Amid the family circle where are the mother that reared, the wife that cherishes him, and the children who climb his knees, he lives, labors, and prays. “Surely,” said some looker at the outward appearance, “this man does not serve God for naught. Has not God made a hedge about him and all that he has? He would have his good things in both lives. Is he willing to sacrifice anything? Would he do anything with the Cross of Christ other than build it into the masonry of his castles or inscribe it upon the banner folds of his vassals?” Let us see.
He enters his library, a room of antique mould; the roof groined and blazoned reflects a thousand hues of soft light from lamps of fretted gold. The thickly carpeted floor returns no echo to the footfall. View him as he stands beneath that mellow light: The face is the face of a prophet. The pure white brow, which no hardship has bronzed and around which the locks of early manhood are clustering, is as radiant with goodness as heaven’s own light. The eyes suffused, not dimmed, by that mist which is the forerunner of tears, are turned toward heaven, while from their calm depths, pure as those through which wanders the light of stars, beam glances of gentle affection, a humility not assumed but ingrained like the summer flush upon the cheek of a ripened grape. The strong, firm lips are slightly parted with an expression of purpose and action; motionless they seem to utter, “Father, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Thoughtful he stands, then bows that stately head in deep contrition before God. He kneels, indeed, upon an embroidered cushion, but it is wet with tears. This man of noble blood and old descent, who sayeth “to this man ’Go,’ and he goeth, and to another ’Come,’ and he cometh,” grovels in the dust before his Maker. In his anguish he prostrates himself upon the floor; he cannot get low enough before his God. It is in his heart to embark with the Pilgrims, and he asks counsel of Heaven: “Father, wilt Thou that I leave these towers of my ancestors, moistened with their blood and beneath whose shadows their bones lie mouldering, and my mother now in the wane of life? Wilt Thou that I should take the wife of my bosom, my little ones reared in luxury and with tenderness, that I myself ever having lived and loved among the gifted and the great should go forth with my brethren to the wilderness? Tell me, O my Father, that it is my duty, and I will fling my whole estate into thy treasury as willingly as ever prodigal wasted his in riotous living; I will venture my life and the lives of those dearer to me than my own as readily as ever one of my warrior ancestors laid lance in rest to break a hedge of spears. Thou knowest that I love mother, wife, and children, comfort, refinement, wealth; that life is sweet to the lusty and the young. Thou knowest how dear to me are these old trees beneath which in childhood I played, these swelling hills, these gently sloping vales, this fair stream whose gleam I love at the sunset hour to catch through green foliage and to whose murmur I love to listen, this chosen retreat filled with books that embalm the lore of centuries whither I may retire after drinking a thousand inspirations from without, and in silent prayer and thought make them my own, growing in the reaches of my lonely thought to greater affluence of progress and power. But I love Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, more than these; therefore let me go. Already my brother and my kindred deem that I shrink from sacrifice and thus shall thy name be dishonored through me. Thou lovest me not, else wouldst Thou chasten me, wouldst permit me to endure hardness. Surely I am a bastard and no son. He that never suffered never loved.”
But while thus he prays and pleads, a voice from the Excellent Glory whispers to his soul: “I know thou lovest me. Yet shalt thou not embark. In Abraham I accepted the full purpose and the firm intent; so will I in regard to thee. I have in reserve for thee tasks as stern, and sacrifices as great, as the forests of America can furnish, tasks for which I created thee and gave thee thy capacities. Thy forefathers were men of brawn, but thou art a man of mind. Have not I chosen the men who are to go? Their flesh is hard, their bones are strong to bear the harness, and their whole course of thought is of a sterner cast, better fitted than thine to bear the sword and set the battle in array. It is not my will that the fire shall die upon the ancient altars; remain thou to quicken its flame. I will not that thy mother, that old saint who hath reared her household in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, shall in her old age lack the protection of the son best fitted of all her race to cherish her declining years; for I am a covenant-keeping God. Remain, therefore, to lay thy hand upon her eyes. Learning, eloquence, and passing knowledge to bend the minds of men of all ranks to thy wish are thine. Go then into the councils of the nation, there to use thy power for me, to moderate the fierceness of persecution and send succor to those who are to go forth with the wolf and the bear to the hillside. There are keener pangs than those born of flowing blood and stiffening wounds on lonely battlefields, gashes deeper than the tomahawk and the scalping knife can make, wrestlings more terrible than those with flesh and blood. Fear not that thou shalt lack occasions to prove thy zeal. Thou shalt find all the sunny memories of thy life turned to gall. The church to whose altar thy mother had thee linked with all the sweet memories of thy childhood shall close to thee its doors. Thy children shall be excluded from those seats of learning where their kindred and their mates resort. And thou must endure all these things being among them, and thus the iron will be pressed into thy soul day by day, which is more terrible than to endure in a foreign land where thou art equal to thy fellows in suffering and in privilege. These are sterner trials to the flesh and to the faith, than when war horses are neighing and clarions sounding to the charge, and the maddening rush and roar of conflict impart the very courage they require to rush on perils and set thy life upon a cast. Over the wreck of chosen thoughts and blighted hopes, through the anguish of susceptibilities which refinement and culture have made capacious of suffering of which under natures are incapable, shalt thou glorify me.” Yet how many a short-sighted onlooker at that day, unable to appreciate the inward motive, judged him who remained as shrinking from the reproach of the Cross and wresting the Scriptures to suit a carnal policy and the love of ease.
Let us view this principle in yet another light. In a distant apartment of the same castle is seated one whose features, though of a stronger and sterner cast, browned by toils and exposure on fields of battle, still bear that family resemblance which denotes them brothers. But his limbs are cast in nature’s stronger mould, and his hand turns naturally to the sword hilt. Upon his knees is a bundle of letters that he peruses with eager interest. They are from the exiles in Holland, informing him of the time of their departure, and urging him to join them. And among the letters are some from his old companions in the war of the low countries. Wrapped in thought the hours pass by him unheeded. At length, rising suddenly to his feet and thrusting open the door that leads to the great hall of the castle, he paces the stone floor. His eye kindles as it glances over the portraits of grim warriors and the proud trappings that adorn its walls. He stops in his lofty stride, a frown gathers upon his brow, his hand grips to the hilt of the sword at his side. He has made up his mind. His is the giant strength and haughty pride of an heroic line. Retiring to his chamber, he likewise kneels to pray, while the frown of anticipated conflicts and the flush of stirring memories have scarce yet faded from his brow. But there is no tremor in the hard tones of his voice, none of those bitter tears that wet the pillow of the other fall from his eyes. There is no breaking down of the strong man before Him who is stronger than the strong man armed. But he prays like Henry the Fifth at Agincourt or Bruce at Bannockburn. To carry his point he prays “my will be done” with the spirit of those who inscribed upon the muzzles of their cannon, “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.”
This man has condescended to help God. Through the long tempestuous voyage, those fearful months of mingled famine and plague when the icy breath of winter penetrated even to the pillows of the dying, and the Pilgrims drove the ploughshare through the graves of those most dear to them lest the savage should count the dead and ascertain their weakness, he passed unbroken. Neither hunger nor sickness bows his iron frame nor breaks his haughty spirit, and yet, unknown to himself, he is all the while wresting the truths of Scripture, and deems he is doing the will of God while he is consulting his own inclinations. Is the discipline of Providence therefore to waste itself upon this rugged nature, only to be repelled like the surf from the rock, in broken wreaths of foam? Will he never become as a little child that he may enter into the kingdom?
Yes. His daughter is dying. The daughter, the only remaining member of a once numerous household, whom he loves with an affection the more absorbing since he loves nothing else, to whom he has given the scanty morsel suffering hunger himself, whom he pressed to his bosom in the long nights of that terrible winter that she might gather warmth from his hardier frame, and around whom cluster all the affections that throb beneath the crust of his rugged nature, as the oak wrappeth its roots about the place of stones,—that daughter is dying. Though it is now the Indian summer and an abundant harvest has scattered plenty among the dwellings of the exiles, his daughter is perishing beneath the terrible exposure she has endured. Upon her delicate frame the previous winter and spring have done their work. Stretched upon a couch of skins, she is fading like the yellow and falling leaves that the forest is showering upon the roof, and the morning breeze is gathering in little heaps around the threshold of the rude cabin. The strong man has met one stronger than himself. The arrow aimed by no uncertain hand has found the joints of the harness. A sweet smile begotten of that peace of God, which passeth all understanding, mingles with the hectic flush on her cheek; and as he watches the ebbing tide of life, every sigh of pain, every frown that furrows the pale brow, wrung from her by the agony of dissolution, shakes his iron frame. But it is suffering, not submission. She lifts her finger, and he is at her side, takes her head upon his broad shoulder, and his war-worn cheek is pressed to hers, while the golden locks mingle with his white hairs like sunbeams reposing upon a fleecy cloud, as he listens to her low speech.
“Father, I must soon leave thee.” A hot tear falling on her cheek is the only reply. “Father,” she says, laying her thin finger upon a yellow leaf that an eddy of the wind just then blew in at the open door upon the bed, “I am like this leaf, almost at my journey’s end.”
“I know it, my child,” is the low answer.
“Canst thou give me up?”