SABBATH MUSINGS.

III.

A DEATH CHAMBER.

What an

THIS weary watch! In watching by the couch of another there is no weariness; but this lonely tending of one's own sick heart is more than the worn spirit can bear. age of woe since the midnight clock gave warning that my first day of loneliness was beginning, — to others a Sabbath, -to me a day of expiation! At last, yonder beacon, with its revolving lights, begins to grow red and rayless before the dawn. Now it looks more like what it is, - made up of earthly fires. Waxing, waning, waxing again without intermission in the perfect silence, they have been distracting to my sense; they have seemed conscious; they have been like spies upon my privacy. That leaden sea! If storms would rouse it, and scatter that fleet which is just visible, gliding in an unbroken line, like a troop of spirits retiring before the dawn; if the trees in the churchyard could stoop above the tombs, instead of standing like spectres, side by side; if even the hour would strike, I could cast off something of this load.

But shall it ever be cast off? All is dull, dreary, chill before me till I also can escape to the region where there is no bereavement, no blasting root and branch, no rending of the heart strings. What is it to me now that our freedom there springs from oppression here; our joy there from our sorrow here? What is it to me in the midst of this all-pervading, thrilling torture, when all I want is to be dead? The future is loathsome, and I will not look upon it. The past too, which it breaks my heart to part with, what has it been? It might have been happy, if there is such a thing

as happiness; but I myself embittered it at the time, and

for ever. - What a life of folly has mine been! Multitudes of sins now rise up in the shape of besetting griefs. Looks of rebuke from those now in the grave: thoughts which they would have rebuked if they had known them: moments of anger, of coldness; sympathy withheld when looked for: repression of its signs through selfish pride; and worse, far worse even than this. . . . . . All comes over me now. O! if there be pity, if there be pardon, let it come in the form of insensibility; for these long echoes of condemnation will make me desperate.

.....

If it were not for this, bereavement might be borne. The loneliness would not be perpetual, for the departed would incessantly return to revive the innocent mourner with a familiar presence and animating words; an ancient pres

ence, and words of transient breath, but still and ever real. But are any thus innocent? Was there ever human love unwithered by crime, - by crimes of which no law takes cognizance but the unwritten, everlasting laws of the affections? Many will call me thus innocent: many will speak of consolation springing from the past: the departed breathed out thanks and blessing, and I felt them not then as reproaches. If, indeed, I am only as others, shame, shame on the impurity of human affections! Or rather, alas for the infirmity of the human heart! for I know not that I could love more than I have loved. Since the love itself is wrecked, let me gather up its relics, and guard them more tenderly, more steadily, more gratefully. This seems to open glimpses of O grant me power to retain them all, — the light peace. and music of emotion, the flow of domestic wisdom and chastened mirth, the life-long watchfulness of benevolence, the solemn utterance of prayer, the thousand thoughts. . . .... Are these gone in their reality? Must I forget them as all others forget?

...

Just now I longed for sound, and it comes all too soon. The twittering swallows are up to see the first sunbeam touch the steeple. The beacon revolves no longer it goes out, and the sun is come. What a flood of crimson light! It mocks me, for there is no one to look on it with me. If it were any day but this, I should see life in the fields. Yesterday at this hour, the mower was beneath the window; and as he whetted his scythe, the echoes gave back the sound cheerily to the watcher and the watched after dreary hours, which yet were bright compared with this. To-morrow I shall see the haymakers in the field; but now the high grass is undisturbed by scythe or breeze. The morning breezes seem to be subject to the Sabbath. The gossamer shines, but does not gleam. I will look no more, for all is too bright for the desolate of heart.

Was it thus with the mourners who went out towards dawn on the first day of the week? Not knowing what that day should bring forth, did the golden sunrise of Judea strike into them a prophetic joy, or spread a heavy pall upon their hopes? How eloquent is the silence of that tale respecting the feelings of the mourners, and their transmutations into opposite feeling! The dreary Sabbath is passed over without notice; but how wretched must have been its uncertainty,— the utter irreconcilableness of the past with the present, the war between devoted affections and disappointed hopes, between the imperishable conviction of the fidelity of the departed, and the inexplicable failure of all expectations connected with him! The Sabbath rites must have been cold and dry, and all a blank where Jesus was not. Yet not wholly a blank; for they could mourn with one another, and search together for some interpretation of the promises of God which should restore their shaken trust. Then, the next day, what shame that their trust had been shaken; what a bright recognition of design; what knowledge, what

wisdom to have gained in a day!— Yet I have sometimes thought that we are more privileged in looking back on that day, the brightest star in the firmament of time — than they in seeing it arise out of the chaos of their emotions. We have a clearer understanding of the whole event, a less tumultuous strife of passions; we are capable of a calmer exercise of faith; we have a knowledge of the results; so that, if we loved Jesus as they loved him....... but we do not thus love him the love is of a different kind; and if I were to see my departed one, that insensible, wasted form standing before me as it has been wont to stand, with whom would I exchange my joy? Strange! that I never understood the story of the Resurrection till now.

Why, knowing what I did, from the beginning, of death and sorrow, their immediate pressure and ultimate design, was I thus slow in understanding? Why, having been early and perpetually warned, was I so unprepared; why were my anticipations so utterly inadequate? Night after night for years have we together talked of death as we stood looking up into the blue vault; morn after morn for years have we looked on those green mounds, and chosen in imagination between a grave in the turf and a grave in the deep; a grave within domestic bounds and a grave in foreign lands. Long has each meditated survivorship: often has each acknowledged that heart-searching grief was an element of peace which ought to be welcomed; an impulse of the spirit whose reaction must be joy. Constantly have we watched for it: anxiously did the one give warning that it was at hand; faithfully did the other promise that it should be calmly borne. But now,- how is it? The spirit is wholly infirm; the will paralyzed; the judgment swayed from its balance. It is either thus, or my estimate of all things has hitherto been false. How shall strength or peace arise out of a ruin like this? Hush, impious doubts! Who can understand

the things of the spirit but He who made the spirit? And am I even now without evidence that my former, my firmer faith was right? Has no strength, no peace visited my thoughts since the dawn first broke? Have I not been reminded of the Resurrection?

If the remembrance of one event can thus soothe, may not a long series of experiences communicate peace? Insignificant in comparison as each circumstance may be, must it therefore be weak in its influences? God himself is the life of all influences. It is not possible then to lose all; and however the structure of happiness may be overthrown, the materials remain to be built up again. And not necessarily in a different form. If it were so, I would say, "Let them lie. I will sit for evermore among the ruins:" but the same structure may again arise, less bright, less beautiful, but a fit retreat for the remembrances and devotions of the spirit. It may be found an ungrateful mistake to suppose that there is no alternative between remediless grief and a new and uncongenial good. What are the elements of the deepest earthly peace? Influences from one beloved, the conscious spirit on which they act, and the eternal benignant presence through which they operate. If that presence should become more evidently benignant through compassion for the mourner, if the mourner should, through a new experience, become more apt to discern invisible things, and to rely on a veiled protection, should the inner soul thus become more richly endowed, the shadows of the past may have as great power as their substance ever had, and the spirit of human love may ever be nigh, invested with a majesty worthy to succeed the lustre of its mortal days. Thus may the dreams of the night be to me instead of communings face to face beneath the stars; and the whispers of holy thoughts which breathe from those sacred walls may be as animating as the sympathies which led us to the house of God in company.