University of Virginia Library

THE meeting now was o'er, and up the street
Rang through the dark the clink of pattened feet.
Dame closed her cloak around her head with care,
To screen her heated face from the night air.
Miss with one hand clung closely to her brother,
And held her sunday skirt up with the other.
One good man here was humming low and dim
A favourite stave of the concluding hymn.
Another, as he went, his head perplexed
With all the drifts and bearings of the text;
And now and then the ear ‘good night’ might catch,
Commixed with screaking lock and lifted latch.

On the dark margin of a puddle flood,
Doubtful how deep, Miss Bridget Wilkins stood.
With lanthorn Mrs. Green came up at last,
And showed a passage o'er, and o'er they passed;
And as together up the street they strayed,
Thus to the widow spake the ancient maid.
“What, if such question may be asked of her,
“Thinks Mrs. Green of our new Minister?
“How felt she under his discourse to night?”
“Indeed Miss Wilkins it o'erpowered me quite;—
“So close, and so awakening, I declare
“Paul might himself have owned it. Then his prayer,
“Say did you ever hear a finer gift?”
“Why, Ma'am, we must not over closely sift
“So young a man: but if I might determine,
“His prayer had less of unction than his sermon,
“Yet give him more experience, and through grace
“I trust he'll prove a blessing to this place.”
“You see,” said Mrs. Green, “even now the meeting
“Is grown so throng one scarce can find a sitting;
“And the trustees, I'm told, expect to clear
“The whole debt off it in another year.
“I must say too, myself and all I've heard
“Have found already good beneath the word.”
“O, doubtless! but you know, dear Mrs. Green,
“Gifts are not graces, that is all I mean:
“'Tis easier too to call in them that stray,
“Than build up souls already in the way.
“His sermons may do many hearers good;
“But old professors look for stronger food.”
“Well, ma'am,” cried Mrs. Green, “old Mr. Bray
“Came down into my shop the other day
“To buy some snuff; (he always buys of me,)
“And so he said, good Mrs. Green, says he,
“You've heard our preacher; la, sir, yes, I says;
“And don't you think him quite a Barnabas?
“Says Mr. Bray; and he was called, you know,
“Under John Dunn full forty years ago.”
“O ma'am,” Miss Wilkins answered,—but a rut
Just here tripped up her argument and foot,
And called her thoughts from loftier objects down
To spattered stocking and soiled sunday gown.

George Jones, the minister, whose powers and claims
Were settled thus by these loquacious dames,
Readier to scan and criticise their preacher,
Than meekly use him for their guide and teacher,
Had for a few months past with much renown
Filled the dissenting pulpit of their Town;
And all his flock had of him heard or seen
Quite justified the praise of Mrs. Green.
His parents born and bred, good worthy people,
In due disdain of prayer book and steeple,
Kept in a neighbouring town a grocer's shop,
Where passing preachers oft were wont to stop.
And little George soon caught an admiration
Of their grave manners, and high occupation;
And a desire grew on him day by day
To dress in black, and look and talk as they.
His parents saw, encouraged the ambition,
And in due time obtained the boy's admission
To a renowned Academy, from whence
The youth anon stepped forth your Reverence.

A call soon came, and forth our preacher went
With many a glowing hope and high intent;
His head with needful learning well informed,
His heart with zeal and ardour duly warmed,
Correct in dress, in air, in gait, in phrase,
And all the other nice et ceteras.
Doddridge and Henry, Williams, Owen, Gill
All helped to whet his controversial skill.
On the five points he learnedly could speak,
Could talk of Hebrew roots, and sport some Greek;
Cut up Establishments from flank to centre,
And prove that Enos was the first dissenter;
From Scripture on all subjects aptly quote,
And preach an hour without a book or note:
And when to heaven he raised his fluent prayer,
You'd almost think he'd spent his lifetime there.

His private walk consisted with the rest;
He fared with plainness, and with plainness dressed.
His looks were grave, his conduct circumspect,
His whole demeanour decent and correct.
Fond of his books, retirement, and his pen,
He seldom joined the busy throng of men;
He seldom came where folly laughed around,
And if thrown there, he rather sighed than frowned:
Watchful to win them from their ribbald mood,
And lead to sensible if not to good;
Or bid some moral from their trash to rise,
As muddiest pools send tribute to the skies.
At home you found him on his knees at prayer,
Or o'er his bible bent with studious care.
Abroad you met him gliding to the shed,
Where sickness tossed upon her restless bed;
Or death's approach taught folly to be grave,
And vice grow humble as a new-whipt slave.

Such gifts, united to such worth and zeal,
Could hardly fail of finding many a seal.
The hardened heart beneath the word was moved,
Mourners consoled, and backsliders reproved.
His sermons well-delivered, bold and striking,
Were much adapted to the general liking.
And to the meeting crowds from far and near
Came the new minister to praise and hear.
The Gospel seemed to lose its due offence,
And pleased even where it failed to influence.
Religious coteries were held around,
Where he was asked to take tea and expound.
He urged at public meetings with applause
The Bible and the Missionary cause.
And at the neighbouring towns on state occasions,
Preached by desire to crowded congregations.

O popular applause, the poet cries,
What heart of man can stand thy sorceries?
How can'st thou bring the lofty motive down,
And pick the jewel out of virtue's crown.
Jones, unalarmed pursued his high career,
And drank the pleasant poison through his ear;
His growing triumph with complacence eyed,
And all the while scarce knew that it was pride:
With other feelings mingled and connected,
The passion rose and flourished undetected;
And like the ocean current's secret force,
That draws the vessel from her destined course,
And leads her grimly on, while winds are fair,
And hopes are high, to shipwreck, and despair;
So this one passion upon Jones's soul
Urged its incessant, unobserved control;
Led him from step to step, till God began
To share the homage of his heart with man;
And truth and boldness yielded by degrees,
To the omnipotent desire to please.
And though he still went through the same routine,
Prayed thrice a day, and read good books between,
Yet were his prayers less warm than eloquent;
And when he read, 'twas more with the intent
Of finding some neat phrase, or happy thought
For his next sermon, than applying aught
To his own erring heart. He likewise took
New pains concerning dress, and gait, and look,
Aimed at a nice correctness of expression,
And made to favorite foibles large concession.
When rich, though lax, professors gave their dinners,
He went and sat with publicans and sinners;
And heard discourse he should not calmly hear,
But passed it by, not to be thought austere.
And among others made acquaintance there
With a rich merchant's daughter, young and fair:
Not a decided Christian it was true,
Nor one whom he could well aspire to woo;
Yet there was kindly interchange of eyes,
And hopes indulged, which time might realize.

Alas! Alas! what thought and care are here!
Where is that single eye, that aim sincere,
That rich enthusiast energy of soul,
Which breathed through word and act, and warmed the whole?
Where is that high devotedness of mind,
Which left the world and all its cares behind?
Which drew its every impulse from above,
And deemed all base that sprung from less than love?
Now self with God maintained divided sway,
And earth from heaven stole more than half away.
Loose on the world's false stream his bark was cast,
And to the rocks below was drifting fast:
While he who should the rescuing oar assume,
Smiled on the wave that whirled him to his doom.

Worse grew the symptoms. Prayer at morn and night
Was first slurred over, then neglected quite.
His sermons grew more flowery and correct,
But failed in point and practical effect.
On doctrine now exclusively he dwelt,
Though clear, yet cold, more understood than felt.
No cot he entered, and no poor relieved,
Or if he did, took care to be perceived.
He sought the rule of conduct to reduce,
And fit its standard to his private use:
And every word and act betrayed the case,
Of one declining fast from God and grace.
Whispers indeed arose, and hints were dropped
Even in his presence, but his ears were stopped;
And that which should have roused, but gave offence,
And was resented as impertinence.
A party too upon his side was made,
Who puffed and praised whate'er he did or said;
And all who differed from their special creed,
Were scoffed till they were silent,—or agreed.

But there was one whose voice he could not drown,
One strong accuser not to be put down:
Conscience, the faithful witness of her God,
By arts unbiassed, and by fears unawed.
Close by the spring of thought with watchful eyes
She sits, and notes its bubblings as they rise,
And passes sentence on each aim and plan,
The voice of God within the soul of man.
Her warnings heard drop manna in their train;
Her warnings spurned, they come, they come again,
Their still small pleadings swelling into wrath,
And hang vindictive on the sinner's path,
Watching the hour of weakness and distress,
To rise and hurl his hopes to nothingness.
Yes! she will find her time, when shift and art
No more shall serve to screen the guilty heart;
Nor sophistry's dark spell, nor laughter's din
Disarm or drown her thunders from within.
She tracks her victim down into the tomb;
She rises with him at the trump of doom;
Meets him in heaven, his worst accuser there;
Confounds his pleas, and awes him to despair:
Nor quits him even in his hell below,
But feeds the eternal fire, and points the penal woe.
This best of friends, and fearfullest of foes,
Left not poor Jones to error and repose.
She gave him timely warning when he strayed,
And oft returned to check him and upbraid.
Mid triumphs, praise, and partisans, he yet
Was ill at ease. He looked back with regret
To days when love was pure and hopes were high,
And all his wishes tended to the sky.
But worldliness and weakness, shame and pride,
Their tenfold chain around his spirit tied;
And urged him onward in his cheerless course
Of smiling pain, and prosperous remorse.

Now Jones with an old lady lodged; who kept
Nor man, nor maid, save a young niece, that swept
The chambers, made the beds, and all the rest.
And in the afternoon when she was dressed,
Her day's work done, or when she sat on high
On Sabbaths in the meeting gallery,
No prettier lass was there, at least in Jones's eye.
Strange thoughts for Jones! in such a place most strange!
But loose the will, and who shall bound its range?
Who, the least opening once allowed to sin,
Shall keep the worst from forcing entrance in.
As the girl passed before him to and fro,
As to his room he saw her come and go,
As she sat up to let him in at night,
And daily moved and tended in his sight,
New feelings in his heart began to rise,
And new desires looked lightly from his eyes,
And liberties were taken,—and allowed;—
The simple-hearted girl in truth felt proud
Of his attentions; and perhaps her hope
At matrimonial schemes might vaguely grope;
And all she meant was haply but to lure
Her prey so far as made his capture sure.
Yet as she yielded little boon on boon,
Met him in times and places opportune,
Toyed and coquetted with him, passion grew,
And caution, fear, and awkwardness withdrew,
And matters fell into that fatal track,
Where power is none to stop or to go back;
Where every feeble effort to retire
Serves but to add fresh fuel to desire;
And each so much has granted or has done,
That fear and shame compel them to go on.
Virtue's frail outworks all to earth down-cast,
And every favour granted, but the last;
Alas! this followed soon,—soon all was o'er—
And infamy and woe made theirs for evermore.

Now came the restless day, the sleepless night,
The loathing of all pure and calm delight,
The inward fire that nought could sate or tame,
The lawless will, the life without an aim,
The long remorse succeeding transient joys,
The shame that festers and the glut that cloys;
Repentance marring sensual gust, and sense
Mocking in turn resolve and penitence;
The dread of every eye, and all the mean
Resorts that pride must stoop to, for a screen;
The sense of deepening guilt, and tanglement
In fetters daily harder to be rent:
And strong subjection to each shifting mood,
Each weakness, want, and wish of womanhood.
For she his paramour must now be pleased,
Her fancies humoured, and her fears appeased;
Her tell-tale tears, whate'er the cost, be dried,
And soothing sophistries at large supplied;
And each high principle before professed
Renounced, disproved, to give her scruples rest.
Humbling all this; and yet he must be tame,
Be mute, though charged with wrong, and urged with claim,
Bear each outbreaking fierce and unrefined
Of a weak, headstrong, selfish, harassed mind.
And come what may, indifference, disgust,
Still prudence must supply the place of lust;
Else jealousy may note and take offence,
And who can tell each dangerous consequence?

Such was his abject life; but words are faint
The deepening horrors of his state to paint.
His loathings, degradations, fear and shame,
And still constrained to smile and smile the same,
In seeming love mistrust and scorn to slur,
And be reproached at once by self and her;
And feel himself, his all, within the power
Of one he scarce can still from hour to hour.
O to retrace his course of guilt and pain,
And what should tempt him thus to stray again.
O for one respite, one resource to bless
With faintest ray his gathering distress.
But no—none comes!—he still must fawn and hate,
Soothe, and yet dread—be calm, and desperate.

See where he moves a troubled downcast man,
Moody and vague, without intent or plan;
How sits dejection on his sallow face!
How dull his eye, how halt his leaden pace!
His spirit tamed, his energies o'erthrown,
All faces, all pursuits oppressive grown,
Now forth he treads the long and level sand,
Where the big waves roll booming up to land,
Now saunters up the cliffs forlorn and slow,
To sit, and gaze down on the tide below,
Pouring his anguish out upon the breeze,
And mingling murmurs with the murmuring seas,
Till gathering night, or duty's irksome chain
Drags him back home to agony again.

But sterner cause comes now of grief and shame;
Another claim appears, a mother's claim;—
She stands before him calling him to give
A father to the babe that soon must live.
She stands before him in her helplessness,
And tells her state, and sues him for redress;
Sues him to pity her distress and shame
And screen her frailty with a spouse's name.
What shall he do? ah! names and rites are vain,
From either now to wipe the branded stain!
But stilled she must be, till despair may shape
Some unthought means of refuge or escape.
At times he thinks of fleeing from the place,
At times of boldly facing his disgrace;
A thousand plans are formed, resigned again,
And things move on in just the same dark train;
She urgent, he distracted, and the day
Approaching fast that must the worst display.

'Tis night. The wind is up, and o'er the Heaven
The clouds are like a routed army driven;
Across the moon's pale disk they pass, and throw
Fits of alternate light and shade below.
There is a tumult in the air, the roar
Of billows tumbling on the lengthened shore,
And now and then the solitary wail
Of the wild curlew screaming down the gale.
Who rushes forth so strangely to the night?
Who to the beach pursues his hurried flight,
And climbs the cliffs, and takes his station there
Tragic and stern, a statue of despair?
'Tis Jones! He quits his home of strife and fear,
To cool his forehead in the fresh breeze here;
To vent his burthened heart without restraint,
And seek dark ease in uncontrolled complaint.
And lo another follows close! Tis she
Pursuing him with her relentless plea.
Rash girl! ah tempt him not too far! his brain
Is wild, his thoughts are dangerous; refrain
To urge a desperate man in such a place!
He springs upon her,—in his fierce embrace
Has grasped her;—hark! they struggle,—and a cry
Above the night wind shrills out piercingly!
Then one loud plash into the boiling deep,—
And all is hushed again,—save the long sweep
Of waves upon the rocks, and the low moan
Of the fresh breeze that drives the light clouds on
Across the moon, still shining out as bright
As if no foul deed met her here to night.

The morning comes,—and she is gone,—and none
Know or conjecture whither. Days pass on,
And still she reappears not. Hope and fear
Alternate sway, and draw and dry the tear.
Research is made—in vain—nor clue nor trace
Is found whereby to extricate the case.
In night's close womb the horrid secret slept;
The stars declared it not; the dark waves kept
Their counsel, nor the conscious winds confessed.
And all was still,—all save the boding breast
Of Jones. One fear from thence, one foe was gone,
But ah! a feller, deadlier now comes on!
Conscience arises in her strength, and shakes
Her terrors on his soul. At night he wakes
And trembles, and by day he cannot rest.
Detection hangs on him; his thoughts are pressed
With chains and gibbets; dark suspicions lie
In each light word, and lour from every eye.
She too is at his side, and ah! her pleas
Are heard more loud than ever. Now he sees
Her smiling in her first fair innocence;
Anon she comes the thing of shame and sense
His baseness made her. Then that fatal night
Returns. Her looks, her words of wild affright
Rush on him. On the lone cliff's dizzy verge
They stand, they struggle. Down into the surge
He hurls her thence; she shrieks, she sinks, she dies.
But hark! the trumpet sounds, the dead arise
To Judgment! he is there; and she, aye she
Comes to sear up each hope, and drown each plea!
His friends too all are round to see, to hear;
And Jesus!—Jesus gracious once and dear,
But ah! how wronged, insulted, outraged now,
Scorn on His lip, and sternness on His brow.
Wretch! and he still must smile! must try to throw
A veil of calmness o'er the storm below;
Still in the pulpit take his usual place,
Still bend the knee, and formalize the face,
Preach, and exhort, and warn, and yet feel all
Back on his head in keen reproaches fall,
And treat of themes divine of God and Heaven,
And be the while dark, hopeless, unforgiven.
He cannot long stand this; to whine and prate
Of holy things, himself a reprobate;
To hear men call his counsel and his prayers
Down on their souls, his own a hell to theirs.
Without a tear to wet his hot red eye,
Loathing to live, and yet afraid to die,
His friends a load to him, and these away
God and his own wild thoughts still worse than they,
Reason at last sank down, and strong despair
Usurped her place, and reigned triumphant there.
He hurried forth regardless where or why,
Flying he knows not whom,—but he must fly;
And 'neath night's covert left his joyless home,
Far from all eyes at will to rave and roam.

The neighbouring peasants met him the next day,
Roving the open heath in strange array;
His looks were gaunt and pale, his head was bare,
And his black locks streamed loose upon the air;
He fled before them like a thing distraught,
And to their calls and queries answered nought.
At length they seized, conveyed him back to town,
And to his bed there bound the maniac down.
A burning fever maddened in his brain,
And the hot blood flew scalding through each vein.
But light the body's to the mind's disease.
His pious friends thronged eager round to seize
His precious words, his whispered hope and bliss,
His prayer and praise:—but ah! what speech is this?
“Talk not of God and Heaven; I want them not,
Let me lie still within my grave, and rot.
Is there no rest in death, no nook where I
Down with the earthworms undisturbed may lie?
I want repose;—must all come up, and face
That sad, stern, solemn eye? must every case
Be full exposed? and will they hoot and hiss
Their fellows into hell?—O spare me this,
Keep back that angry girl!—she cannot say
The child was mine,—I own it not;—away,
Poor wretch! I did not kill thee.—Who was near?
Who saw me do it? Well but hear, Lord, hear,—
One moment more,—I own it all,—I own
I have no claim to mercy, I shewed none,—
I would not hear her pleas.—Yes, I have been
A wretch, a hypocrite, a thing obscene.—
I've knelt and breathed bold blasphemy in prayer,
Preached my own sentence, sealed my own despair;
But I have had my hell,—and is not one,
One hell enough for even what I have done?”
Such were his words. His friends stood round amazed,
By turns on him and on each other gazed;
With lifted hands, and looks of blank dismay
They heard without the power to speak or pray.
He saw them knew them not; but still he glared,
And muttered on, still struggled and despaired;
Till failed his clammy tongue, and forth at last
In one strong groan his soul to judgment passed.