Suspended from the front of the rude pulpit were two broad sheets of canvas, upon one of which was the figure of a man, the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly of brass, the legs of iron, and feet of clay,—the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. On the other were depicted the wonders of the Apocalyptic vision,—the beasts, the dragons, the scarlet woman seen by the seer of Patmos, Oriental types, figures, and mystic symbols, translated into staring Yankee realities, and exhibited like the beasts of a travelling menagerie. One horrible image, with its hideous heads and scaly caudal extremity, reminded me of the tremendous line of Milton, who, in speaking of the same evil dragon, describes him as
"Swinging the scaly horrors of his folded tail."
To an imaginative mind the scene was full of novel interest. The white circle of tents; the dim wood arches; the upturned, earnest faces; the loud voices of the speakers, burdened with the awful symbolic language of the Bible; the smoke from the fires, rising like incense,—carried me back to those days of primitive worship which tradition faintly whispers of, when on hill-tops and in the shade of old woods Religion had her first altars, with every man for her priest and the whole universe for her temple.
Wisely and truthfully has Dr. Channing spoken of this doctrine of the Second Advent in his memorable discourse in Berkshire a little before his death:—
"There are some among us at the present moment who are waiting for the speedy coming of Christ. They expect, before another year closes, to see Him in the clouds, to hear His voice, to stand before His judgment- seat. These illusions spring from misinterpretation of Scripture language. Christ, in the New Testament, is said to come whenever His religion breaks out in new glory or gains new triumphs. He came in the Holy Spirit in the day of Pentecost. He came in the destruction of Jerusalem, which, by subverting the old ritual law and breaking the power of the worst enemies of His religion, insured to it new victories. He came in the reformation of the Church. He came on this day four years ago, when, through His religion, eight hundred thousand men were raised from the lowest degradation to the rights, and dignity, and fellowship of men. Christ's outward appearance is of little moment compared with the brighter manifestation of His spirit. The Christian, whose inward eyes and ears are touched by God, discerns the coming of Christ, hears the sound of His chariot-wheels and the voice of His trumpet, when no other perceives them. He discerns the Saviour's advent in the dawning of higher truth on the world, in new aspirations of the Church after perfection, in the prostration of prejudice and error, in brighter expressions of Christian love, in more enlightened and intense consecration of the Christian to the cause of humanity, freedom, and religion. Christ comes in the conversion, the regeneration, the emancipation, of the world."
THE HEROINE OF LONG POINT.
[1869.]
LOOKING at the Government Chart of Lake Erie, one sees the outlines of a long, narrow island, stretching along the shore of Canada West, opposite the point where Loudon District pushes its low, wooded wedge into the lake. This is Long Point Island, known and dreaded by the navigators of the inland sea which batters its yielding shores, and tosses into fantastic shapes its sandheaps. The eastern end is some twenty miles from the Canada shore, while on the west it is only separated from the mainland by a narrow strait known as "The Cut." It is a sandy, desolate region, broken by small ponds, with dreary tracts of fenland, its ridges covered with a low growth of pine, oak, beech, and birch, in the midst of which, in its season, the dogwood puts out its white blossoms. Wild grapes trail over the sand-dunes and festoon the dwarf trees. Here and there are almost impenetrable swamps, thick-set with white cedars, intertwisted and contorted by the lake winds, and broken by the weight of snow and ice in winter. Swans and wild geese paddle in the shallow, reedy bayous; raccoons and even deer traverse the sparsely wooded ridges. The shores of its creeks and fens are tenanted by minks and muskrats. The tall tower of a light-house rises at the eastern extremity of the island, the keeper of which is now its solitary inhabitant.
Fourteen years ago, another individual shared the proprietorship of Long Point. This was John Becker, who dwelt on the south side of the island, near its westerly termination, in a miserable board shanty nestled between naked sand-hills. He managed to make a poor living by trapping and spearing muskrats, the skins of which he sold to such boatmen and small-craft skippers as chanced to land on his forlorn territory. His wife, a large, mild-eyed, patient young woman of some twenty-six years, kept her hut and children as tidy as circumstances admitted, assisted her husband in preparing the skins, and sometimes accompanied him on his trapping excursions.
On that lonely coast, seldom visited in summer, and wholly cut off from human communication in winter, they might have lived and died with as little recognition from the world as the minks and wildfowl with whom they were tenants in common, but for a circumstance which called into exercise unsuspected qualities of generous courage and heroic self- sacrifice.