"Father Clark," or The Pioneer Preacher

by John Mason Peck

John Clark had commanded his feelings through all the conversation, but he could stand it no longer. Every fibre of his heart gave way, and hardly conscious what he did, seized her hand, and exclaimed, while the tears gushed out like a fountain,—“I am your brother John.”

We have heard him narrate this interview, when old and grey-headed; and he could not refrain from sobbing and weeping. Many persons are now living in Illinois and Missouri who have heard the same tale and seen the outpouring of fraternal affection, forty years after the event. The interview between the brother and sister, the only survivors of the family, was too sacred to be exposed to profane eyes. Though it failed not to work powerfully on his feelings, he would rehearse the tale of the interview on the request of his religious friends.

It was some hours before either party could obtain self-command to attend to the avocations of life. Each had a long story of trials and deliverances to tell. Clark found his sister devoutly pious. Her countenance bore the image of her mother at her age, and the mental and moral features held a close resemblance. As the evening approached they walked together towards the parish church. Around its moss-covered walls, was the parish cemetery, where slept the congregated dead of many generations. The sister led the way to a sacred spot she often visited. Here were a row of grassy hillocks, under an overspreading larch, with rough and plain monuments. There lay his father, mother, and sister, all buried since he left his native parish. Mr. Clark gazed mournfully on his mother’s grave; on the head stone with dim eyes and quivering lips he read, “Mary Clark.” Taking his sister gently by the hand, he said, “Let us pray here,” and as he knelt on the grave, holding the hand of his sister, he poured his heart out to the prayer-hearing God in streams of thankfulness and humble devotion. He praised the Lord for the gift of such a mother, so pious, devout and affectionate;—and for entire submission to the will of heaven in the loss sustained. He prayed for his sister, in language affectionate, kind and spiritual; thanked God that they had been spared to meet again in time; and that she was a child of grace, and was walking in the footsteps of her mother towards the heavenly Canaan.

Nor was the brother in a distant land forgotten, if he was alive, and that God would have mercy on him and turn his feet into the pathway of righteousness. Alas! That brother had been dead many months, as the letter that conveyed the mournful intelligence, testified, that reached his sister a few days after their first interview.

Mr. Clark had a gift of prayer quite uncommon. His language was simple, chaste, solemn and dignified, devoid of all cant, and peculiarly expressive. He seemed to hold converse with the Lord of heaven, as with a familiar friend. His prayers were singularly fervent and effectual, and remarkably adapted to the occasion and circumstances. He used no repetition of vain words, and despised all high sounding phrases and incongruous imagery, which some persons of inflated minds and heated imaginations employ in prayer.

Oppressive feelings were ever removed from the heart of Father Clark, in seasons of prayer. He arose from his knees with a smiling countenance, and wiped the tears that fell in streams from the eyes of his beloved sister, and cheered her heart by repeating the blessed promises of the gospel with which he was familiar.

Next day his sister called him to her room, and told him she had a solemn duty to perform, enjoined on her by their sainted mother, on her dying bed. She then presented him with a purse of gold and silver, of more than sixty dollars value. “This our mother made me sacredly promise to give you, should you ever return. It is your own;—the avails of your wages and prize money, the last you sent her, when we heard from you the last time. We managed by careful economy to do without it, and it is her legacy.”

She then took from a drawer a set of silver spoons, and divers other family relics, all of which had been preserved for her lost son. The scene was most affecting, and it was more than an hour, and not until he had retired and held communion with God, he could obtain control over his feelings so as to reply:—

“My dear sister, the memory of our mother is exceedingly precious, and her maternal love and kindness overpowers me. I need not those articles to keep her in remembrance. Like my blessed Master, I have no home in this world, and I have really no use for these gifts. I feel that God has called me to preach the Gospel, and in a few days I must leave you again, and return to London, and spend some time with that great and good man, Mr. Wesley, and study with his ministers, and then go back to America, and spend my days instructing the ignorant and preaching the gospel of Christ to the destitute. We must soon part, probably never to meet again on earth, but let us so live that we may be united with our dear mother in heaven.”

After much urging, he consented to keep one spoon, and two or three other little articles, and told his sister to keep the rest, and to use the money for her comfort, or to relieve the poor and distressed. He had enough for present wants, and his trust for the future was in the same beneficent providence that covers the earth with herbage and is kind and bountiful to all his creatures.