CHAPTER XVI.—A Wedding.
Reverend David Rice, known to everyone as “Father Rice,” was a graduate of Princeton, the first ordained Presbyterian minister of Kentucky, and a firm believer and practitioner of the three ideals of Presbyteranism: First, the family as a unit in human life; second, the necessity for a true understanding of the faith; third, the importance of education.
He came to Kentucky from Hanover County, Virginia, in 1783, and between that time and 1785 organized three churches—at Danville, at Cane Run and at the Forks of Dick’s River.
The first Presbytery of Transylvania met in the court house at Danville, Tuesday, October 17, 1786. Father Rice was chosen as moderator and the other ministers present were Adam Rankin, Andrew McClure, James Crawford and Terah Templin.
He was the first teacher at Transylvania Seminary, founded at Lexington in 1793. For several years prior to that time, being deeply interested in the education of young men for the ministry, he had conducted a private school for Presbyterian theological students at his home; and the class or school was usually attended by from four to seven students.
In January, 1790, John Calvin Campbell, a graduate of William and Mary’s entered Rice’s Seminary, from which he graduated and was shortly thereafter ordained, after an examination and services conducted by Father Rice, James Crawford and Adam Rankin.
[pg 245] Among those present at the service, were Dorothy and her mother, David Clark and his wife and Richard Cameron.
Clark and his wife were a lonely couple, broken and aged by sorrow. They had never had word of their son, from the departure of the Spanish frigate on which he had been taken as a prisoner; nor had they ever told John the contents of Daniel Clark’s letter; thinking it might bring sorrow into his life; and he was ignorant of the cause of their son’s continued absence.
Mrs. Fairfax’s chief aim in life was her daughter’s happiness; living anew her own life in that of her daughter. She loved John because her daughter did; not as a prospective son-in-law, but as a part of her daughter’s life. She seemed to have recovered from the shock of her husband’s tragic death; or at least treated the incident as a closed chapter in her life. It may have been that she dreaded to inflict her sorrows upon others; rarely speaking of him even to Dorothy. It may have been the easier borne because her husband for several years before his death had been in the habit of making long business trips for Wilkinson and these had severed the companionable relationship that had existed in Virginia.
It was understood among the young people of Danville that Dorothy and John were engaged. They were much together. The comradeship that had existed between them when they were little children had been renewed by the journey home after Dorothy’s rescue. Each took it for granted that they were to be married and spoke of it as a matter of course. If Dorothy had been called upon to tell when and how John proposed, she first would have been amused, and then after a moment’s thought embarrassed by the question. If John had been asked if they [pg 246] were engaged, he would have answered: “Why, certainly.”
At the close of the service of ordination, Dorothy was the first to congratulate him. As they stood talking Father Rice came up, and taking her left hand, because John retained the right, said:
“Miss Fairfax, we have made a preacher of your sweetheart. As he stood before us, I was impressed by his strong face, his great frame and his deep voice, thinking what a leader of men he would make, fighting the battles of men among men; dress him in the uniform of a soldier and he would look the part; place him in the Congress of our nation and he would make a name for himself and be an honor to his State. Yet, he has elected to lay these opportunities aside and answered a call to service, which many consider an humble one. He is now a warrior of peace; may he in truth become Chief Cross-Bearer among us, as with the Mingoes. His greatest reward shall come after death; but he shall find here the peace of a clear conscience, the satisfaction of work well done and shall be blessed by the love of a woman, who will make him a happy home and help him always in his work; though his wife should know that a preacher belongs to his people rather than to his family. John, am I to be asked to marry Dorothy and you? If so shall it be within a day or two or after the Presbytery has assigned you a definite field and you are established? You know I think all preachers should be married and that the home next to the church is the most important institution.”
“Father Rice, that is as Dorothy wishes. We shall talk it over tonight.”
Mrs. Fairfax, Mrs. McDowell, Miss Logan and Mr. and Mrs. Clark coming forward, their intimate conversation [pg 247] was broken off and John forced to release Dorothy’s hand to respond to the congratulations of his friends.
He walked home with Mrs. Fairfax and Dorothy. It was one of the most attractive places in Danville. Practically all of its furnishing had been imported from England to Virginia by Lord Fairfax and brought by his nephew’s family to Kentucky.
In the drawing room were magnificent mirrors, fine tapestries, a virginal and hand lyre; the floor was covered with heavy velvet carpets and the window curtains were of the finest linen lace; in an alcove was a large and well-selected library. On the hall walls hung portraits of preceding generations, some by great masters; and in the beamed dining room a massive sideboard was covered with silver plate which bore the heraldic symbol of one of the first families of Old England.
After her mother left them, Dorothy, the aristocrat, talked with John, the newly-ordained circuit rider preacher about their marriage. John said: “I wish to impress upon you that I am a tramp preacher, a calling which in this new country, forces me to tramp long distances by forest trails from one settlement to another and to be from home weeks at a time.” Nor did Dorothy count such marriage a sacrifice, as after he left, with eyes overflowing with tears of happiness, she thanked God that He had given her John.
They agreed that they would marry as soon as his territory had been assigned by the Presbytery; in the meanwhile he was to go home and help with the harvest.
————
Mid-afternoon of the tenth of June, John, laying aside his cradle, sickle in hand was gleaning the last of the wheat about the fence corners and stumps of the two-acre [pg 248] field. It is the first they have grown since leaving Virginia. He planted it the October before, thinking of his wife to be and his mother.
Corn pone bread, baked in the Dutch oven, heated by being buried in the red hot coals of the great fireplace was all right for the Colonel and himself, in fact, they preferred it; but Dorothy and his mother should have wheaten bread, which could now be ground and bolted at the water mill at Cumberland Falls.
As almost in tenderness he bound and knotted the last bundle, some one near called.
“John! John!”
Thrilled, he turned, Dorothy stood before him—and he caught her and held her in his arms.
“Father Rice and mother are at the house. You have been assigned to this district, in which you are to live and establish new churches. It is nearly a hundred miles square; there is only one church and you are the only preacher. You are to begin work on the first of July; and so to be with you the longer before you leave, I have come to you, John. Father Rice and mother thought I should do this. We shall live here as it is near the center of your district. He has all the papers ready and must go on at once to Powell’s Valley, where he preaches tonight. Kiss me as much as you wish, but hurry, John. He is waiting to marry us; if you are not ready, he can do it when he returns in about a week—I thought that would hurry you a bit.”
John, absent-minded in his happiness, picked up the sickle, and carrying it in his left hand, with his right arm around Dorothy’s waist, hastened towards the house. There, after greetings, and without further preparation on John’s part, other than removing his hat, they were married.
[pg 249] At the close of the service, Father Rice, in his prayer, called attention to the sickle, which unconsciously John still held, and when he released Dorothy’s hand, had transferred from his left to his right hand. “* * * Oh, Lord! We know that you will bless this union of faithful hearts; and the work which thy harvester will soon assume. As he now stands ready, make him fit and ready for thy harvest in this his field, where the grain is ripe and waiting; and may he never leave it except to gladden a heart as he has done today, standing as now prepared to return. * * *”
Only those who love as did these two, can understand the happiness of that Valley honeymoon, which lasted until John was forced to go to work. Though their journey was but to the Pinnacle and home again and the bride’s trousseau in the main of homespun and buckskin, they knew of nothing more and wished for no greater blessings than were theirs.
One late afternoon, when the breeze blew cool, and the shadow of the western mountains covered half the valley, they left home; John carrying a hamper of good things and a blanket for Dorothy; and climbed to the Pinnacle, just as the sun sank behind the distant western hills. They watched the red and the gold of the sunset shift and fade to purple and then to a night gray; and while the stars were struggling to show themselves in the light, half day, half night, the golden red harvest moon came up over the eastern mountains and greeted them with his full ruddy face and broad smile—and Dorothy smiled back, saying: “The man up there is an awful flirt. No wonder a woman grows less coy under first the golden, now the silver mantle of his smile.”
When the night grew old and was gray from the morning light they walked home again; knowing yet more [pg 250] intimately and loving the more, their mountains, the valley and the trackless wilderness beyond.
————
John brought the wealth of a princely intellect, an educated and quietly happy mind and tireless energy as his offering to the church. Character takes color from its surroundings and he seemed to possess the impenetrable calmness of the mountains.
His work called him from one distant settlement to another. It was his practice to travel from twenty to forty miles a day and preach at night. Occasionally his work required him to stop for several days in a place to organize a church or to hold a protracted meeting or to build a church. He was called upon to marry couples, to organize schools, to visit the sick, to bury the dead and to arbitrate neighborhood controversies.
Wherever he went, he carried a holy influence which in a year or two spread over his district and an improved social and spiritual influence seemed to follow his preaching as a benediction.
He broke no appointments because of swollen streams, deep snows or other physical causes. If the horse gave out or the stream was too turbid to swim horseback, he dismounted and picketing him, swam across, his Bible within his coon skin cap and the cap tied tight beneath his chin.
He rode along the trails carrying his Bible and a reference book or two in his saddle bags. When the trail was one the horse knew and would follow, he gave him the rein and studied as he rode along.
Wherever he stopped at night, after family prayers, which he asked the privilege of conducting if not asked; he sat until very late before the open light-wood fire and [pg 251] prepared the outline for his next day’s sermon. Frequently he was forced to camp in the forest; then he built a great fire and by its light worked long and zealously upon another sermon. He knew the solitudes; and having lived the life of those to whom he preached, he knew his hearers and from homely incidents in their lives or from the parables illustrated his sermons, talking to half a dozen primitive settlers with the same conscientious fervor as when his audience was of considerable proportions because of some social or political gathering in the neighborhood.
After the first few months he was treated with respect by all the residents of his district. Occasionally visitors were not so respectful. Once at a distant county seat, he put up for the night at a tavern where several lawyers, attending court, were quartered. Seeing him reading his Bible before the fire, and rather to test his mettle than in an irreverent spirit, they began discussing the subject of religion; but he seemed not to hear. When the time came to retire the landlord, as was the custom of the country, invited him to lead the evening’s devotions. He read a chapter, then all knelt in prayer. In his deep, kindly voice he prayed: “* * * O Lord! Thou hast heard the conversation tonight, pardon its folly * * *” and the lawyers, impressed by his earnestness and repentant of their folly, asked his pardon also.
It was at no small cost of danger and privation that he preached the gospel to these distant settlements. He never carried a rifle and had never felt that his life was in danger. Several times when he sat alone at night by his wilderness camp fire he would hear a stealthy tread behind him, but knew better than to turn or even move in a startled way. Sometimes he would hear the steps [pg 252] approach very near and after several minutes silently steal away again. He knew his girdle had again protected him.
Once or twice several Indians came out of the night and sat beside his camp fire talking with him in the Mingo tongue; and once several of his Mingo friends spent the night at his camp fire. They were in the country for the purpose of attacking some isolated settlement; and when he asked them to leave the “Long Knives” of his district alone, they reluctantly consented.
When it was rumored Indians were about, the settlers offered to act as guard to his next appointment; but he assured them he was in no danger when unarmed and unaccompanied. This they came to believe.
Slowly his reputation as an exemplary citizen and a preacher of power and conviction was made, and his influence as an earnest advocate and defender of the new Union made his district the strongest Federalist section of Kentucky. Yet more slowly there spread about a belief that he was gifted with the miraculous power of curing by laying his hands upon the head of the sick. It was told that several times after he did this and kneeling prayed beside his bed, the raving of delirium ceased and after a long sleep the patient speedily recovered.
As head of the Presbytery Father Rice began to get letters and to be importuned: “Send us Reverend Calvin Campbell; our district is much more populous than the one to which he has been assigned and needs just such a preacher. * * *” Special messengers were sent to him from the Can Run and Forks of Dick’s River churches requesting that he help in their protracted meetings. These invitations were declined, because his large district which was growing rapidly provided more labor than he could perform.
[pg 253] Thus it came about that Dorothy saw less and less of her husband. She too was busy, else she might have rebelled at the loneliness or by importunities have hindered her husband’s work. Mrs. Campbell had grown feeble; there were baby clothes to make; and many people visited them, coming to Kentucky or returning to Virginia; these must be cooked for and entertained. Every hunter or trader of the district thought it a duty to call at the preacher’s house and stopped overnight or remained for a meal. They left a ham of venison or a brace of turkeys or a deer skin for Mrs. Campbell; and always wanted to know how soon their preacher was coming to their station. At the end of the first year Dorothy, because of these inquiries and John’s mail, realized that her husband, locally at least, was becoming a famous man and paying the price of greatness.
Father Rice in the spring of 1791 rode up to the house one afternoon and said to Dorothy: “I have come to help Calvin out for a couple of weeks; but he must pay me back by attending the Presbytery and filling my appointments at Danville, Lexington and Little Mountain.”
John came home that night; the next day they preached to a big gathering at Powell’s River Meeting House. After the meeting, which beginning in the afternoon lasted until eleven o’clock, he rode home alone, leaving Father Rice to follow in the morning. It was nearly two o’clock when the long ride was ended; but it gave him a few hours more with his wife.
While Father Rice remained they held meetings at each of the five churches of his district, four of which had been organized by him. It was true they were little more than large pens of logs, covered by a clapboard roof and warmed by a great fireplace built of mud and sticks; but they were crowded at every service and many stood outside [pg 254] looking in and listening at the doors and windows. They were as sheep seeking a fold and came great distances to find one.
When the meetings closed they left to attend Transylvania Presbytery at Danville. There he met again an old acquaintance, Robert Marshall, who when a boy of sixteen had been wounded in the battle of Monmouth and had come home with Colonel Campbell to rest and grow strong again. Several months before he had moved from Virginia to Kentucky.
After the Presbytery adjourned the three went to Lexington and John filled Father Rice’s pulpit.
The Lexington Gazette made favorable mention of his sermon:
“Calvin Campbell, the young mountain preacher, who lives at Campbell Station and is a descendant of the Campbells of Scotland, filled Father Rice’s pulpit last Sunday and preached one of the greatest sermons ever heard in Lexington.
“In a voice of great compass and power, without strain or apparent mental effort, and in a deft, finished and homiletic style, plain to all in its perfectness, he made plain the most difficult of truths; dwelling upon scriptural interpretation rather than doctrinal theme. All who heard him were captivated by his magnetism and convinced by his earnest spirituality. We have never before heard a preacher who could picture the life and mission of the Saviour so effectively, or who by apt lessons from the parables makes the truths they teach so personal to each hearer.”
The following Sunday John preached in Danville, where he had many friends and acquaintances. A great crowd came to hear him. It was here he had gone to the seminary, had married Dorothy Fairfax and at the political [pg 255] club had answered most convincingly, considering his age, General Wilkinson’s then popular argument. His sermon which follows indicates his liberal, and as Father Rice felt tempted to say, his almost unorthodox views.
Making the World Christian.
“Christianity is the development of a great universal partnership, organized for the redemption of man, between God in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and man; in which man before Abraham, and Abraham, Moses, Paul, Augustine, Savonarola and Luther have participated and men yet unborn will participate.
“Though light was the first thing God made, man to shut out light draws closely about his eyes the curtains of conceit and prejudice. The white man, defining his God as a spirit, in his conceit says, he has a material white body and I am made in his image; while the red man gives to his god, a spirit, at times a material red body. This is logical in that if God, a spirit, sees fit to appear to man, or if man appears to see God, it will be in the highest comprehensive form known to man.
“Again, though Christianity is one of the three religions that teaches universality and though God knows no race and no people, extending to all a universal promise, man in combined conceit and prejudice declares I am of God’s chosen people. The reason is obvious; take Judaism; it has never countenanced universality; to the Jew, God was the god of the Jews—and surrounded by idolatrous nations—to their inspired prophets they were the chosen people of God, having been taught by precept and by experience that God discriminates in his temporal blessings between an idolater and a follower. It took a vision to remove this prejudice from the mind of Peter; [pg 256] and today there are those in Christian churches who could not learn the lesson of universality by many visions, and like Jonah sit by the roadside hoping and waiting for Nineveh’s destruction.
“God, infinite—that is, great past being measured—is not alone the God of the Presbyterians, of any nation, of the men of today, of this little world, but all the worlds that have been and that make and are to make the universe. What right have we to think that the universe was made simply for the man we know? Is it an unreasonable flight of fancy to assume that God has spoken through his prophets and given his Son for the redemption of the men of other worlds than our own? The Bible literally says, the universe was made for man, because, though inspired, it is man-worded and God spoke to man through his prophets in a comprehensive language. He told what was fit in language not to be restricted to the letter, which is not the custom of the East, but to be interpreted as man grew in comprehension. Nor is it necessary to a true faith in God and Christianity to believe that God’s prophets never spoke to humanity or wrote down his messages on tablet or cylinder seal before those messages were given by the Bible to the Jewish nation.
“Those who question the Bible as an inspired book, say the account of the creation follows too closely the Babylonian and Chaldean records. Prophets even figuratively recounting a fact or interpreting a message, would give it in such form that to the mind of man, the account would be similar in essentials; and such similarity but tends to prove the truth of the fact and the same general source of information. A brief portion of the Chaldean account reads:
“‘When the upper region was not yet called heaven,
When the lower region was not yet called earth,
[pg 257]
And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,
Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them
And the waters were gathered into one place * *
The moon he appointed to rule the night
And to wander through the night until the dawn of day.
Every month without fail he appointed assembly days.
In the beginning of the month at the rising of the night
It shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.
On the seventh day he appointed an holy day
And to cease from all business he commanded.’
“The supposed seat of earliest civilizations, as also the birthplace of several religions, was in the valley of the Euphrates. There man, enjoying the benefits of a tropical region, which counted for much in the beginning, had opportunity for intellectual leisure and gave thought to religion. These civilizations passed away and the seat passed on to the Mediterranean coast, where attention primarily was given to the development of material government; again the seat passed on to Europe and seems passing to America and to nations devoting their energies to the material wants of man. We are promised yet another; when ‘the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea;’ and that is the task assigned to Christendom.
“To make the world Christian must we modify our definition—‘That God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth’—to ‘God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, but not immutable, seeking to preserve all his creatures as the best of shepherds each of his hundred lambs; anxious that all find the shelter of the fold—not [pg 258] having decreed from the beginning the fate of each lamb—but as time shows fitness culling for service; so anxious to save all the flock as to send his Son as a vicarious atonement.’
“Thus there comes into the continuity of the partnership between God and man, the chief character, the Son; transformed into the lowly man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, having no place to lay his head, hunted by enemies, stoned out of a city, disowned by kindred and by Peter, fleeing for his life, betrayed, crucified, suffering the fate of all reformers, to be despised and rejected, to be misunderstood, to live alone; yet not alone, because the Father was with him and he and the Father are one, and he had his mission of redemption.
“His coming, consummating the purpose of the partnership, precipitated a conflict, which at its physical inception seemed a most uneven struggle. Arrayed on the one side were a few fishermen under the leadership of a Nazarene, the son of a carpenter; and on the other, the educated, self-righteous Jew, the Jewish law, the Jewish church, Greece, decadent because of her many gods and voluptuousness, mighty Rome, mistress of the world, enthroned on seven hills and reaching out and drawing to herself all known realms and empires.
“The trend of victory was first apparent on the land locked sea of Galilee, the growth spread to Jerusalem, to Antioch, the east coast cities of the Mediterranean, Rome, Europe, America, the civilized world; because it offered a gift the world must have. If Scribes and Pharisees, priests and Levites stopped their ears, Gentiles and prodigals, Publicans and sinners listened. It preached the true faith, which is inherently inextinguishable and must live and grow. Some find it easier to crucify and to part His raiment than to grasp the spirit of His teaching; [pg 259] yet many hear, and, born again, lead transformed and beautiful lives.
“Its growth is as ‘a lump of leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.’ When the path of prophet and believer is too easy the growth is slow. The sting of persecution is necessary to fructify the seed, to make ready the field; but there are occasional seasons of abundant harvest and never a failure. Gamaliel, in Acts 5:34-39, gives the reason.
“‘Then stood there up in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and the apostles having been excluded, he said unto them: Ye men of Israel take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do touching these men. * * * And now I say unto you, refrain from these men and let them alone, for if this council or this work be of men it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found to fight against God.’
“Who is to help in the growth? Missionaries who earn such credentials as were given Paul and Silas by the Jewish colony of Thessalonica, who wrote to their orthodox brethren at Jerusalem: ‘Those that have turned the world upside down have come hither also.’ The world when wrong side up must be turned upside down by men like Paul and Silas.
“To make the world Christian the modern preacher must understand that Christ’s gospel is to be preached not alone to Presbyterians but to ‘all the world’ and that not he but God brings about the transformation and conversion. That it is not his province to defend the faith, which needs not defense, but to preach it. He must stick to his last with the same zealousness and persistency as is required in other lines of endeavor, or his message is [pg 260] soon delivered. A preacher who shirks his work, remouthing to a weary congregation his old sermons, must not complain if men do not listen. He must work in the vineyard; men do not go to a theatre to hear a sermon or to a church to see vaudeville. He is not to give his time to platitudes and polemics and phylacteries and lectures and dissertations on doctrinal divergences. He must be free and must speak from his heart as the ambassador of Christ, preaching Christ; and preaching is the giving of the message of Jesus to a needing soul.
“The church must be more universal, laying aside doctrinal jealousies and divergences; turn its energies to the harvest; self-sacrifice and co-operation must reign; love must seek her own and think no evil—then when all ask, expecting to obey, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me do?’—the Mussulman will turn Christian and the wolf and the lamb lie down together.
“The easy field of labor is not with the so-called Christian people. Canton may be converted before Boston and Timbuktu before Louisville. The most sterile earth is that overgrown with the tares of false doctrine and the most infertile seed is that mouldy with the supercilious consciousness of no sin, or which having once sprouted has dried out from inanition. God, tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, has given to the heathen a mind to receive his truths as a little child. Life, two hundred fathoms deep in the sea, knows nothing of the storms that rile the surface, nor of the brightness and warmth of the sun, yet life and light are there. The deep sea fishes are of vivid colors, many have an individual lighting system, the waters are phosphorescent, the plant growth, as near mineral as vegetable, spreads about tendrils and filaments tipped by lamps, which transform that underworld into a gorgeously illuminated garden.
[pg 261] “Those who hearken to the final commission, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’ are armed with the promise that ‘in my name shall ye cast out devils,’ speak with new tongues and travel about unharmed. They have Christ for a companion and are builders of God’s tabernacle, in which when completed, he shall dwell with men and wipe all tears from their eyes.”
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John was very fond of his cousin, David Clark, and was worried by his continued absence. Now, as always when he came to Danville, he stopped with David’s parents and of course inquired if they had received any word from him.
His inquiries seemed to cause his uncle and aunt embarrassment; at least they answered so indefinitely as to give him the impression that they knew more than they told.
Near midnight of the Sunday he preached at Danville, Mrs. Clark came to his room in great distress, saying: “John, Mr. Clark is very ill and I have sent for the doctor. He is deathly pale and complains of pain about his heart. He wishes to see you at once.”
He went immediately to his uncle’s room, who took from under his pillow a much handled letter, and handing it to him, said:
“You must find David for his mother, we have never heard a word from our boy since Daniel Clark sent this letter to me; and it only tells why he was made a prisoner and taken aboard a Spanish frigate which the next morning sailed for Spain. I am sure he is not dead because several times I have seemed to see him; and tonight saw him very distinctly for the first time. I believe he would have spoken and told me how to find him had not the pain [pg 262] in my heart awakened me. He was walking in a desert land beside a large white camel, heavily loaded with merchandise and with him were some half-wild men with long muskets guarding a train or caravan of camels. He is very far from here and in a strange way I am informed that neither his mother nor I will see him again, but you will. He will grow happy in that distant land, make it his home and rear a family. I have told his mother what I have dreamed; and she says, she too knows he is not dead. Since the receipt of the letter all we have ever learned is that the ship which sailed for Spain was wrecked on the shore of northwest Africa, a hundred miles south of Gibraltar; that a part of the crew were picked up in a boat at sea; part were drowned and a few reached the shore, where they were taken prisoners and supposedly sold as slaves. I believe this is David’s fate and you must find out.
“Raise me up a bit; that is better; my heart feels as though it were being torn in two—how I wish I might see the face of my boy. Give me your hand, little David, and you too, Annie. It grows dark. Is the candle burning or has the wind blown it out?”
How quiet the house was the day after the burial; it seemed the soul of the place was dead. John went to his room and thinking of David was reminded of the letter Mr. Clark had given him. It was near night; and lighting a tallow candle he read the copy of the letter General Wilkinson had sent by him to Governor Miro, requesting that the bearer should be held a prisoner. It was the letter he had promised Wilkinson to deliver in person.
Slowly it dawned upon him that whatever might be David’s fate, whatever David might now be suffering, if alive, it was vicarious, a voluntary substitution for him, [pg 263] as the sufferer had hid his identity to shield a friend, to give him the opportunity to escape—and he had supposed that David was under a cloud and afraid or ashamed to return home.
Then he saw red with resentment against Wilkinson, the traitor, the conspirator. He wished that he might lay his hands upon him and rend him limb from limb. His soul was torn with the thought that David had done all this for him, perhaps submitted voluntarily to the supreme sacrifice, laid down his life for a friend. He suffered as only twice before he had done; once when a boy of fifteen, sitting on the pinnacle overlooking Jackson River Valley, he had suddenly appreciated and was overwhelmed by the sacrifice that Christ had made for him; and again when he had seen Dorothy swimming to escape from the Indians.
He prayed throughout the night. When morning came, before the sun was up, he was at the home of Father Rice; and giving him the letter told all that was necessary to make it understood.
“Father Rice, there is only one thing for me to do; find David and bring him home to his mother. What Uncle David and Aunt Mary must have suffered every time they saw me!”
“I doubt that, in fact I would advise against you undertaking such a thing, had you not promised Mr. Clark to do so. A promise given to one now dead is certainly as binding as one made to the living. I believe that God disclosed to Mr. Clark that his son lived and had been given work to do. You are bound to conclude that if David cannot come home you cannot go to him. I think it your duty to find out if he is yet alive and if so his whereabouts. Then if necessary the government must be appealed to to procure his release. You must remember [pg 264] you are not your own master. You are the Lord’s servant; and having put your hand to the plow you cannot turn back. This may be one of your crosses, to believe that your friend is suffering for you. If by the providence of God he has been transplanted for particular service, he must follow, as you must follow your predestined work, even though you should be called upon to leave the side of Dorothy. The destiny of David, as your own, is in the hand of the Lord and if it is His plan that David shall live and return to his own country and people he will. However, we must do for ourselves and our friends all things possible. The Lord when he fed the thousands made use of the boy’s loaves and fishes.
“I would advise that you go to New Orleans and make inquiry for David; but do not disclose your identity to the Spanish Governor or tell any one except Mrs. Clark your destination. Go at once so as to return the more quickly to your work. Robert Marshall, though not yet ordained, will be given your district until your return and will bear letters and messages to your wife.”
[pg 265]