Mr. Roscoe was the son of an eminent London citizen, who, by his successful speculations in trade, had risen from indigence to the possession of great wealth. He had two brothers and one sister. His eldest brother took to his father's business, his youngest entered the church, and his sister married a country gentleman of fortune and respectability. He was originally designed for the law; but, after spending a few years with an eminent solicitor, he abandoned the profession, and devoted himself to a life of pleasure. After years of wandering from one place to another, he settled in the neighbourhood of the village of Aston, where he built a spacious mansion, as elegant within as its external appearance was imposing. Soon after its completion he married an amiable and intelligent lady, of a small fortune, but of great prudence. For some time they lived in the enjoyment of domestic peace; and while Mr. Roscoe gained reputation as a man of intelligence and of taste, Mrs. Roscoe was universally esteemed for her affability and benevolence. Years passed along—they had several children, but all died in infancy. These successive bereavements had such a depressing effect on Mrs. Roscoe, that solitude became oppressive, and society aggravated her grief, and the shades of melancholy were gathering thick around her; yet she was comforted under her sufferings by the sympathy and affection of a fond and endeared husband.
Time, which had covered the grave of her children with verdure, began to close up the wounds of her heart; but, when permitted to enjoy the anticipations of becoming once more a mother, she was doomed to witness the growing indifference of her husband towards herself. Her other trials depressed her, but this overwhelmed her. Her affection still glowed pure and ardent; and though she long resisted every unfavourable impression, and redoubled her efforts to please, and to render his home attractive, yet she saw her happiness a wreck, and found herself bereft of all the endearments of life.
This change in Mr. Roscoe was produced by his intimacy with Sir Henry Wilmot, of Cleveland Hall. Sir Henry was the only son of an eminently pious mother, who died when he was seven years of age; he was thus left entirely to the care of his father, a man of superior mental attainments, but of gay and dissipated habits, and a free thinker on theological questions. When young he resisted the contagion of evil by which he was surrounded; but having finished his education, which was not favourable to the growth of religious sentiments, he paid a visit to the continent, and there he became thoroughly corrupted. On the decease of his father, he returned to take possession of the family inheritance; and brought with him all the loose opinions and dangerous principles of those with whom he had associated. Being a man of elegant manners, of sociable disposition, generous and warm in his professions of friendship, who had seen the various aspects of society, and was qualified either to debate in argument or amuse at play, he soon acquired a powerful ascendency over Mr. Roscoe, whom he often induced to prolong his visits at the Hall to a late hour. The influence of evil, like the influence of good principles, is at first imperceptible; but it is usually found that the one corrupts more rapidly than the other reforms. The erection of the building requires a skilful combination of talents and materials; but it may be demolished by the rude hand of a barbarian, who knows not how to draw an elevation, or execute a design.
Cleveland Hall, which had been in former days the house of mercy and of prayer, was now become the rendezvous of the vices—the seat of licentiousness and of moral pollution;
"There many fell, to rise no more;"
and there Mr. Roscoe lost the fine bloom that once glowed on his character; and if a sense of decency operated as a partial restraint, yet his home and his wife were comparatively forsaken.
Mrs. Roscoe, who watched this progressive change with deep anxiety, would occasionally solicit the company of her husband during the tedious evenings of the winter, but rarely succeeded; for, such was the infatuation which had seized him, that he could not be happy away from Sir Harry. At length the hour arrived which teems with eventful consequences to a family, and Mrs. Roscoe became the mother of a lovely female child. At first her life appeared in imminent danger; and when this was announced to her husband, he was deeply affected, and sat mute in silence; but it was not the dignified silence of the soul bowing down in submission to the will of God, but the silence of horror-struck guilt, which dares not speak. After waiting a considerable time, the victim of his own reflections, he resolved at last to see his wife; but when he entered her room he found that she had fallen into a profound sleep. As he was retiring, the nurse threw off the covering that concealed the face of his daughter, and the sight operated as a spell upon his passions. As he kissed the babe, the tide of conjugal affection flowed back into his soul, and he resolved from that hour to become once more a domestic man. The next morning he sent a short polite note to Sir Harry, saying that he should in future decline all intimacy.
Had he merely resolved to drop the intimacy by degrees, leaving the Hall earlier in the evening, and going less frequently—offering reasonable excuses for these variations, and then trivial ones—it is more than probable that Sir Harry would have employed an extra amount of fascinating influence to prevent a dissolution of the connection. But by coming to a decision at once, and acting on it—by the transmission of the note—he broke the spell of enchantment under which he had long been held, and effected his emancipation with comparative ease. Herein he displayed consummate wisdom, and should be regarded as a model of imitation by any one who feels himself entangled in a similar snare. Hesitation, combined with a resort to cautious expedients, is far more likely to give perpetuity to a beguiling temptation than to dissolve its charm; whereas, a resolute determination to break away from it, followed by some bold and decisive step, is almost sure to prove successful; the self-conquest is then made without much difficulty, the character is redeemed from infamy, and domestic happiness is re-established on a solid foundation.
Mrs. Roscoe soon recovered—the life of the child was spared—her husband became kind and attentive—and the sun of her domestic happiness, which had gone down, returned to lighten her long cheerless habitation. She was always a religious woman; but her religion was restricted to opinions, and forms, and ceremonies, which had no moral power on her mind. She had her seasons of devotion, but she regarded her devotional exercises as a duty, not a privilege; and read her Bible occasionally, but her reading was generally confined to its histories, or narratives, or parables. She regularly attended her church, and repeated the responses of its Liturgy with great solemnity, but she never conceived that the essence of religion consists in the renovation of the soul. She was amiable and benevolent, discharged the relative duties of life with strict honour and punctuality, and threw over the path of her visible history a lustre which all admired; and feeling satisfied with her personal goodness, she very naturally concluded that God required nothing more. To her the scheme of salvation, which requires repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, was not less offensive than to the avowed unbeliever; and though she had more liberality than her husband, yet she was equally severe in her remarks on those whose piety led them to oppose the customs of the world, and devote themselves to the Redeemer. Her formalism was both rigid and acrimonious; and though it yielded no mental enjoyment, yet it excited much self-complacency, inducing her to think she was fit for heaven, without creating any intense longings to go there.