The Home Mission

by T. S. Arthur

"You do not look well, brother," said Blanche, almost as soon as she saw him.

"I am not well," he replied, avoiding her steady look. "My head aches, and I feel dull and heavy."

"What has caused it, brother?" the affectionate girl asked, with a look and voice of real concern.

Now this was, of all others, the question that Henry was least prepared to answer. He could not utter a direct falsehood. From that his firm principles shrunk. Nor could he equivocate, for he considered equivocation little better than a direct falsehood. "Why should I wish to conceal any part of my conduct from her?" he asked himself, in his dilemma. But the answer was instant and conclusive. His participation in the revelry of the last night was a thing not to be whispered in her ear. Not being prepared, then, to tell the truth, and shrinking from falsehood and equivocation, Armour preferred silence as the least evil of the three. The question of Blanche was not, therefore, answered. At the breakfast-table, his father and mother remarked upon his appearance. To this, he merely replied that he was not well. As soon as the meal was over, he went out, glad to escape the eye of Blanche, which, it seemed to him, rested searchingly upon him all the while.

A walk of half an hour in the fresh morning air dispelled the dull pain in his head, and restored his whole system to a more healthy tone. This drove away, to some extent, the oppressive feeling of self-condemnation he had indulged. The scenes of the previous evening, though silly enough for sensible young men to engage in, seemed less objectionable than they had appeared to him on his first review. To laugh involuntarily at several remembered jests and stories, the points of which were not exactly the most chaste or reverential, marked the change that a short period had produced in his state of mind. During that day, he did not fall in with any of his wild companions of the last evening, too many of whom had already fairly entered the road to ruin. The evening was spent at home, in the society of Blanche. He read while she sewed, or he turned for her the leaves of her music book, or accompanied her upon the flute while she played him a favourite air upon the piano. Conversation upon books, music, society, and other topics of interest, filled up the time not occupied in these mental recreations, and added zest, variety, and unflagging interest to the gently-passing hours. On the next evening they attended a concert, and on the next a party. On that succeeding, Henry went out to see a friend of a different character from any of those with whom he had passed the hours a few nights previous—a friend about his own age, of fixed habits and principles, who, like himself, was preparing for the bar. With him he spent a more rational evening than with the others, and, what was better, no sting was left behind.

Still, young Armour could never think of the "club" without having his mind thrown into a tumult. It awoke into activity opposing principles. Good and evil came in contact, and battled for supremacy. There was in his mind a clear conviction that to indulge in dissipation of that character, would be injurious both to moral and physical health. And yet, having tasted of the delusive sweets, he was tempted to further indulgence. Meeting with some two or three of the "members" during the week, and listening to their extravagant praise of the "club," and the pleasure of uniting in unrestrained social intercourse, made warm by generous wine, tended to make more active the contest going on within—for the good principles that had been stored up in his mind were not to be easily silenced. Their hold upon his character was deep. They had entered into its warp and woof, and were not to be eradicated or silenced in a moment. As the time for the next meeting of the club approached, this battle grew more violent. The condition into which it had brought him by the arrival of the night on which he had promised again to join his gay friends, the reader has already seen. He was still unable to decide his course of action. Inclination prompted him to go; good principles opposed. "But then I have passed my word that I would go, and my word must be inviolable." Here reason came in to the aid of his inclinations, and made in their favour a strong preponderance.

We have seen that, yet undecided, he lingered at home, but in a state of mind strangely different from any in which his sister had ever seen him. Still debating the question, he lay, half reclined upon the sofa, when Blanche touched her innocent lips to his, and murmured a tender good-night. That kiss passed through his frame like an electric current. It came just as his imagination had pictured an impure image, and scattered it instantly. But no decision of the question had yet been made, and the withdrawal of Blanche only took off an external restraint from his feelings. He quietly arose and commenced pacing the floor. This he continued for some time. At last the decision was made.

"I have passed my word, and that ends it," said he, and instantly left the house. Without permitting himself to review the matter again, although a voice within asked loudly to be heard, he walked hastily in the direction of the club-room. In ten minutes he gained the door, opened it without pausing, and stood in the midst of the wild company within. His entrance was greeted with shouts of welcome, and the toast, "Here's to a good fellow!" with which he had parted from them, was repeated on his return, all standing as it was drunk.

To this followed a sentiment that cannot be repeated here. It was too gross. All drunk to it but Armour. He could not, for it involved a foul slander upon the other sex, and he had a sister whose pure kiss was yet warm upon his lips. The individual who proposed the toast marked this omission, and pointed it out by saying—

"What's the matter, Harry? Is not the wine good?"