In the afternoon of the wedding-day, Dr. Shepherd condescended to call on Farmer and Mrs. White, to give a few words of advice on the new duties they had entered into; a common custom with him on these occasions. He often took an opportunity to drop, in the most kind and tender way, a hint upon the great indecency of making marriages, christenings, and above all, funerals, days of riot and excess, as is too often the case in country villages. The expectation that the vicar might possibly drop in, in his walks, on these festivals, often restrained excessive drinking, and improper conversation, even among those who were not restrained by higher motives, as Farmer and Mrs. White were.
What the Pastor said was always in such a cheerful, good-humored way that it was sure to increase the pleasure of the day, instead of damping it. "Well, farmer," said he, "and you, my faithful Sarah, any other friend might recommend peace and agreement to you on your marriage; but I, on the contrary, recommend cares and strifes."[5] The company stared—but Sarah, who knew that her old master was a facetious gentleman, and always had some meaning behind, looked serious. "Cares and strife, sir," said the farmer, "what do you mean?" "I mean," said he, "for the first, that your cares shall be who shall please God most, and your strifes, who shall serve him best, and do your duty most faithfully. Thus, all your cares and strifes being employed to the highest purposes, all petty cares and worldly strifes shall be at an end.
"Always remember that you have both of you a better friend than each other." The company stared again, and thought no woman could have so good a friend as her husband. "As you have chosen each other from the best motives," continued the Doctor, "you have every reasonable ground to hope for happiness; but as this world is a soil in which troubles and misfortunes will spring up; troubles from which you can not save one another; misfortunes which no human prudence can avoid: then remember, 'tis the best wisdom to go to that friend who is always near, always willing, and always able to help you: and that friend is God."
"Sir," said Farmer White, "I humbly thank you for all your kind instructions, of which I shall now stand more in need than ever, as I shall have more duties to fulfill. I hope the remembrance of my past offenses will keep me humble, and that a sense of my remaining sin will keep me watchful. I set out in the world, sir, with what is called a good-natured disposition, but I soon found, to my cost, that without God's grace, that will carry a man but a little way. A good temper is a good thing, but nothing but the fear of God can enable one to bear up against temptation, evil company, and evil passions. The misfortune of breaking my leg, as I then thought it, has proved the greatest blessing of my life. It showed me my own weakness, the value of the Bible, and the goodness of God. How many of my brother drivers have I seen, since that time, cut off in the prime of life by drinking, or sudden accident, while I have not only been spared, but blessed and prospered. O, sir, it would be the joy of my heart, if some of my old comrades, good-natured, civil fellows (whom I can't help loving) could see as I have done, the danger of evil courses before it is too late. Though they may not hearken to you, sir, or any other minister, they may believe me because I have been one of them: and I can speak from experience, of the great difference there is, even as to worldly comfort, between a life of sobriety and a life of sin. I could tell them, sir, not as a thing I have read in a book, but as a truth I feel in my own heart, that to fear God and keep his commandments, will not only bring a man peace at last, but will make him happy now. And I will venture to say, sir, that all the stocks, pillories, prisons, and gibbets in the land, though so very needful to keep bad men in order, yet will never restrain a good man from committing evil half so much as that single text, How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Dr. Shepherd condescended to approve of what the farmer had said, kindly shook him by the hand, and took leave.
PART II.
THE WAY TO PLENTY; OR, THE SECOND PART OF TOM WHITE.
WRITTEN IN 1795, THE YEAR OF SCARCITY.
Tom White, as we have shown in the first part of this history, from an idle post boy was become a respectable farmer. God had blessed his industry, and he had prospered in the world. He was sober and temperate, and, as was the natural consequence, he was active and healthy. He was industrious and frugal, and he became prosperous in his circumstances. This is the ordinary course of Providence. But it is not a certain and necessary rule. God maketh his sun to shine on the just and on the unjust. A man who uses every honest means of thrift and industry, will, in most cases, find success attend his labors. But still, the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. God is sometimes pleased, for wise ends, to disappoint all the worldly hopes of the most upright man. His corn may be smitten by a blight; his barns may be consumed by fire; his cattle may be carried off by distemper. And to these, and other misfortunes, the good man is as liable as the spendthrift or the knave. Success is the common reward of industry, but if it were its constant reward, the industrious would be tempted to look no further than the present state. They would lose one strong ground of their faith. It would set aside the Scripture scheme. This world would then be looked on as a state of reward, instead of trial, and we should forget to look to a day of final retribution.
Farmer White never took it into his head, that, because he paid his debts, worked early and late, and ate the bread of carefulness, he was therefore to come into no misfortune like other folk, but was to be free from the common trials and troubles of life. He knew that prosperity was far from being a sure mark of God's favor, and had read in good books, and especially in the Bible, of the great poverty and afflictions of the best of men. Though he was no great scholar, he had sense enough to observe, that a time of public prosperity was not always a time of public virtue; and he thought that what was true of a whole nation might be true of one man. So the more he prospered the more he prayed that prosperity might not corrupt his heart. And when he saw lately signs of public distress coming on, he was not half so much frightened as some others were, because he thought it might do us good in the long run; and he was in hope that a little poverty might bring on a little penitence. The great grace he labored after was that of a cheerful submission. He used to say, that if the Lord's prayer had only contained those four little words. Thy will be done, it would be worth more than the biggest book in the world without them.
Dr. Shepherd, the worthy vicar (with whom the farmer's wife had formerly lived as housekeeper), was very fond of taking a walk with him about his grounds, and he used to say that he learned as much from the farmer as the farmer did from him. If the Doctor happened to observe, "I am afraid these long rains will spoil this fine piece of oats," the farmer would answer, "But then, sir, think how good it is for the grass." If the Doctor feared the wheat would be but indifferent, the farmer was sure the rye would turn out well. When grass failed, he did not doubt but turnips would be plenty. Even for floods and inundations he would find out some way to justify Providence. "'Tis better," said he, "to have our lands a little overflowed, than that the springs should be dried up, and our cattle faint for lack of water." When the drought came, he thanked God that the season would be healthy; and the high winds, which frightened others, he said, served to clear the air. Whoever, or whatever was wrong, he was always sure that Providence was in the right. And he used to say, that a man with ever so small an income, if he had but frugality and temperance, and would cut off all vain desires, and cast his care upon God, was richer than a lord who was tormented by vanity and covetousness. When he saw others in the wrong, he did not, however, abuse them for it, but took care to avoid the same fault. He had sense and spirit enough to break through many old, but very bad customs of his neighbors. "If a thing is wrong in itself," said he one day to Farmer Hodges, "a whole parish doing it can't make it right. And as to its being an old custom, why, if it be a good one, I like it the better for being old, because it has had the stamp of ages, and the sanction of experience on its worth. But if it be old as well as bad, that is another reason for my trying to put an end to it, that we may not mislead our children as our fathers have misled us."