That day was a recompense to Dr. Cushing for many anxieties and sorrows. He now saw fully that though the old régime of New England had forever passed, yet there was still in the hands of her ministry that mighty power which Paul was not ashamed to carry to Rome as adequate to regenerate a world. He saw that intemperance and profanity and immorality could be subdued by the power of religious motive working in the hearts of individual men, taking away the desire to do evil, and that the Gospel of Christ is to-day, as it was of old and ever will be, the power of God and the wisdom of God to the salvation of every one that believeth.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
SIX YEARS LATER.
Six years step softly, with invisible footsteps, over the plain of life, bearing us on with an insensible progress. Six years of winter snows and spring thaws, of early blue-birds and pink May-flower buds under leafy banks, of anemone, crowfoot and violet in the fields, of apple-blossoms in the orchards, and new green leaves in the forest; six years of dark-green summers in the rustling woods, of fire-lilies in the meadow-lots and scarlet lobelias by the water-brooks, of roses and lilies and tall phloxes in the gardens; six years of autumnal golden rod and aster, of dropping nuts and rainbow-tinted forests, of ripened grain and gathered corn, of harvest home and thanksgiving proclamation and gathering of families about the home table to consider the loving-kindness of the Lord:—by such easy stages, such comings and goings, is our mortal pilgrimage marked off. When the golden rod and aster have bloomed for us sixty or seventy seasons, then we are near the banks of the final river, we are coming to the time of leaving the flowers of earth for the flowers of Paradise.
The six years in Poganuc had brought their changes, not in external nature, for that remained quiet and beautiful as ever; the same wooded hills, with their sylvan shades and hidden treasures of fruits and flowers, the same brown, sparkling river, where pickerel and perch darted to and fro, and trout lurked in cool, shadowy hollows: but the old graveyard bore an added stone or two; mounds wet with bitter tears had grown green and flowery, and peaceable fruits of righteousness had sprung up from harvests sown there in weeping.
As to the Parsonage and its inmates, six years had added a little sprinkle of silver to the Doctor's head, and a little new learning of the loving-kindness of the Lord to his heart. The fruits of the revival gathered into his church were as satisfactory as ordinary human weakness allows. The Doctor was even more firmly seated in the respect and affection of his parish than in old days, when the ministry was encompassed by the dignities and protections of law. Poganuc was a town where an almshouse was almost a superfluous institution, and almsgiving made difficult by the fact that there were no poor people; for since the shutting of Glazier's bar-room, and the reformation of a few noted drunkards, there was scarce anybody not in the way of earning a decent and comfortable living. Such were our New England villages in the days when its people were of our own blood and race, and the pauper population of Europe had not as yet been landed upon our shores.
As to the characters of our little story, they, also, had moved on a stage in the journey of life.