"Although I have passed through so much during my forty years' wandering about the world, have endured so many troubles, and received so many undeserved blessings, and although God has shown Himself so good and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness towards me, and though, during these last few years, especially, His blessing has rested on all I have undertaken, still even yet I start with a secret terror at the sight of that portrait which brings before my mind so clearly the father whom I disobeyed. The recollection of his curse is never absent. Sometimes in the middle of the night I wake up, trembling, expecting the house is about to fall and crush me, and it is only by earnest prayer that I can recover my self-possession."
Here the captain ended his history, the recital of which had deeply interested each and all of his hearers. The worthy pastor did his utmost to convince him that his fears were only a vain superstition; but the captain shook his head. His kind counsellor saw that it would be unwise to argue the point, and left him with thanks for his graphic narrative, resolving to pray earnestly that God would remove from him the cloud of self-reproach, and enable him to spend the remainder of his days in the brightness of Christian hope.
CHAPTER XI.
The Curse Revoked—Conclusion.
"Commend the past to God, with all its irrevocable harm,
Humbly, but in cheerful trust, and banish vain regrets;
Come to Him, continually come, casting all the present at His feet,
Boldly, but in prayerful love, and fling off selfish cares;
Commit the future to His will—the viewless, fated future;
Zealously go forward with integrity, and God will bless thy faith."
—TUPPER.
A year had passed away since the captain had taken up his abode in the "Forester's House," as it was still called, in the course of which the intimacy between him and his good friend the pastor had been confirmed by many mutual acts of kindness. The captain was a great favourite with the children, and a visit to his house was looked upon by them as the greatest possible treat, and many were the interesting and instructive stories which he related for their amusement. His long wanderings in almost every part of the world furnished him with an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes and narratives of foreign customs, which the children could never grow tired of listening to. His friends, however, could not help noticing that he had not yet shaken off his fear that some fresh misfortune was in store for him, in consequence of his youthful disobedience and the curse which his father had pronounced upon him. This he believed, being unrevoked, would, as his father had written, "follow him always."
Thus this one great sin of disobeying his father's commands had embittered his happiness for more than forty years, not only when he was suffering what he justly believed to be the consequences of his wickedness, but long after he had earnestly repented of all his sins, and was living a peaceful, godly life.
Oh that all the boys and girls who may read this story would think over those words of St Paul, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth," (Eph. vi. 1-3), and learn from this narrative that every act of wilful disobedience to a parent's commands is a sin against God, which He is sure to punish.
The good pastor's prayers that the captain might be relieved from his anxiety of mind were not in vain, and he himself was destined to be the happy instrument in God's hands of removing the burden that had so long oppressed his friend. It happened one day when the pastor was writing in his study, that a man called upon him for the purpose of obtaining a certificate of his birth, which was necessary to enable him to receive a legacy to which he was entitled. The pastor inquired his name.
"My name is John Lobert," said the man, "and I have been living at Liverpool for many years; but I now intend to settle down here in my native village for the remainder of my life."