I never have found them so to any, except those who have wanted the spirit of their office. How shall I cease, then, to be thankful for the early instruction of those kind parents, and the severe infliction of that youthful discipline, which formed in me inclinations and desires which nothing could have gratified but the labors of the sacred office? They have been my pleasure; and nothing else would have afforded me pleasure. I soon found, however, that there is much to damp the ardor of enthusiastic expectation, with which a young man, ignorant of the world, enters upon his career. I can hardly help sighing now, when I call to mind the many fair visions which were cruelly dissipated by my further acquaintance with mankind, and the severe and mortifying rebukes by which my open-hearted inexperience learned prudence and caution. It was a great shock to me to discover, so soon as I did, the necessity of distrusting appearances. This was one of the first lessons which I learned by intercourse with my parish-perhaps one of the most important I ever learned. Certainly none has influenced me more in my whole life since; none perhaps has made me, at times, so unhappy. Like other young persons, I trusted to the good show which any one made, and confided implicitly in all that any one might say of himself. I delighted in the warm expression of religious feeling, and was ready to give up my heart to it wherever I might find it. I could not believe that zealous profession could be made by any who was insincere at heart. It was a great blow to me to be undeceived. There were few men in the town more assiduous and kind in their attentions to me, after my ordination, than Josiah Dunbar. He recommended himself by his punctual attendance at meeting, and by his fondness to call upon me and converse on religious subjects. He entered fully into the history of his own experience, and drew from me the relation of my own. His appearance was austere, his manners simple and solemn, his voice a little whining, and his eyes were cast in humility upon the ground. His age was about fifty; and I thought that no young man was ever so blest in the confidence and advice of a devout parishioner. I found, however, that he was not popular in the village, and that the worldly, sober part of the inhabitants, especially, spoke of him rather slightingly. This grieved me; but I accounted for it by a remark which he himself once, or rather often, made with a deep sigh and solemn shake of the head"Ah, there is nothing that the world can find lovely in the children of God. They are always despised and trodden upon." My experience has since taught me that this is far from being true. But at that time I took it for an established fact; and when I found any commendatory remark which I made respecting Mr. Dunbar received in silence or with a sneer, I imputed it to the natural dislike of men to superior goodness. Erelong, however, I observed some things in his conversation which I myself disliked. He was too fond, I thought, of complaining of the want of religion in others, and of the great coolness of church members. There was doubtless room for this in many instances; but he complained too frequently and petulantly, and spoke too sarcastically of good moral lives. Now, I could see no harm in a good moral life, and once told him "that I did not think it so much against a man, that he was a moral man; that I rather thought it the part of charity to believe that what we cannot see is as good as what we do see, and that what we do see is, really, though not visibly, grounded on right principle." He was dissatisfied with this remark, and ever after affected to be concerned lest I was resting too much on works. He thought that I preached "works" too much; and he harassed me often with minor questions about justification, and faith, and righteousness. All this, however, was done in the kindest way imaginable, and with so earnest appearance of desiring my good, and that of the church, that, although I thought he urged matters a little too much, yet my respect for him and love to him rather increased than diminished. No man had made me so much his confidant, and consequently no man was so much mine. What he proved to be, finally, I will tell in the next chapter. CHAPTER XII. It was the universal custom of the people, in the strait days of my youth, to keep the annual day of fasting literally, so far as to abstain from a dinner. Nothing was eaten between breakfast and sundown, except, perchance, a light luncheon, in the interval between the morning and evening services. It was not uncommon, however, to compensate for this extraordinary abstinence by a supper as extraordinary; and the meat and pudding, which had been refused at noon, were devoured with a keener appetite in the evening. It was thought that the whole duty was performed, if the body were but mortified during daylight. There were some in my parish who had departed from this custom. Mr. Dunbar came to me in the week preceding fast, in the spring following my ordination, lamenting the decay of ancient manners, and begging me to urge, in my next sermon, the importance of a literal fast. He said much of the aid which devout men had derived from it in all ages, the profoundness it gave to their contemplations, and how it aided their prayers and spiritual-mindedness; he insisted that self-mortification was necessary to growth in grace, and that we were in danger, from employing it too little, of becoming entirely devoted to our animal and sensual nature. I replied that I had no doubt of all this, and that such had been, and would be, the efficacy of fasting, when it was voluntary. He that will, from religious motives, and the desire of holy meditation, deny his appetite, and spend his dining hour in devotion, will, unquestionably, find it profitable. But, if the fast be kept by compulsion, or from no better motive, at bottom, than that it is the custom, then it will probably be unprofitable, and will hinder, instead of promoting, the devotion of the day. Besides, I added, temperance is a better aid to the powers of the mind than abstinence; and, moreover, they who abstain at noon are very likely to revel at night; and in that case, whatever good may have been wrought is more than lost. Mr. Dunbar said he was aware that the day oftentimes ended in festivity and indulgence; but, for his part, he abhorred it; in his own family, the supper was always frugal and religious; and he wished that I would attack this crying sin as well as the other. 66 Or, at least," said he, coming at last to the point at which he had all along been aiming, "if you do not think right to preach, I wish you would speak a word of quiet advice to Mr. Ellerton; for his example goes a great way; and it is a sinful thing that he should cook and eat on fast day just as on any other day. He makes no difference in the world. And what will become of religion and the church, if such men are to lead astray the simple people by their example? A good moral man, to be sure, and the world speaks well of him. But no man can say that he has ever experienced religion; and I am sure, for one, that he is an Arian at heart, if not a Deist. Indeed, I think he ought to be brought before the church, and not tolerated in quiet any longer. There is no knowing what mischief his i example may do; and our fidelity to the Head of the church requires that we cut him off." Mr. Dunbar had more than once before spoken to the prejudice of Mr. Ellerton, but never so explicitly as now. I did not altogether like the tone in which he continued to enlarge, and at last replied, that, even if I thought lukewarmness, and suspected error, proper subjects of church interference, yet I was too much a stranger in the place to promote any such objects now. And as for the matter of fasting, I could not interfere at all; for I intended myself to take my usual meals. He left me evidently disappointed. On the day of the fast, there was observed in him a studied appearance of rigor and melancholy, and every external manifestation of suffering for sin, and absorption in divine meditation. He was of a "sad countenance, and disfigured his face." In the evening according, as it was ascertained, to his usual custom —a sumptuous supper was provided. He ate and drank to excess, and died the next day in consequence of the surfeit. The shock my mind received on learning these circumstances may be easily conceived; much more so, when the whole history and character of the man were revealed. Не was discovered to have been altogether unprincipled in his transactions with men, artful, and fraudulent, and sensual; so that, in a word, for I cannot enlarge on so unpleasant a theme,―his name became a by-word in the village, and never -- |