University of Virginia Library

51. CHAPTER LI.
REMORSE AND REPENTANCE.

At the conclusion of the thirty-ninth chapter of
this history,[1] I asserted that our hero (on the occasion
there mentioned) was “unhappy without
being guilty;” which assertion was followed by
this exclamation—“How much MORE unhappy
would George have been, had he been guilty!”
This reflection alone, at that time, had a tendency
to remove his uneasiness, and restore his composure.
But now, alas! George had no such balm
for his wounded mind. He was now guilty—unhappy—miserable;
nor could all the fascinations

of the frail Sophia—her boundless love, or her
lavished caresses, banish the gnawing worm of
remorse from his bosom. Every returning morning
witnessed his contrition, and the formation of
good resolutions, which every returning evening
dissolved into air. Trembling lest habit should
at length entirely strip Vice of that haggard deformity
which had always kept him aloof from
her haunts, (but which was now daily becoming
less odious to his view) he “resolved and re-resolved”
to cast off the rosy yoke which debased
him, and no longer endure the goading thorns it
concealed. But again the Syren charmed—again
the victim fell; resistance grew weaker at every
trial, and the “foul fiend” whispered—“O, who
would stand, when 'tis so sweet to fall!”

“Once more”—sighed the bewildered George,
“only once more will I taste the intoxicating cup,
and then dash it forever from my lips!” Rash,
imprudent, infatuated youth! His Satanic majesty
has not a more crafty minister in his whole
court, than this dangerous, insinuating “Once
More.” While you admit him at your counsel-board,
true Repentance (the only guide to reformation)
is kept aloof, and cannot enter.

As George was sitting one evening, in his
quarters, suffering rather than enjoying the caresses
of his amorous inamorato, who hung upon
his neck with growing fondness, tenderly complaining
of his coldness, and pressing her glowing
lips to his “as if she'd pluck up kisses by
the roots”—his eye accidentally (as 'tis called)
rested on a letter, directed to his father, which
had for more than a week remained neglected in
his card-rack. It was the envelope of that which
he had addressed to Catharine on the fatal evening

which witnessed his first aberration from the
path of innocence. A letter for Catharine had
always heretofore been hurried to the post-office,
after receiving a kiss on the seal, which
was there to remain in torpidity until resuscitated
by the warmth of her own lips. But now a
most tender epistle had been written, enclosed in
the usual envelope, and then—forgotten! A train
of reflections now rushed across the mind of our
hero, which so powerfully affected him, that he
started on his feet, clasped his hands in convulsive
agony, and involuntarily exclaimed, with a
vehemence that terrified the guilty fair one from
whose circling arms he had torn himself—

“Oh! Catharine!—Catharine! How have I
damn'd myself!”

With this exclamation, he rushed out, leaving
Sophia drowned in tears. The night was
extremely dark, except when the lightning broke
at intervals through a black heavy cloud in the
southern horizon; the rain descended in torrents,
and George was without his hat and coat, with a
thin mantle streaming behind him in the breeze,
as he flitted along like the genius of the tempest,
heedless of the path he took, and insensible to his
situation. The sudden challenge of a sentinel
awoke him from his reverie, and was repeated before
he could recollect the countersign. The
name of the immortal Pike secured him a pass,
and in a few minutes he found himself on the
river bank. Here he threw himself on the wet
ground, and gave free and audible vent to his
self-reproaches.

“Oh! that I could recal the last accursed
week!” he exclaimed with bitterness—“and regain
my lost peace! The foul—the monstrous

crime of adultery! O, my God! why was I reserved
for this! Why called to a trial so far beyond
my feeble strength!”

Then starting upon his feet, and looking wildly
about him, he continued—

“Is this George Washington Willoughby!—
this the son of Edward Willoughby!—the brother
of that “image of love, purity, and truth, that
moves in the person of Amelia?”[2] Is this the “angelic
being” for whose safety the innocent Catharine
trembles[3] —these the limbs which she fears
may be mangled in battle? Would to Heaven
they had been—hewn to pieces, before they encircled
a wanton adultress! Better had this form
been trampled to atoms in the field of honor, than
to lie panting with guilty rapture on the bosom
of lasciviousness! But here, on my knees, I
swear”—

“Swear not!” uttered a low and solemn voice
almost in his ear. “Add not the crime of perjury
to that of adultery.”

George started from the posture he was assuming,
and beheld by his side a tall dark figure. At
that moment a bright flash of lightning dissipated
for a moment the gloom, and he recognised the
Mysterious Chief. Silent and abashed, George
stood like a guilty culprit awaiting a heavy sentence;
he dared not raise his eyes, but kept them
fixed on the warrior's feet.

“Swear not—but repent;” uttered the chief,
after a moment's pause. “Wish not to recal the
past, seek rather to prevent the future. What is
once done, can never be undone. The stain is

fixed, and oceans of tears can never efface it. You
never can be the same Willoughby that you have
been. But though the stain of your crime is indelible,
as yet it rests upon the surface, and has
not contaminated the interior. You can never
wash it from the skin, but you can prevent its pervading
the vitals; and unless you do prevent it
—wo be unto your soul!”

“How can I prevent it?”—enquired George,
timidly raising his eyes.

“By repentance.”

“Have you not just witnessed the bitterness of
my repentance?—the poignancy of that remorse
which makes me hate and detest myself?”

“It is not repentance.”

“Not repentance!”

“Remorse is sometimes an inducement to the
work of repentance, but it is not repentance itself.
Genuine repentance is not a mere sorrow or regret
for having committed certain offences; but
it is the abstaining from committing such offences.
The Almighty has summed it up in these four
words—“Cease to do evil.” Ceasing to commit
a sin, is the only way to overcome the propensity
to its commission; and without overcoming it, it
will overcome you, and become the ruling love of
your soul. No soul can be happy whose ruling
love is evil.”

“I hate my crime!” exclaimed George, “detest
and abominate it. I hate myself for being
guilty of it.”

“I know you do,” replied the chief, “and
therefore I said the stain was yet on the surface.
But, beware of repetition! Every addition to the
stain sinks deeper and deeper, and its progress to
the pure temple of divinity within, increases in geometrical

progression. If evil enters there, the Lord
of the temple must depart, and it will soon become
a den of thieves. Your hate and detestation of
adultery was less yesterday, than it was eight
days before; repeat the crime, and it will be still
less to-morrow; in a short time, what now tears
your bosom with remorse, would scarcely agitate
it with a sigh—instead of hating, you would soon
contemplate the crime with complacency, and
afterwards love it. Then would the fatal stain
have reached the soul, and marked it for an associate
of devils.”

“I would have sworn—I will now most solemnly
affirm never to—”

“Make no resolutions,” interrupted the chief,
“if you found them on the basis of self-sufficiency.
Place not too much confidence in your strength
independent of divine assistance. You ask why
you was called to a trial beyond your strength?
Every trial is beyond the strength of a man who
trusts to his own powers alone—no trial is beyond
his strength if he is always careful gratefully to
bear in mind the source from whence that strength
proceeds. You had forgotten this important truth,
though it has been so often inculcated by your
virtuous father, and you was permitted to fall, in
order to have it more deeply impressed on your
mind—to become fully convinced of your own
weakness, when not upheld by the hand of mercy.
You had become self-confident, grown vain of the
good propensities which had been lent you, forgotten
from whom you derived them, and said
“they are my own.” You renounced the society
of others, until they reform their morals! Now let
my pupil reform his own—or he will hear the
voice of his Mentor no more.”

“Your pupil will reform;” replied George
with energy. “You know my heart—is it not
sincere?”

“Learn to know it yourself. You are at this
moment entertaining a resolution to abstain from
sin. Beware how you rob Heaven by calling that
resolution your own. It is a spiritual dictate, and
will only become yours so far as you obey it.
Think it your own, and it vanishes. Ask for it
in sincerity, and it will come again.”

“With Heaven's assistance, I will be all you
wish,” uttered George, with tears of gratitude in
his eyes; “and for such assistance will I daily
apply; I will also pour out my soul in gratitude
for the peculiar privilege I enjoy in your friendly
counsel; he who would not become good with
such a monitor, must be lost indeed!”

“If your privilege in this respect is peculiar,
it is the fault of man that it is so. Every human
being might enjoy a superior privilege, if each
one would move in the orbit for which he was
designed. You was rapidly descending from
yours, and would soon have lost me.”

“Kind being! to catch me in the fall.”

“That was not in my power. Divine mercy
arrested your fall, and held your suspended by the
thread of reflection. Then it was my province to
step in, and admonish you to reclimb the slender
web by which you hung, and regain your lost
footing in the skies.”

“Accept my gratitude.”

“It is due to Heaven alone. Never again forget
this short precept—“Do your duty, and leave
the result to Heaven.”

“I will ever endeavor to bear it in mind, and
regulate my future conduct by it.”

“To-morrow will call for an exercise of the
precept. The bearer of important news is at
hand—receive it as you ought, and be a man.
Do your duty—and place your trust in Providence.”

So saying, the Mysterious Chief walked deliberately
away towards the American camp, and
was soon lost to our hero's view.

The rain had now ceased, and the moon broken
forth; and although our hero was wet to the skin,
he continued to stroll along on the river bank,
until the Newark clock told the hour of two; he
then directed his course towards the camp, and
proceeded to his quarters. Sophia was still
watching, almost distracted with grief for his absence,
and fears for his safety.

“O George!” cried she, clinging to his bosom—“you
do not love me!”

“I have never deceived you, Sophia, with any
assurances that I did love you.”

“But does not love like mine deserve some return?
Is it kind, George, is it grateful to chill it
with such coldness? Let the happy Catharine
be your wife, but O, do not spurn poor Sophia entirely
from you. No wife can love with affection
like that I feel for you. Think you that Catharine
would sacrifice for you what I have sacrificed?”

“If she did, I should pity her as I now pity you.
Sophia! you have been successful in rendering
me the most miserable of beings, and the cause of
this effect you call love! Dreadful profanation of
that sacred word! You have made me wretched!
and the only way that I can recover the peace
which you have banished from my soul, is to banish
you from my arms. I will not become the
slave of a vice that I detest.”

“Kill me, my love!” cried Sophia, throwing
herself on her knees before him, and clasping his
in her arms, “kill me here at your feet—but, Oh!
do not banish me from your bosom! Call not the
mutual bliss we have tasted by so harsh a name.
Can that (continued she rising and throwing her
arms around his neck) be vicious which makes
us happy? If you would but consent to be as
happy in my arms as I am in yours—if you
would discard these cold prejudices which have
made the world wretched, and give up your whole
soul to love as I do, you would, like me, know no
other care but the sweet pain of a short separation,
which only increases the coming rapture of
the next meeting; you would permit no fears of
the future to mar the present bliss, nor thus fly
from my fond embrace, to wander about in
solitude, darkness, and rain, until you become
drenched and chilled, as your whole frame now is.
Come, my love, discard that frown, and let me
thaw that frozen cheek in my warm bosom, where
the flame of love forever burns.”

“Sophia!—there's fascination, madness, death
in your embrace! I must not—cannot—will not
again be the victim of its witchcraft! Unhappy
girl! you are cheating yourself with a delusive
phantom, which will soon vanish like a morning
dream, and leave you awake to the keenest despair—a
guilty, wretched creature—with no present
peace—no future hopes! Are you so infatuated
as to risk eternal pain for momentary pleasure?
If you are—I will not—so help me Heaven!
be any more a sharer in the guilt. Let me
conjure you to return to—”

“To whom shall I return?” interrupted the
wretched girl. “Oh! George! I have no home—

no friends! A husband's vengeance would pursue
me—a parent's curse overwhelm me. Every
door is shut against me. To whom then can I
return? O, George! to no one; with you I must
remain, until you kill me with unkindness, or compel
me to kill myself, by abandoning me to despair.”

“You came to me unsolicited, Sophia; imposed
yourself on me for a boy, and in that character
stole my affections; and then, in one fatal, unguarded
moment, robbed me of innocence, and
destroyed my happiness. But the robbery shall
be no further extended. Whatever pangs my
pity for your wretchedness may inflict. I deserve
them all, and will endure them. However severe
the trial, we must part! If you tax me with
cruelty, I cannot help it; I will do my duty, and
look to Heaven for the result. Let me conjure
you, then, Sophia, to repent of the past, and live
in future so as to regain the lost respect of mankind,
the esteem of your friends, and the approbation
of Heaven. The extent of your transgression
is a secret to all but myself. The crime of
deserting a jealous husband may be overlooked
by the world—your virtue may never be suspected,
and thus many obstacles are removed from
the path of reformation. Return a penitent to
your father, and I know that he will forgive you.
I know the path of repentance winds up a steep
and thorny hill; but by perseverance you may
yet reach the summit, and again find peace and
happiness. This I advise—I conjure you to do;
no pecuniary obstacle shall interrupt or deter
you, for my father's liberality will enable me to
supply you with every comfort.”

Sophia remained sunk on a chair in a speechless,

tearless agony, during the latter part of this
address. She could not weep, and her blood-shot
eyes stared with a terrific wildness on the speaker.
When he ceased, she attempted to reply, but
labored some time as if choked for utterance.
Both her hands were prest on her heart, and her
bosom heaved in tumultuous agitation. At length
she spoke—

“No, no, it will not break! Its juices are turned
to gall. You have tugged at the vital cords,
till harmony is changed to discord, bliss to wo,
love to hate. Were my slighted kisses poison,
could my lips but emit the scorpion's venom, I
would once more, in spite of your resistance, press
them to yours, till yours became cold in death.
You have driven an angel from my bosom, and a
devil has usurped its seat.”

“Sophia! are you mad!”

“Yes!—raving. My brain's on fire! You have
trampled on my heart, and converted the nectar
of love to wormwood. I hate you more than ever
I loved you—I risked the loss of Heaven for my
love—I would willingly incur certain damnation,
to make you feel my hate. Willingly would I
plunge into the burning centre of hell, could I
drag you thither with me. Hark! the reveillee
beats! I know my instrument—and shall have
my revenge.”

Before the astonished George could reply, she
rushed past him, and disappeared; while he proceeded
to dress for the review, with more composure
than he had for some time experienced.