteness, and
a foliage of light green. The poplar, the elm, the
maple, and the gum, with numerous other trees,
exhibited every variety of verdure between these
extremes. The dog-wood and the red-bud, countless
in number, decked the whole scene with their
rich blossoms, the former of pure white, and the
varieties of the latter glowing with all the shades
between a pink and a deep scarlet. Then there was
the locust, rich in fragrance as in hue, the delicate
catalpa, the yellow flower of the tulip tree. The
graceful cane covered the ground, the willow fringed
the stream, the vine crept to the tops of the tallest
trees, and the misletoe hung among the branches.
The luxuriant soil, while it loaded itself with a
gigantic vegetation, gave a depth and vividness to
the colouring of the landscape, that imparted a peculiar
strength and character to the scene. But if
the eye was charmed, there was a loveliness, a stillness,
and a silence, reigning throughout this scene,
that touched the heart. The very beauties that
delighted, and the quietness that soothed, testified
that man was a stranger here, and told the traveller
that he was alone with his God.

Such were the feelings of the Missionaries as they
gazed on this gentle stream, and its wild shore.
They had left their homes and their friends, their
pious companions, their cherished relatives, and the
scenes of their childhood, and were going beyond
the confines of civil society, to dwell with the savage
in his own wild woods. As they travelled to
the west, they had seen the traces of civilization
becoming every day more faint—every day they
had found the villages ruder and more distant from
each other—until at last they had reached the
abodes of the hunter, where the rifle and the axe
furnished the means of subsistence and of defence.
An immense tract of wilderness was yet to be traversed,
before they could reach the scene of their
future labours, and they felt sad to think how seldom
the smile of a countryman, or the voice of a brother,
would cheer them on their way. Their spirits
sunk, as they looked at the boundless extent of
forest: gorgeous as it was to the eye, it was still

but a blooming desert, containing nothing to warm
the heart, or cherish the affections. Every object
around them was strange, and they felt like exiles
wandering far from the land of their birth.

These were trials, however, that had been anticipated;
and it was easy to see in the mournful countenances
of these humble Christians, as they wandered
along the shore, that a heavier visitation was
pending over them, than those which were necessarily
incident to their situation. One of their companions,
a beloved sister, was about to breathe her last
sigh. The messenger of death had arrested her in
the wilderness; giving a solemn warning to those
who journeyed with her, that although they had
forsaken the haunts of men, they had not escaped
the casualties of human existence. Even here,
where nature bloomed so fresh, where every surrounding
object teemed with youth, and vigour, and
fragrance, the messenger of fate would reach its victim.
Bound on a mission of love, and bearing the
tidings of life to thousands, they also bore with them
the evidence of their own mortality. Death was
silently pursuing their footsteps, watching his own
appointed time to claim the tribute which all must
pay to the insatiate king of terrors.

The situation of the dying missionary was soon
known to the villagers, and a few of them went to
offer, in their own homely way, the offices of hospitality;
but they came too late; the sufferer was too
feeble to be removed, and the mourning strangers
said that they needed nothing from human kindness

but a grave for their companion. The visitors were
deeply affected. The death-bed exhibits at all times
a solemn and a touching scene, and though of daily
occurrence, its frequency does not destroy its fearful
interest. There are few who reason coldly in
the chamber of dissolution; and the imagination is
easily excited by any incidental circumstance which
brings an additional pang to the parting of the living
and the dying. The present scene was one of no
ordinary interest. The sufferer was a young and delicate
female. A husband watched over her pallet,
and two lovely children, unconscious of the loss they
were about to sustain, were with difficulty withheld
from her embrace. The severing of hearts wedded
in love—the parting of a mother from her infant children—are
events which the most callous cannot view
without emotion; but on ordinary occasions there
is a melancholy pleasure in the reflection, that the
survivors will often visit the grave of the deceased,
to drop the unseen tear of affection. Even this
mournful consolation was now wanting; and those
who sorrowed, felt that when the soul of their friend
should have departed, they must abandon her earthly
remains, retaining no relic of her whom they had
dearly loved. Her tomb would be on the wild
shore, where no kindred ashes slept, and where
they who dwelt near the spot, could only point it
out as a stranger's grave.

The solemn moment had arrived when none affected
to doubt the truth which was too evident, or
sought to detain the spirit in its earthly abode.

That spirit had begun to assume its celestial character,
and was already invested in the eyes of the beholders,
with the attributes of a brighter existence. An
angel seemed to be lingering among men, as if unwilling
to sever too rudely the cords of affection,
with which she had been united to human beings.
She spoke little; but her words showed that her
thoughts partook of the change she was about to undergo.
Her affections alternately lingered on the
earth, and soared towards a better existence. The
bosom of the saint swelled with a holy joy—but
the heart of the wife and mother clung to the dearly
cherished objects of its purest and strongest earthly
passion.

The mission family embraced a number of persons
of both sexes, and it was gratifying to see in their
deportment, how efficient is religion in the hour of
sorrow. Though deeply afflicted, there was a decent
composure, a quiet humility, and an entire resignation
in all their words and actions. They spoke not of
death as the loathsome companion of disease, or the
precursor of corruption, but as the natural consummation
of all earthly being. They sorrowed not
for her who was going to a better world, but for
those who remained. Their voices were firm and
cheerful—and even the timid soul that was fluttering
in the hope and fear, and joy and sorrow, of
the dying moment, acquired calmness from the
serenity of others.

Such was the day. Evening came, and the sufferer
still lived. Prayer and hymn were heard at

intervals throughout the night, but all else was silent;
and at a late hour, they who cast a last look at the
shore, beheld a dim light still emanating from the
chamber of death, and appearing as a bright speck in
the surrounding gloom—like the lingering soul,
whose feeble radiance still gleamed in the dark
“valley of the shadow of death.”

The following day was the Sabbath. At the
dawn, the villagers hastened to the boats. The
missionaries were already engaged at their morning
devotions. The voice of prayer was heard ascending
through the stillness of that quiet hour. The
accents were low and trembling, but distinctly audible.
The speaker alluded to her whose spirit had
gone to the mansions of the blessed, and prayed for
the bereaved husband and the orphan children; and
the villagers then knew that she in whose fate they
had felt so deeply interested, suffered no longer. After
a moment's pause, the notes of sacred song were
heard floating over the tide—so sweet, so mournful,
that every heart was touched, and every eye moistened.

At sunset the same day, the remains of the stranger
were borne to the place of burial by her late
companions, followed by the inhabitants of the village.
A large Indian mound in the rear of the town
had been selected, as the only spot not subject to
inundation. The grave was opened on the summit
of this eminence, and here was the body of a Christian
female deposited among the relics of heathen
warriors. The inhabitants, and the mission family,

stood around with their heads reverently uncovered
while one of the missionaries addressed them—then
some one raised a hymn, and the whole company
joined, chaunting with solemn fervour, as if a flood of
devotional feeling had burst spontaneously from
every bosom at the same instant—and when they all
knelt upon the mound, it was not from any signal
or invitation given by man, but God touched their
hearts, and as the song of praise ceased, they all involuntarily
prostrated themselves before His throne.

When the people rose, and the officiating minister
had dismissed them with the usual benediction, the
widowed husband stepped forward, leading one of
his children in each hand. For a moment he stood
by the newly filled grave, gazing on it with an
agony which he strove in vain to subdue. In a
broken voice he thanked the people of the village
for their kindness, and committed the remains of
his wife to their protection. He begged them to
mark and remember the place of interment, in order
that “if hereafter a stranger in passing through
their village should ask them for the grave of Maria
—, they could lead him to the spot.”