University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE SABBATH.—MARGARET GOES TO MEETING FOR THE FIRST
TIME.—HER DREAM OF JESUS.

It was a Sabbath morning, a June Sabbath morning, a
June Sabbath morning in New England. The sun rose
over a hushed, calm world, wrapt like a Madonna in prayer.
It was The Day, as the Bible is The Book. It was an
intersection of the natural course of time, a break in the
customary order of events, and lay between, with its walls
of Saturday and Sunday night on either side, like a chasm
or a dyke, or a mystical apartment, whatever you would
please liken it to. It was such a Sabbath to the people of
Livingston as they used to have before steam, that arch
Antinomian, “annihilated time and space,” and railroads
bridged over all our valleys. Its light, its air, its warmth,
its sound, its sun, the shimmer of its dawn on the brass
cock of the steeple, the look of the Meeting-house itself, all
things, were not as on other days. And now when those
old Sabbaths are almost gone, some latent indefinable
impression of what they were comes over us, and wrenches
us into awe, stillness and regret.

Margaret had never been to Meeting; the family did not
go. If there were no other indisposing causes, Pluck
himself expressly forbade the practice, and trained his
children to very different habits and feelings. They did not
work on the Sabbath, but idled and drank. Margaret had
no quilling, or carding, or going after rum to do; she was
wont to sally into the woods, clamber up the Head and tend
her flowers; or Chilion played and she sang, he whittled

trellises for her vines, mended her cages, sailed with her
on the Pond. She heard the bell ring in the morning, she
saw Obed and his mother go by to meeting, and she had
sometimes wished to go too, but her father would
never consent; so that the Sabbath, although not more
than two miles off, was no more to her than is one half the
world to the other half.

From the private record of Deacon Hadlock we take the
following:—

State vs. Didymus Hart.

“Stafford, ss. Be it remembered, that on the nineteenth
day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight,
Didymus Hart of Livingston, in the County of Stafford,
shoemaker and laborer, is brought before me, Nathan
Hadlock, Esq., a Justice of Peace for and within the aforesaid
county, by Hopestill Cutts, Constable of Livingston
aforesaid, by warrant issued by me, the said Justice, on the
day aforesaid, against the said Didymus Hart, at Livingston
aforesaid, on the twelfth day of May last, being the Lord's
day, did walk, recreate and disport himself on the south
side of the Pond lying in the West District, so called, of
Livingston aforesaid; which is contrary to the law of this
State made and provided in such cases, and against the
peace of this State, all which is to the evil example of all
others in like case offending.

“Wherefore,” witnesses being heard, &c., “it doth appear
to me, the said Justice, that the said Didymus Hart sit in the
stocks for two hours.”

Pluck was disposed of in the manner prescribed, very
much to the entertainment of the boys, who spattered him
with eggs, the disturbance and exasperation of his wife, who
preferred that all inflictions her husband received should
come from herself, and quite resented the interference of

others, and his own chagrin and vexation; especially as the
informer in the case was Otis Joy, father of Zenas, a breakneck,
whose friendship he did not value, and Cutts, the
executive officer, was the village shoemaker, and no agreeable
rival, and the Justice was Deacon Hadlock. By way
of redress, he chose to keep from meeting entirely, and suffer
none under his control to go.

But Chilion and Nimrod both urged that Margaret might
attend church at least once in her life, and her father at
length consented. This morning she heard the bell ring;
she saw Obed and his mother on a pillion behind him riding
by; the latter dressed in a small shining black satin bonnet,
and gown of similar material, with a white inside handkerchief;
the former in sky-blue coat and ruffled sleeves, white
neck-stock, white worsted vest, yellow buckskin breeches,
white stockings, and silver-plated buckles, which had all belonged
to his father, whose form was both shorter and
thicker than his son's, and whose garments it certainly
showed great filial reverence in the young man to wear
without essential alteration. Obed had an old look, his face
was furrowed as well as freckled, and his mother to remedy
this disproportion and graduate her son that consideration
which naturally attached to his appearance, had adopted the
practice of powdering his hair and gathering it in a sack
behind; and for his near sightedness, she provided him with
a pair of broad horn-bowed bridge spectacles. The entire
structure was capped by a large three-cornered hat. Whatever
might have been the effect of Obed's recent whipping,
there was nothing apparent. His mother, unlike Pluck,
would not suffer any thing of that kind to disturb the good
understanding she ever wished to retain with the people of
Livingston.

But let us, if the reader is willing, anticipate these

persons a little, and descend to the Village. The people are
assembling for Meeting; they come on all the four roads,
and by numerous foot-paths, cross-lots, and through the
woods. Many are on horses, more on foot, and a very few
in wagons. The horses' heads are garnished with branches
of spruce and birch, a defence against flies; most of the
boys and some of the men are barefoot, divers of them in
their shirt-sleeves, carrying their coats on their arms; some
of the young ladies have sprigs of roses, pinks, sweet-williams,
and larkspurs; others both old and young bring
bunches of caraway, peppermint, and southern wood;
some of the ladies who ride leap from their horses with the
agility of cats, others make use of horse blocks that stand
about the Green. You would perhaps particularly notice
old Mr. Ravel and his wife from the North Part of the
town, on horseback, the former straight as an arrow, the
latter a little crooked, and both more than eighty years of
age. For sixty years they have come in that way, a distance
of seven miles; for sixty years, every Sabbath morning,
have they heated their oven and put in an iron pot of
beans and an earthen dish of Indian pudding, to bake in
their absence, and be ready for dinner when they return.
To meet exigencies of this nature, in the mean time, you will
observe that Mistress Ravel, in common with many other
women, has on her arm a large reddish calico bag filled
with nut-cakes and cheese. You will also see coming down
the West Street Mr. Adolphus Hadlock, nephew of the
Deacon's, with his wife and six children, and Mr. Adolphus
will contrive in some way or other to give you the names
of all his children without your asking, even before he
reaches the steps of the Meeting-house; Triandaphelda
Ada, Cecilia Rebecca, Purintha Cappadocia, Aristophanes,
Ethelbert, and a little boy he carries in his arms, Socrates;
and you will hear the young men and boys that are lolloping
on the steps repeat these names as the parties to whom
they belong severally arrive.

The sexton, Philip Davis, now strikes the second bell, and
those who live immediately on the Green begin to turn out,
and when he commences tolling, it is a sign Parson Welles has
started from his house, which is in plain sight an hundred rods
or so down the South road. There are Mr. Stillwater, the
tavern-keeper, Esq. Weeks, Judge Morgridge, Mr. Gisborne,
the joiner, Lawyer Beach, Dr. Spoor, and other villagers,
with their families. Tony, the barber, with his powdered
hair and scarlet coat, is conspicuous. There is Mom Dill, a
negro servant of Parson Wells, once a slave, fat, tidy and
serene. The Widow Luce, who lives near the Brook,
passes on leading her little hunchback son Job; then you
see the Parson and his wife accompanied by their daughter,
Miss Amy.

This venerable couple have nearly attained the allotted
age of man, and are verging towards that period which is
described as one of labor and sorrow; yet on the whole they
seem to be renewing their youth, their forms are but slightly
bent, and the step of the old minister is firm and elastic.
He is dressed in black, the only suit of the color in town—
if we except that of the sexton, which is known to be an offcast
of the Parson's—kerseymere coat, silk breeches and
stockings; he has on a three-cornered hat, a fleece-like
wig, white bands and black silk gloves. His wife's dress is
black satin, like that of the Widow Wright's. Finally, as it
were composing part of the sacerdotal train, riding slowly
and solemnly behind, appears the Widow Wright, who always
contrives to arrive at the Parsonage just as the bell
begins to toll. The Parson and his wife with dignity and
gravity ascend the steps of the church, the crowd meekly

opens to let them pass, then all enter and take their appropriate
seats within the sacred precincts. The bell ceases
tolling; the sexton hangs the bell-rope on a high peg where
the boys cannot reach it, shuts the inner porch doors, goes
to the outer door and hem's twice quite loud to the vacant
air, and all is still.

This morning, in church, considerable sensation was
created—no more indeed than usual on such occasions—by
Deacon Pemrose, the clerk of the town, reading the banns
of marriage between Zenas Joy and Delinda Hoag.—
Leaving these people, let us go back to the Pond.

Brown Moll, with unpretending yet deep satisfaction in
the good looks of the child, carefully dressed Margaret's
hair,—which in tendency to curl resembled that of Gottfried
Brückman, while in color it fell between the flaxen of her
German and jet of her Gallic but all unknown lineage,—
put on her white muslin tunic and pink skirt and red-bead
moccasons. For hat, the little novice had nothing more
suitable than the green rush.

Margaret started away with a dreamy sense of mystery
attaching to the Meeting, like a snow storm by moonlight,
and a lively feeling of childish curiosity. On the smooth
in front of the house, her little white and yellow chickens
were peeping and dodging under the low mallows with its
bluish rose-colored flowers, the star-tipped hedge-mustard,
and pink-tufted smart-weed, and picking off the blue and
green flies that were sunning on the leaves; and they did
not seem to mind her. Hash had taken Bull into the
woods, and Chilion told her she would not need him. Dick,
her squirrel, and Robin, were disposed to follow, but her
mother called them back. A little yellow-poll, perched in
the Butternut, whistled after her, “Whooee whee whee
whee whittiteetee—as soon as I get this green caterpillar,

I will go too.” A rusty wren screamed out to her,
“Os's's' chipper w' w' w' wow wow wow—O shame, Molly,
I am going to rob an oriole's nest, I would'nt go to Meeting.”
She entered the Mowing; a bobolink clung tiltering to
the breezy tip of a white birch, and said, “Pee wuh' wuh'
ch' tut, tut, tee tee wuh' wuh' wdle wdle pee wee a a wdle
dee dee—now Molly here are red clover, yellow buttercups,
white daisies, and strawberries in the grass; ecod!
how the wind blows! what a grand time we shall have, let
us stay here to day.” A grass-finch skippered to the top of
a stump, and thrusting up its bill, cried out, “Chee chee
chee up chip' chip' chipperway ouble wee—glad you are
going, you'll get good to-day, don't stop, the bell is tolling.”
She thought of the murderer, snatched a large handful of
flowers, and hurried on, driven forward as it were by a
breeze of gladness in her own thoughts and of vernal
aroma from the fields. She gathered the large bindweed,
that lay on its back floating over the lot, like pond-lilies,
with its red and white cups turned to the sun; and also,
the beautiful purple cran's bill, and blue-eyed grass. She
came to the shadows of the woods that skirted the Mowing,
where she got bunch-berries, and star-of-Bethlehem's. She
entered a cool grassy recess in the forest, where were beds
of purple twin-flower, yellow star-grass, blue-violets, and
mosses growing together family-like, under the stately
three-leaved ferns that overhung them like elm-trees, while
above were the birches and walnuts. A black-cap k' d'
chanked, k' d' chanked over her head, and a wood-thrush
whoot whoot whooted, ting a ring tinged in earnest unison,
“We are going to have a meeting here to-day, a little
titmouse is coming to be christened, won't you stop?” But
a woodpecker rapped and rattled over among the chestnuts,
and on she went. She crossed the Tree-Bridge, and followed
the brook that flowed with a winsome glee, and while she
looked at the flies and spiders dancing on the dark water,
she heard a little yellow-throated fly-catcher, mournfully
saying. “Preeo, preea preeeeo preeeea—Pray, Margaret,
you'll lose your soul if you don't;” and she saw a woodpewee
up among the branches, with her dark head bowed
over plaintively singing, “P' p' ee ee ou wee, p' p' ee ee
ou wee'—Jesus be true to you Margaret, I have lost my
love, and my heart is sad, a blue angel come down from the
skies, and fold us both in his soft feathers.” Here she got
the white-clustering baneberry, and little nodding buff
cucumber root.

The Via Dolorosa became to Margaret to-day a via
juncundissima, a very pleasant way. Through what some
would consider rough woods and bleak pasture land, in a
little sheep-track, crooked and sometimes steep, over her
hung like a white cloud the wild thorn tree, large golddusted
cymes of viburnums, rose-blooming lambkill, and
other sorts, suggested all she knew, and more than she
knew, of the Gardens of Princes. The feathery moss on
the old rocks, dewy and glistering, was full of fairy
feeling. A chorus of fly-catchers, as in ancient Greek
worship, from their invisible gallery in the greenwood,
responded one to another;—“Whee whoo whee, wee woo
woo wee, whee whoo, whoo whoo wee—God bless the little
Margaret! How glad we are she is going to Meeting at
last. She shall have berries, nutcakes and good preaching.
The little Isabel and Job Luce are there. How do you
think she will like Miss Amy?”

Emerging in Dea. Hadlock's Pasture, she added to her
stock red sorrel blossoms, pink azaleas, and sprigs of pennyroyal.
Then she sorted her collection, tying the different
parcels with spears of grass. The Town was before her

silent and motionless, save the neighing of horses and
squads of dogs that trapsed to and fro on the Green. The
sky was blue and tender; the clouds in white veils like
nuns, worshipped in the sunbeams; the woods behind
murmured their reverence; and birds sang psalms. All
these sights, sounds, odors, suggestions, were not, possibly,
distinguished by Margaret, in their sharp individuality, or
realized in the bulk of their shade, sense and character.
She had not learned to criticise, she only knew how to feel.
A new indefinable sensation of joy and hope was deepened
within her, and a single concentration of all best influences
swelled her bosom. She took off her hat and pricked
grass-heads and blue-bells in the band, and went on. The
intangible presence of God was in her soul, the universal
voice of Jesus called her forward. Besides she was about
to penetrate the profoundly interesting anagogue of the
Meeting, that for which every seventh day she had heard
the bell so mysteriously ring, that to which Obed and his
mother devoted so much gravity, awe, and costume, and
that concerning which a whole life's prohibition had been
upon her. Withal, she remembered the murderer, and
directed her first steps to the Jail.

She tried to enter the Jail House, but Mr. Shooks drove
her away. Then she searched along the fence till she
found a crevice in the posts of which the enclosure was
made, and through this, on the ground floor of the prison,
within the very small aperture that served him for a window,
she saw the grim face of the murderer, or a dim
image of his face, like the shadow of a soul in the pit of
the grave.

“I have brought the flowers,” said she; “but they
won't let me carry them to you.”

“We know it,” replied the imprisoned voice. “There

is no more world now, and flowers don't grow on it; it's
hell, and beautiful things, and hearts to love you, are
burnt up. There was blood spilt, and this is the afterwards.”

“I will fasten a bunch in this hole,” she said, “so you
can see them.”

“It is too late,” rejoined the man. “I had a child like
you, and she loved flowers—but I am to be hanged—I
shall cry if you stay there, for I was a father—but that is
gone, and there are no more Angels, else why should not
my own child be one? Go home and kiss your father, if
you have one, but don't let me know it.”

She heard other voices and could see the shadows
of faces looking from other cells, and hear voices where
she could see no faces, and the Jail seemed to her to be full
of strange human sounds, and there was a great clamoring
for flowers.

“I will leave some in the fence for you to look at,” she
said, in rather vague answer to these requests.

Now the faithful guardian of the premises, overhearing
the conversation, rushed in alarm from his rooms, and presented
himself firmly in the midst of what seemed to be a
conspiracy. “What piece of villany is this?” he exclaimed,
snatching the flowers from the paling. “In communication
with the prisoners!—on the Lord's day!” Flinging
the objects of Margaret's ignorant partiality with violence
to the ground, Mr. Shooks looked as if he was about to
fall with equal spirit upon the child in person, and she fled
into the street.

Climbing a horse-block, from which could be seen the
upper cells of the Jail, she displayed her flowers in sight
of the occupants, holding them up at arm's length. The
wretched men answered by shouting and stamping. “If

words wont do, we'll try what vartue there is in stones,”
observed the indignant jailor, and thereupon suiting the
action to the word, the persevering man fairly pelted the
offender away.

She turned towards the Meeting-house and entered the
square, buttress-like, silent porch. Passing quietly through,
she opened the door of what was to her a more mysterious
presence, and paused at the foot of the broad aisle.

She saw the Minister, in his great wig and strange dress,
perched in what looked like a high box; above hung
the pyramidal sounding-board, and on a seat beneath were
three persons in powdered hair, whom she recognized as
the Deacons Hadlock, Ramsdill and Penrose. Through
the balustrade that surrounded the high pews, she could
see the heads of men and women; little children stood on
the seats, clutching the rounds, and smiled at her. The
Minister had given out a hymn, and Deacon Hadlock, rising,
read the first line. Then, in the gallery over head, she
heard the toot toot of Master Elliman on the pitch pipe,
and his voice leading off, and she walked farther up the
aisle to discover what was going on. A little toddling girl
called out to her as she passed, and thrust out her hand as
if she would catch at the flowers Margaret so conspicuously
carried. The Sexton hearing the noise, came forward and
led her back into the porch. Philip was not by nature a
stern man, he let the boys play on the steps during the
week, and the young men stand about the doors on the
Sabbath. He wore a shredded wig, and black clothes, as
we have said, and was getting old, and had taken care of
the Meeting-house ever since it was built, and though
opposed to all disturbance of the worship, he still spoke
kindly to Margaret.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to go to Meeting,” she replied.

“Why don't you go?”

“I don't know how,” she answered.

“I should think so, or you would not have brought all
these posies. This is no day for light conduct.”

“May'nt they go to Meeting too?”

“I see—” he added. “You are one of the Injins, and
they don't know how to behave Sabber days. But I'm
glad you have come. You don't know what a wicked thing
it is to break the Sabbath.”

“Mr. Shooks said I broke it when I went to give the
murderer some flowers, and threw stones at me, and you
say I break it now. Can't it be mended again?”

“You should'nt bring these flowers here.”

“I saw the Widow and Obed bring some.”

“Not so many. You've got such a heap!”

“I got a bigger bunch one day.”

“Yes, yes, but these flowers are a dreadful wicked thing
on the Lord's day.”

“Then I guess I will go home. It an't wicked there.”

“I don't want to hurt your feelings if you have had a
bad bringing up. Be a good gal, keep still, and you may
sit in that first pew along with me.”

“I don't want to be shut up there.”

“Then you may go softly up the stairs, and sit with the
gals.”

She ascended the stairs, which were within the body of
the house, and in a pew at the head she saw Beulah Ann
Orff, Grace Joy, and others that she had seen before; they
laughed and snubbed their noses with their handkerchiefs,
and she, as it were repelled by her own sex, turned away,
and went to the other side of the gallery, occupied by the
men. But here she encountered equal derision, and Zenas

Joy, a tithing man, moved by regard to his office and perhaps
by a little petulance of feeling, undertook to lead her
back to her appropriate place in the church. She resisted,
and what might have been the result we know not, when
Mom Dill, who was sitting in one corner with Tony, asked
her in. So she sat with the negroes. Parson Welles had
commenced his sermon. She could not understand what
he said, and told Mom Dill she wanted to go out. She
descended the stairs, moving softly in her moccasons, and
turning up the side-aisle, proceeded along under the high
pews till she came to the corner where she could see the
minister. Here she stood gazing steadfastly at him.
Deacon Hadlock motioned her to be gone. Deacon Ramsdill
limped almost smiling towards her, took her by the
arm, opened the pew where his wife sat, and shut her in.
Mistress Ramsdill gave her caraway and dill, and received
in return some of the childs pennyroyal and lamb-kill, and
other flowers. The old lady used her best endeavors to
keep Margaret quiet, and she remained earnestly watching
the Preacher till the end of the service.

Noon-time of a Sunday in a New England country
town used to be, and even now is, a social and re-unitive
epoch of no small interest. Brothers, uncles, cousins, from
the outskirts, accompanied their relatives to their homes on
the green. A certain class of men and boys, with a meek look
and an unconscious sort of gait, would be seen wending their
way to the stoops of the tavern. Some sat the whole hour
on the Meeting-house steps talking of good things in a quiet
undertone, others strolled into the woods in the rear; several
elderly men and women retired to what was called a
“Noon House,” a small building near the School-house, where
they ate dinner and had a prayer; quite a number went to
Deacon Penrose's. Of the latter, the Widow Wright.

Mistress Ramsdill, who lived a little off the Green, offered
to take Margaret to her house, but the Widow interfered,
saying it was too long a walk, and all that, and prevailed
with Margaret to go with her. This going to Deacon Penrose's
consisted in having a seat in his kitchen Sunday
noons, and drinking of his nice cool water. Seats were
brought into the room, the floor was duly sanded, the pewter
in the dresser was bright and glistening. The Deacon's
own family and his particular relations occupied the parlor.
To this place came Mistress Whiston, and Old Mistress
Whiston, Mistresses Joy and Orff, Breaknecks; Mistress
Ravel, from the North Part of the town; Widows Brent
and Tuck, from the Mill; Paulina and Mercy Whiston,
and others. They ate nutcakes and cheese, snuffed snuff,
talked of the weather, births, deaths, health, sickness,
engagements, marriages, of friends at the Ohio, of Zenas
and Delinda's publishment, and would have talked about
Margaret, save that the Widow protected the child, assured
them of her ignorance, and hoped she would learn better
by and by. Mistress Whiston asked Margaret how she
liked the Meeting. She replied that she liked to hear
them sing. “Sing!” exclaimed Paulina Whiston. “I
wish we could have some singing. I was up to Brandon
last Sunday, and their music is enough sight better than
ours; they have introduced the new way almost every
where but here. We must drag on forty years behind the
whole world.”

“For my part,” said Mistress Orff, “I don't want any
change; our fathers got along in the good old way, and
went to Heaven. The Quakers use notes and the Papists
have their la sol me's, and Deacon Hadlock says it's a
contrivance to bring all those pests into the land. Then
it makes such a disturbance in the meetings; at Dunwich

two of the best deacons could'nt stand it, and got up and
went out; and Deacon Hadlock says he won't stay to hear
the heathenish sounds. It's only your young upstarts, lewd
and irregular people, and the like of that, that wants the
new way.”

“If our hearts was only right,” said Mistress Tuck,
“we should'nt want any books; and the next thing we
shall know, they will have unconverted people singing.”

“We have better leaders,” rejoined Paulina, “than
Deacon Hadlock and Master Elliman; their voices are old
and cracked, and they drawl on, Sunday after Sunday, the
same old tunes in the same old way.”

“If we once begin to let in new things, there is no knowing
where they will stop,” replied Mistress Orff.

“Just so,” said the Widow Tuck. “They begun with
wagons and shays, and the horses wan't used to it, and got
frightened at the noise, and run away; and our Eliashib
came nigh spraining his ancle.”

“I remember,” said the elder Mistress Whiston, “when
old Parson Bristead down in Raleigh, used thirty bushels
of sand on his floors every year, and I don't believe Parson
Welles uses five.”

“Yes, yes,” said her daughter-in-law, “great changes,
and nobody can tell where it will end.”

“When I was a gal,” continued the senior lady, “they
didn't think of washing but once a month—”

“And now washing days come round every Monday,”
added Paulina. “If you will let us have some respectable
singing, I will agree to go back to the old plan of washing,
Grandma, ha ha!”

“It's holy time, child,” said her mother.

“I remember,” said the Widow Brent, who was a little

deaf, “milking a cow a whole winter for half a yard of
ribbin.”

“I remember,” said Mistress Ravel, “the Great Hog up
in Dunwich, that hefted nigh twenty score.”

“If you would go to the Pond to-day,” said Margaret,
“I guess Chilion would play you a better tune on his fiddle
than they sing at the Meeting.”

“Tush, Tush!” said the Widow Wright.

“There, there! You see what we are coming to;” said
Mistress Orff. “Booly Ann, where was the Parson's text
this forenoon?”

The Widow Wright assumed the charge of Margaret in
the afternoon. The child kept quiet till the prayer, when
the noise of the hinge-seats, or something else, seemed to
disconcert her, and she told her protectress she wished to
go home. The Widow replied there was to be a christening,
and prevailed with her to stop, and lifted her on the seat,
where she could witness the ceremony. The Minister
descended from the pulpit, and Mr. Adolphus Hadlock
carried forward the babe, enveloped in a long flowing
blanket of white tabby silk, lined with white satin, and
embroidered with ribbon of the same color. The Minister
from a well-burnished font sprinkled water in the face of
the child, and after the usual formula baptized it “Urania
Bathsheba.” Margaret was not alone in the number of
causes that disturbed the serenity of the Meeting that day;
there was an amount of mirth in the minds of the people at
large, touching Mr. Adolphus Hadlock's children, which as
a matter of course must spend itself on what seemed to be
their annual reappearance at the altar.

Finally Mistress Ramsdill insisted on Margaret's remaining
to the catechizing. Margaret at first demurred, but
Deacon Ramsdill supported the request of his wife with

one of his customary smiles, remarking that “catechising
was as good arter the sermon to the children as greasing
arter shearing, it would keep the ticks off,” which, he said,
“were very apt to fly from the old sheep to the lambs.”
The class, comprising most of the youths in town, was
arranged in the broad aisle, the boys on one side, and the
girls on the other, with the Minister in the pulpit at the
head.

“What is the chief end of man?” was the first question;
to which a little boy promptly and swiftly gave the appropriate
answer—“How many persons are there in the Godhead?”
“There are four persons in the Godhead—”
began a boy, quite elated and confident. There was an
instant murmur of dissent. The neophite, as it were challenged
to make good his ground, answered not so much to
the Minister as to his comrades. “There is God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God
Buonaparte—Tony Washington said the Master said so.”
This anti-Gallicism and incurable levity of the pedagogue
wrought a singular mistake; but it was soon rectified, and
the Catechism went on. “Wherein consists the sinfulness
of that state wherein man fell?” “The sinfulness of that
state wherein man fell, God having out of his mere good
pleasure elected some to everlasting life, is the fault and
corruption of the nature of every man that is naturally
engendered in him, and deserveth God's wrath and damnation,”
was the rapid and disjointed answer. The question
stumbling from one to another, was at length righted
by Job Luce, the little hunchback. The voice of this
child was low and plaintive, soft and clear, and he quite
engaged Margaret's attention. There were signs of dissatisfaction
on the faces of others, but his own was unruffled
as a pebble in a brook. Shockingly deformed, the arms of

the lad were long as an ape's, and he seemed almost to rest
on his hands, while his shoulders rose high and steep above
his head. “That's Job Luce,” whispered Mistress Ramsdill
to Margaret; “and if there ever was a Christian, I
believe he is one, if he is crooked. Don't you see how he
knows the Catechism; he has got the whole Bible eeny
most by heart, and he is only three years old.” Margaret
forgot every thing else to look at a creature so unfortunate
and so marvellous.

When the Catechism was over and the people left the
church, she at once hastened to Job and took one of his
hands; little Isabel Weeks too, sister-like, took his other
hand, and these two girls walked on with the strange boy.
Margaret stooped and looked into his eye, which he turned
up to her, blue, mild, and timid, seeming to ask, “Who are
you that cares for me?” In truth, Job was we will not
say despised, but for the most part neglected. His mother
was a poor widow, whose husband had been a shoemaker,
and she got her living binding shoes. The old people
treated her kindly, but rather wondered at her boy; and
what was wonder in the parents degenerated into slight,
jest, and sometimes scorn, in the children; so that Job
numbered but few friends. Then he got his lessons so
well the more indolent and duller boys were tempted to
envy him.

“You didn't say the Catechism,” said he to Margaret.

“No,” she replied, “I don't know it; but I have a Bird
Book and can say Mother Goose's Songs.” Their conversation
was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation and
a sigh from Miss Amy and the Widow Luce, who were
close behind.

“Woe, woe to a sinful mother!” was the language of
the latter.

“Child, child!” cried the former, addressing herself to
Margaret, “don't you like the Catechism?”

“I don't know it,” replied Margaret.

“She isn't bad, if she is an Injin,” interposed Isabel.

“Does she understand Whipporwill?” abstractedly asked
Job.

“God's hand is heavily upon us! 'mournfully ejaculated
the Widow.

“Can any thing be done?” anxiously asked Miss Amy.

They stopped. Miss Amy was moved to take Margaret
by the hand, and with some ulterior object in view she
detached the child from Job, and went with her up the
West Street—the natural rout to the Pond.

“Did you never read the Primer?” she asked.

“No, Ma'am,” was the reply.

“Have you never learned how many persons there are
in the Godhead?”

“One of the little boys said there were four, the others
that there were but three. I should love to see it.”

“How dare you speak in that way of the Great Jehovah!”

“The great what?”

“The Great God, I mean.”

“I thought it was a bird.”

“Can it be there is such heathenism in our very midst!”
said the lady to herself. Her interest in the state of
Margaret was quickened, and she pushed her inquiry with
most philanthropic assiduity.

“Do you never say your prayers?” she asked.

“No, Ma'am,” replied Margaret. “I can say the Laplander's
Ode and Mary's Dream.”

“What do you do when you go to bed?”

“I go to sleep, Ma'am, and dream.”

“In what darkness you must be at the Pond!”

“We see the Sun rise every morning, and the snowdrops
don't open till it's light.”

“I mean, my poor child, that I am afraid you are very
wicked there.”

“I try to be good, and Pa is good when he don't get rum
at Deacon Penrose's; and Chilion is good; he was going to
mend my flower bed to-day to keep the hogs out.”

“What, break the Sabbath! Violate God's holy day!
Your father was once punished in the Stocks for breaking
the Sabbath. God will punish us all if we do so.”

“Will it put our feet in the Stocks the same as they did
father?”

“No, my child. He will punish us in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone.”

“What, the same as Chilion and Obed and I burnt up
the bees?”

“Alas! alas!” sorrowed the lady.

“We were so bad,” continued Margaret, “I thought I
should cry.”

“Deacon Penrose and the rest of us have often spoken
of you at the Pond; and we have thought sometimes of
going up to see you. In what a dreadful condition your
father is!”

“Yes, Ma'am, sometimes. He rolls his eyes so, and
groans, and shakes, and screams, and nobody can help him.
I wish Deacon Penrose would come and see him, and I think
he would not sell him any more rum.”

“Poor little one!—don't you know any thing of the
Great God who made you and me?”

“Did that make me? I am so glad to know. The little
chickens come out of the shells, the beans grow in the pods,
the dandelions spring up in the grass, and Obed said I
came in an acorn, but the pigs and wild turkeys eat up the

acorns, and I can't find one that has a little girl in it like
me.”

“Would you like to come down to Meeting again?”

“I don't know as I like the Meeting. It don't seem so
good as the Turkey Shoot and Ball. Zenas Joy didn't hurt
my arm there, and Beulah Ann Orff and Grace Joy talked
with me at the Ball. To-day they only made faces at me,
and the man at the door told me to throw away my flowers.”

“How deceitful is the human heart, and desperately
wicked!”

“Who is wicked?”

“We are all wicked.”

“Are you wicked? then you do not love me, and I don't
want you to go with me any farther.”

“Ah! my dear child, we go astray speaking lies as soon
as we be born.”

“I never told a lie.”

“The Bible says so—do not run away; let me talk with
you a little more.”

“I don't like wicked people.”

“I wish to speak to you about Jesus Christ, do you
know him?”

“No, Ma'am—Yes, Ma'am, I have heard Hash speak
about it when he drinks rum.”

“But did you not hear the Minister speak about him in
the pulpit to-day?”

“Yes, Ma'am,—does he drink rum too?”

“No, no, child, he only drinks brandy and wine.”

“I have heard Hash speak so when he only drank that.”

“The Minister is not wicked like Hash,—he does not get
drunk.”

“Hash wouldn't be wicked if he didn't drink. I wish he
could drink and not be wicked too.”

“O, we are all wicked, Hash and the Minister, and you
and I; we are all wicked, and I was going to tell you how
Christ came to save wicked people.”

“What will he do to Hash?”

“He will burn him in hell-fire, my child.”

“Won't he burn the Minister too? I guess I shall not
come to Meeting any more. You and the Minister and all
the people here are wicked. Chilion is good, I will stay at
home with him.”

“The Minister is a holy man, a good man I mean, he is
converted, he repents of his sins. I mean he is very sorry
he is so wicked.”

“Don't he keep a being wicked? You said he was
wicked.”

“Why, yes, he is wicked. We are all totally depraved.
You do not understand. I fear I cannot make you see it
as it is. My dear child, the eyes of the carnal mind are
blind, and they cannot see. I must tell you, though it may
make you feel bad, that young as you are, you are a mournful
instance of the truth of Scripture. But I dare not speak
smooth things to you. If you would read your Bible, and
pray to God, your eyes would be opened so you could see.
But I did want to tell you about Jesus Christ, who was both
God and Man. He came and died for us. He suffered
the cruel death of the cross. The Apostle John says, he
came to take away the sins of the world. If you will
believe in Christ he will save you. The Holy Spirit, that
came once in the form of a dove, will again come, and
cleanse your heart. You must have faith in the blood of
Christ. You must take him as your Atoning Sacrifice.
Are you willing to go to Christ, my child?”

“Yes, Ma'am, if he won't burn up Hash, and I want to
go and see that little crooked boy too.”

“It's wicked for children to see one another Sundays.”

“I did see him at Meeting.”

“I mean to meet and play and show picture-books, and
that little boy is very apt to play; he catches grasshoppers,
and goes down by the side of the brook, before sundown;
—that is very bad.”

“Are his eyes sore, like Obed's, sometimes, and the
light hurts him?”

“It is God's day, and he won't let children play.”

“He lets the grasshoppers play.”

“But he will punish children.”

“Won't he punish the grasshoppers too?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess I am not afraid of God.”

Miss Amy, whether that she thought she had done all
she could for the child, or that Margaret seemed anxious to
break company with her, or that she had reached a point
in the road where she could conveniently leave her, at this
instant turned off into Grove Street, and Margaret pursued
her course homeward. She arrived at the water a little
before sunset; she fed her chickens, her squirrel and
robin; her own supper she made of strawberries and milk
in her wooden bowl and spoon. She answered as she best
could the inquiries and banterings of the family touching
the novel adventures of the day. She might have been
tired, but the evening air and the voices of the birds were
inviting, and her own heart was full of life; and she took a
stroll up the Indian's Head.

Along a tangled path, trod by sheep, more by herself,
and somewhat by visitors to the Pond, she wound her way
to the summit. This, as we have said, was nearly one
hundred feet above the level of the water; on the top were
the venerable trunk of the Hemlock before referred to, a

small cluster of firs, a few spears of yellow orchard grass
and brown sorrel, sparse tufts of harebells and buttercups,
bunches of sweet-fern, and mosses growing on the rocks.
From the south front projected a smooth shelving rock
directly over the water, forming the brow of the so called
Head. This elevation commanded points of extensive and
varied interest; the Pond below, its dark waters dotted
with green islands, its forest-skirted shore, the outlet, the
dam, the deep and perpetual gurgle of the falling water.
Beyond the dam was a broken congeries, the result of wild
diluvial force; horrid gulfs, high rocky pinnacles, trees
aslant, green dingles; to the west, the hills crept along by
gentle acclivities, and swelling upwards, formed, to an untrained
eye, the apparent boundaries of this nether world.
On the north was a continuation of the ridge of mountains
of which the Head itself seemed to be the close, proceeding
indefinitely till they met and melted into the sky. On the
north-west, buried like a cloud in the dimmest distance,
appeared the round, bald, but soft and azure crown of Old
Umkiddin. Beyond the Pond, on the south, was a forest,
sweeping onwards to the heavens without break or bound.
Turning to the east one beheld the River, its meadows, and
portions of the village. In every direction, here and there,
on side hills, in glades of the forest, among orchard-groves,
appeared the roofs of houses and barns, dappling the scene,
and reflecting in the middle of the day a gray, silvery light,
like mica in granite. To this place Margaret ascended;
hither had she often come before, and here in her future
life she often came.

She went up early in the morning to behold the sun rise
from the eastern hills, and to be wrapped in the fogs that
flowed up from the River; at noon, to lie on the soft grass
under the murmuring firs, and sleep the midtide sleep of all

nature; or ponder with a childish curiosity on the mystery
of the blue sky and the blue hills; or, with a childish dread,
to brood over the deep dark waters that lay chasmed below
her. She came up in the Fall to pick bramble berries and
gather the leaves and crimson spires of the sumach for her
mother to color with.

She now came up to see the sun go down. Directly on
the right of the sunsetting was an apparent jog or break
at the edge of the world, having on one side something
like a cliff or sharp promontory, jutting towards the
heavens, and overlooking what seemed like a calm clear
sea beyond; within this depression lay the top of Umkiddin,
before spoken of; here also, after a storm, appeared
the first clear sky, and here at midday the white clouds, in
long ranges of piles, were wont to repose like ships at
anchor. Near at hand, she could see the roads leading to
Dunwich and Brandon, winding, like unrolled ribbons,
through the woods. There were also pastures covered
with gray rocks that looked like sheep; the green woods in
some places were intersected by fields of brown rye, or soft
clover. On the whole, it was a verdant scene, Greenness,
like a hollow ocean, spread itself out before her; the
hills were green and the depths also; in the forest,
the darkness, as the sun went down, seemed to form
itself into caverns, grottoes, and strange fantastic shapes,
out of solid greenness. In some instances she could see
the tips of the trees glancing and frolicing in the light,
while the greedy shadows were crawling up from their
roots, as it were out of the ground to devour them. Deep
in the woods the blackcap and thrush still whooted and
clang unweariedly; she heard also the cawing of crows, and
scream of the loon; the tinkle of bells, the lowing of cows,
and bleating of sheep were distinctly audible. Her own

Robin, on the Butternut below, began his long, sweet, many-toned
carol; the tree-toad chimed in with its loud trilling
chirrup; and frogs, from all the waters around, crooled,
chubbed and croaked. Swallows skimmered over her, and
plunged into the depths below; swarms of flies in circular
squadrons skirmished in the sunbeams before her eye;
at her side, in the grass, crickets sung their lullabies to the
departing day; a rich, fresh smell from the water, the
woods, wild-flowers, grass-lots, floating up over the hill,
regaled her senses. The surface of the Pond, as the
sun declined, broke into gold-ripples, deepening gradually
into carmine and vermilion; suspended between her eye
and the horizon was a table-like form of illuminated mist,
a bridge of visible sunbeams shored on pointed shining
piers reaching to the ground.

Margaret sat, we say, attentive to all this; what were
her feelings we know not now, we may know hereafter;
and clouds that had spent the Sabbath in their own way,
came with her to behold the sunsetting; some in long
tapering bands, some in flocky rosettes, others in broad,
many-folded collops. In that light they showed all colors,
rose, pink, violet and crimson, and the sky in a large circumference
about the sun weltered in ruddiness, while the
opposite side of the heavens threw back a purple glow.
There were clouds, to the eye of the child, like fishes; the
horned-pout, with its pearly iridine breast and iron-brown
back: floating after it was a shiner with its bright golden
armory; she saw the blood-red fins of the yellow-perch, the
long snout of the pickerel with its glancing black eye, and
the gaudy tail of a trout. She beheld the sun sink half
below the horizon, then all his round red face go down;
and the light on the Pond withdraw, the bridge of light
disappear, and the hollows grow darker and grimmer. A

stronger and better defined glow streamed for a moment
from the receding depths of light, and flashed through the
atmosphere. The little rose-colored clouds melted away in
their evening joy, and went to rest up in the dark unfathomable
chambers of the heavens. The fishes swam
away with that which had called them into being, and
plunged down the cataract of light that falls over the other
side of the earth; the broad massive clouds grew denser
and more gloomy, and extended themselves, like huge-breasted
lions couchant which the Master had told her
about, to watch all night near the gate of the sun. She sat
there alone with no eye but God's to look upon her; he
alone saw her face, her expression, in that still, warm,
golden sunsetting; she sat as if for her the sun had gone
down, and the sky unloosed its glory; she sat mute and
undisturbed, as if she were the child-queen of this great
pageant of Nature.

While at the Pond the birds were closing their strains
and Margaret was taking her parting look of the sky, in the
village, at the same moment, broke forth the first song of the
day, and was indulged the first unembarrassed vision.
When the last shimmer of blue light vanished from the top
of the mountain beyond the River, whither tenscore eyes
were turned, there exploded the long twenty-four hours
pent and swollen emotion of tenscore hearts and voices.
“Sun's down!” sun's down!” was the first unrestrained
voice the children had uttered since the previous afternoon.
This rang out in every family and echoed from house to
house. The spell was broken, the tether cut, doors and
gates flew open, and out the children dashed into the
streets, to breathe a fresh feeling, clutch at the tantalizing
and fast receding enjoyment, and give a minute's free play
to hands, feet and tongues. An avalanche of exuberant

life seemed to have fallen from the glacier summits of the
Sabbath, and scattered itself over the Green. The boys
leaped and whooped towards the Meeting-house, flung their
hats into the air, chased one another in a sort of stampede,
and called for games with all possible vociferation.

Little Job Luce alone seems to have no share in the
general revel. He has been sitting by the Brook under a
willow, and as the boys come trooping by, he shrinks into
the house; his mother holds him a while in her lap at the
window, when he, as the grasshoppers have already done,
goes to bed.

The villagers, husbands and wives, grave and venerable
men, beaux and sweethearts, appear in the streets, walk up
the different roads, and visit from house to house.

The Indian's Head meanwhile is folded in shadows and
silence, and Margaret is hushed as the sky above her; the
cool fresh evening wind blows upon her, thrills through
her brown curls and passes on. Her mother appeared on
the top of the hill, and without words or noise sat down
beside her. She folded her arm about Margaret's neck,
and with one hand grasped that of the child, and with the
other dallied with the locks of her hair;—but abstractedly,
and with her eye wandering over the misty expanse. Her
own grizzled hair was swept by the wind, and her bared
swarthy bosom seemed to drink in life from the twilight
world. In calm sternness, in mute brownness she sat, and
apparently thoughtful, and as it were unconsciously she
pressed Margaret hard to her breast. Was it an old memory,
some old hope, some recollection of her own childhood,
some revival of her own mother's image?—was it some
feeling of despair, some selfish calculation, a dim glimpse
into eternity, an impulse of repenting sin, a visitation of
God's spirit?—was it a moment of unavowed tenderness?

Presently Chilion came up with his viol, and going to the
projecting rock, sat with his feet dangling over the precipice.
Margaret withdrawing from her mother went to her
brother, leaned on his shoulder, and looked down into the
mysterious depth below. Her brother began to play, and
as if he had imbibed the dizziness, dread and profundity of
that abyss, he seemed to play with a similar impulse, and
she shuddered and started; then relieving the impression, he
played the soft, starry, eternal repose of the heavens, and
chased away that abyss-music from her soul. Her father,
too, joined them, his red face glistening even in the shadows;
he had with him a flask of rum which he drank; he
laughed, too, and repeated many passages of the Bible, and
imitated the tones, expression and manners of all the religious
persons whom Margaret had seen in the village;
then making a pappoose of her, he carried her down to the
house.

That night Margaret dreamed a dream, and in this wise
dreamed she. She was in a forest, and the sun was going
down among the trees. Its round red disk changed to
yellow, as she looked, and then to white; then it seemed
to advance towards her, and the woods became magically
luminous. She beheld her old familiar birds flying among
the branches with a singularly lustrous plumage, the wild-flowers
glowed under her feet, and the shrubbery was all
a-flame. The ball of light come forward to a knoll about
a dozen rods before her, and stopped. A gradual metamorphosis
was seen to go on to it, till at last it came out in
the form of a man, like a marble statue, dressed not as
Margaret had been accustomed to see, but in a simple robe
that descended to his feet, and leaning upon a milk-white
cross. Near this appeared another form of a man,
clothed in a similar manner, but smaller in size, and perched

on his hand was a milk-white dove. Margaret looked at
these men, or forms of men, in silent wonder. Presently
she saw a suffusion and outflowing of animal life in them.
The face of the first was pale but very fair, and a hidden
under-tinge of color seemed to show through an almost
transparent skin, as she had seen the blush of the white
goosefoot shining through a dew drop. In the preternatural
light that filled the place, Margaret saw that his eyes
were dark blue, and his hair, parted on the crown, flowed
in dark-brown curls down his neck. The appearance of
the other was similar, only the glow on his cheeks seemed
to be more superficial, and his look was more youthful.
The cross on which the elder leaned, Margaret now saw
set in the ground, where it grew like a tree, budded and
bore green leaves and white flowers, and the milk-white
dove, becoming also endowed with life, flew and lit upon
the top of it. She then saw the younger of the two men
pick flowers from the blooming cross-tree, and give them
to the other, who seemed pleased with their beauty and
fragrance. She found herself moving towards these two
persons who had so singularly appeared to her, and when
she saw one of them pick off the flowers, she was secretly
impelled to do the same. So she gathered quite a bunch
of calico bush, Solomon's seal, Iambkill and others similar
to those she found in the woods on her way to the Meeting,
which she tied with a grass string. Then she got a parcel
of checkerberries. All at once the milk-white dove flew
from the green cross-tree and alighted upon her shoulder,
thus seeming to establish a communication between herself
and these two persons, and as she moved on, all the birds
in the woods, the same as she had heard in the morning,
sung out right merrily. When she stopped, they ceased
to sing, and when she started, they began again. As she
was going on, suddenly issuing from behind a tree, appeared
to her in her dream the same lady who had talked with her
after meeting, Miss Amy.

“Where are you going?” said the lady.

“I am going to see those men, and give that beautiful
one those flowers and berries.”

“That is Jesus Christ that I told you about this afternoon,
and the other is the Apostle John,” rejoined the
lady.

“Is it?” queried Margaret, “then I think he won't want
my flowers.”

“He is God, the second person in the Godhead. He
does not want flowers. He wants you to believe in him;
you must have faith in that cross.”

“I was going to carry him flowers, I saw him smell of
some. He looks as if he would love me.”

“Love you?” rejoined the lady. “What does the
Creed say? That you deserve everlasting destruction.”

While they were talking, the birds ceased to sing, and
the dove leaving Margaret's shoulder flew back to the
cross. She started impulsively and said, “I will go.” As
she proceeded slowly along, in the shifting and multiform
phenomena of the dream, Deacon Hadlock stood before her,
and asked where she was going, to whom she made the
same reply as before.

“You cannot go,” said he, “unless you are effectually
called. You are wholly disabled by reason of sin.”

“It is only a little ways,” replied she, “and I went clear
down to the village to-day alone. He looks as if he wanted
me to come.”

“Yes,” rejoined the Deacon, “if you were in a right
frame of mind, if you were duly humbled. You are vain,
proud, deceitful, selfish and wholly depraved.”

“I guess I am not.”

“Even there you show the blindness of the carnal
mind.”

“He is beckoning to me,” cried Margaret, with childish
earnestness.

“If he should appear to you as he truly is, a just God,
who hates sin, and should gird on his sword, then your
rebellious heart would show itself, then you would hate
him.”

While Deacon Hadlock detained Margaret, the Widow
Luce went by leading her crooked boy Job, also Mistress
Hatch and her little boy Isaiah, and Helen Weeks with her
brother and sister Judah and Isabel, and several elderly
people.

“He does'nt hang on the cross as he does in the Primer,”
said Isaiah.

“Blessed Savior! by faith I behold thee!” exclaimed
Mistress Palmer, coming through the woods.

“I thought he was coming to judgment, in clouds and
flaming fire, taking vengaance on them that know not
God,” said the Camp-Preacher looking from behind a
tree.

John the disciple and companion of Jesus was now seen
approaching. “Welcome to Jesus!” he said, as he came
near to the people. “The good shepherd welcomes his
flock! as saith the old Prophet, `He will take the lambs in
his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.' He
is the Eternal Life now manifested unto you; come to him
that he may give you some of his life; he is the truth, he
will impart to you that truth; approach him that his own
divine image may be reflected in you; love him, and so
become possessed of his spirit.” The crowd drew back as
the holy Apostle approached. Children snuggled to their

parents, and the elderly people seemed disconcerted.
“Christ bids me say,” continued the Apostle, “Suffer the
little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven.”

“I know not how many of us may be included in this
invitation,” said Deacon Hadlock, as the senior officer of
the church, and more prominent man, speaking on behalf
of the company.

“Whosoever thirsts,” replied the Apostle, “let him come.
Whoever would have the true life, like a well of water
springing up in his soul, let him come to the living source.”

“It is to be hoped that some of us have been made
worthy partakers of the efficacy of Christ's death,” said
Deacon Penrose.

“Whosoever doeth not righteousness,” rejoined the Apostle,
“is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother; every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth
God.”

“I want he should take me in his arms and bless me, as
he did the little children in the Bible,” said Isabel Weeks
to her sister.

“He looks so beautiful and good,” said Helen, “I
should rejoice to go near him. It seems as if my heart
had for a great while longed to meet such gentleness and
purity.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Deacon Hadlock, “that you should
apply again that unction to your lips! You think your
natural amiability will commend you to Christ. You believe
there is something good in your nature,—When,”
added he, turning to the Apostle, “will this young woman
see herself as she is, feel her own sinfulness, her utter
helplessness by nature, and throw herself on the mere mercy
of God?”

“Hold!” said the Apostle. “She is in the way of salvation.
Her natural amiability is pleasing to Christ. He
was amiable in his youth before God and man. No human
being is sinful by nature. If she have deep love in her
soul, that will remove all traces of the carnal mind. Her
love, I see it now, flows out to Jesus, and his love ever
flows out to her, and all the children of men, and in this
union of feeling and spirit will she become perfect in
holiness.”

By this time, little Job Luce, as it seemed in the dream,
forgotten and neglected by the crowd, slipping away unobserved
and creeping through the bushes and trees, had
gone round and come out near the cross, under which he
stood, and began playing with the Dove that offered itself
very familiarly to him. The little crumpled boy appeared
to be cured of his deformity, he walked erect, the hump
had fallen from his back, and his hands no longer touched
the ground.

Jesus himself was now seen to be drawing near. The
tree-cross, green and flowering, moved along with him; the
birds in the woods renewed their song, and even the milk-white
dove flew from tree to tree, as it were to give good
cheer to the timid little birds. Some of the people retreated
and stood afar off in the shade of the forest, others
clustered about Deacon Hadlock.

“Behold him!” outspoke the Apostle John, “the fairest
among the sons of men; our elder Brother; he took upon
himself our nature, and is not ashamed to call us brethren.
He hath loved us, and given himself for us, as the good
Paul said, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet
smelling savor.”

The voice of Jesus himself was heard at last sounding
heavenly sweet and tenderly free among the bewildered

people. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly of heart.” “The bruised reed he will not
break,” added John, “nor quench the smoking flax.”

“I am not come to condemn you,” continued the voice of
Jesus, “but that by me you may be saved. I give myself
for your life. Through my holiness ye shall sin no more.”

“We will go to him!” exclaimed Helen Weeks earnestly.
“Come Isabel, come Margaret.”

These three interlocked, Margaret still retaining her
berries and flowers, the kind Apostle led forward, and Jesus
smiled upon them as they approached, and took each of
them by the hand, and spake comforting and assuring words
to them, and they looked with a reverential pleasure into
his face. Margaret, who from her own ignorance of the
person she addressed felt less fear of him than the others,
was the first to speak. “Do you love flowers?” said
she, at the same time extending the bunch she had in
her hand. Christ took them, and replied, “God bless you,
my dear child.” “Can he bless and love me?” said Helen,
addressing herself directly to Jesus, but adopting the customary
third person. “I love those that love me,” he
replied. “Keep your heart pure, for out of it are the
issues of life, and I and the Father will come and dwell
with you.”

“Can he have mercy on a poor sinner like me?” asked
Mistress Palmer.

“I forgive you, Daughter,” he answered; “Go and sin
no more.”

“Are you God?” asked Margaret.

“I am not God. But love me, and you will love God,”
he said.

“There is some mistake here,” observed Deacon Hadlock,

as if he was afraid Christ had not fully explained
himself.

“There is no mistake,” interposed the Apostle.

“But are we not saved by the Atoning Sacrifice, and
can that be made except by an infinite being, and is not
that being God?” added the Deacon.

“We are saved by a divine union with God and Christ.
He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in
him. This inter-dwelling is our salvation, and this is the
Atonement.”

“That's nater,” said Deacon Ramsdill, “I understand
that. I am afeered some of us are resting upon a sandy
foundation.”

“I was a poor sinner,” continued the Apostle, “till I
came into this oneness with Christ. I feel safe and happy
now, my soul is elevated and purified. To be with him is
like being with God; to possess his spirit is to bear the
virtues of heaven; to be formed in his image is the blessed
privilege of humanity. To effect such a change is the
object for which he came into the world, and that which I
have seen and heard, and handled and enjoyed, I declare
unto you, that you, beloved friends, may have fellowship
with me; and truly my fellowship is with the Father, and
with his Son Jesus Christ.”

“We are emptied of all self-righteousness,” said Deacon
Hadlock, “we are altogether become filthy.”

“Have you no love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness,
faith?” asked the Apostle.

“Alas, none,” replied the Deacon.

“Say not so, a single look of his will pierce you through
and through.”

“What the gentleman says may be true,” interposed
Deacon Penrose; “but I think it highly inexpedient to

speak of these things. We might adjourn, a few of us, to
my counting-room, or to the Parson's study, and confer
upon the matter; but to talk in this way before all the
people is the worst policy that could have been adopted.”
So saying he disappeared.

“Look at these children,” continued St. John, “the very
flowers and berries they bring are the affectionate tribute
of their hearts to the Infinite Goodness and Divine Beauty
that appear in Christ; it is the outflowing of a pure love;
it is the earnest and foreshadowing of the salvation that
has already begun in their souls. That young lady's
yearning after the love of Jesus is a sign that the Regeneration
has commenced within her, and by it a communication
is opened between her soul and his, which is the
Atonement, and so also she becomes united to God, who is
manifested and resident in Christ.”

“What have we been about all our lives, that we know
not so much of the Gospel as these children!” exclaimed
Deacon Hadlock mournfully and yet resistingly. Whereupon
it came to pass that the crowd withdrew or melted
away like a mist, and Margaret, Helen, Isabel, Judah, and
Job Luce, were left alone with Jesus and John. Helen
fell at the feet of Jesus, and overpowered by emotion wept
with a calm deep weeping; Margaret looked into his face,
and tears came into her eyes also.

“Will you forgive me, Job,” said Judah to the little boy,
“for all that I have done to you?”

“I will,” replied Job.

“Be good children and love one another,” said Jesus to
them, and the two boys disappeared.

“Weep not, child of my love,” said he to Helen, “confide
in me, dwell near my heart, obey the Gospel; I will be the
life of your life, the wellspring of your soul, and in purity

shall Heaven be revealed in you. The little Isabel, she
shall be blest too, I will carry the lamb in my bosom.”
When he had said this, they two vanished from the dream.

“You ask me who is God, child,” said he turning to
Margaret, who now alone remained; “God is Love. Be
pure in heart, and you shall see God. Love much, and he
shall be manifest to you. Your flowers are fair, your spirit
is fairer; I am well pleased with their fragrance, the breath
of your love is sweeter to me.—Margaret!” he continued,
“to you it shall be given to know the mysteries of Heaven.
But the end is not yet. Man shall rise against his fellow;
and many shall perish. The Church has fallen. The Eve
of Religion has again eaten the forbidden fruit. You shall
be a co-worker with me in its second redemption. I speak
to you in parables, you understand not. You shall understand
at another day. You are young, but you may advance
in knowledge and goodness. You must be tempted, blessed
if you can endure temptation. Be patient and earnest,
hopeful and loving. I too was a child like you, and it is
that you must be a child like me. Through the morning
shadows of childhood you shall pass to the perfect day. I
unconsciously grew in favor with God and man, so shall
you. This Cross is the burden of life, which all must bear.
Bear it well, and it shall bring forth flowers and fruit to
you. This Dove stands for the innocency and virtue,
strength and support, that flow from God to all. In a
dream have all these things passed before you. Forget not
your dream. There is much evil in the world, sin not.
You must be afflicted, faint not. Let me kiss you, my
sweet child.”

Thus spake Jesus, and the dream again changed. The
two persons were seen to return to marble-like forms, and

these forms became a round ball of light, which, receding
through the forest, stood on the distant mountains like the
setting sun, and Margaret awoke. The morning light
streamed into her chamber; from her window she saw the
golden sun coming up over the dark woods, and the birds
were pealing their songs through the amber air.

The child went down with bright feelings, light-hearted
and free; she brought water from the cistern for her mother
to wash, spread the clothes on the bushes, and scared the
birds from yarn that was hung out to dry.