CHAPTER XLVI.

IN ANOTHER CHURCH.

While thus one body of Christian believers worshipped, another was assembled in the Methodist chapel in John Street, where Aunt Martha usually went.

A vast congregation crowded every part of the church. They swarmed upon the pulpit stairs, upon the gallery railings, and wherever a foot could press itself to stand, or room be found to sit. As the young preacher, Summerfield, rose in the pulpit, every eye in the throng turned to him and watched his slight, short figure--his sweet blue eye, and his face of earnest expression and a kind of fiery sweetness. He closed his eyes and lifted his hands in prayer; and the great responsibility of speaking to that multitude of human beings of their most momentous interests evidently so filled and possessed him, that in the prayer he seemed to yearn for strength and the gifts of grace so earnestly--he cried, so as if his heart were bursting, "Help, Lord, or I perish!" that the great congregation, murmuring with sobs, with gasps and sighs, echoed solemnly, as if it had but one voice, and it were muffled in tears, "Help, Lord, or I perish!"

When the prayer was ended a hymn was sung by all the people, to a quick, martial melody, and seemed to leave them nervously awake to whatever should be said. The preacher, with the sweet boyish face, began his sermon gently, and in a winning voice. There was a kind of caressing persuasion in his whole manner that magnetized the audience. He grew more and more impassioned as he advanced, while the people sat open-mouthed, and responding at intervals, "Amen!"

"Ah! sinner, sinner, it is he, our God, who shoots us through and through with the sharp sweetness of his power. It is our God who scatters the arrows of his wrath; but they are winged with the plumes of the dove, the feathers of softness, and the Gospel. Oh! the promises!

the promises!--Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Yes, patriarch of white hairs, of wasted cheeks, and tottering step! the burden bears you down almost to the ground to-day--into the ground to-morrow. Here stands the Judge to give you rest. Yes, mother of sad eyes and broken spirit! whose long life is a sorrowful vigil, waiting upon the coming of wicked sons, of deceitful daughters--weary, weary, and heavy laden with tribulation, here is the Comforter who shall give you rest. And you, young man, and you, young maiden, sitting here to-day in the plenitude of youth, and hope, and love, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, for the dark day cometh--yea, it is at hand!"

So fearfully did his voice, and look, and manner express apprehension, as if something were about to fall upon the congregation, that there was a sudden startled cry of terror. There were cries of "Lord! Lord! have mercy!" Smothered shrieks and sobs filled the air; pale faces stared at each other like spectres. People fell upon their knees, and cried out that they felt the power of the Lord. "My soul sinks in deep waters, Selah;" cried the preacher, "but they are the waters of grace and faith, and I am convicted of all my sins." Then pausing a moment, while the vast crowd swayed and shook with the tumult of emotion, with his arms outspread, the veins on his forehead swollen, and the light flashing in his eyes, he raised his arms and eyes to heaven, and said, with inexpressible sweetness, in tones which seemed to trickle with balm into the very soul, as soft spring rains ooze into the ground, "Yea, it is at hand, but so art thou! Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly; and when youth, and hope, and love have become dead weights and burdens in these young hearts, teach them how to feel the peace that passeth understanding. Draw them to thee, for they, wearily labor: they are heavily laden, gracious Father! Oh, give them rest!"

"Come!" he exclaimed, "freely come! It is the eternal spring of living water. It is your life, and it flows for you. Come! come! it is the good shepherd who calls his flock to wander by the still waters and in the green pastures. Will you abide outside? Then, woe! woe! when the night cometh, and the shepherd folds his flock, and you are not there. Will you seek Philosophy, and confide in that? It is a ravening wolf, and ere morning you are consumed. Will you lean on human pride--on your own sufficiency? It is a broken reed, and your fall will be forever fatal.

Will you say there is no God?"--his voice sank into a low, menacing whisper--"will you say there is no God?" He raised his hands warningly, and shook them over the congregation while he lowered his voice. "Hush!

hush! lest he hear--lest he mark--lest the great Jehovah"--his voice swelling suddenly into loud, piercing tones--"Maker of heaven and earth, Judge of the quick and the dead, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the eternal Godhead from everlasting to everlasting, should know that you, pitiable, crawling worm--that you, corrupt in nature and conceived in sin! child of wrath and of the devil! say that there is no God! Woe, woe! for the Judge cometh! Woe, woe! for the gnashing of teeth and the outer darkness! Woe, woe! for those who crucified him, and buffeted him, and pierced him with thorns! Woe, woe! for the Lord our God is a just God, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. But oh! when the day of mercy is past! Oh! for the hour--sinner, sinner, beware!

beware!--when that anger rises like an ingulfing fiery sea, and sweeps thee away forever!"

It seemed as if the sea had burst into the building; for the congregation half rose, and a smothered cry swept over the people. Many rose upright with clasped hands and cried, "Hallelujah!" "Praise be to God!" Others lay cowering and struggling upon the seats; others sobbed and gazed with frantic earnestness at the face of the young apostle. Children with frightened eyes seized the cold hands of their mothers. Some fainted, but could not be borne out, so solid was the throng. Their neighbors loosened their garments and fanned them, repeating snatches of hymns, and waiting for the next word of the preacher. "The Lord is dealing with his people,"

they said; "convicting sinners, and calling the lost sheep home."

The preacher stood as if lifted by an inward power, beholding with joy the working of the Word, but with a total unconsciousness of himself. The young man seemed meek and lowly while he was about his Father's business.

And after waiting for a few moments, the music of his voice poured out peace upon that awakened throng.

"'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Yes, fellow-sinners, rest. For all of us, rest. For the weariest, rest. For you who, just awakened, tremble in doubt, rest. For you, young woman, who despairest of heaven, rest. For you, young man, so long in the bondage of sin, rest. Oh! that I had the wings of a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. Brother, sister, it shall be so. To your weary soul those wings shall be fitted. Far from the world of grief and sin, of death and disappointment, you shall fly away. Deep in the bosom of your God, you shall be at rest. That dove is his holy grace.

Those wings are his tender promises. That rest is the peace of heaven.

"Come, O thou all-victorious Lord, Thy power to us make known; Strike with the hammer of thy word, And break these hearts of stone.

"Oh that we all might now begin Our foolishness to mourn; And turn at once from every sin, And to the Saviour turn.

"Give us ourselves and thee to know, In this our gracious day: Repentance unto life bestow, And take our sins away.

"Convince us first of unbelief, And freely then release; Fill every soul with sacred grief, And then with sacred peace."

CHAPTER XLVII.

DEATH.

The clover-blossom perfumed the summer air. The scythe and the sickle still hung in the barn. Grass and grain swayed and whispered and sparkled in the sun and wind. June loitered upon all the gentle hills, and peaceful meadows, and winding brook sides. June breathed in the sweet-brier that climbed the solid stone posts of the gate-way, and clustered along the homely country stone wall. June blossomed in the yellow barberry by the road-side, and in the bright rhodora and the pale orchis in the dark woods. June sang in the whistle of the robin swinging on the elm and the cherry, and the gushing warble of the bobolink tumbling, and darting, and fluttering in the warm meadow. June twinkled in the keen brightness of the fresh green of leaves, and swelled in the fruit buds. June clucked and crowed in the cocks and hens that stepped about the yard, followed by the multitudinous peep of little chickens.

June lowed in the cattle in the pasture. June sprang, and sprouted, and sang, and grew in all the sprouting and blooming, in all the sunny new life of the world.

White among the dark pine-trees stood the old house of Pinewood--a temple of silence in the midst of the teeming, overpowering murmur of new life; of silence and darkness in the midst of jubilant sunshine and universal song, that seemed to press against the very windows over which the green blinds were drawn.

But that long wave of rich life, as it glided across the lawn and in among the solemn pine-trees, was a little hushed and subdued. The birds sang in the trees beyond--the bobolinks gushed in the meadows below. But there was a little space of silence about the house.

In the large drawing-room, draped in cool-colored chintz, where once Gabriel Bennet and Abel Newt had seen Hope Wayne, on the table where books had lain like porcelain ornaments, lay a strange piece of furniture, long, and spreading at one end, smelling of new varnish, studded with high silver-headed nails, and with a lid. It was lined with satin. Yes, it was a casket.

The room was more formal, and chilly, and dim than ever. Puffs of air crept through it as if frightened--frightened to death before they got out again. The smell of the varnish was stronger than that of the clover-blossoms, or the roses or honey-suckles outside in the fields and gardens, and about the piazzas.

Upon the wall hung the portrait of Christopher Burt at the age of ten, standing in clean clothes, holding a hoop in one hand and a book in the other. It was sixty-four years before that the portrait was painted, and if one had come searching for that boy he would have found him--by lifting that lid he would have seen him; but in those sunken features, that white hair, that startling stillness of repose, would he have recognized the boy of the soft eyes and the tender heart, whose June clover had not yet blossomed?

There was a creaking, crackling sound upon the gravel in the avenue, and then a carriage emerged from behind the hedge, and another, and another.

They were family carriages, and stopped at the front door, which was swung wide open. There was no sound but the letting down of steps and slamming of doors, and the rolling away of wheels. People with grave faces, which they seemed to have put on for the occasion as they put on white gloves for weddings, stepped out and came up the steps. They were mostly clad in sober colors, and said nothing, or conversed in a low, murmuring tone, or in whispers. They entered the house and seated themselves in the library, with the large, solemn Family Bible, and the empty inkstand, and the clean pen-wiper, and the paper knife, and the melancholy recluses of books locked into their cells.

Presently some one would come to the door and beckon with his finger to some figure sitting in the silent library. The sitter arose and walked out quietly, and went with the beckoner and looked in at the lid, and saw what had once been a boy with soft eyes and tender heart. Coming back to the library the smell of varnish was for a moment blown out of the wide entry by the breath of the clover that wandered in, and reminded the silent company of the song and the sunshine and bloom that were outside.

At length every thing was waiting. No more carriages came--no more people. There was no more looking into the casket--no more whispering and moving. The rooms were full of a silent company, and they were all waiting. The clock ticked audibly. The wind rustled in the pine-trees.

What next? Would not the master of the house appear to welcome his guests?

He did not come; but from the upper entry, at the head of the stairs, near a room in which sat Hope Wayne, and Lawrence Newt, and Mrs. Simcoe, and Fanny Dinks, and Alfred, and his parents, and a few others, was heard the voice of Dr. Peewee, saying, "Let us pray!"

And he prayed a long prayer. He spoke of the good works of this life, and the sweet promises of the next; of the Christian hero, who fights the good fight encompassed by a crowd of witnesses; of those who do justice and love mercy, and walk in the way of the Lord. He referred to our dear departed brother, and eulogized Christian merchants, calling those blessed who, being rich, are almoners of the Lord's bounty. He prayed for those who remained, reminding them, that the Lord chastens whom he loves, and that they who die, although full of years and honors, do yet go where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, and at last pass beyond to enter into the joy of their Lord.

His voice ceased, and silence fell again upon the house. Every body sat quietly; the women fanned themselves, and the men looked about. Here was again the sense of waiting--of vague expectation. What next?

Three or four workmen went into the parlor. One of them put down the lid and screwed it tight. The casket was closed forever. They lifted it, and carried it out carefully down the steps. They rolled it into a hearse that stood upon the gravel, and the man who closed the lid buttoned a black curtain over the casket.

The same man went to the front door and read several names from a paper in a clear, dry voice. The people designated came down stairs, went out of the door, and stepped into carriages. The company rose in the library and drawing-room, and, moving toward the hall, looked at the mourners--at Hope Wayne and Mrs. Simcoe, at Mr. and Mrs. Budlong Dinks, Mr. and Mrs.

Alfred Dinks, and others, as they passed out.

Presently the procession began to move slowly along the avenue. Those who remained stepped out upon the piazza and watched it; then began to bustle about for their own carriages. One after another they drove away. Mr.

Kingo said to Mr. Sutler that he believed the will was in the hands of Mr. Budlong Dinks, and would be opened in the morning. They looked around the place, and remarked that Miss Wayne would probably become its mistress.

"Mrs. Alfred Dinks seems to be a very--a very--" said Mr. Kingo, gravely, pausing upon the last word.

"Very much so, indeed," replied Mr. Sutler, with equal gravity.

"And yet," said Mr. Grabeau, "if it had been so ordered that young Mr.

Dinks should marry his cousin, Miss Wayne, he would--that is, I suppose he would--;" and he too hesitated.

"Undoubtedly," replied both the other gentlemen, seriously, "without question it would have been a very good thing. Mr. Burt must have left a very large property."

"He made every cent tell," said Mr. Sutler, taking the reins and stepping into his carriage.

"Rather--rather--a screw, perhaps?" inquired Mr. Grabeau, gravely, as he took out his whip.

"Awful!" replied Mr. Kingo, as he drove away.

The last carriage went, and the stately old mansion stood behind its trees deserted. The casket and its contents had been borne away forever; but somebody had opened all the windows of the house, and June, with its song, and perfume, and sunshine, overflowed the silent chambers, and banished the smell of the varnish and every thought of death.