A TRUE SKETCH
Reading edition
“Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise.”
Longfellow.
A venerable minister of Christ left his home one bright, beautiful Sabbath morning, for the house of God. He was riding a restless, fiery mountain colt, but had no fears of his ability to manage him, as he had been raised from early childhood, as it were, on a horse’s back, and feared the wildest animal as little as he did a playful kitten.
He had gone but a short distance on his way, when the horse, becoming frightened, made a sudden leap, and threw his rider headlong against the projecting points of a large rock lying near the roadside. The rock entered his skull, and in a few moments that aged father in Israel breathed his last, with no kind friend near to whisper words of consolation in his dying ear, or wipe the sweat of death from his patriarchal brow.
The anxious congregation waited long and impatiently for the appearance of their much-loved pastor, but he came not. His spirit had winged its way to that bright, happy land,
“Where congregations ne’er break up, And Sabbaths have no end.”
A portion of the congregation determined to find out the cause of his long, unusual delay, and accordingly set out along his accustomed road. After travelling several miles, what was their surprise and sorrow to find their grey-haired shepherd, who had so long and so cheerfully led them “beside the still waters, and through the green pastures,” who had taken the lambs of the flock in his bosom, and protected their tender little feet from the thorns which strew the pathway of childhood, lying stretched on the cold ground, a lifeless corpse. Many were the tears that moistened the noble brow of this man of God; bitter were the throbbings of stricken hearts that stood around the body of him who, Sabbath after Sabbath, had broken to them the Bread of Life.
There anxiously kneels at the side of her sainted father a little girl, whom they have failed to notice. What is she doing there? Come, gather closely around this scene, children, and look at one of your number. She heard the clattering of the horse’s feet as he hurried wildly from the spot where lay his lifeless corpse; she hastened quickly towards the church and reached her father only in time to hear the death-rattle in his throat, and see his brains all scattered over the ground. What does she do? She gathers them up, places them once more in his skull, and with her little hands endeavors to hold the shattered fragments together. But it is too late now. Dear, loving little Mary can’t recall the spirit of her departed parent back to earth; and the sorrowing members of that shepherdless flock bear her away to a home, around whose bright fireside and at whose morning and evening altar shall never again be heard the voice of one whom none knew but to love.
My young friends, I have witnessed and heard of many touching scenes, but for child-like innocence, and tender, loving affection, this surpasses them all.
I now leave you to learn the many lessons of affection and love this hasty sketch teaches, and hope you will not throw the book carelessly aside, and forget all about it; but think if you love your parents as fatherless little Mary loved hers.
THE SPIRIT OF THE DEPARTED.
I know thou art gone to thy home of rest; Then why should my soul be sad? I know thou art gone where the weary are blest, And the mourner looks up and is glad; Where Love has put off, in the land of its birth, The stain it had gathered in this, And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth, Lies asleep on the bosom of bliss.
Hervey.