At length Leah wrote that she was ill, very ill. She thought the hand of death was on her; and she feared it for her child, her darling Sarah, whom she had striven to preserve pure amidst the scenes of misery and sin which she now confessed but too often neared her dwelling. What would become of her? Who would protect her? How dared she appeal to the God of the orphan, when her earthly father yet lived, seeming to forget there was a God? Perez and his wife perused that sad letter together; but ere it was completed, Rachel had sunk in bitter tears upon his bosom, seeking to speak the boon which was in her heart; but, though it found no words, Perez answered—
“You are right, dear wife; one more will make little difference in our household. Providence blessed us with four children, and has been pleased to deprive us of one. Sarah shall take her place: and in snatching her from the infection of vice and shame, may we not ask and hope a blessing? Do not weep then, my Rachel; Leah may not be so ill as she thinks. I will go and bring her and her child; and there may be happy days in store for them yet.”
Perez departed that same night by the mail to London; but, prompt as he was, poor Leah’s sufferings were terminated before his arrival. Her death, though in itself a painful shock, was less a subject of misery and depression to a mind almost rigid in its notions of integrity and honour as that of Perez, than the fearful state of wretchedness and shame into which Isaac Levison had fallen. Perez soon perceived that all hope of effecting a reformation was absolute folly. His poor child had been so repeatedly prevented attending school, by his intemperate or violent conduct, that she was at length excluded. Levison could give no good reason for depriving his little girl of these advantages, except that he hated the elders who were in office; that he did not see why some should be rich and some should be poor, and why the former should lord it over the latter. He was as good as they were any day, and his daughter should not be browbeaten or governed by any one, however she might call herself a lady. To reason with folly, Perez felt was foolishness, and so he contented himself with entreating Levison to permit his taking the little Sarah, at least for a time, into his family. Levison imagined Perez was the same rank as himself, and, therefore, that his pride could not be injured by his consenting. Equal in birth perhaps they were, but as far removed in their present ranks as vice from virtue, dishonesty from truth.
Perez, however, glad and grateful for having gained his point, made no comment on the many muttered remarks of his brother-in-law, as to his conferring, not receiving an obligation, by giving his child to the care of her aunt, but hastened home, longing to offer the best comfort to his wife’s sorrow by placing the rescued Sarah in her arms. And it was a comfort, for gradually Rachel traced a hand of love even in this affliction; the loss of her mother, under such circumstances, proving perhaps, in the end, a blessing to the child, if her father would but leave her with them. She feared that he would not at first; but Perez smiled at the fear as foolishness, and it gradually dwindled away; for years passed, and the little Sarah grew from childhood into womanhood, still an inmate of her uncle’s family, almost forgetting she had any father but himself.
But it is not to the unrighteous or the irreligious only that misfortunes come. Nay, they may flourish for a time, and give no evidence that there is a just and merciful God who ruleth. But even those who have loved and served Him through long years of probity and justice, and who, according to frail human perceptions, would look for nothing but favour at His hand, are yet afflicted with many sorrows; and our feeble and insufficient wisdom would complain that such things are. If this world were all, then indeed we might murmur and rebel; but our God himself has assured us, “There will come a day when He will discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those who serve God and those who serve Him not.” And it is our part to wait patiently for that day, and that better world where that word will be fulfilled.
Perez had now five children. Reuben, his eldest son, was full five years older than the rest, a circumstance of rejoicing to Perez, as he hoped his son would supply his place to his family, should he be called away before the threescore and ten years allotted as the age of man.
To do all he could towards obtaining this end, Perez early associated his son with him in his own business of watch-making; but too soon, unhappily, the parents discovered that a heavy grief awaited them, from him to whom they had most fondly looked for joy. They had indeed striven and prayed to train up their child in the way he should go, but it seemed as if his after years would not confirm the sage monarch’s concluding words. Wild, thoughtless, and headstrong, Reuben, after a very brief trial, determined that his father’s business was not according to his taste, and he could not follow it. His father’s authority indeed kept him steady for a few years, but it was continued rebellion and reproof: and often and often the father’s hard-earned savings were sacrificed for the wild freaks and extravagance of the son. Perez trembled lest the other members of his family, equally dear, should suffer eventual loss; but there is something in the hearts of Jewish parents towards an eldest son, which calls imperatively for indulgence towards, and concealment of his failings. Again and again Perez expended sums much larger than he could conveniently afford, in endeavouring to fix his son in business according to his inclinations; but no sooner was he apparently settled and comfortable, and his really excellent abilities fairly drawn forth, than, by negligence or inattention, or some graver misdemeanour, he disgusted his employers, and, after a little longer trial, was returned on his father’s hands.
Deeply and bitterly his parents grieved, using every affectionate argument to convince him of the evil of his ways, and bring him back again to the paths of joy. They did not desist, however their efforts and prayers seemed alike unanswered; they did not fail in faith, though often it was trembling and faint within them. One hope they had; Reuben was not hardened. Often he would repent in tears and agony of spirit and deplore his own ill fate, that he was destined to bring misery to parents he so dearly loved. But he refused to believe that it only needed energy to rouse himself from his folly, for as yet it was scarcely more. He said he could not help himself, could not effect any change, and therefore made no effort to do so. But that which grieved his parents far more than all else, was his total indifference to the religion of his forefathers. His ears, even as his heart and mind, were closed to those divine truths his parents had so carefully inculcated. He knew his duty too well to betray infidelity and indifference in their presence, but they loved him too well to be blind to their existence.
“What is it to be a Jew,” they heard him once say to a companion, “but to be cut off from every honourable and manly employment? To be bound, fettered to an obsolete belief, which does but cramp our energies, and bind us to detestable trade. No wonder we are looked upon with contempt, believed to be bowed, crushed to the very earth, as void of all spirit or energy, only because we have no opportunity of showing them.”
Little did he know the bitter tears these words wrung from his poor mother, that no sleep visited his father’s eyes that night. Was this an answer to their anxious prayer? Yet they trusted still.