My walk happened one day to lead near a dissenting chapel; and the eagerness to hear which characterises recent converts made me join the multitude who thronged the entrance. 'The truth,' thought I, 'is despised by the gay and the giddy; but to me it shall be welcome, come when it will.' Was there nothing pharisaical in the temper of this welcome? In spite, however, of the liberality for which I was applauding myself, my expectations were influenced by my early prejudices; and I presupposed the preacher, zealous indeed, but loud, stern, and inelegant. Surprise, therefore, added force to my impressions. The unadorned pulpit was occupied by a youth not yet in his prime, nor destined, as it seemed, ever to reach that period. The bloom of youth had given place in his countenance to a wandering glow, that came and went with the mind's or the body's fever. His bright blue eyes—now cast down in humility, now flashing with rapturous hope—had never shone with less gentle fires. His manner had the mild seriousness of entreaty,—his composition the careless vigour of genius; or rather the eloquence of one, who, feeling the essential glory of truth, thinks not of decking her with tinsel.
Reasoning must convince the understanding, and a power which neither human reasoning nor human eloquence can boast must bend the will to goodness; but that which comes from the heart will, for a time at least, reach the heart. Mine was strongly moved. The novel simplicity of form,—the fervour of extemporary prayer,—the zeal of the youthful teacher, his faithful descriptions of a debasement which I strongly felt, his unqualifying application of the only medicine which can minister to this mortal disease,—roused me at once to all the energy of passion. I abhorred the coldness of my ordinary convictions; and, compared with what I now felt, disparaged the impression of regular instruction. I forgot, or I had yet to learn, that the genuine spirit of the Gospel is described as the 'spirit of peace,' not of rapture; that the heavenly weapon is not characterised as dazzling us with its lustre, but as 'bringing into captivity every thought.' Feeling an increase of heat, I rashly inferred that I had received an accession of light; and immediately resolved to join the favoured congregation of a pastor so useful.
My recollection of the prejudice which confounds in one undistinguishing charge of fanaticism many thousands of virtuous and sober-minded persons rather strengthened that resolution; for fire and faggot are not the only species of persecution which arms our natural feelings on the side of the suffering cause. I gloried in the thought of sharing contempt for conscience-sake; and longed with more, it must be owned, of zeal than of humility, to enter upon this minor martyrdom.
That very evening I announced my purpose to my friend, in a tone of premature triumph. Miss Mortimer was so habitually averse to contradicting, that I was obliged to interpret into dissent the grave silence in which she received my communication. Dissent I might have borne, but not such dissent as barred all disputation; and I entered on a warm defence of my sentiments, as if they had been attacked. Miss Mortimer waited the subsiding of that part of my warmth which belonged to mere temper; then gave a mild but firm opinion. 'It had been allowed,' she told me, 'by an author of equal candour and acuteness, that "there is, perhaps, no establishment so corrupt as not to make the bulk of mankind better than they would be without it." Our countenance, therefore,' she said, 'to the establishment of the country in which we lived was a debt we owed to society; unless, indeed, the higher duty which we owed to God were outraged by the doctrines of the national church. As for mere form, it had always,' she said, 'appeared to her utterly immaterial, except as it served to express or to strengthen devotion; therefore, it seemed unnecessary to forsake a ritual which had been found to answer these purposes. If the ordinances, as administered by our church, were less efficacious to me than they had been to others, she would wish me to examine whether this were not owing to some unobserved error in my manner of using them; but if, after diligent attention, humble self-examination, and earnest prayer for guidance, I continued to find the national worship unsuitable to my particular case, she might regret, but she could not condemn, my secession; since I should then be not only privileged, but bound, to forsake her communion.'
The time was not long past, since even this mild resistance would have only confirmed me in a favourite purpose; but I was becoming less confident in my own judgment, and Miss Mortimer's consistent worth had established an influence over me beyond even that to which my obligations entitled her. Though her natural abilities were merely respectable, her opinions upon every point of duty had such precision and good sense that, without being aware of it, I leant upon her judgment of right and wrong, as naturally as the infant trusts his first unsteady steps to his mother's sustaining hand. She prevailed upon me to pause, ere I forsook the forms in which my fathers had worshipped; and though her own principle has since connected me with a church of simpler government and ritual, I have never seen reason to repent of the delay.
And now, deprived as I was of all the baubles which I had once imagined necessary to comfort, almost to existence, I was nearer to happiness than I had ever been while in the full enjoyment of all that pleasure, wealth, and flattery can bestow; for I now possessed all the materials of such happiness as this state of trial admits,—good health, constant employment, the necessaries of this life, and the steady hope of a better. And let the lover of pleasure, the slave of Mammon, the sage who renounces the light of heaven for the spark which himself has kindled, smile in scorn whilst I avow, that I at times felt rapture, compared with which their highest triumph of success is tame. I can bear the smile, for I know that they are compelled to mingle it with a sigh; that they envy the creature whom they affect to scorn; and wish—vainly wish, that they could choose the better part.
The bitter drop which is found in every cup, was infused into mine by the increasing illness of Miss Mortimer; and by a strong suspicion, that poverty aggravated to her the evils of disease. This latter circumstance, however, was conjectural; for Miss Mortimer, though confidingly open with me upon every other subject, was here most guarded. From the restraint visibly laid upon inclinations which I knew to be liberal in the extreme,—from my friend's obstinate refusal to indulge in any of the little luxuries which sickness and debility require,—from many trifles which cannot evade the eye of an inmate, I began to form conjectures which I soon accidentally discovered to be but too well founded. A gentleman happened to make a visit of business to Miss Mortimer one day when she was too much indisposed to receive him; and he incautiously committed to me a message for her, by which I discovered, that her whole patrimony had been involved in the ruin of my father; that, except the income of the current year, which she had fortunately rescued a few weeks before the wreck, she had lost all; that, while she made exertions beyond her strength to seek and to comfort me, while she soothed my sullen despair, she was herself shrinking before the gaunt aspect of poverty; and that, while she contrived for me indulgences which she denied to herself, her generous soul abhorred to divulge what might have rendered my feeling of dependence more painful.
When the certainty of all this burst upon me, I felt as if I had been in some sort responsible for the injury which my father had inflicted; and, overwhelmed with a sense of most undeserved obligation, I almost sunk to the ground. The moment I recovered myself, I flew to my friend, and with floods of tears, and the most passionate expressions of gratitude, I protested that I would no longer be a burden upon her generosity; and besought her to consider of some situation in which I might earn my subsistence. But Miss Mortimer resisted my proposal upon grounds which I felt it impossible to dispute. 'I cannot spare you yet, my dear child,' said she. 'I have been assured, that in a very few months you must be at liberty; but you will not leave me yet!—you will not leave me to die alone.'
This was the first intimation which I had received of the inevitable fate of one whose gentle virtues and unwearied kindness had centered in herself all my widowed affections; and it wholly overpowered the fortitude which not an hour before I had thought invincible. I hurried from human sight, while I mingled with bitter cries a passionate entreaty, that I might suffer any thing rather than the loss of my only friend. We often ask in folly; but we are answered in wisdom. The decree was gone forth; and no selfish entreaties availed to detain the saint from her reward. When the first emotions were past, I saw, and confessed, that a petition such as mine, clothed in whatever language, was wanting in the very nature of prayer; which has the promise of obtaining what we need, not of extorting what we desire.
In the present situation of my friend, it was impossible for me to forsake her; yet I could not endure to feel myself a burden upon the little wreck which the misfortunes or imprudence of my family had left her. Hour after hour I pondered the means of making my labour answer to my subsistence. But there my early habits were doubly against me. Accustomed to seek in trifling pastimes relaxation from employment scarcely less trifling, perseverance in mere manual industry was to me almost impossible. Habituated to confound the needful with the desirable, I had no idea how large a proportion of what we think necessary to the decencies of our station belongs solely to the wants of our fancy. My highest notion of economy in dress went no farther than the relinquishing of ornament; therefore, all my little works of ingenuity were barely sufficient to supply my own wardrobe, and another channel of expense which I had of late learnt to think at least as necessary. I saw no means, therefore, of escaping my dependence upon Miss Mortimer. Yet it made me miserable to think, that, for my sake, she must deny herself the necessaries of decaying life.