"Late in the month of November, which followed our parting in the mountains, in accordance with previous arrangements, I took charge of the church in the New England city, where my uncle George resided. My relations with the members of the congregation, proved as pleasant as could be desired. I became acquainted with Martha Merritt, my uncle's niece by marriage. She was a beautiful girl! Very winning, sweet and amiable. I soon became fond of her company. This seemed to please both my uncle and my mother. I could see that they had set their hearts on a marriage between Martha and myself.
"About the middle of the following January, acting on a suggestion from uncle George, I asked Martha for her hand in marriage. After taking a whole week for consideration, she finally consented and we were engaged. Some days later, I urged her to name an early day for our wedding. Very much to my surprise, she said 'You must not hurry me, George! You must give me time!' I hastened to assure her that I did not wish to be inconsiderate, and begged her to take another week, in which to fix the date. During this time, I saw very little of Martha. In the brief interviews that followed, she was pale and agitated. At the end of the week, again her old-time self, she came to me with the news that our wedding day had been fixed for the fifteenth of June, five months distant.
"Early in February, the clouds of disaster began to gather. My mother was confined to her bed with what proved to be a serious illness. After four months of almost constant suffering, which she bore with the patience and fortitude of a martyr, she was borne across the dark water, to join that vast majority, that silent, mysterious, ever increasing host of the buried dead.
"My mother was buried on the fifteenth of June. Overwhelmed with grief, I readily assented to Martha's suggestion, that our wedding should be postponed until the first of October. Recovering slowly from the shock of my bereavement, I turned eagerly to Martha, for loving consolation. I was horrified, to find that her affection for me had turned to ill-concealed aversion! There was a terror-stricken, haunted look in her eyes, as she strove in every possible way, to avoid being left alone with me even for a moment, which frightened and almost crushed me with grief. I knew that something dreadful, must have happened! She was so pitiful to behold, that I could not be angry or jealous! But, I resolved to know the truth. At the first opportunity, I demanded an explanation. Bursting into tears, she told me the story of her bitter experience.
"Falling on her knees beside my chair, Martha implored me to be merciful. 'George,' she said, 'I know that I am the most wretched, and the most desperately wicked girl on the face of the earth! You have been so kind, and I have treated you so shamefully! How, can you ever forgive me? The only reparation that I can now make, is to tell you the whole truth, without reservation. Ten months before I saw you, while I was at school near Boston, I met Phillip Plato. The fates would have it, that we should fall desperately in love with each other, at our first meeting. In a short time we were engaged. In entering into this engagement, I did so without the knowledge of my uncle, or any friend. I did not stop for a moment, to consider my duty to uncle George, who had always been so good to me. I could think of no one but Phillip, and of my love for him. In the delirium of love's first dream, the weeks passed as days! Alas! The dream was passing brief! Somehow, Phillip's parents became aware of our engagement. They were very wealthy, and exceedingly ambitious to have Phillip marry more wealth. Angry with him, they came to me and cruelly declared, that they would never allow him to wed such a fortuneless girl! With look and gesture of scorn, they told me that they were just on the eve of going abroad, taking Phillip for two years of travel, in which they should strive to cure him completely of his insane infatuation. This, then was the end of my romance. My cruelly wounded pride, rose up in rebellion. I was furious! I returned scorn for scorn! I bade them begone!
"'I returned to my uncle's home, my heart hot with the indignation of an outraged pride, and filled with a determination, to show to the world no sign, but to use all my strength of will, to cast Phillip out of my life; to utterly forget him and his selfish, greedy, heartless parents. When you came, George, I was more anxious than ever before, to please my uncle in every possible way. I foolishly imagined, that in encouraging your attentions as a lover, I was helping myself, to forget my love for Phillip. Oh! What a terrible, cruel mistake! How terrible, how cruel, I was soon to realize. You will remember, George, how strangely I behaved at that interview, in which you asked me to fix the day for our wedding. Let me explain. A few hours previous, while I was lost in one of my occasional fits of melancholy moping, the voice of Phillip came to my ears with startling distinctness. The voice said Martha, you must remain true to me! I love you as devotedly as ever! I am determined, never to give you up! I am coming home to wed you! I am surely coming! Wait for me! These words kept ringing in my ears, like the tolling of a funeral bell. They thrilled me through and through! The barriers of my pride gave way. The returning tide of my love for Phillip, swept in upon me with such force, that my heart almost ceased to beat! I was faint, deadly faint! When I recovered consciousness and afterwards, at our interview, I was absolutely wretched! Your request, added to my anguish. I was powerless to answer, I could only beg for more time. All through that dreadful week, I strove to convince myself that my ears had deceived me, that the voice was not real, only a phasma, a hallucination, born of my fits of melancholy. Unfortunately, I finally succeeded!
"'Now, George, you shall hear the sequel, the climax of my wretchedness. The day before your mother died, I received a long letter from Phillip. It was written at Rome. Every line of that letter, was eloquent with Phillip's steadfast devotion, and love for me. In brief, a complete verification of what the warning voice had told me. His parents had relented. He was coming home to make me his bride. He had planned to arrive at Boston, in time to celebrate the New Year. He spoke of a long letter, which he had written to me, just on the eve of his going abroad. In that letter he had assured me of his undying love, of his determination never to give me up. In closing, he had begged me to wait for him, to remain true to him. He had repeated its contents, because he had been constantly haunted with the idea that the letter in question, had failed to reach me. And so it had.
"'This, George, is the summing up of my misery! It has filled my heart with the anguish of despair! I can never love anyone but Phillip! I cannot marry you, George! I cannot! It would be an unpardonable sin against you, against my own soul! What shall I do? What can I do? What atonement can I ever make, for the shame, the humiliation, the suffering, which I have brought into your life?'
"In this brief sketch, Fillmore, you have the substance of Martha's sad story. I believe it was absolutely true. I was deeply moved, by her abject misery and humiliation. A great wave of tender sympathy, swelled in my heart; blotting out all thoughts of self. I gave her back her engagement, and bade her go free; free to marry whomsoever her heart had chosen; assured of my forgiveness, and of my wish for her future happiness. I need not repeat her grateful thanks. From this time forward, our lives were widely separated.
"During the long tedious months that followed, I was going through a bitter, humiliating experience. I strove by every effort to so interest myself in my church work, that I might forget my griefs and my disappointments. In this, I failed utterly. I found to my amazement, that I did not possess a thorough belief or confidence, in the efficacy of the atonement, the very ground work of the entire scheme of Christian salvation. Without this belief, I could not hope to do effective work in the ministry. No doubt, this was the cause of my lack of interest in my pastoral duties; the one thing, during this time of trials, which most disturbed my mental equilibrium, and added to the intensity of my sufferings. My growing antipathy towards all kinds of church work, daily increased the mental tension, caused by anxious seasons of watching, praying, and fighting, against the farther dominancy of this monstrous antipathy. All opposing efforts proved useless. With each succeeding week, my Sunday services became more burdensome, more perfunctory, more unsatisfactory, more self-accusing. At last, in self defense, the church trustees proposed my taking a year's vacation, for recuperation.