Chapter Forty.
Mrs Reichardt’s story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her frame.
I thought a good deal about her narrative, and wondered much that men could be got to leave their comfortable homes, and travel thousands and thousands of miles across the fathomless seas, with the hope of converting a nation of treacherous savages, by whom they were sure to be slaughtered at the first outbreak of ill-feeling.
I could not but admire the character of Reichardt—in all his actions he had exhibited a marked nobility of nature. He would not present himself before the woman who had the strongest claims upon his gratitude, till he had obtained a position and a reputation that should, in his opinion, make him worthy of her; and though he had a presentiment of the fate that would overtake him, he fulfilled his duties as a missionary with a holy enthusiasm that made him regard his approaching martyrdom as the greatest of all earthly distinctions. I felt regret that I had not known such a man. I knew how much I had lost in having missed such an example.
My having heard this story, led me into much private communing with myself respecting religion. I could consider myself little better than a savage, like the brutal Sandwich Islanders; my conduct to Jackson had been only in a degree less inhuman than that these idolaters had shown to their teacher when he was in their power. I fancied at the time that I served him right, for his villainous conduct to my father, and brutal conduct to me: but God having punished him for his misdeeds, I felt satisfied I had no business to put him to greater torment as satisfaction for my own private injuries. I fancied God might have been angry with me, and had kept me on the island as a punishment for my offences; and I had some conversation with Mrs Reichardt on this point.
“Nothing,” she observed, “can excuse your ill-feeling towards Jackson; he was a bad man, without a doubt, and he deserved condign punishment for his usage of your parents; but the Divine founder of our religion has urged us to return good for evil.”
“Yes,” I answered readily, “but I should have suffered as bad as my father and mother, had I not prevented his doing me mischief.”
“You do not know that you were to suffer,” she replied. “Jackson, without such terrible punishment as he brought upon himself, might eventually have become contrite, and have restored you to your friends as well as enabled you to obtain your grandfather’s property. God frequently performs marvellous things with such humble instruments; for he hath said, ‘there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just men.’”
“Surely, this is raising the wicked man over the good,” I cried.
“Not at all,” she replied. “The repentant is one gained from the ranks of the great enemy—it is as one that was lost and is found again—it is a soul added to the blessed. Therefore the joy in heaven is abundant at such a conversion. The just are the natural heirs of heaven—their rights are acknowledged without dispute—their claim is at once recognised and allowed, and they receive their portion of eternal joy as a matter of course, without there being any necessity for exciting those demonstrations of satisfaction which hail the advent of a sinner saved.”