Page images
PDF
EPUB

the fire-place; the second is always, and a feeling of awe and reverence steals over me, towards that faded sampler. It has hung there for twenty, aye, thirty years, and no hand has ever touched it save that old man's, and no other's will while he lives, for the little hands that wrought it rested from their earthly labors ere it was half completed. She was his youngest darling, and that old man's heart lay down in the grave with her little silent form thirty years ago, and somehow, never seemed to rise again, for he was never the same afterwards.

He was my old pastor, and had been the pastor of my family for four successive generations. Those were the days when a pastor was really the father of his flock, and young and old looked up to him as to a superior being. Alas! for those good old times! My pastor is infirm and very aged, but his people still love to see him enter the pulpit of that ancient church whose first foundation stone he helped to lay, and whose destruction after seventy years of faithful occupation he is soon also about to behold. He will not survive it, nor does it seem best that he should, identified as it is with the whole long period of his ministerial life. He has failed more rapidly since it began to be talked of, and I remember that for two years he has regularly every Sabbath afternoon taken solemn farewell of his people, thinking he should never address them again! But I am standing before the picture. The pastor reaches out his thin, wrinkled hand for mine, and drawing me gently to his side, asks me a few pleasant questions, and then speaks of the young child who wrought the sampler, and who died at nearly my age. He tells me how remarkable she was in her goodness and her intelligence! how charmingly she talked and wrote, and how all loved and admired the Minister's little daughter. He tells me he wishes me to be like her, so intelligent, so good, so loving. He rises, goes slowly to the old escritoire, and, taking out a little bundle of letters returns to his chair, still holding my hand, which he has not for a moment relinquished. The letters are yellow with time, broken at the folds and almost obliterated. I can scarcely discern the traces of the pen, so faded is the ink; but dim as is his sight, he has no difficulty, for he had read them a thousand times and every line is daguerreotyped on his heart. They are from the dear child who wrought the sampler, written to her father while away at school, whither she

was sent after the death of her own mother, and were full of the love of a very loving little heart. He reads aloud as he has often done before, a great many passages and I listen to them for the twentieth time with the same reverential delight I felt at their first hearing. For I regard the writer as an angel who was too good for this earth, and know that whatever she wrote is better than any one had ever written before or will ever write again! At length he comes to the last one and his voice grows tremulous as he reads: "I am not well, dear papa, and I want to see you. I want to go home and be with you."

And then he folds the letter and tells me how he hurried on the wings of anxious affection to bring her home as she desired, and how weak and pale he found her, but oh, so delighted to see him! At length they started for home with the old family chaise and horse, which he had driven for more than twenty-five years, and had the true jog of the minister's horse; a jog which for the first time in many years he felt was slow, for the little pale face at his side was growing paler, and he repeatedly urged a quicker pace with the whip. A light stroke it was, but one that touched the heart of the little girl, for the old pony was a life-long playmate. "Don't whip poor Jenny, papa,' she repeatedly begged, and at last as the lash again touched the grizzled flanks, she burst out with a little sob," papa you hurt poor Jenny; and she can say, with good old Jacob, you bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave!"

"Ah! it was a keen reproach!" he tells me "the only one I ever remember from her patient lips.'

[ocr errors]

He then tells me that she ere long died, giv ing him at parting the little sampler she was working, and which he had preserved with the needle where she left it, and which next to her letters seem a part of herself, and will with them be buried in his grave.

Ah, well! He died many years ago, and his church and his cottage are both among the things that were; but it is a pleasure to remember my old pastor, whose communion I long since left, and to believe that he in a manner took me into his heart as if I had been the dear one he had lost.

The past has again vanished, and we look back on the memory we have recorded, and observe with a smile how easy it is to fall into the use of the pronoun I. It requires no

[merged small][ocr errors]

Reader, we have been making

EXPLORATONS AMONG OLD BOOKS.

We affect old books. Not, dear young lady, those books which you call old-last year's novel, or the book your mother loved before you were born-but those ancient and ponderous tomes which have slept out their centuries durance in Continental cloisters or in the dim recesses of some ancient London bookstore. We love the sight of their vellum covers, their huge brazen clasps, us we love the rich odor of the modern Russia binding. But more than these we love the quaint thoughts and language set forth as they are in quainter black letters. We confess the having often to wade through seas of mud to fish out a single gem, and for this reason our indulgence in this sort of explorations is not very frequent. We wish, however, to lay some of the fruits of a recent venture among old books before you, premising at the outset that they shall neither be tediously long or insufferably dull. Among the books of the cavaliers one has left to posterity the following nicely flavored morceau of Mental Philoshphy:

"Thoughts flow from the extensive Coasts of Memory, embark on the Sea of Imagination, arrive at the Port of Genius, to be registered at the custom-House of the Understanding." The learned writer refrains from telling us what duties these travelled thoughts pay; high ones, we presume, from the few taking that voyage that get into circulation in the community. But among the richest literary morceaus are those left us by the Covenanters. The following will strike our readers as altogether unique.

The High Sheriff of Oxford, in the exordial of an address to the students, presents them with this most delicate morceau which they no doubt found both palitable and edifying.

[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

grace Cavaliers and others of this ilk. The the book was written by Mr. Stand-Steadfaston-high Gordon," and published by Mr. Fightthe-good-Fight-of-faith Caxton," no doubt a lineal descendant of William Caxton the great English printer. The title of the book does no discredit to the euphonious names of the author and publisher, being "Eggs of Charity, layed by the Chickens of the Covenant, and boiled in the water of Divine Love. Take up and eat." Poultry seems to have been at premium in those days. But the oddest thing is a worldly production called "THE BOKE OF COLIN CLOUT." It is full of curious quibbles, odd rhymes, and strange alliterations and arrangements. author, Old John Skelton was an oddity in his way, fully aware of his weaknesses in a poetic way, and stranger still, does not fail to acknowledge them, frankly admitting that, "his rime is ragged, Tattered and iagged, Rudely rayne beaten, Rusty and mooth eaten."

Its

We dare say many of our readers will be satisfied that he proves his proposition in the verse in which he states it, and agreeing with quaint

[blocks in formation]

OLD STYLE HYMNS, Are no doubt familiar to most of our readers, but we cannot resist copying a few stanzas. To appreciate their full unction it is necessary to "deacon" them off line by line, singing them as they are read. Our grandmothers, have, no doubt, the following sung in that

manner.

touches of natural eloquence He lived to a great age; and in his last oration in council he opened with the following sublime and beautiful sentence:

'Brothers-I am an aged hemlock.

[ocr errors]

The

winds of an hundred winters have whistled through my branches, and I am dead at the top.' Every reader who has seen a tall hemlock, with a dry and leafless top surrounding its dark green foliage, will feel the force of the Down Aaron's beard it downward went, similie, “I am dead at the top." His memory His garment skirts unto." and all the vigorous powers of youth had departed for ever."

66 'Tis like the precious ointment Down Aaron's beard did go;

Another-a sort of exhortation to the whales, sharks, etc., as well as shiners, trout poggees and the like, is said like the preceding to have been absolutely sung before the days of Dr. Watts inaugurated a better style.

"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,
Your Maker's praises spout;
Up from the sands ye codlings peep
And wag your tails about."

We wonder if the truth of the following, with which we close the list, will appear on the present National contest:

"The race is not forever got

By him who fastest runs,
Nor the bat-tel to those peo-pel,

Who shoot with the longest guns."

As we watch the cloud shadows flitting over the spot where this chieftain lies, and think of all the doings that his hundred winters recorded, we are sad. This blooming valley and the paradise of his race, slowly and surely changing its features and passing away from under their feet, it must have filled the old man's heart with gall, Christian as he was. One who could express himself in such startling language as Skenandoah must have also felt keenly and tenderly. But he is gone and we are glad. He has left broad lands, forests no longer, to an encroaching, perhaps superior race, and if he is permitted to look back on this world, down the dim twilight of the past, and on to the undeveloped future, his enlarged spirit, we hope, beholds something to requite and comfort him for what his nation has lost. Yet what in the thought of general progress and improvement could overcome the anguish of knowing the utter degeneracy of his tribe? But peace to his ashes! Something there must be in the inscrutable purposes of God to reconcile all this. We gladly take leave of it.

Our correspondent sends us the following exquisite lines extracted from a poem by an English writer, entitled "The Last Prayer of Mary, Queen of Scots." We gladly give them

We imagine our readers have had enough of old books and old verses and we say a few words of OLD MEN. We are reminded every time we look out from our West window toward the eastern slope of College Hill the "hill of Sinai" of our village, of two ancient men who sleep there; and have slept there these sixty years, waiting for that awakening which is not to this world. The one was a devoted Missionary among the Indians, with whom all this region where we now live, was, bnt a few years ago, thickly peopled; and the other, sleeping reverently at his feet, was a chief, honored and beloved in his tribe, and a true convert to Christianity. His name was Skenandoah. He loved the man of God to whom he owed his conversion, as a son loves his father, and it was the great wish of his heart that his last sleep might be by his side. That wish was gratified, as after his death he was brought here by his tribe and with great ceremony laid by his friend whose device had pre-Oh! ceeded his. In an article on Indian eloquence published long since in one of our popular magazines, we find the following tribute to him. "Some of the speeches of Skenandoah, a celebrated Oneida Chief contain the truest

space.

A lovely mourner kneels in prayer before the
With white hands crossed for Jesus' sake, so
Virgin's fane,
her prayers may not be vain.
Wan is her cheek and very pale- her voice is
And tears are in her eyes, the while she makes
low and faint -
her humbie plaint.

little could you deem, from her sad and That she was once the Bride of France, and lowly mein, still was Scotland's Queen.

Oh!

Mary, mother' Mary mother! be my help and stay!

Be with me still as thou hast been, and strengthen me to-day!

[blocks in formation]

Time's ever-moving, blighting hand
Has furrowed that fair brow,
And many a silvery thread I trace
Amid those dark locks now.
More feeble is that once light step,
More dim those love-lit eyes,
Wherein a world of tenderness
And gentle goodness lies.

Her life has been a checkered scene
Of sorrow, Joy and care,
But cheerfully she bears the cross
That she the crown may wear.
O, be that sad and mournful day,
Far on the Future's shore,
When we with sorrowing hearts shall say,

Our mother is no more!"

Another effusion follows in quite another strain. It was written several years ago on the walls of the Hotel at Trenton Falls, and presents in a very graphic manner the sum total of the amount of most pleasure excursions. Here it is, and we have no doubt will be widely appreciated.

Our Sallie and I once sallied out

To take a ride around about,

me to be features of past ages, blessings which I knew a long time ago. I received a letter from last night, written under the supposition that we were to be ordered to the front, and the unaffected sorrow and anxiety she exhibited wrung the tears from my eyes. She spoke of you all, of the sorrowful parting in N. Y., of T.'s and F.'s going away, of your breaking up there, and of -'s failing health, and her anxiety. Dear me, will there ever be peace and rest and security again? I sometimes long inexpressibly for the rest and companionship of home, and my quiet, peaceful pursuits. Volunteers for the war are rapidly coming forward, and I think when our time is up there will be enough without us. I hope it may be so, for I should not feel at ease at home knowing that there was a lack of men to fight our battles. It seems to me the waiting armies must soon close with each other, and no one can calculate the issue. At present we are pleasantly encamped, but any disaster in the region may hurry us to the front, and then no one knows who may return. *

*

I have not been out of the camp since we marched here through the streets, nor do I care to go. The first night we were here we bivouaced in a meadow, and as I looked up at the stars from my bed in the dewy grass, I could not help contrasting it with the visit I made here just one year ago, and wondering whether the friends who were so hospitable then would greet me as kindly now. you all over and over again, of father, brown and cheery among his fields and crops, following the swaying mowers through the meadows, or listening to the clinking hoes in the cornfields; of you about the dairy fragrant of milk

* I think of

So we went, and went, and went, and went on, and spring-water, of A in the grass or Till we arrived at the Falls of Trenton,

Where we dined on trout,
And turned about,

And went, and went, and went, and went on,
Till we got home from the Falls of Trenton.

LETTERS FROM CAMP.

We are sometimes tempted to make an occasional extract from the letters received from our “Soldier-laddies," many of them containing little matters that perhaps a mother's partiality being umpire might find favor with our readers. At any rate they will forgive the intrusion if we present them two or three extracts now:

"You must be very lonely at home now. This breaking up of houses and families is the sad feature of war. Peace and quiet seem to

blessing her mother with the work, and grandma sitting in her room thinking over the past and dreading the revelations of the near future. How sorry I am that the nice little plan G. and I had made of living in our little cottage and having A. with us was so completely broken up. I thought we would have and that nothing would occur to trouble us, one of the pleasantest summers we ever had, that A. would have her play-house in the tent which I was going to set up in the pleasantest place I could find, and furnish with all sorts of tables and arrangements for housekeeping. What comfort we were to have with our garden, and how I meant to work about the paths and the vines, and drive out the weeds and the wildness that had encrouched upon our home

while it was tended by stranger-hands. But that pleasant dream is all dispelled, and strangers still sit about our hearth. I trust however there is much of happiness still stored up for us in the future, and, if not, why then we can be thankful for the golden years that are gone. G. and I must come out and see you soon after I get home. You know if you have no room for me I can sleep out under the currant-bushes just as well as anywhere else. In fact I quite distrust my ability to sleep in a Christian bed. We have slept on the ground thus far, but yesterday morning my Lieutenant and I appropriated some joists and made a bedstead for each of us before breakfast. So that now we are the envy of all the line officers, who are adopting our style as fast as they can steal the materials. Even the Col. sent to our tent to learn how our bedsteads are made.

* * *

[blocks in formation]

We are distressed at the dreadful things you make us say sometimes, and of which we are as innocent as the new-born babe. Par example. In the article, "Rural Cemeteries," in the last "Editor's Table," and near its close, you represent us as accusing death of" enticing our darlings," when we merely innocently remark on his "entering our dwellings.' We forbear quoting other examples not desiring to be overwhelming, only intreating somewhat more of care in the matter, and closing most respectfully.-ED.

A NAME.

[ocr errors]

What is there in the signature of a beloved name which makes it more precious than all the written words which precede it? What is there that makes it more bitter, when all is past and gone, to meet that name on the blank title page of a book, than to hear it spoken a thousand times in ordinary conversation, or to look over a hundred other memorials of lost happiness? Who does not pause at a name inscribed in a book, and gaze upon it as if it told the history of the years which have passed away since it was written. The hand which traced it may be grown feeble and trem

ulous with age, or may lie, cold and forgotten dust, in the grave. It may have become "An empty sound,

To which no living thing lays claim," but its magic power remains. Two syllables on that silent page make oath to us that a being was, with health, strength and reason; who hoped like ourselves, laughed like ourselves, and breathed the air we breathe. A name! It suffices to wile away broad lands and fair domains; to curse with life-long poverty, or bless with prosperity and wealth. A power lies there which mocks the grave, and the living obey the dead.

ALICE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF KONER. Must walk through shadows and through pain, He who success in love would gain, And who would win the highest good, Must boldly strive through storm and flood.

Here is a beautiful sentence from the pen of Coleridge. Nothing can be more eloquent, nothing more true.

"Call not that man wretched, who, whatever else he suffers as to pain inflicted, pleasure denied, has a child for whom he hopes and on whom he dotes. Poverty may grind him to the dust, obscurity may cast its dark mantle over him, his voice may be unheeded by those among whom he dwells, and his face may be unknown by his neighbors-even pain may rack his joints, and sleep flee from his pillow; but he has a gem with which he would not part for wealth defying computation, for fame filling a world's ear, for the highest beauty, for the sweetest sleep that ever fell on mortal's eye."

THE POSTMAN.

This portrait is an every-day picture of life, and yet not easy to paint. He is the very incarnation of alacrity, the embodied spirit of regularity and precision. Day by day, hour by hour, he is to be seen traversing with rapid step the limits of his own narrow district. The heavens may smile or frown, revolutions may shake the land, or peace and prosperity gladden its children. Disease may wave its pestilent hand, or sudden calamity sweep away its victims, but the postman is still at his post. A diurnal dispenser of news, a kind of hope in living, visiting every one in turn, and welcomed by all. A messenger of life and death, of gratified ambition or disappointed desire; of gracious acceptance or harsh refusal. He

« PreviousContinue »