XII.
The boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made; or, warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant forgetfulness,—shouting,—up the stairs,—to the accustomed door, and bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is, has heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may-be, the stifled sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him down, and opens his door upon them.
"What now, Esther? Has Reuben caught a fall?"
"No, Sir, no fall; he's not harmed, Sir. It's only the old room, you know, Sir, and he quite forgot himself."
"Poor boy! Will he come with me, Esther?"
"No, Mr. Johns. I'll find something'll amuse him; hey, Ruby?"
And the parson goes back to his desk, where he forgets himself in the glow of that great work of his. He has taught, as never before, that "all flesh is grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this life; henceforth the flesh and its affections shall be mortified in him. He has transferred his bed to a little chamber which opens from his study in the rear, and which is at the end of the long dining-room, where every morning and evening the prayers are said, as before. The parishioners see a light burning in the window of his study far into the night.
For a time his sermons are more emotional than before. Oftener than in the earlier days of his settlement he indulges in a forecast of those courts toward which he would conduct his people, and which a merciful God has provided for those who trust in Him; and there is a coloring in these pictures which his sermons never showed in the years gone.
"We ask ourselves," said he, "my brethren, if we shall knowingly meet there—where we trust His grace may give us entrance—those from whom you and I have parted; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall greet us, not alone from Him whom to love is life, but from those dear ones who seem to our poor senses to be resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I believe that by God's great goodness," (and here he looked, not at his people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there)—"I believe that we shall; that His great love shall so delight in making complete our happiness, even by such little memorials of our earthly affections (which must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great harvest of His abounding grace); that all the dear faces of those written in the Golden Book shall beam a welcome, all the more bounteous because reflecting His joy who has died to save."
And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, "He thinks of Rachel."
With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on,—
"Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself, 'Of what value shall human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look upon is life? What room shall there be for other affections, what room for other memories, than those of 'the Lamb that was slain'?
"Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) "we do know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly—infants, fathers, mothers, wives, may-be—shall never, never sit with the elect in Paradise; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell with the Devil and his angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge that some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages of suffering? 'No,' you may say, 'for we shall be possessed in that day of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, that all shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict with His ordained purpose, will they not also overrule all the longings in respect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly, my brethren? Ah, let us beware,—let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the universal love of Him who is our Master!"
"This man lives above the world," said the people; and if some of them did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty to give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by reason of their utterance. And yet their limited acceptance diffused a certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain,—a rigor of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did not make a merit of their placid intellectual admission of such beliefs as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original depravity, that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that religion took a harsh aspect? As if intellectual adhesion to theological formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite!—as if our sensibilities were to be outraged in the march to Heaven!—as if all the emotional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors, leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of Paradise!
Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled with the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest.
In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor Wolcott to preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford: an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfil. The "Hartford Courant" of that date said,—"A large auditory was collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, minister of Ashfield. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting discourse, and won the undivided attention of all the listeners. We have not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent."
In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men.