Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart. There she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room—sofa big enough for two; two arm-chairs, two bureaus, two looking-glasses—everything hunting in couples except herself! I don’t wonder she’s frantic! She read in her childhood that “matches were made in Heaven,” and although she’s well aware there are some Lucifer matches, yet she has never had a chance to try either sort. She has heard that there “never was a soul created, but its twin was made somewhere,” and she’s a melancholy proof that ’tis a mocking lie. She gets tired of sewing—she can’t knit for ever on that eternal stocking—(besides, that has a fellow to it, and is only an aggravation to her feelings). She has read till her eyes are half blind—there’s nobody to agree with her if she likes the book, or argue the point with her if she don’t. If she goes out to walk, every woman she meets has her husband’s arm. To be sure, they are half of ’em ready to scratch each other’s eyes out; but that’s a little business matter between themselves. Suppose she feels devotional, and goes to evening lectures?—some ruffianly coward is sure to scare her to death on the way. If she takes a journey, she gets hustled and boxed round among cab-drivers, and porters, and baggage-masters; her bandbox gets knocked in, her trunk gets knocked off, and she’s landed at the wrong stopping-place. If she wants a load of wood, she has to pay twice as much as a man would, and then she gets cheated by the man that saws and splits it. She has to put her own money into the bank and get it out, hire her own pew, and wait upon herself into it. People tell her “husbands are often great plagues,” but she knows there are times when they are indispensable. She is very good looking, black hair and eyes, fine figure, sings and plays beautifully; but she “can’t be an old maid, and what’s more—SHE WON’T.”
FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER.
You have never heard Father Taylor, the Boston Seaman’s preacher? Well—you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighbourhood are guiltless of shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at the corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of Africa—checked off with “dough faces.”
Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows—no richly draperied pulpit—no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your sleepy conscience. No odour of patchouli, or nonpareil, or bouquet de violet will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin and broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the synagogue—they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”
Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed faces. It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The seas they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the lonely, dismal, weary nights they have kept watch!—the harpies in port who have assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the sheeted dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre!—what stirring thoughts and emotions do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the sailor! Here they come; sure of a welcome—conscious that they are no intruders on aristocratic landsmen’s soil—sure that each added face will send a thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who folds them all, as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.
There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here, brother;” pointing to a seat in the pulpit. Jack don’t know about that! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the pulpit!—Jack doubts his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough brother!” again reassures him; and, with a little extra fumbling at his tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as though he were on his vessel’s deck.
The hymn is read with a heart-tone. There is no mistaking either the poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a “scientific musical ear” (which, thank heaven, I have not), you may criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal down my face, as I mark the effect of good Old Hundred (minus trills and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.
—The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickeys, or bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions, the last prima donna, and that your neighbour is not one of the “upper ten,” as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away from worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest eloquence. You marvel that these uttered truths of his never struck your thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of expression on that earnest face—those emphatic gestures—the starting tear or the thrilling voice—but they all tell on “Jack.”
And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on one arm. Oh, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised so gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty, and says, “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day, its right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous No! bursts from Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples. Lovingly the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the heart of the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it.
Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? He was once as pure as that blessed innocent! His mother—the sod now covers her—often invoked heaven’s blessing on her son; and well he remembers the touch of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving voice, as she murmured the imploring prayer for him: and how has her sailor boy redeemed his youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding tears, with his horny palm; but, please God, that Sabbath—that scene—shall be a talisman upon which memory shall ineffaceably inscribe,