 | THE PLOUGH AND THE SWORD. Myrtis |  |
THE PLOUGH AND THE SWORD.
Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms,
Mine be the pleasures of a rural life,
From noise remote, and ignorant of strife.”
Livingston.
In one of the quiet villages that beautify the valley
of the Connecticut, sleeping like nests among the
green drapery, was a pleasant and somewhat antique
farm-house. It stood retired from the public road,
overshadowed by a lofty elm, with broad, drooping
branches. A silver brooklet came bubbling from the
hillock in its background; then flowing into a nook
amid the roots of some old trees, and growing deeper
and more subdued, was content to refresh the
steed of the passing traveler, or the herds who drank
and ruminated in its waters, as though it were to
them a Helicon.
The smaller tenements and appendages of the
farm-house evinced neatness and good husbandry.
A dense hop-vine clustered over its long piazza, and
a row of bee-hives sent forth their busy people among
the thyme and balm-beds. The sound of the matron's
wheel, mingling with her song, was heard from
the open casement in summer, while the rich products
of the churn and cheese-press attested her skill
in the dairy.
In the labors of the farmer, his two young sons
were constant and active participants. They assisted
the seeds from whence their bread was to grow.
In summer they followed the scythe with their lighter
implements, preparing the fragrant food for their
domestic animals. In autumn they aided to gather
into the garner the varied bounty that God, through
their mother-earth, sent, as a reward for faithful toil.
In winter they sought with equal diligence, at the
district school, those mental stores which were to
enrich the whole of life.
One cold evening, they were seated with their
books beside a bright fire fed by the trees of their own
forest, while their lamp cast a cheerful ray over the
snow-covered landscape. The younger, a boy of
thirteen, threw aside his lessons, and said,
“I intend to be a soldier. I have read of Alexander
the Great, and of Bonaparte. There is nothing
in this world so glorious as the fame of the warrior.”
His brother raised a thoughtful brow, and regarded
him with a steady glance for a few moments, ere he
replied,
“To destroy life, and bring mourning into families,
and misery into the world, seems to me cruel,
instead of glorious.”
“Oh! but the rich dress, and the fine music, and
the glittering arms, think of them! And then, the
honor and the praise! To have hosts of soldiers
under your command, and all the people talking of
your courage, and distant nations applauding your
that?”
“Did not our minister say last Sunday from the
pulpit, that the `end of life was the test of its greatness?'
Now Alexander of Macedon, whom you call
the Great, fell in a fit of drunkenness, and Bonaparte
died on a desolate island, like a chained wild beast.”
“I am sorry to see you are so easily prejudiced.
Indeed, I must say that you have a very narrow
mind. I doubt whether you are capable of admiring
heroes. You had better, by all means, be a farmer.
Your highest ambition, I suppose, is to break a pair
of steers, or ride a dull cart-horse to market.”
The voice of the father was heard from an adjoining
apartment,
“Boys, go to bed.”
Thus ended, for that night, their conversation on
martial glory, the only subject on which they strongly
disagreed.
A few lustrums swiftly and silently pass by. How
quiet is the lapse of time in an agricultural village.
Masses of men are not there to level the hillocks, or
rear the red brick where the forest waved, or toss
the slumbering waters into the caldron of the steam-spirit,
or give the green lanes to the tramp of its iron
horse. Seed-time and harvest alternate; the beautiful
seasons complete their annual round. The child
comes forth from the arms of his mother and guides
the plough; a little more silver is sprinkled on the
heads that have passed their prime; the old man
mounds are visible in the church-yard.
The features of the rural scenery which we have
already described, were but slightly changed. The
elm had thrown its groined branches somewhat higher,
and marked out a broader circumference of shade.
The brook still told an unfinished tale to listening
summer, and in winter incrusted with frost-work
and diamonds its root-wreathed basin. On the roof
of the farm-house more moss had gathered, and its
rough fence of brown bars, was replaced by a white
paling.
Within, was the same cheerful fire that blazed
when we last visited it. By its hearth-stone stood
the same arm-chairs, but its former occupants had
become tenants of that lowly bed which no rising
sun awakens. In their place sat the eldest son, and
by his side a woman of mature age and pleasing
countenance, on whose knee was a fair infant. On
a pallet, in a shaded nook of the apartment, two little
ones quietly breathed in the sleep of innocence,
and at a small table two boys with thoughtful brows
pondered their lessons. A wintry storm was raging,
and as the blast shook the casements, the farmer
said to his wife,
“In such cold, bad nights, I can not help thinking
of my poor brother. But so many years have passed
since we heard aught of him, and his way of life was
so full of danger, that it is most probable he no longer
needs our sympathy.”
“Husband, just as you began to speak I thought
I heard some one knock; or was it the winds striking
the old elm-tree?”
On opening the door, a motionless form was found
extended near the threshold. A staff was still feebly
grasped in his hand, and a crutch, that supplied the
place of a lost limb, had fallen at his side. With
difficulty he was borne in, and pillowed in a large
chair near the fire. After the application of restoratives,
he opened his eyes, and seemed to gaze on
every surrounding object—clock, and oaken table,
and large, old Bible—as on some recollected friend.
Then there was a faint sound of “Brother!”
That tone touched the tender memories of earliest
years. Their welcome to the poor wanderer
with the broken frame, and tattered garment was
heart-felt. Yet their tears freshly flowed at his pathetic
tones,
“See, I have come home to die!”
They hastened to spread the refreshing repast,
and to press him to partake. Afterward they induced
him to retire to rest, without taxing his exhausted
strength by conversation. The next morning
he was unable to rise. They sat by his couch,
solacing his worn spirit with kindness, and with narratives
of the changes that had befallen them and
other friends in the peaceful spot of his birth. At
intervals he mingled his own sad recital.
“I have had many troubles. But that which hath
most bowed me down inwardly was my disobedience
knowledge of my parents, to be a soldier. I have felt
the pain of wounds, but the sting of conscience is
keener. Hunger and thirst have I known, and the
prisons of a foreign land. When I lay sick and neglected,
it would sometimes seem, in the fever-dream,
that my mother bent kindly over me, as she would if
I had only the headache; or that my father came with
the great Bible in his hand, to read, as he used to do,
before our prayers morning and evening. Then I
cried out, in my agony, `I am no more worthy to be
called thy son.”'
He paused, overcome with emotion, and his brother
hastened to assure him of their perfect forgiveness,
and of the fervor with which he was brought ever
before their family altar as the son erring, yet beloved.
“Ah, those prayers! They followed me like angel
wings. But for them, I might have been a reprobate
both to God and man.”
By little and little, as his feebleness admitted, he
told the story of his wanderings. He had been in
warfare both by sea and land. He had heard the
deep ocean resound to battle thunders, and seen
earth saturated with the red shower from the bosom
of her sons. He had served in the armies of Europe,
and pursued the hunted Indian in his own native
clime. He had plunged recklessly amid the thickest
dangers, seeking every where the glory that dazzled
his boyhood, but in vain. He found the soldier's lot
reap the fame. He saw what wounds and mutilations,
what anguish, mourning, and death were implicated
in a single victory. He felt how far the
renown of the greatest conqueror falls short of the
good that he forfeits; how it fades away before the
misery that he inflicts.
“For a few moments,” he said, “on the verge of
battle, I felt a shuddering, inexpressible horror at
the thought of destroying my fellow-creatures; but
in the heat of conflict all human sympathies vanished.
Desperate madness took possession of me,
and I cared neither for this world nor the next. I
have been left helpless on the field beneath trampling
horses, my open gashes stiffening in the chill
night air, while no man cared for my soul. Yet why
should I pain you by such descriptions? You have
ever dwelt within the sweet influences of mercy, and
shrank to distress even a soulless animal! You can
not realize the hardness of heart that comes with such
a life as I have led. The soldier is enforced to be
familiar with suffering and violence. His moral and
religious sensibilities are in continual peril. Profanity
and contempt of sacred things mingle with
the elements of his trade. The softening, hallowing
privileges of the Sabbath are not for him. The precepts
of the Gospel that were instilled into his childhood
are in danger of being swept away. Still my
heart ceased not to reproach me in seasons of reflection,
though I would fain have silenced and made it
ere I am called to answer for deeds of blood, and for
a lost life.”
His sympathizing brother and sister still cherished
the hope, that by medical skill and careful nursing,
his health might be restored. They placed much
reliance on the bland influences of his native air, and
on the salutary trains of feeling which the kindness
of early friends awakened.
Yet his constant assertion was, “My vital energies
are wasted. They can be rekindled no more.
Death standeth at my right hand. When I came to
the borders of this valley, my poor, swollen limb tottered,
and my whole frame began to fail. Then I
besought Him whom I had so often forgotten, `Oh!
give me heart and hope, and hold me up but a little
while, that I may die in the house where I was born,
and be buried at the feet of my father and my mother.”'
The suffering and humbled man sought earnestly
for the hope of salvation. Feeling that a great
change was necessary ere he could be fitted for a
realm of purity and peace, he studied the Scriptures
with prayer, and listened to the counsels of pious
men.
“Brother, dear brother, you have followed the example
of our parents. In the peaceful pursuits of
agriculture, your life has flowed on like an unruffled
stream. I chose to toss among whirlpools, and made
shipwreck of all. You have kept the law of love
fleece, but not wantonly destroyed the lamb. You
have taken the honey, and spared the laboring bee;
but I have destroyed both the hive and the honey,
the fleece and the flock, man and his habitation. I
have cruelly defaced the image of God, and crushed
out that breath which I can never restore. Bitter
is the warfare of my soul with the prince of the
power of the air, who ruleth the children of disobedience.”
As the last hour approached, he laid his cold hands
on the head of his brother's two little sons, saying,
with solemn emphasis,
“Choose the plough, and not the sword!”
Tender gratitude lighted up the glazing eye as he
faintly uttered,
“Sister, brother, you have been angels of mercy
to me. Peace be in your hearts, and upon your
household.”
The venerable pastor, who had been the teacher
of his childhood, and the comforter of his sickness,
stood by his side as he went down into the dark valley
of the shadow of death.
“My son, look unto the Lamb of God.”
“Yes, father. He taketh away the sin of the
world.”
The white-haired man lifted up a fervent supplication
for the departing soul.
When he ceased, the eyes of the dying were
closed. There was no more heaving of the breast
where no sin or sorrow can have place.
Yet again the eyelids trembled, and one long,
struggling sigh burst from the marble lips. Bending
down, the mournful brother caught the last sounds
faint, yet tuneful, “Land of peace!” and “Savior of
sinners!”
| THE PLOUGH AND THE SWORD. Myrtis | |