CHAPTER XVII.
The week that followed my first visit to the hospital was full of painful excitement to us all. Blurdon lay for some days, and was at intervals able to converse. All the gloomy ferocity, the savage harshness of his tone, look and manner, which before so repelled and frightened me, had now given place to a subdued, contrite voice and expression, such as could not but strengthen my hope that his heart was changed. I need not dwell on those closing scenes. He gradually sank, and his last words were a petition for forgiveness.
Before his death the repentant man confided his history to Uncle Rossiter. He was the son of a pious mother, against whose counsel his restless spirit had early rebelled. "I am dying now," he said, "because I have all along chosen to live without God in the world. I set off and followed my own way, against the warnings and guidings of as good a mother as ever son was blessed with; against the teachings of the best and wisest book that ever was written, the Bible; against a right good education; and lastly against the rein of that conscience which would often have held me in."
I can well remember how we all sat with a great sadness on our hearts and listened while uncle told the story.
"I cared for none of these things," said Blurdon to him—"that is, I came to care for none of them, for at first I did, but soon I didn't. And I came to think, or chose to think, that I knew better than the great, all-knowing God what things and ways were good for my happiness. That it was neither good nor necessary to be so particular as the Lord required was the first notion I took up, and after that the devil himself could not have wished me to go ahead faster. It was throwing the reins on the neck of a wild horse. Folks talk of the downward road being bright and easy, but, to my shame, I know every mile of it only too well, and can testify that after a bit there is no road so rough and none so dark."
Uncle told us much more which I need not now repeat. "Poor fellow!" he added; "it was the downward road that led him over that precipice and brought him to his death. Children, take this lesson to heart: the downward hill to perdition is covered with paths, so to speak, some broad, some narrow, some straight, some winding, some smooth, some rough; but, varied though they all are, both in appearance and in apparent course, they every one lead to destruction. How many are tempted to set off down this great widespreading hill, each in pursuit of his particular employment or pleasure! and how many are thus hurried into danger and ruined for ever! It is a blessed thing to choose from the first the right path. Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are paths of peace."
My sister Charlotte had once gone with uncle to the hospital, and, tired of waiting in the carriage, thoughtlessly begged leave to follow him into the ward, but as she entered a faintness and horror seized her, and she realized the scene in a manner that had otherwise been impossible to her light-hearted nature. It was days before she could shake off the impression, and it seemed to create quite a deep feeling in her, making her unusually grave and sad. The tears filled her eyes now while Uncle Rossiter was speaking, and she told me afterward that then old Susan's words had come back to her with a new force, and she saw a resemblance in her own life and the same evil self-will at work as in Blurdon's early days. "Do you remember," she asked, "my once saying that everything pleasant seemed wrong, and everything wrong seemed pleasant? What was that but choosing the wrong path?" Dear Lotty! that day was a memorable one to her, for, by God's grace, it became the turning-point of her life.