REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST.
Sunday—Sacred worship—The sanctuary recalling youthful scenes—Early plighted vows at the table of the Lord—Retrospect—Mournful reflections—Change in the congregation—Mr. and Mrs. N—— The C——family—Col. T—— Village burial ground—C——The buried pastor—My mother—Palmyra—Early ministerial labours—Lyons.
Fairfield, Aug. 15th.
In these Gleanings by the Way, I have very little plan or method, but send you just what happens to interest me most at the time.
Perhaps there are no two places that we visit, after long years of absence, with so much interest as the sanctuary where we first plighted our vows of allegiance at the sacramental table to Jehovah, and the old, shaded burial place where repose the ashes of many whom we knew and loved in early life. In my late excursion through Western New York, I was permitted to enjoy this pleasing, yet melancholy satisfaction. Upon the first Sunday of the present month, I was permitted to worship in the sanctuary where twenty-two years before I first knelt at the communion table to receive the consecrated symbols of my Saviour's dying love. As I stood within the rail of the altar and looked around that sanctuary, a tide of thought rushed upon me, awakening in my mind varied and conflicting emotions.
The sacred place with its history called up some pleasing reflections. I could not but rejoice that "the truth as it is in Jesus," continued to be proclaimed there, and that the cross of Christ was perpetually held up as the sinner's only hope. I could not but rejoice to see the increase and prosperity of Christ's spiritual flock; the number of communicants having swelled from fifty to nearly two hundred. I could not but be thankful to remember how mercifully and kindly the Lord had led me through the wilderness for more than twenty years, and how unerringly he had fulfilled all his covenant promises!
But there were also painful reflections called up by what I saw before me. Remembering as I did that here, in this spot my covenant vows were pledged before high heaven, I could not but recollect how far I had fallen short of that entire consecration to God—that separation from the world, and supreme love for Christ, implied in those vows—I could not but recollect what poor returns I had rendered to that Saviour who had laid down his life for my redemption, to that merciful God
* * * * * * that sought me
Wretched wanderer, far astray;
Found me lost, and kindly brought me
From the paths of death away.
Since the hour I had first knelt at that altar to consecrate myself to the service of Jehovah, his covenant promises had been all verified. "Not one thing had failed of all the good things which the Lord my God had spoken concerning me." During all this period, "his loving kindness he had not taken away, nor suffered his faithfulness to fail." But amid all these unwearied displays of divine faithfulness, alluring me with the sweetness of spiritual joys, and rousing my dullness, as well as rebuking my waywardness with the chastenings of a father's rod, how often had I, like Israel of old, by spiritual declension, and worldly conformity "forsaken the Lord—provoked the holy one of Israel unto anger, and gone away backward!" Most overwhelming, indeed, would have been the review of the past, but for that voice of redeeming love which breathed from the altar on which lay the symbols of Christ's great sacrifice, saying—"the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins."
The scene within that sanctuary also awakened other mournful reflections. A large congregation sat before me, but where were the individuals and families that twenty years before filled those pews? Only here and there amid the assembled congregation could be traced a familiar countenance. The great mass had gone! Some had undoubtedly left the place and removed to other parts of the country; but the majority of the senior members of the former congregation, had finished their probation and gone to the Spirit land! How solemn did the place seem as I stood and looked upon the mere handful now remaining of that large congregation that once filled this temple. There were four pews to which my eye was particularly directed. I recollected distinctly how they were occupied twenty years ago. Each of the families that sat in those pews were among the most respectable and influential people in the place. Regular as the Sabbath morn came, was Mr. and Mrs. N—— with their large and interesting family seen moving up the aisle in a dignified train and with looks of deepest seriousness towards their pew. He was for a long time one of the wardens of the church. He had filled some most important posts of civil duty, and enjoyed the esteem and respect of all. Mrs. N—— afforded in her whole life a most lovely specimen of consistent, dignified, matronly piety. So extensive were the charities of this family, that it might almost literally be said of them, that "they were eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. They delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him,"—so that in truth wherever they went in the neighbourhood of their own home, "the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon them; and they caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." But those venerable forms, those worthy characters, were no longer to be seen in that pew. Long since they had been borne to the place of the dead, and several of those children that used to sit by them, had also been laid by their side in the grave. Adjoining this pew, was another occupied by a family of great respectability and worth. The head of this family was one who filled a large space in the public mind, and for many years held a seat in the highest legislative council of the nation. I looked for him in that pew, but he was not there! he was numbered with the dead! I was wont to see amid that family group, a young beautiful blooming girl—the pride of her parents' hearts, but now she was not there! She had been married, and had every thing around her that earth could afford to make one happy. But in the midst of all that was bright and lovely, consumption had fixed its deadly blight upon her, and nothing could rescue her from the grave.
I looked across the church to two other pews, their former occupants, though they were families that had been long residents in the place, and possessed great wealth and respectability, were gone. Not a single representative of either family remained in the congregation or the place. Mr. C——, the head of one of these families, was also long a warden of the church. They had a lovely daughter, who was an only child. I well recollect her appearance in the house of God. She was a delicate flower, and most tenderly was she nurtured by her affectionate parents. All their earthly hopes seemed to centre in her. No expense was spared in her education. Every advantage that was supposed calculated to refine her taste, cultivate and expand her intellect, embellish her manners, and fit her to shine in the world, was placed within her reach. She was indeed a lovely young being. She had already interested the affections of one every way worthy of her. He was highly educated—of an excellent moral character, and belonged to a family of great wealth, influence and respectability—the very family who occupied the other pew of which I am soon to speak. But strong parental affection, high personal accomplishments—the brightest prospects in life, and the warm attachment of a devoted lover, could not shield Susan from the power of disease, or the cold iron grasp of death. The long grass now waves over her grave, and her broken-hearted father lies by her side. Their large estate has been scattered to the winds—and her mother resides in a distant part of the land a lonely widow.
I have already alluded to a fourth pew in this sanctuary, whose occupants I had some twenty years before so often seen in this place of worship. Col. T—— held a proud place among the distinguished and influential men in Western New-York. He possessed all which wealth and high standing and extensive influence can impart to secure to himself and family the most unalloyed earthly enjoyment. And I trust that he had something better than this, even that hope, which sheds light over the gloom and darkness of the grave. He and his family were regular attendants upon the service of the sanctuary. He had two sons whom he expected would inherit a portion of his property and perpetuate his name in the world. But the youngest to whom we have before alluded, did not long linger upon the shores of time, after he saw the object of his young affections torn from him and swallowed up in the grave. His only surviving brother, in the very midst of life, shortly followed him. And soon his father and his mother were laid by his side. This is a picture—a miniature picture of life! Thus doth "the fashion of this world pass away!" What solemn testimony was before me, that "all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field." How emphatic then did the words of the prophet seem—"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass." Not only had the flock changed—but the pastor was also gone! He who had instructed my youth—who had led me to the Saviour—who had first broken to me the sacramental bread, and given some of the first impulses to my preparation for the ministry—no longer stood before that altar—his voice was no longer heard in that sanctuary! A simple marble slab placed in the recess behind the pulpit, told the melancholy tale that he too had gone to the spirit land.
The account I have given you of my visit to this sanctuary, is so full of death I need scarcely take you to the village burial ground. It was a place, however, consecrated by the dust of too many dear friends for me to abstain from treading among its grass-covered and heaped hillocks of earth. This burial place, consisting of several acres of ground, enclosed by a neat pale, and shaded by shrubbery and trees, was located in the outskirts of the town, and at present, is seldom used for interments. A solitary walk amid its graves brought up a long train of recollections of the past. How mournful, yet how sacred did I find the satisfaction of brushing away the long grass that had grown over the spot where reposed the mouldered ashes of one who gamboled with me amid the sports of childhood's careless hour, and rushed onward at my side in life's joyous course till youth was ripening into manhood, and then the barbed arrow of death met him, and he fell like a young, vigorous, foliage-clad tree, struck by heaven's bolt, in all the freshness of his existence! How mysterious and inscrutable did the ways of Providence appear to me as I trod down the tall weeds that had grown up around the grave of one who had been associated with me during a portion of my academical life, and who looked forward to the same profession with myself! C—— had one of the warmest and most amiable hearts that ever beat within the human bosom. He had faults of character, but they were all counterbalanced and lost amid the many excellencies that distinguished him. He had long contended with poverty and discouragements of various kinds, in order to press his way towards the sacred ministry. After years of toil, and sacrifices of every kind, when he had just reached the goal, and was to be invested with the ministry of reconciliation, disease fastened upon his earthly tabernacle, and he sank down in death. No tender mother, nor kind sister was near to close his dying eyes. No family friends were present to follow his remains to the tomb. There he lies in a lone spot, far from the home of his childhood, with the weeds grown up all around his grave, and few that pass by understand the full import of the simple inscription of the marble slab that marks the spot where his ashes repose!
And there too, amid the gathered crowd of the dead, was all that remained of the mortal part of one whose voice had been heard a hundred times amid those grounds repeating the solemn burial service of our Church. But years have passed away since that service was repeated over him. Well do I recollect the melancholy occasion, when the cold icy clod of winter fell upon his coffin, as the affecting words were pronounced—"We commit his body to the ground: earth to earth—ashes to ashes, dust to dust." I could not pass through those grounds without paying a visit to the grave of the buried minister, for he had not only shed spiritual light upon my path, but was united to me by the strong ties of kindred and blood. He was my own brother! The grass was green over his grave; for it had flourished there undisturbed for more than twelve years.
But no spot in all that ground seemed so sacred, or so pregnant with power to awaken deep emotions and melt my soul into tenderness, as my mother's grave! What a volume of past recollections does every visit to that grave call up! What hallowed thoughts and sacred remembrances stand associated with the dust that slumbers in that narrow house? Can I ever forget a sainted mother's love! Can I ever forget the hour she took my tiny hand into hers and led me to a secret place there to pray for me and to teach me how to lift up my infant voice to the Creator of the skies? Can I ever forget how each night and morning in childhood's happy days I knelt at her side to repeat "our Father?" Can I ever forget how in my childish sorrows her voice soothed my distress, and her bright beaming smile spread a sunshine around my path? Can I ever forget how, when sickness came upon me, and the scorchings of fever sent the blood boiling through my veins, she hung over me like a guardian angel—laid her soft hand upon my burning brow, and night after night sat and watched by my pillow? Can I ever forget that look of holy rapture and unutterable gratitude that lit up her countenance when the constraining love of Christ first led her unworthy child to go forward and take hold of the horns of the altar? And above all, can I ever forget her prayers and solemn counsel, her holy trust in Christ and upward looking towards the summit of the everlasting hills, when the icy hand of death was upon her, and her hold upon life was breaking away? And could I stand by her grave, and not have these recollections come thronging upon me? But I must stop. I had almost forgotten that I was writing for the eye of others. Did I not know that many into whose hands these remarks will fall, have also stood by a mother's grave, and thought and felt unutterable things, and will therefore appreciate the source and sacredness of these feelings to which I have been almost involuntarily led to give expression, I would immediately erase them from this sheet.
But I have lingered over these scenes much longer than I intended. I had purposed to give you some account of an excursion I made to Palmyra and Lyons, two rising and beautiful villages located within sixteen miles of each other, at different points on the line of the great Erie Canal. The whole range of country from Geneva onward to these villages, and still farther north till we reach the shores washed by the waves of the broad Ontario, which expands before the eye like a great inland sea, is one of the richest and most beautiful farming districts found in our country. This region, fourteen years ago, was the scene of my early missionary labours. It was then comparatively a new country. A change has come over the whole aspect of this agricultural district, and that within so limited a period, that it would almost seem to have been effected by the wand of enchantment. Edifices too for public worship have been raised, and the sound of the church-going bell is now heard in many places where a few years since all seemed like spiritual desolation. The Episcopal Church had neither existence nor local habitation in the county of Wayne fourteen years ago. An effort had been previously made at Palmyra to establish the Episcopal Church, but it proved abortive. Palmyra, Lyons, and Sodus, were the principal points where my early ministerial labours were bestowed. Here we organized churches, and in two places commenced rearing up houses of public worship. In each of these three places they now have a settled pastor. I spent a Sabbath most delightfully at Palmyra, preaching in the neat and tasteful church edifice erected there. Most deeply affecting was it to see among the serious and exemplary communicants of this church some who during my residence in that place were among the giddiest youth of the village.
At Lyons they are building a beautiful stone Gothic Church—which will be an ornament to the village, and highly creditable to those engaged in this enterprise. I have met with but few men, to whom upon so short an acquaintance, I have felt my heart more drawn than to the worthy young pastor placed over this congregation. His ministerial fidelity, attractive pulpit powers, and lovely Christian character seem to have attracted all hearts towards him. Here too, was I delighted to find among the communicants some whom I had baptized in infancy.