THE DIVINITY STUDENT.
"So fades, so perishes, grows dim, and dies,
All that the world is proud of."
Wordsworth.
Although the revelations of a divine philosophy have taught us no more to entertain the blind notions of the Epicureans of old, that everything is the result of chance—or to agree with the Stoics, that the revolutions of the planetary system decree the fates and regulate the actions of mankind—yet the vicissitudes of human life, and the uncertainties of earthly hope, continue no less frequently to be the theme of the poet, and the regret of the philosopher. The truth is deep; nor is it ever suffered to be so long uncalled forth from our memories as to allow of its force being blunted. Striking and melancholy examples continually crowd upon us. Daily we are summoned to behold some noble aspiration blasted—to behold youth cut off in the bud—learning disappointed of its reward—worth suffering under the grip of misfortune—and industry sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind. These are dread and warning lessons to us, yet affording the surest marks of proof, that this sublunary and distempered world cannot be the final abode of man; that the seeds sown here will grow to maturity in a more genial clime; and that the events which now baffle the scrutiny of our moral reason, will yet appear to us revealed in clear and unperplexed beauty.
The story I am now about to narrate is simple in the extreme, yet affording scope for melancholy, and, it is to be hoped, not unprofitable meditation.
Robert Brown, a Scottish carrier, living in a remote district in Roxburghshire, contrived to bring up his family, consisting of five sons, by a course of unwearied industry and rigid economy, to an age at which the youngest had attained his sixteenth year—a time when it was thought by his friends that he might be able to take himself as a burthen from off his father's hands, and set about something towards his ultimate provision for life.
Consistently with their humble condition in the world, his brothers had all received the usual education of the Scottish peasantry—that is to say, they had been taught reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic; and, at suitable ages, had been alternately called from school to assist in farm work. They were fortunate in obtaining employment from the neighbouring landlords; and, though the servants of different masters, none of them were above two miles distant from their father's cottage. William, the youngest, had been destined from the cradle for something superior to the rest. They looked far forward, through the vista of years, to him as the pride of their old age, and the representative who was to carry down the respectability, credit, and good name of the family, to the succeeding generation. So far from the rest being chagrined at the partiality thus openly avowed, they contributed, "each in his degree," to the furtherance of the plan chalked out by their parents; judging, with honest pride, if William was destined to move in a sphere somewhat superior to their own, that a portion of the common approbation must necessarily be reflected on themselves, his relations. Thus all were united and amiable; no selfish and grovelling feelings introduced themselves to mar the cordiality of affection, or interfere with motives so upright and so honourable.
The object of this concentrated flood of generous love was certainly not an unworthy one. Having been born some years posterior to the other members of the family, he had never been a sharer in the youthful sports of his brothers, but was remembered by them as a favourite object on their Saturday evening meetings at their father's cottage. The frame of William was by no means so robust as that of the rest; and his dark glossy hair only set off more plainly the pale, and sometimes sallow hue of complexion. From both of these circumstances, his comparative youth, and his comparative delicacy of constitution, he ran a considerable chance of being, what is commonly termed, a spoiled child. He had, of course, contracted, from indulgence, a waywardness of disposition, which, however, by his innate modesty and good sense, was kept within very excusable limits, and soon wore entirely away, as the forwardness of boyhood began to subside into the more pensive thoughtfulness of maturer years.
After having exhausted all the means of instruction which an adjacent town supplied, he was obliged to have recourse to the grammar school of a neighbouring parish, about four miles distant from his home. For two years, neither summer's heat nor winter's snow were for a day allowed to frustrate his walking thither. He never returned till late in the afternoon; sometimes the evening star was the herald of his approach; and, during the brief days, towards the end or about the commencement of the year, darkness had set in before his face glimmered by the bickering fire of his parental hearth. Habits of temperance had been familiar to him all his days. Some cheese and oaten cake, regularly deposited in his satchel, served him for dinner, during the interval of school hours, after mid-day—and these he ate, walking about or reclining on the turf; but the warm tea and toast always awaited his evening arrival, and were set before him with all a mother's mindfulness and punctuality.
He was diligent at his books; and, being endowed by nature with good parts, he made a very fair and promising progress. He had none of that intellectual cleverness which makes advances by sudden fits and starts, and then relapses into apathy and idleness; but his steady industry, his attention, and his assiduity, gave omens favourable to his success, while his gentle and conciliatory manners gained him not only the love of his schoolfellows, but the esteem of his instructor.