University of Virginia Library

JOHN HINCHLEY.

By Mrs. C. M. Kirkland.

The artist has designed, under this head, a scene
which actually passed in our own neighbourhood, at
the West. As this is a mere coincidence—no word
having been said of our floating recollections of the
occasion—we are disposed to make the picture the
ground of a little homily we would like to deliver;
premising, however, that we are far from believing
such “steps” more characteristic of the West than of
the East. Like circumstances will assuredly produce
similar results every where.

We see in the engraving four men amusing themselves
in a barn; two at cards, (high-low-jack, we may
suppose,) another watching the game, and the fourth
raising to his lips a keg or canteen, which we may
take leave to fear does not contain any thing so innocent
as Croton water. Through the open half door
we observe a church; and, upon the winding pathway
which leads to the sacred edifice, a funeral procession.

This scene was imagined and conceived by the
artist solely on the strength of his own knowledge

and observation of human life in general, and as the
first of a series expressive of the downward course
of him who begins by neglecting duty for amusement
and indulgence; yet it is, as we said before, an actual
transcript of reality; and we must give our recollections
of this one scene in advance of the recitals
which are to be illustrated by the series of pictures.

There was a youth in a certain Western district,
the son of very strict parents, who had brought him up
in what they certainly intended should be, “the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.” They sent him
to school every winter, and charged the master not to
spare the rod if it was needed to make him a good
boy; they made him attend Sabbath-school with unerring
punctuality, remember every sermon's text,
and commit to memory a certain portion of Scripture
every Sunday. While he was quite young, they allowed
him to play, somewhat like other boys; but
when he began to call himself a young man, he found
his wish for amusement continually thwarted by his
father, whose notions grew more and more rigid with
the advance of years, and who was, moreover, under
influences which led him to the opinion that all gaiety
is sinful.

Now, we must pause ere we proceed, to enter a
caveat against the imputation that we are inimical to
a serious life. It is our heartfelt opinion that there is
no other happy life; that no one has yet tasted happiness
who doubts this, or has not tried it. What we
would hint is, that this life is an inward life, and that
to force the outward appearance of it while the heart

is unconvinced, is the way to make hypocrites and
haters of all good things. It is a contradiction to the
whole philosophy of human nature, to suppose that
virtue will be the result of force. Even the Almighty
Ruler has left the choice to our free will, giving us
at the same time the knowledge of good and evil. It
is the sacred duty of parents to guard their children
from habits which contravene the laws of God; but
when they set up severe and arbitrary rules of their
own in addition, they run the risk of such consequences
as I am about to describe.

John Hinchley was a well-disposed boy, of considerable
quickness of intellect; ruddy, bright-eyed,
handsome, and well-developed. He was a favourite
in the neighbourhood, and always invited to the
husking, the quilting, the raising, in short, all rustic
merry-makings. Contrary to custom, his father often
restrained him from accepting these invitations, insisting
upon his accomplishing some piece of work
which was unfinished, and lecturing him severely
upon the feelings which he sometimes exhibited when
thus thwarted. Now John was a dutiful son, thus
far, and particularly fond of his mother, who, though
very strict, was milder than her husband, and would
sometimes intercede, on occasions when the old man's
objurgations bore too hard upon the son. John was
sometimes tempted to deceive both father and mother;
but to his credit be it spoken, his conscience punished
him so severely for this, that he found such indulgences
cost more than they came to; and his thoughts

turned rather to the best and earliest means of getting
rid of parental restraint altogether.

When he was about nineteen, a blacksmith, who
lived at some distance, made him an offer of business,
which his father thought too advantageous to be rejected,
and John was sent to a new field of labour, with
many earnest charges as to his walk and conversation.
But there was a sad discrepancy between the
father's exhortations and denunciations, and the circumstances
of the case; and John knew this. He
knew that his father was perfectly well aware that
the neighbourhood to which he was going was a
notedly vicious one, and that love of gain was the
sole inducement in sending him. This inconsistency,
alas! how common a one with the loudest talkers
about morals! completely neutralized the effect of the
solemn words with which old Hinchley dismissed his
son; and, although the mother's tears were more
effectual, she was weak in judgment, and so had not
commanded the respect of her children as much as
she had won their love.

The blacksmith with whom John was to live, was
a man of smooth outside, so smooth, indeed, that the
young man, whose brain had been almost turned by
the prospect of the boundless liberty for which he
had been sighing, feared at first that he had fallen
into hands no less rigid than his father's, spite of the
reputation of the place, which was called “Hell-gate”
by the whole neighbourhood. But it was not long before,
happening to go into the shop at a very early
hour, he found his employer and another man, with

haggard, anxious faces, and eyes bloodshot and fierce
with passion, liquor, and want of sleep, playing cards
on a block in one corner, while “old Hills,” and one
or two others who had been looking on, were lying
drunk in various positions on the earthen floor. Disguise
was out of the question; the blacksmith was
not so much intoxicated as not to perceive that excuses
would be worse than useless; so he braved it out, and
invited John to “join in the fun.” John did not join
—then.

From this time the seduction of the unfortunate
young man became a settled object with the blacksmith
and his companions; and to make his chance
the worse, it so happened that old Hills—the most
abandoned drunkard in the whole place—had a pretty
daughter, whose sad and downcast eye interested John
Hinchley far more than the gayer glances of her companions.
He became a familiar visiter at her father's,
and soon found pity change to love as he witnessed
the sufferings of the young woman, who was really
exemplary, as if incited by the vices of those around
to practise the industry, self-denial, and reserve which
were so miserably deficient at “Hell-gate.”

It was not long before John and Mary were “promised,”
as they say in the country; and dire was the
wrath of John's father at the news. He recalled his
son, but it was too late. Home rule was over; new
associations had been formed; love exerted its all
powerful sway; and in spite of the tears of the
wretched mother, John Hinchley quarrelled with his
father, and left the house under his curse, to return

to Mary and liberty. Before he was of age he had
married Mary Hills, and become a partner of the dissolute
blacksmith, who held out the only chance of
living at all, though at the expense of all that makes
life worth having.

The young couple were really attached, and had
good qualities enough to have made their affection
serve for a whole life's quiet happiness, if the bosom
talisman of fixed principle had not been wanting.
But children came—means were scanty—home was
uncomfortable—Mary became cross under penury
and ill-health, while John's wicked companions seemed
jolly, and declared that they took the world very
easy. The blacksmith was one of those sots who do
their work well, and who manage, by the aid of an
iron constitution, to keep up business and vice together,
for a time, deceiving both themselves and
others as to the final result. John imitated his partner,
but with inferior success. His health became disordered;
his hand was unsteady; his work did not
please; high words often arose between him and the
more robust sinner. Friendship, cemented only by
evil propensities, is fleeting as dew; and discord
added her fell torch to the remains of poor John's
happiness.

Behold him now the fit companion of his father-in-law—him!
who had chosen Mary from all the world,
because he pitied the wretchedness and loved the virtues
of the drunkard's daughter! From one degree
of neglect to another—from unkind words to absolute
desertion—from finding the children a plague, to the

loss of even instinctive affection for them—he fell
lower and lower; until, while his eldest child was in
the death-agony, he could not be persuaded to quit his
game of cards. She died—he played on. In vain
did the neighbours persuade and shame him; he
turned the adder's deafness to their words. When
night came he drank deeper than usual, and slept,
the deep, swinish sleep of inebriation, on the floor of
the shop. The next day the funeral of his child passed
on its way to the burial-ground. There were John
and his companions still at cards; there was old Hills
at his potations; and while every body was crying
shame upon them, they only clung the closer to the
indulgences to which alone their now degraded natures
looked for happiness.

Happiness! oh profane estimate! fatuity inconceivable!

Wretchedness dogged the steps of John Hinchley
and his once lovely Mary; poverty came upon them,
and “want like an armed man.” They have long
ago ceased to take their place with others at meeting,
or at the social gathering. Their children cannot go
to school, for want of decent clothing; their dwelling
is falling down for very misery. Man can do nothing
for them, since they have the art of turning
even benevolence to poison. May God have mercy
upon them, and upon all such!

If we should be asked, in reference to our description
of John's early training, how we would have had

it changed; whether we think it better that the stern
father should have allowed his son to join in amusements
that he disapproved, we reply—that while we
believe it the bounden duty of parents to restrain
their children from participation in whatever recreations
may seem to them likely to prove injurious, we
are sure it is equally incumbent on them to provide
for them those which are innocent. And again, while
parents are inexcusable if they allow disobedience in
their children, they sin deeply if they require this
obedience in any other than the spirit of love. Sternness,
want of sympathy, and too great rigor of habits
at home, drive many a youth to vice, who might have
been preserved by watchful love, the care which
springs from devoted affection, and the cheerfulness
which every young heart craves. Good humour,
vivacity, sympathy, benevolence, are not the fruits of
an ascetic life; and more especially is compulsory asceticism
unfavourable to the cultivation of those amenities
on which so much of the comfort, happiness, and
safety of life depends.

The inconsistency which we notice in the conduct
of John Hinchley's father, is a fruitful source of evil
in education. The parent who is strict to excess as
to many little outward conformities with the world,
will yet show himself to be the slave of mammon, or
the victim of evil tempers, or the petty tyrant—behind
the scenes. How much of the misconduct and unhappiness
of young people is the direct fruit of a
deficiency of virtue, or sincere effort at virtue in
their parents, is an awful thought for many of us.

Let us never imagine that any outward strictness can
atone for the want of that deep-seated, and operative
goodness, which alone has the promise of Heaven's
blessing upon its efforts, its sacrifices, and its hopes.

We should always be ready to strengthen the in
fluence of precept by the force of example. The
parent, while pointing the way to Heaven, should
always evince a readiness to walk in the narrow path
that leads to eternal life.