University of Virginia Library

38. XXXVIII.

MR. BRINDLOCK had, may be, exaggerated
somewhat the story of Reuben's extravagances,
but he was anxious that a word of caution should be
dropped in his ear from some other lips than his own.
The allowance from the Doctor, notwithstanding all
the economies of Miss Eliza's frugal administration,
would have been, indeed, somewhat narrow, and could
by no means have kept Reuben upon his feet in the
ambitious city-career upon which he had entered. But
Mr. Brindlock had taken a great fancy to the lad, and
besides the stipend granted for his duties about the
counting-room, had given him certain shares in a few
private ventures which had resulted very prosperously,
— so prosperously, indeed, that the prudent merchant
had determined to hold the full knowledge of the success
in reserve. The prospects of Reuben, however,
he being the favorite nephew of a well-established
merchant, were regarded by the most indifferent observers
as extremely flattering; and Mr. Bowrigg was
not disposed to look unfavorably upon the young man's
occasional attentions to the dashing Sophia.

But the Brindlocks, though winking at a great deal
which the Doctor would have counted grievous sin, still
were uneasy at the lad's growing dissoluteness of habit.
Would the prayers of the good people of Ashfield
help him?

It was some time in the month of September, of the
same autumn in which poor Adèle lay sick at the parsonage,
that Reuben came in one night, at twelve or
thereabout, to his home at the Brindlocks', (living at
this time in the neighborhood of Washington Square,)
with his head cruelly battered, and altogether in a
very piteous plight. Mrs. Brindlock, terribly frightened,
— in her woman's way, — was for summoning
the Doctor at once; but Reuben pleaded against it;
he had been in a row, that was all, and had caught a
big knock or two. The truth was, he had been upon
one of his frolics with his old boon companions; and it
so happened that one had spoken sneeringly of the
parson's son, in a way which to the fiery young fellow
seemed to cast ridicule upon the old gentleman. And
thereupon Reuben, though somewhat maudlin with
wine, yet with the generous spirit not wholly quenched
in him, had entered upon a glowing little speech in
praise of the old gentleman and of his profession, — a
speech which, if it were garnished with here and there
an objectionable expletive, was very earnest and did
him credit.

“Good for Reuben!” the party had cried out.
“Get him a pulpit!”

“Hang me, if he would n't preach better now than
the old man!” said one.

“And a deuced sight livelier,” said another.

“Hold your tongue, you blackguard!” burst out
Reuben.

And from this the matter came very shortly to blows,
in the course of which poor Reuben was severely
punished, though he must have hit some hard blows, for
he was wondrously active, and not a few boxing-lessons
had gone to make up the tale of his city accomplishments.

Howbeit, he was housed now, in view of his black
eye, for many days, and had ample time for reflection.
In aid of this came a full sheet of serious expostulations
from the Doctor, and that letter of advice which
Squire Elderkin had promised, with a little warmhearted
postscript from good Mrs. Elderkin, — so unlike
to the carefully modulated letters of Aunt Eliza!
The Doctor's missive, very likely, did not impress him
more than the scores that had gone before it; but
there was a practical tact, and good-natured, common-sense
homeliness, in the urgence of the Squire, which
engaged all Reuben's attention; and the words of the
good woman, his wife, were worth more than a sermon
to him. “We all want,” she writes, “to think well of

you, Reuben; we do think well of you. Don't disappoint
us. I can't think of the cheery, bright face, that
for so many an evening shone amid our household, as
any thing but bright and cheery now. We all pray for
your well-being and happiness, Reuben; and I do hope
you have not forgotten to pray for it yourself.”

And with the memory of the kindly woman which
this letter called up came a pleasant vision of the winsome
face of Rose, as she used to sit, with downcast
eyes, beside her mother in the old house of Ashfield, —
of Rose, as she used to lower upon him in their frolic,
with those great hazel eyes sparkling with indignation.
And if the vision did not quicken any lingering sentiment,
it at the least gave a mellow tint to his thought,
— a mellowness which even the hardness of Aunt Eliza
could not wholly do away.

“I feel it my duty to write you, Reuben,” she says,
“and to inform you how very much we have all been
shocked and astonished by the accounts which reach us
of your continued indifference to religious duties, and
your reckless extravagance. Let me implore you to be
frugal and virtuous. If you learn to save now, the
habit will be of very great service when you come to
take your stand on the arena of life. I am aware
that the temptations of a great city are almost innumerable;
but I need hardly inform you that you will
greatly consult your own interests and mitigate our

harassment of feeling by practicing a strict economy
with your funds, and by attending regularly at church.
You will excuse all errors in my writing, since I indite
this by the sick-bed of Adèle.”

Adèle, then, is sick; and upon that point alone in
the Aunt's letter the thought of Reuben fastens.
Adèle is sick! He knows where she must be lying, —
in that little room at the parsonage looking out upon
the orchard; there are white hangings to the bed;
careful steps go up and down the stair-way. There
had never been much illness in the parson's home,
indeed, but certain early awful days Reuben just remembers;
there were white bed-curtains, (he recalls
those,) and a face as white lying beneath; the nurse,
too, lifting a warning finger at him with a low “hist!”
the knocker tied over thickly with a great muffler of
cloth, lest the sound might come into the chamber;
and then, awful stillness. On a morning later, all the
windows are suddenly thrown open, and strange men
bring a red coffin into the house, which, after a day or
two, goes out borne by different people, who tread uneasily
and awkwardly under the weight, but very softly;
and after this a weary, weary loneliness. All which
drifting over the mind of Reuben, and stirring his sensibilities
with a quick rush of vague, boyish griefs, induces
a train of melancholy religious musings, which,
if they do no good, can hardly, it would seem, work

harm. Under their influence, indeed, (which lasted for
several days,) he astonished his Aunt Mabel, on the
next Sunday, by declaring his intention to attend
church.

It is not the ponderous Dr. Mowry, fortunately or
unfortunately, that he is called upon to listen to; but a
younger man, of ripe age, indeed, but full of fervor and
earnestness, and with a piercing magnetic quality of
voice that electrifies from the beginning. And Reuben
listens to his reading of the hymn, —

with parted lips, and with an exaltation of feeling that is
wholly strange to him. With the prayer it seems to him
that all the religious influences to which he has ever been
subject are slowly and surely converging their forces
upon his mind; and, rapt as he is in the preacher's
utterance, there come to him shadowy recollections of
some tender admonition addressed to him by dear womanly
lips in boyhood, which now, on a sudden, flames
into the semblance of a Divine summons. Then comes
the sermon, from the text, “My son, give me thine
heart.” There is no repulsive formality, no array of
logical presentment to arouse antagonism of thought,
but only inglowing enthusiasm, that transfuses the
Scriptural appeal, and illuminates it with winning illustration.
Reuben sees that the evangelist feels in his
inmost soul what he utters; the thrill of his voice and
the touching earnestness of his manner declare it. It
is as if our eager listener were, by every successive
appeal, placed in full rapport with a great battery of
religious emotions, and at every touch were growing
into fuller and fuller entertainment of the truths which
so fired and sublimed the speaker's utterance.

Do we use too gross a figure to represent what many
people would call the influences of the Spirit? Heaven
forgive us, if we do; but nothing can more definitely
describe the seemingly electrical influences which were
working upon the mind of Reuben, as he caught, ever
and again, breaking through the torrent of the speaker's
language, the tender, appealing refrain, “My son,
give me thine heart!”

All thought of God the Avenger and of God the
Judge, which had been so linked with most of his boyish
instructions, seemed now to melt away in an aureole
of golden light, through which he saw only God the
Father! And the first prayer he ever learned comes
to his mind with a grace and a meaning and a power
that he never felt before.

“Whether we obey Him,” (it is the preacher we
quote,) “or distrust Him, or revile Him, or forget Him,
or struggle to ignore Him, always, always He is our
Father. And whatever we may do, however we may
sin, however recreant we may be to early faith or early
teaching, however unmoved by the voice of conscience,

— which is smiting on your hearts as it is on mine to-day,
— whatever we are, or whatever we may be, yet,
ever while life is in us, that great, serene voice of the
All-Merciful is sounding in our ears, `My son, give me
thine heart!' Ay, the flowers repeat it in their bloom,
the birds in their summer carol, the rejoicing brooks,
and the seasons in their courses, all, all repeat it, `My
son, give me thine heart!'

“My hearers, this is real, this is true! It is our
Father who says it; and we, unworthy ministers of His
Word and messengers to declare His beneficence, repeat
it for Him, `My son, give me thine heart!' Not to
crush, not to spurn, not for a toy. The great God asks
your hearts because He wishes your gratitude and your
love. Do you believe He asks it? Do you believe He
asks it idly? What, then, does this appeal mean? It
means, that God is love, — that you are His children, —
straying, outcast, wretched, may be, but still His children,
— and by the abounding love which is in Him,
He asks your love in return. Will you give it?”

And Reuben says to himself, yet almost audibly, “I
will.”

The sermon was altogether such a one as to act with
prodigious force upon so emotional a nature as that of
Reuben. Yet we dare say there were gray-haired men
in the church, and sallow-faced young men, who nodded
their heads wisely and coolly, as they went out, and said,

“An eloquent sermon, quite; but not much argument
in it.” As if all men were to plod to heaven on the
vertebræ of an inexorable logic, and not — God willing
— to be rapt away thitherward by the clinging force of
a glowing and confiding heart!

“Is this religion?” Reuben asked himself, as he
went out of the church, with his pride all subdued.
And the very atmosphere seemed to wear a new glory,
and a new lien of brotherhood to tie him to every creature
he met upon the thronged streets. All the time,
too, was sounding in his ears (as if he had yielded full
assent) the mellow and grateful cadence of the hymn, —