Thus you may perceive, my dear Frederick, the charity of the Clergy!——how, in pure pity for the sins of Mankind, and in paternal care of their souls, they exact from the Laity some atonement for their crimes, and constrain them at least to repent——and, with unparalleled magnanimity, take upon themselves the vices, the gluttony, the avarice, and the sensuality, of which they are so careful to purge their fellow-creatures!
LETTER IX.
Having given you a general outline of the city of Ghent, I shall now proceed to give you an account of one of the most excellent, and certainly the most interesting, of all the curiosities in that place. It is indeed of a sort so immediately correspondent to the most exalted sensations of humanity, and so perfectly in unison with the most exquisitely sensible chords of the feeling heart, that I resolved to rescue it from the common lumber of the place, and give it to you in a fresh Letter, when the ideas excited by my former might have faded away, and left your mind more clear for the reception of such refined impressions.
On one of the many bridges in Ghent stand two large brazen images of a father and son, who obtained this distinguished mark of the admiration of their fellow-citizens by the following incidents:
Both the father and the son were, for some offence against the State, condemned to die. Some favourable circumstances appearing on the side of the son, he was granted a remission of his share of the sentence, upon certain provisions——in short, he was offered a pardon, on the most cruel and barbarous condition that ever entered into the mind of even Monkish barbarity, namely, that he would become the executioner of his father! He at first resolutely refused to preserve his life by means so fatal and detestable: This is not to be wondered at; for I hope, for the honour of our nature, that there are but few, very few sons, who would not have spurned, with abhorrence, life sustained on conditions so horrid, so unnatural. The son, though long inflexible, was at length overcome by the tears and entreaties of a fond father, who represented to him, that, at all events, his (the father’s) life was forfeited, and that it would be the greatest possible consolation to him, at his last moments, to think, that in his death he was the instrument of his son’s preservation. The youth consented to adopt the horrible means of recovering his life and liberty: he lifted the axe; but, as it was about to fall, his arm sunk nerveless, and the axe dropped from his hand! Had he as many lives as hairs, he would have yielded them all, one after the other, rather than again even conceive, much less perpetrate, such an act. Life, liberty, every thing, vanished before the dearer interests of filial affection: he fell upon his father’s neck, and, embracing him, triumphantly exclaimed, “My father, my father! we will die together!” and then called for another executioner to fulfil the sentence of the law.
Hard must be their hearts indeed, bereft of every sentiment of virtue, every sensation of humanity, who could stand insensible spectators of such a scene——A sudden peal of involuntary applauses, mixed with groans and sighs, rent the air. The execution was suspended; and on a simple representation of the transaction, both were pardoned: high rewards and honours were conferred on the son; and finally, those two admirable brazen images were raised, to commemorate a transaction so honourable to human nature, and transmit it for the instruction and emulation of posterity. The statue represents the son in the very act of letting fall the axe.
Lay this to your mind, my dear Frederick: talk over it to your brother; indulge all the charming sympathetic sensations it communicates: never let a mistaken shame, or a false idea (which some endeavour to impress) that it is unmanly to melt at the tale of woe, and sympathize with, our fellow-creatures, stop the current of your sensibility——no! Be assured, that, on the contrary, it is the true criterion of manhood and valour to feel; and that the more sympathetic and sensible the heart is, the more nearly it is allied to the Divinity.
I am now on the point of conducting you out of Austrian Flanders——One town only, and that comparatively a small one, lying between Us and Brabant: the name of this town is Alost, or, as the Flemings spell it, Aelst.