A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
One morning, while at breakfast at Fairmount, I was surprised by a note from Mr. John Ryder, requesting the favour of a call from me, at Aston, before I returned home. The reader will remember Mr. Ryder[37] as a suitor of Miss Denham, and the affecting farewell of the latter to him on her death-bed.
"There is a mystery in this," said Mr. Stevens, "which I cannot account for. I have not seen Mr. Ryder for many months. Miss Denham's death was a dreadful blow to him, and since then he has never recovered his wonted spirits, but become quite a recluse, neither paying nor receiving any visits."
"Who can tell?" I remarked; "her death may issue in his spiritual life. I will send a reply, saying that I will call on him to-morrow evening."
"He is a noble character," said Mrs. Stevens; "and a young man of great intelligence and most amiable disposition. I trust his affliction has led him to direct his attention to the only true source of consolation. Indeed, I have some grounds for hoping that this is the case, as I understand he has been very regular in his attendance at church for some time past."
On going to Aston the following evening to call on Mr. Ryder, I unexpectedly met him, and we walked together to his house. After thanking me for my promptness in thus responding to his request, he proceeded to disclose to me, without much reserve, the deep perplexity and strongly excited state of his mind on the question of personal religion; asking me, at the same time, for my advice, and how he should act to obtain relief from his perplexities and depression of spirit.
He frankly confessed that prior to the death of Miss Denham, for whom he had long cherished a most ardent attachment, he had imbibed some vague sceptical opinions against religion. Her dying farewell, however, both astonished and confounded him, particularly the last words which she addressed to him:—"We now part, but I hope not for ever. Death, which is now removing me, may soon call for you; and then I hope you will find that consolation in the death of a despised Saviour, which it has pleased God, very unexpectedly and undeservedly, to give to me." "I never," he remarked, "heard her say anything like this before. She was now entering the dark unknown world; but it appears that she derived consolation from the death of Jesus Christ. How is this? said I, as I withdrew from the chamber of death; and how can it be? I have said thousands of times since. However, what I saw and heard on that awfully appalling occasion left an indelible conviction on my mind, that there is a something in religion suited to humanity at the most momentous period of its history. But what is that something? I said to myself. Is it a hidden mystery which the great teacher death alone can explain; or is it possible to get the mystery explained before death comes? This is the emphatic question I wish you to solve, as my happiness both in this world and the next depends on its solution."