"It was a delightful evening, about the middle of autumn," says the worthy clergyman to whom we have been indebted for many of the facts of the foregoing narrative, "that I was hastily summoned by John Darling to visit his daughter, who, he believed, was dying. I lost no time in proceeding to his cottage, and found that his conjecture was but too true. In an easy-chair, placed at an open window which faced the west, reclined the victim of a broken heart. On her pale cheek death had impressed his seal, though there the deceitful rose-tint fluctuated, which was not so in her days of health and hope. Her words, when she spake (and that was seldom), seemed to come forth without her breath; and the lightest down that ever was wafted through summer's air might have slept unfluttered on her lips. I kneeled down, and prayed that the gentle spirit, which was about to be released from its mortal bonds, might receive a welcome to the realms of life and light. She understood distinctly that she was dying; and, in token that her mind was at perfect ease, she faintly uttered, when I had finished, 'Yes! oh yes! Heaven! he——!' The words died unfinished on her tongue, and her spirit rose to its native sky.
'Peace to her broken heart and virgin grave!'
"In what a noble, what a truly grand point of view does this instance of triumphant faith place the glorious religion in which we believe! In what bold relief does its value to our fallen race appear! What a luminous light does it shed in life's last agonies, opening up a radiant vista through the clouds and darkness which settle on the soul, like the shadows of approaching death! There is nothing better qualified to develop the intellectual faculties, enlarge the understanding, and strengthen and foster the latent virtues of the heart, than the love and the study of literature. I am no advocate for the exclusive study of Scripture—nay, I am not sure if such restricted reading would not lead to narrowness of mind and gloomy unconcern about the affairs of life, and the duties connected with it, if not also to selfish moroseness and illiberal bigotry—a want of community of feeling and sympathy with human nature in general. But what would literature alone have done for May Darling? Would the recollection of Shakspere's finest bursts of inspiration, where the dramatist seems struggling with nature which shall be the greatest, have buoyed her spirit up under the load which oppressed it, or given but one, only one, faint assurance of immortality? Alas! they could only have reminded her of what it would have been far better to forget for ever, to bury in everlasting oblivion beneath the waves of Lethe. How finely does the bard of Hope write, in reference to the anticipation of eternal felicity in the hour of dissolution!
'What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly?—
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye?
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day!'
Or what could philosophy have done for her? Science has only reference to this life—its eagle eye has never caught a ray reflected from that which is to come. Matter may be tortured by methods, varied with infinite ingenuity; but every secret thus disclosed only relates to matter—there is nothing of spirit brought to light in all the experiments of the chemist, in all the observations of the astronomer, in all the gropings and searching investigations of the geologist; for, though he reveals past time—ay, almost a past eternity—the strata of the earth, with their world of organic wonders, which record the transpired history of our planet in imperishable hieroglyphics, tell nothing of the future. The ocean, with its buried wrecks and its countless treasures; the mountain, over which the mighty deep once rolled its undulating expanse, and there deposited its myriads of living creatures; the desert, which heaps its ocean of sand over entombed cities, once the glory of the earth——But why should we go on?—everything speaks of the past, but not a whisper comes from creation's breast of what is to come. The Bible alone discloses the mighty secret. May all, therefore, find it what it proved to be to May Darling: light, when all is dark—hope, when all is despair—pleasure in pain—life in death.
It was upon her that a nameless rustic bard, who had been an admirer, composed the following lines:—
"She faded like a flower
That wastes by slow decay;
Not snatch'd in an untimely hour,
But wither'd day by day.
'Twas sad to see those charms,
So heavenly once, decay'd;
And oh! to blight thee in our arms,
In bridal robes array'd!
But Heaven commenced with thee
Whilst yet below the sun;
And, ere the mortal ceased to be,
The seraph had begun.
Calm, then, on Nature's breast,
In dreamless sleep, sleep on,
Till angel voices break thy rest
In music like thine own!"