University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
BATTLE.

IN tracing the history of a human soul through its commonplace
nervous perturbations, still more through its
spiritual humiliations, there is danger that we shall feel a
certain contempt for the subject of such weakness. It is
easy to laugh at the erring impulses of a young girl; but
you who remember when — —, only fifteen years
old, untouched by passion, unsullied in name, was found in
the shallow brook where she had sternly and surely sought
her death, — (too true! too true! — ejus animœ Jesu
miserere! — but a generation has passed since then,) —
will not smile so scornfully.

Myrtle Hazard no longer required the physician's visits,
but her mind was very far from being poised in the just
balance of its faculties. She was of a good natural constitution
and a fine temperament; but she had been overwrought
by all that she had passed through, and, though
happening to have been born in another land, she was of
American descent. Now, it has long been noticed that
there is something in the influences, climatic or other, here
prevailing, which predisposes to morbid religious excitement.
The graver reader will not object to seeing the
exact statement of a competent witness belonging to a
by-gone century, confirmed as it is by all that we see
about us.

“There is no Experienced Minister of the Gospel who
hath not in the Cases of Tempted Souls often had this Experience,

that the ill Cases of their distempered Bodies are
the frequent Occasion and Original of their Temptations.”
“The Vitiated Humours in many Persons, yield the Steams
whereinto Satan does insinuate himself, till he has gained
a sort of Possession in them, or at least an Opportunity to
shoot into the Mind as many Fiery Darts as may cause a
sad Life unto them; yea, 't is well if Self-Murder be not
the sad end into which these hurred (?) People are thus
precipitated. New England, a country where Splenetic
Maladies are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any
other, hath afforded Numberless Instances, of even pious
People, who have contracted these Melancholy Indispositions
which have unhinged them from all Service or Comfort;
yea, not a few Persons have been hurried thereby to
lay Violent Hands upon themselves at the last. These are
among the unsearchable Judgments of God!”

Such are the words of the Rev. Cotton Mather.

The minister had hardly recovered from his vexatious
defeat in the skirmish where the Widow Hopkins was his
principal opponent, when he received a note from Miss
Silence Withers, which promised another and more important
field of conflict. It contained a request that he would
visit Myrtle Hazard, who seemed to be in a very excitable
and impressible condition, and who might perhaps be easily
brought under those influences which she had resisted
from her early years, through inborn perversity of character.

When the Rev. Mr. Stoker received this note, he turned
very pale, — which was a bad sign. Then he drew a long
breath or two, and presently a flush tingled up to his cheek,
where it remained a fixed burning glow. This may have

been from the deep interest he felt in Myrtle's spiritual welfare;
but he had often been sent for by aged sinners in
more immediate peril, apparently, without any such disturbance
of the circulation.

To know whether a minister, young or still in flower, is
in safe or dangerous paths, there are two psychometers, a
comparison between which will give as infallible a return
as the dry and wet bulbs of the ingenious “Hygrodeik.”
The first is the black broadcloth forming the knees of his
pantaloons; the second, the patch of carpet before his
mirror. If the first is unworn and the second is frayed
and threadbare, pray for him. If the first is worn and
shiny, while the second keeps its pattern and texture, get
him to pray for you.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker should have gone down on his
knees then and there, and sought fervently for the grace
which he was like to need in the dangerous path just
opening before him. He did not do this; but he stood up
before his looking-glass and parted his hair as carefully as
if he had been separating the saints of his congregation
from the sinners, to send the list to the statistical columns
of a religious newspaper. He selected a professional
neckcloth, as spotlessly pure as if it had been washed in
innocency, and adjusted it in a tie which was like the
white rose of Sharon. Myrtle Hazard was, he thought,
on the whole, the handsomest girl he had ever seen; Susan
Posey was to her as a buttercup from the meadow is
to a tiger-lily. He knew the nature of the nervous
disturbances through which she had been passing, and
that she must be in a singularly impressible condition.
He felt sure that he could establish intimate spiritual relations
with her by drawing out her repressed sympathies,

by feeding the fires of her religious imagination, by exercising
all those lesser arts of fascination which are so
familiar to the Don Giovannis, and not always unknown
to the San Giovannis.

As for the hard doctrines which he used to produce sensations
with in the pulpit, it would have been a great pity
to worry so lovely a girl, in such a nervous state, with
them. He remembered a savory text about being made
all things to all men, which would bear application particularly
well to the case of this young woman. He knew
how to weaken his divinity, on occasion, as well as an old
housewife to weaken her tea, lest it should keep people
awake.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker was a man of emotions. He
loved to feel his heart beat; he loved all the forms of nonalcoholic
drunkenness, which are so much better than the
vinous, because they taste themselves so keenly, whereas
the other (according to the statement of experts who are
familiar with its curious phenomena) has a certain sense
of unreality connected with it. He delighted in the reflex
stimulus of the excitement he produced in others by
working on their feelings. A powerful preacher is open
to the same sense of enjoyment — an awful, tremulous,
goose-flesh sort of state, but still enjoyment — that a
great tragedian feels when he curdles the blood of his
audience.

Mr. Stoker was noted for the vividness of his descriptions
of the future which was in store for the great bulk
of his fellow-townsmen and fellow-worldsmen. He had
three sermons on this subject, known to all the country
round as the sweating sermon, the fainting sermon, and
the convulsion-fit sermon, from the various effects said to

have been produced by them when delivered before large
audiences. It might be supposed that his reputation as a
terrorist would have interfered with his attempts to ingratiate
himself with his young favorites. But the tragedian
who is fearful as Richard or as Iago finds that no hindrance
to his success in the part of Romeo. Indeed,
women rather take to terrible people; prize-fighters, pirates,
highwaymen, rebel generals, Grand Turks, and
Bluebeards generally have a fascination for the sex; your
virgin has a natural instinct to saddle your lion. The fact,
therefore, that the young girl had sat under his tremendous
pulpitings, through the sweating sermon, the fainting
sermon, and the convulsion-fit sermon, did not secure her
against the influence of his milder approaches.

Myrtle was naturally surprised at receiving a visit from
him; but she was in just that unbalanced state in which
almost any impression is welcome. He showed so much
interest, first in her health, then in her thoughts and feelings,
always following her lead in the conversation, that
before he left her she felt as if she had made a great discovery;
namely, that this man, so formidable behind the guns
of his wooden bastion, was a most tender-hearted and sympathizing
person when he came out of it unarmed. How
delightful he was as he sat talking in the twilight in low
and tender tones, with respectful pauses of listening, in
which he looked as if he too had just made a discovery, —
of an angel, to wit, to whom he could not help unbosoming
his tenderest emotions, as to a being from another sphere!

It was a new experience to Myrtle. She was all ready
for the spiritual manipulations of an expert. The excitability
which had been showing itself in spasms and strange
paroxysms had been transferred to those nervous centres,

whatever they may be, cerebral or ganglionic, which are
concerned in the emotional movements of the religious
nature. It was taking her at an unfair disadvantage, no
doubt. In the old communion, some priest might have
wrought upon her while in this condition, and we might
have had at this very moment among us another Saint
Theresa or Jacqueline Pascal. She found but a dangerous
substitute in the spiritual companionship of a saint like
the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker.

People think the confessional is unknown in our Protestant
churches. It is a great mistake. The principal
change is, that there is no screen between the penitent and
the father confessor. The minister knew his rights, and
very soon asserted them. He gave Aunt Silence to understand
that he could talk more at ease if he and his
young disciple were left alone together. Cynthia Badlam
did not like this arrangement. She was afraid to speak
about it; but she glared at them aslant, with the look of
a biting horse when his eyes follow one sideways until
they are all white but one little vicious spark of pupil.

It was not very long before the Rev. Mr. Stoker had
established pretty intimate relations with the household at
The Poplars. He had reason to think, he assured Miss
Silence, that Myrtle was in a state of mind which promised
a complete transformation of her character. He used
the phrases of his sect, of course, in talking with the elderly
lady; but the language which he employed with the
young girl was free from those mechanical expressions
which would have been like to offend or disgust her.

As to his rougher formulæ, he knew better than to apply
them to a creature of her fine texture. If he had
been disposed to do so, her simple questions and answers

to his inquiries would have made it difficult. But it was
in her bright and beautiful eyes, in her handsome features,
and her winning voice, that he found his chief obstacle.
How could he look upon her face in its loveliness, and
talk to her as if she must be under the wrath and curse
of God for the mere fact of her existence? It seemed
more natural, and it certainly was more entertaining, to
question her in such a way as to find out what kind of
theology had grown up in her mind as the result of her
training in the complex scheme of his doctrinal school.
And as he knew that the merest child, so soon as it begins
to think at all, works out for itself something like a theory
of human nature, he pretty soon began sounding Myrtle's
thoughts on this matter.

What was her own idea, he would be pleased to know,
about her natural condition as one born of a sinful race,
and her inherited liabilities on that account?

Myrtle smiled like a little heathen, as she was, according
to the standard of her earlier teachings. That kind
of talk used to worry her when she was a child, sometimes.
Yes, she remembered its coming back to her in a dream
she had, when — when — (She did not finish her sentence.)
Did he think she hated every kind of goodness
and loved every kind of evil? Did he think she was
hateful to the Being who made her?

The minister looked straight into the bright, brave, tender
eyes, and answered, “Nothing in heaven or on earth
could help loving you, Myrtle!”

Pretty well for a beginning!

Myrtle saw nothing but pious fervor in this florid sentiment.
But as she was honest and clear-sighted, she
could not accept a statement which seemed so plainly in

contradiction with his common teachings, without bringing
his flattering assertion to the test of another question.

Did he suppose, she asked, that any persons could be
Christians, who could not tell the day or the year of their
change from children of darkness to children of light.

The shrewd clergyman, whose creed could be lax enough
on occasion, had provided himself with authorities of all
kinds to meet these awkward questions in casuistical divinity.
He had hunted up recipes for spiritual neuralgia,
spasms, indigestion, psora, hypochondriasis, just as doctors
do for their bodily counterparts.

To be sure they could. Why, what did the great Richard
Baxter say in his book on Infant Baptism? That at
a meeting of many eminent Christians, some of them very
famous ministers, when it was desired that every one
should give an account of the time and manner of his
conversion, there was but one of them all could do it.
And as for himself, Mr. Baxter said, he could not remember
the day or the year when he began to be sincere, as
he called it. Why, did n't President Wheelock say to a
young man who consulted him, that some persons might
be true Christians without suspecting it?

All this was so very different from the uncompromising
way in which religious doctrines used to be presented to
the young girl from the pulpit, that it naturally opened her
heart and warmed her affections. Remember, if she needs
excuse, that the defeated instincts of a strong nature were
rushing in upon her, clamorous for their rights, and that
she was not yet mature enough to understand and manage
them. The paths of love and religion are at the fork of
a road which every maiden travels. If some young hand
does not open the turnpike gate of the first, she is pretty

sure to try the other, which has no toll-bar. It is also
very commonly noticed that these two paths, after diverging
awhile, run into each other. True love leads many
wandering souls into the better way. Nor is it rare to see
those who started in company for the gates of pearl seated
together on the banks that border the avenue to that other
portal, gathering the roses for which it is so famous.

It was with the most curious interest that the minister
listened to the various heresies into which her reflections
had led her. Somehow or other they did not sound so
dangerous coming from her lips as when they were uttered
by the coarser people of the less rigorous denominations,
or preached in the sermons of heretical clergymen. He
found it impossible to think of her in connection with
those denunciations of sinners for which his discourses had
been noted. Some of the sharp old church-members began
to complain that his exhortations were losing their
pungency. The truth was, he was preaching for Myrtle
Hazard. He was getting bewitched and driven beside
himself by the intoxication of his relations with her.

All this time she was utterly unconscious of any charm
that she was exercising, or of being herself subject to any
personal fascination. She loved to read the books of ecstatic
contemplation which he furnished her. She loved to
sing the languishing hymns which he selected for her. She
loved to listen to his devotional rhapsodies, hardly knowing
sometimes whether she were in the body, or out of
the body, while he lifted her upon the wings of his passion-kindled
rhetoric. The time came when she had learned
to listen for his step, when her eyes glistened at meeting
him, when the words he uttered were treasured as from
something more than a common mortal, and the book he

had touched was like a saintly relic. It never suggested
itself to her for an instant that this was anything more
than such a friendship as Mercy might have cultivated
with Great-Heart. She gave her confidence simply because
she was very young and innocent. The green
tendrils of the growing vine must wind round something.

The seasons had been changing their scenery while the
events we have told were occurring, and the loveliest days
of autumn were now shining. To those who know the
“Indian summer” of our Northern States, it is needless
to describe the influence it exerts on the senses and the
soul. The stillness of the landscape in that beautiful
time is as if the planet were sleeping, like a top, before
it begins to rock with the storms of autumn. All natures
seem to find themselves more truly in its light; love
grows more tender, religion more spiritual, memory sees
farther back into the past, grief revisits its mossy marbles,
the poet harvests the ripe thoughts which he will tie in
sheaves of verses by his winter fireside.

The minister had got into the way of taking frequent
walks with Myrtle, whose health had seemed to require
the open air, and who was fast regaining her natural look.
Under the canopy of the scarlet, orange, and crimson
leaved maples, of the purple and violet clad oaks, of the
birches in their robes of sunshine, and the beeches in their
clinging drapery of sober brown, they walked together
while he discoursed of the joys of heaven, the sweet communion
of kindred souls, the ineffable bliss of a world where
love would be immortal and beauty should never know
decay. And while she listened, the strange light of the
leaves irradiated the youthful figure of Myrtle, as when

the stained window let in its colors on Madeline, the rose-bloom
and the amethyst and the glory.

“Yes! we shall be angels together,” exclaimed the
Rev. Mr. Stoker. “Our souls were made for immortal
union. I know it; I feel it in every throb of my heart.
Even in this world you are as an angel to me, lifting
me into the heaven where I shall meet you again, or it
will not be heaven. O, if on earth our communion could
have been such as it must be hereafter! O Myrtle,
Myrtle!”

He stretched out his hands as if to clasp hers between
them in the rapture of his devotion. Was it the light
reflected from the glossy leaves of the poison sumach
which overhung the path that made his cheek look so
pale? Was he going to kneel to her?

Myrtle turned her dark eyes on him with a simple
wonder that saw an excess of saintly ardor in these demonstrations,
and drew back from it.

“I think of heaven always as the place where I shall
meet my mother,” she said calmly.

These words recalled the man to himself for a moment,
and he was silent. Presently he seated himself on a stone.
His lips were tremulous as he said, in a low tone, “Sit
down by me, Myrtle.”

“No,” she answered, with something which chilled him
in her voice, “we will not stay here any longer; it is time
to go home.”

“Full time!” muttered Cynthia Badlam, whose watchful
eyes had been upon them, peering through a screen
of yellow leaves, that turned her face pale as if with deadly
passion.