5. CHAPTER V.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Richard Edney was born of worthy parents, in an interior
town of the state. Three things — the Family, the
School, and the Church — contributed to the formation
of his mind and development of his character. To the
first, he owed his gentler feelings; to the second, his elementary
knowledge; the last aroused his deeper thought,
and determined his spiritual direction. He borrowed books
from the village library, and newspapers from the postmaster,
and had the reading of a weekly paper at his father's
table. A debating club, maintained by the young men of
the place, in which the topics of the times were discussed,
aroused his invention, enlivened his wit, and while it inured
him to habits of investigation, it directed him to some solid
acquisition. At the Academy, he studied the ordinary compends
of philosophy and history, and even made a slight
attempt on the Latin tongue. Nor should it be forgotten
that the reading-books in our common schools, comprising
select pieces from the best authors, exert a permanent effect
on the scholar, correcting the taste and enriching the imagination,
affording at the same time many admirable sentiments,
and suggesting some profound thought.
Besides, Richard enjoyed the ministrations of an excellent
clergyman, a man of refined culture and earnest piety.
Settled in a rural district, the recreations of this gentleman
were gardening, fishing, hunting. In this way, he was
able to pursue more satisfactorily his parochial duties, since
in the fields most of his people found occupation, while in
the woods some prosecuted their lumbering operations, and
on the streams lay their mills. In these rambles, the youth
of the parish sometimes joined their pastor; and no one was
more happy to be thus associated than the lad who forms
the leading character of this story. Richard was thus
introduced to Nature. He conversed with the phenomena
of creation; he learned the distinctions and varieties of the
animate and inanimate world; his sense of the beautiful was
heightened, and his love of being in general, to quote a
phrase of the Schools, was developed.
Pastor Harold was not a Christian alone in doctrine and
discourse; he aimed to be such in works. He believed that
Christianity was designed to redeem mankind, and that the
Church was a chosen instrument of this redemption. He
sought to develop within the Church an Operative Philanthropy;
and this principle he applied wherever it could
subserve its great end. The evening religious meetings he
divided into several sorts. In addition to what the Gospel
could do for their souls, he urged it as a serious point upon
his people, what it would make them do for others. In furtherance
of this plan, different evenings were assigned to
different subjects: one to Intemperance; one to War; another
to Slavery; a fourth to Poverty: and the enumeration went
on till it comprised the entire routine of Practical Christianity.
He called these meetings the Church Militant; and
any particular meeting was appointed as a Conference of the
Church. At these Conferences, tracts, newspapers, circulars,
that are apt to cumber a minister's study, were distributed,
and the specific charities of the Church more wisely and
easily apportioned. These meetings were of service to
Richard; he gained thereby much valuable information, and
was led to a clearer understanding, and a more vital impression,
of his duties and responsibilities. He had access
to his Pastor's library, and in some sense to his heart; so
that in many forms he shared largely in that renovating,
spiritualizing, and exalting influence, which this good man,
from the pulpit, the fields, the evening meeting, and his
study, shed over the town.
In the Sunday-school he learned the rudiments of the
Gospel; in the services of the sanctuary he was carried
through a still deeper religious experience; and the sermons
to which he listened, and the prayers in which he
engaged, brought him into nearer communion with the
Father of spirits, and confirmed his progress in the Divine
life.
It became not only the motto on the wall of his chamber,
but the deeper aspiration of his heart, To be good, and to
do good.
Yet his forte was rather physical than intellectual. He
did not go to college, and adopt one of the learned professions;
partly, indeed, by reason of pecuniary impediments.
He had no desire to enter a store, and embark his all on
the frail but exciting bottom of commercial avocation. His
ambition was to be a thorough and upright mechanic.
Manual labor pleased him; and he was skilled in many
forms of it. His father, besides a farm, carried on a saw-mill,
to both of which he trained his son. A well-regulated
farm demands mechanical care, and is an ample field for the
employment of mechanical genius; as, indeed, it furnishes
scope for the exercise of almost every faculty of the human
mind. Richard had spent one winter amongst the head-waters
of the River, lumbering.
Suretyship, or loss of crops, or whatever it might be,
excepting that it was no vice of his own, troubled his father
in lifting the mortgage that had lain many years on his
farm. One or two instalments were still due; — they
were due the Governor, of whom the original purchase was
made; and Richard came to Woodylin partly for the purpose
of earning the requisite sum. He came, also, with the
desire, not uncommon in the youthful breast, of seeing
more of the world.
He came with good principles and good feelings; he was
willing to meet the world on fair grounds; he neither expected
too much, nor did he bid too freely. He sought to
glorify God, and benefit man; yet was he ignorant, practically
ignorant, of the many arts by which selfishness,
vanity, and the false systems of society, disintegrate character,
and undermine virtue.
He made engagements with Capt. Creamer in good faith;
he brake the bottles of the liquor-pedler with a righteous
zeal; he was irresistibly concerned for the Old Man and his
unfortunate grandchildren; he did not know Clover or Miss
Eyre; he loved the children of his sister, if the hyperbole
will not be misunderstood, with his whole soul.
