Poor Halbert yielded unresistingly, rose mechanically, put away the books so often opened, and as if in a dream, his mind wandering and unsettled so that he hardly knew what he was about, he listened to his companion’s persuasions, placed his arm within his “friend” Forsyth’s, and suffered himself to be led away, the prey in the hands of the fowler, the tempted by the tempter. Poor fallen, forsaken Halbert Melville!
The quiet moments of the winter evening steal along, the charmed hour of midnight has passed over the hoary city, slumbering among its mountains. Through the thick frosty air of that terrible night no moonbeam has poured its stream of blessed light; no solitary star stood out on the clouded firmament to tell of hope which faileth never, and life that endures for evermore, far and long beyond this narrow circuit of joys and sorrows. Dark, as was one soul beneath its gloomy covering, lowered the wide wild sky above, and blinding frost mist, and squalls laden with sleet, which fell on the face like pointed needles, had driven every passenger who had a home to go to, or could find a shelter, or a refuge, from the desolate and quiet streets. In entries, and the mouths of closes, and at the foot of common stairs, little heaps of miserable unfortunates were to be seen huddled together, seeking warmth from numbers, and ease of mind from companionship, even in their vice and wretchedness. Hour after hour has gone steadily, slowly on, and still that chamber is empty, still it lacks its nightly tenant, and the faint gleam of the fire smouldering, shining fitfully, now on the little pile of poison, now on the goodly heaps of what men call dry books and rubbish, but which a year ago Halbert considered as the very triumphs of sanctified genius. Hither and thither goes the dull gleam, but still he comes not.
But hark, there is a step upon the stair, a hurried, feverish, uncertain step, and Halbert Melville rushes into his deserted room, wan, haggard, weary, with despair stamped upon his usually firm, but now quivering lip, and anguish, anguish of the most terrible kind, in his burning eye. He has been doubting, fearing, questioning, falling away from his pure faith—falling away from his devout worship, losing himself and his uprightness of thought, because questioning the soundness of his ancient principles and laying them aside one by one, like effete and worthless things. He has been led forward to doubt by the most specious sophistry—not the rigid unflinching inquiry of a truth-seeker, whose whole mind is directed to use every aid that learning, philosophy, history, and experience can furnish, to find, or to establish what is true and of good repute, but the captious search for seeming flaws and incongruities, the desire to find some link so weak that the whole chain might be broken and cast off. In such spirit has Halbert Melville been led to question, to doubt, to mock, at length, and to laugh, at what before was the very source of his strength and vigour, and the cause of his academical success. And he has fallen—but to-night—to-night he has gone with open eyes into the haunts of undisguised wickedness—to-night he has seen and borne fellowship with men unprincipled, not alone sinning against God, whose existence they have taught Halbert to deny, whose laws they have encouraged him, by their practice and example, to despise, contemn, and set aside, but also against their neighbours in the world and in society. To-night, while his young heart was beating with generous impulses,—while he still loathed the very idea of impurity and iniquity, he has seen the friends of his “friend,” he has seen his favoured companion and immaculate guide himself, whose professions of purity and uprightness have often charmed him, who scorned God’s laws, because there was that innate dignity in man that needed not an extraneous monitor, whose lofty, pure nature has been to Halbert that long twelvemonth something to reverence and admire; him has he seen entering with manifest delight into all the vile foulness of unrestrained and unconcealed sin, into all the unhallowed orgies of that midnight meeting and debauch. Unhappy Halbert! The veil has been torn from his eyes, he sees the deep, black fathomless abyss into which he has been plunged, the hateful character of those who have dragged him over its perilous brink, who have tempted him to wallow in the mire of its pollutions and to content himself with its flowing wine, its hollow heartless laughter, its dire and loathsome pleasures.
The threatenings of the Scriptures, so long forgotten and neglected, ring now in his terrified ears, like peals of thunder, so loud and stern their dread denunciations. His conscience adopts so fearfully that awful expression, “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God,” that the secret tones of mercy, whispering ever of grace and pardon, are all unheard and unheeded, and he was in great fear, for the Lord is in the generation of the righteous. He leans his burning brow upon the table, but starts back as if stung by an adder, for he has touched one of those fatal books, whose deadly contents, so cunningly used by his crafty tempter, overthrew and made shipwreck of his lingering faith, and has become now a very Nemesis to him. With a shudder of abhorrence and almost fear, he seizes the volume and casts it from him as an unclean thing, and then starts up and paces the room with wild and unsteady steps for a time, then throws himself down again and groans in agony. See! he is trying with his white and quivering lips to articulate the name of that great Being whom he has denied and dishonoured, but the accents die on his faltering tongue. He cannot pray, he fancies that he is guilty of that sin unpardonable of which he has often read and thought with horror. Is he then lost? Is there no hope for this struggling and already sore-tired spirit? Is there no succour in Heaven? The gloom of night gathering thicker and closer round about him, the dying sparkle of the fire, the last faint fitful gleam of the expiring candle leaping from its socket, and as it seems to him soaring away to heaven, cannot answer. Surely there will yet be a morrow.
CHAPTER II.
Alone walkyng. In thought plainyng,
And sore sighying. All desolate
My remembrying Of my livying.
My death wishying Bothe erly and late.