I.
[THROUGH COUNTRY ROADS TO SOME GREEN PLEASANT SPOT.]
This Christmas I fulfill a purpose which has been in my mind for more than a year. Until now my days and nights have been so much occupied that I have not been able to commence my task. But you will see, by the time you reach the end of these pages--if you have patience to go through them--that I am enjoying a little leisure. The task that I have set myself to perform is both sad and pleasant, and no more fitting time than Christmas could be found for its accomplishment.
Not that it is Christmas at this present moment of writing. But the good season will be here in a month; and when the mistletoe and holly are hanging in cot and mansion, and the hearts of men are beating in harmony, as if one pulse of love and goodwill animated them, I hope, with God's blessing, that my little book will be completed, ready for those who care to read what I have written. It may be that certain persons who appear in these pages will be familiar to some of my readers. I hope they will not be the less welcome on that account. To me the story of their lives is fraught with deep and abiding interest.
How sweet the days are!--ay, although it is winter. Happiness comes from within. Grateful hearts can give light and colour to the gloomiest hours. But the hours for me are not gloomy, and no effort on my part is required to make them bright. This is the sweetest part of my life, both in itself and in the promise that it holds out. Three days ago I was married. My wife is working in the room in which I am writing. I call her to me.
'Rachel!'
She comes to my side. I hold her hand in mine. I look into her face, which is inclined towards me. She cannot see me; she is blind. But she smiles as I gaze at her. She knows the tender thought which impelled me to call her to my side.
I am a clergyman, and my name is Andrew Meadow. My duties lie in one of the most crowded and populous parts of the City, and the stipend I received (for I no longer receive it) in return for my labours was small. Far be it from my intention to make a merit of the fact, but it is necessary that I should mention it. Although I have at times felt myself cruelly hampered for want of means, my stipend was sufficient for my personal wants, and I have even been able now and then to spare a little: but very little. In the clerical, as in many other professions, the payment to the workers is most unequally apportioned; it is almost the rule that those who work the hardest receive the least. So far as I myself am concerned, I have no complaint to make; but I feel that it is an anomaly that some of those who work in the Church should receive so much that they leave great fortunes behind them, while others receive so little as to be scarcely able to maintain their families. The priests of Him who advised the wealthy to sell all they had, and give to the poor, should have neither more nor less than enough. If they do not recognise in their practical life, and by practical example, that the cause they labour in is the cause of humanity, they are in a measure unfaithful to their trust.
I have no recollection of my father; but I have learned to honour his memory. My mother lived until I was eight years of age. She was a simple good woman--sweetly girlish in her manner to the last--and although she is dust, I have not lost her. She dwells in my heart. There is always to my consciousness a strong affinity between good women; in point of feature, voice, or manner, one reminds you of another; and' I often see in the face of my wife a likeness to that of my mother. I read these last words to my wife; her face lights up with a new happiness, and she says: