PART VII. MRS. INCLE'S STORY.

"I left your house, dear father," said Mrs. Incle, "with a heart full of vain triumph. I had no doubt but my husband was a great man, who put on that disguise to obtain my hand. Judge, then, what I felt to find that he was a needy impostor, who wanted my money, but did not care for me. This discovery, though it mortified, did not humble me. I had neither affection to bear with the man who had deceived me, nor religion to improve by the disappointment. I have found that change of circumstances does not change the heart, till God is pleased to do it. My misfortune only taught me to rebel more against him. I thought God unjust; I accused my father, I was envious of my sister, I hated my husband; but never once did I blame myself.

"My husband picked up a wretched subsistence by joining himself to any low scheme of idle pleasure that was going on. He would follow a mountebank, carry a dice-box, or fiddle at the fair. He was always taunting me for that gentility on which I so much valued myself. 'If I had married a poor working girl,' said he, 'she could now have got her bread; but a fine lady without money is a disgrace to herself, a burden to her husband, and a plague to society.' Every trial which affection might have made lighter, we doubled by animosity; at length my husband was detected in using false dice; he fought with his accuser, both were seized by a press-gang, and sent to sea. I was now left to the wide world; and miserable as I had thought myself before, I soon found there were higher degrees of misery. I was near my time, without bread for myself, or hope for my child. I set out on foot in search of the village where I had heard my husband say his friends lived. It was a severe trial to my proud heart to stoop to those low people; but hunger is not delicate, and I was near perishing. My husband's parents received me kindly, saying, that though they had nothing but what they earned by their labor, yet I was welcome to share their hard fare; for they trusted that God who sent mouths would send meat also. They gave me a small room in their cottage, and furnished me with many necessaries, which they denied themselves."

"O! my child!" interrupted Bragwell, "every word cuts me to the heart. These poor people gladly gave thee of their little, while thy rich parents left thee to starve."

"How shall I own," continued Mrs. Incle, "that all this goodness could not soften my heart; for God had not yet touched it. I received all their kindness as a favor done to them; and thought them sufficiently rewarded for their attentions by the rank and merit of their daughter-in-law. When my father brought me home any little dainty which he could pick up, and my mother kindly dressed it for me, I would not condescend to eat it with them, but devoured it sullenly in my little garret alone, suffering them to fetch and carry every thing I wanted. As my haughty behavior was not likely to gain their affection, it was plain they did not love me; and as I had no notion that there were any motives to good actions but fondness, or self-interest, I was puzzled to know what could make them so kind to me; for of the powerful and constraining law of Christian charity I was quite ignorant. To cheat the weary hours, I looked about for some books, and found, among a few others of the same cast, 'Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.' But all those sort of books were addressed to sinners; now as I knew I was not a sinner, I threw them away in disgust. Indeed, they were ill suited to a taste formed by plays and novels, to which reading I chiefly trace my ruin; for, vain as I was, I should never have been guilty of so wild a step as to run away, had not my heart been tainted and my imagination inflamed by those pernicious books.

"At length my little George was born. This added to the burden I had brought on this poor family, but it did not diminish their kindness, and we continued to share their scanty fare without any upbraiding on their part, or any gratitude on mine. Even this poor baby did not soften my heart; I wept over him, indeed, day and night, but they were tears of despair; I was always idle, and wasted those hours in sinful murmurs at his fate, which I should have employed in trying to maintain him. Hardship, grief, and impatience, at length brought on a fever. Death seemed now at hand, and I felt a gloomy satisfaction in the thought of being rid of my miseries, to which I fear was added a sullen joy, to think that you, sir, and my mother, would be plagued to hear of my death when it would be too late; and in this your grief I anticipated a gloomy sort of revenge. But it pleased my merciful God not to let me thus perish in my sins. My poor mother-in-law sent for a good clergyman, who pointed out the danger of dying in that hard and unconverted state, so forcibly, that I shuddered to find on what a dreadful precipice I stood. He prayed with me and for me so earnestly, that at length God, who is sometimes pleased to magnify his own glory in awakening those who are dead in trespasses and sins, was pleased of his free grace, to open my blind eyes, and soften my stony heart. I saw myself a sinner, and prayed to be delivered from the wrath of God, in comparison of which the poverty and disgrace I now suffered appeared as nothing. To a soul convinced of sin, the news of a Redeemer was a joyful sound. Instead of reproaching Providence, or blaming my parents, or abusing my husband, I now learned to condemn myself, to adore that God who had not cut me off in my ignorance, to pray for pardon for the past, and grace for the time to come. I now desired to submit to penury and hunger, so that I might but live in the fear of God in this world, and enjoy his favor in the next. I now learned to compare my present light sufferings, the consequence of my own sin, with those bitter sufferings of my Saviour, which he endured for my sake, and I was ashamed of murmuring. But self-ignorance, conceit, and vanity were so rooted in me, that my progress was very gradual, and I had the sorrow to feel how much the power of long bad habits keeps down the growth of religion in the heart, even after the principle itself has begun to take root. I was so ignorant of divine things, that I hardly knew words to frame a prayer; but when I got acquainted with the Psalms, I there learned how to pour out the fullness of my heart, while in the gospel I rejoiced to see what great things God had done for my soul.

"I now took down once more from the shelf 'Doddridge's Rise and Progress;' and oh! with what new eyes did I read it! I now saw clearly, that not only the thief and the drunkard, the murderer and the adulterer are sinners, for that I knew before! but I found out that the unbeliever, the selfish, the proud, the worldly-minded, all, in short, who live without God in the world, are sinners. I did not now apply the reproofs I met with to my husband, or my father, or other people, as I used to do; but brought them home to myself. In this book I traced, with strong emotions and close self-application, the sinner through all his course; his first awakening, his convictions, repentance, joys, sorrows, backsliding, and recovering, despondency, and delight, to a triumphant death-bed; and God was pleased to make it a chief instrument in bringing me to himself. Here it is," continued Mrs. Incle, untying her little bundle, and taking out a book; "accept it, my dear father, and I will pray that God may bless it to you, as He has done to me.

"When I was able to come down, I passed my time with these good old people, and soon won their affection. I was surprised to find they had very good sense, which I never had thought poor people could have; but, indeed, worldly persons do not know how much religion, while it mends the heart, enlightens the understanding also. I now regretted the evenings I had wasted in my solitary garret, when I might have passed them in reading the Bible with these good folks. This was their refreshing cordial after a weary day, which sweetened the pains of want and age. I one day expressed my surprise that my unfortunate husband, the son of such pious parents, should have turned out so ill: the poor old man said with tears, 'I fear we have been guilty of the sin of Eli; our love was of the wrong sort. Alas! like him, we honored our son more than God, and God has smitten us for it. We showed him by our example, what was right; but through a false indulgence, we did not correct him for what was wrong. We were blind to his faults. He was a handsome boy, with sprightly parts: we took too much delight in these outward things. He soon got above our management, and became vain, idle, and extravagant; and when we sought to restrain him, it was then too late. We humbled ourselves before God; but he was pleased to make our sin become its own punishment. Timothy grew worse and worse, till he was forced to abscond for a misdemeanor, after which we never saw him, but have often heard of him changing from one idle way of life to another; unstable as water, he has been a footman, a soldier, a shopman, a gambler, and a strolling actor. With deep sorrow we trace back his vices to our ungoverned fondness; that lively and sharp wit, by which he has been able to carry on such a variety of wild schemes, might, if we had used him to bear reproof in his youth, have enabled him to have done great service for God and his country. But our flattery made him wise in his own conceit; and there is more hope of a fool than of him. We indulged our own vanity, and have destroyed his soul.'"

Here Mr. Worthy stopped Mrs. Incle, saying, that whenever he heard it lamented that the children of pious parents often turned out so ill, he could not help thinking that there must be frequently something of this sort of error in the bringing them up; he knew, indeed, some instances to the contrary, in which the best means had failed; but he believed, that from Eli, the priest, to Incle, the laborer, much more than half the failures of this sort might be traced to some mistake, or vanity, or bad judgment, or sinful indulgence in the parents.

"I now looked about," continued Mrs. Incle, "in order to see in what I could assist my poor mother; regretting more heartily than she did, that I knew no one thing that was of any use. I was so desirous of humbling myself before God and her, that I offered even to try to wash." "You wash!" exclaimed Bragwell, starting up with great emotion, "Heaven forbid, that with such a fortune and education, Miss Bragwell should be seen at a washing-tub." This vain father, who could bear to hear of her distresses and her sins, could not bear to hear of her washing. Mr. Worthy stopped him, saying, "As to her fortune, you know you refused to give her any; and as to her education, you see it had not taught her how to do any thing better; I am sorry you do not see in this instance, the beauty of Christian humility. For my own part I set a greater value on such an active proof of it, than on a whole volume of professions." Mr. Bragwell did not quite understand this, and Mrs. Incle went on. "What to do to get a penny I knew not. Making of filagree, or fringe, or card-purses, or cutting out paper, or dancing and singing was of no use in our village. The shopkeeper, indeed, would have taken me, if I had known any thing of accounts; and the clergyman could have got me a nursery-maid's place, if I could have done good plain work. I made some awkward attempts to learn to spin and knit, when my mother's wheel or knitting lay by, but I spoiled both through my ignorance. At last I luckily thought upon the fine netting I used to make for my trimmings, and it struck me that I might turn this to some little account. I procured some twine, and worked early and late to make nets for fishermen, and cabbage-nets. I was so pleased that I had at last found an opportunity to show my good will by this mean work, that I regretted my little George was not big enough to contribute his share to our support, by traveling about to sell my nets."

"Cabbage-nets!" exclaimed Bragwell; "there's no bearing this. Cabbage-nets! My grandson hawk cabbage-nets! How could you think of such a scandalous thing?" "Sir," said Mrs. Incle, mildly, "I am now convinced that nothing is scandalous which is not wicked. Besides, we were in want; and necessity, as well as piety, would have reconciled me to this mean trade." Mr. Bragwell groaned, and bade her go on.

"In the mean time my little George grew a fine boy; and I adored the goodness of God who in the sweetness of maternal love, had given me a reward for many sufferings. Instead of indulging a gloomy distrust about the fate of this child, I now resigned him to the will of God. Instead of lamenting because he was not likely to be rich, I was resolved to bring him up with such notions as might make him contented to be poor. I thought if I could subdue all vanity and selfishness in him, I should make him a happier man than if I had thousands to bestow on him; and I trusted that I should be rewarded for every painful act of self-denial, by the future virtue and happiness of my child. Can you believe it, my dear father, my days now passed not unhappily? I worked hard all day, and that alone is a source of happiness beyond what the idle can guess. After my child was asleep at night, I read a chapter in the Bible to my parents, whose eyes now began to fail them. We then thanked God over our frugal supper of potatoes, and talked over the holy men of old, the saints, and the martyrs who would have thought our homely fare a luxury. We compared our peace, and liberty, and safety, with their bonds, and imprisonment, and tortures; and should have been ashamed of a murmur. We then joined in prayer, in which my absent parents and my husband were never forgotten, and went to rest in charity with the whole world, and at peace with our own souls."

"Oh! my forgiving child!" interrupted Mr. Bragwell, sobbing; "and didst thou really pray for thy unnatural father? and didst thou lay thee down in rest and peace? Then, let me tell thee, thou wast better off than thy mother and I were. But no more of this; go on."

"Whether my father-in-law had worked beyond his strength, in order to support me and my child, I know not, but he was taken dangerously ill. While he lay in this state, he received an account that my husband was dead in the West Indies of the yellow fever, which has carried off such numbers of our countrymen; we all wept together, and prayed that his awful death might quicken us in preparing for our own. This shock joined to the fatigue of nursing her sick husband, soon brought my poor mother to death's door. I nursed them both, and felt a satisfaction in giving them all I had to bestow, my attendance, my tears, and my prayers. I, who was once so nice and so proud, so disdainful in the midst of plenty, and so impatient under the smallest inconvenience, was now enabled to glorify God by my activity and by my submission. Though the sorrows of my heart were enlarged, I cast my burden on Him who cares for the weary and heavy-laden. After having watched by these poor people the whole night, I sat down to breakfast on my dry crust and coarse dish of tea, without a murmur: my greatest grief was, lest I should bring away the infection to my dear boy; for the fever was now become putrid. I prayed to know what it was my duty to do between my dying parents and my helpless child. To take care of the sick and aged, seemed to be my first duty; so I offered up my child to Him who is the father of the fatherless, and He in mercy spared him to me.

"The cheerful piety with which these good people breathed their last, proved to me that the temper of mind with which the pious poor commonly meet death, is the grand compensation made them by Providence for all the hardships of their inferior condition. If they have had few joys and comforts in life already, and have still fewer hopes in store, is not all fully made up to them by their being enabled to leave this world with stronger desires of heaven, and without those bitter regrets after the good things of this life, which add to the dying tortures of the worldly rich? To the forlorn and destitute, death is not so terrible as it is to him who sits at ease in his possessions, and who fears that this night his soul shall be required of him."

Mr. Bragwell felt this remark more deeply than his daughter meant he should. He wept, and bade her proceed.

"I followed my departed parents to the same grave, and wept over them, but not as one who had no hope. They had neither houses nor lands to leave me, but they had left me their Bible, their blessing, and their example, of which I humbly trust I shall feel the benefits when all the riches of this world shall have an end. Their few effects, consisting of some poor household goods, and some working-tools, hardly sufficed to pay their funeral expenses. I was soon attacked with the same fever, and saw myself, as I thought, dying the second time; my danger was the same, but my views were changed. I now saw eternity in a more awful light than I had done before, when I wickedly thought death might be gloomily called upon as a refuge from every common trouble. Though I had still reason to be humble on account of my sin, yet, by the grace of God, I saw death stripped of his sting and robbed of his terrors, through him who loved me, and gave himself for me; and in the extremity of pain, my soul rejoiced in God my Saviour.

"I recovered, however, and was chiefly supported by the kind clergyman's charity. When I felt myself nourished and cheered by a little tea or broth, which he daily sent me from his own slender provision, my heart smote me, to think how I had daily sat down at home to a plentiful dinner, without any sense of thankfulness for my own abundance, or without inquiring whether my poor sick neighbors were starving: and I sorrowfully remembered, that what my poor sister and I used to waste through daintiness, would now have comfortably fed myself and child. Believe me, my dear mother, a laboring man who has been brought low by a fever, might often be restored to his work some weeks sooner, if on his recovery he was nourished and strengthened by a good bit from a farmer's table. Less than is often thrown to a favorite spaniel would suffice; so that the expense would be almost nothing to the giver, while to the receiver it would bring health, and strength, and comfort, and recruited life. And it is with regret I must observe, that young women in our station are less attentive to the comforts of the poor, less active in visiting the cottages of the sick, less desirous of instructing the young, and working for the aged, than many ladies of higher rank. The multitude of opportunities of this sort which we neglect, among the families of our father's distressed tenants and workmen, will, I fear, one day appear against us.

"By the time I was tolerably recovered, I was forced to leave the house. I had no human prospect of assistance. I humbly asked of God to direct my steps, and to give me entire obedience to his will. I then cast my eye mournfully on my child; and, though prayer had relieved my heart of a load which without it would have been intolerable, my tears flowed fast, while I cried out in the bitterness of my soul, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger. This text appeared a kind of answer to my prayer, and gave me courage to make one more attempt to soften you in my favor. I resolved to set out directly to find you, to confess my disobedience, and to beg a scanty pittance with which I and my child might be meanly supported in some distant county, where we should not, by our presence, disgrace our more happy relations. We set out and traveled as fast as my weak health and poor George's little feet and ragged shoes would permit. I brought a little bundle of such work and necessaries as I had left, by selling which we subsisted on the road." "I hope," interrupted Bragwell, "there were no cabbage-nets in it?" "At least," said her mother, "I hope you did not sell them near home?" "No; I had none left," said Mrs. Incle, "or I should have done it. I got many a lift in a wagon for my child and my bundle, which was a great relief to me, as I should have had both to carry. And here I can not help saying, I wish drivers would not be too hard in their demands; if they help a poor sick traveler on a mile or two, it proves a great relief to weary bodies and naked feet; and such little cheap charities may be considered as the cup of cold water, which, if given on right grounds, shall not lose its reward." Here Bragwell sighed to think that when mounted on his fine bay mare, or driving his neat chaise, it had never once crossed his mind that the poor way-worn foot traveler was not equally at his ease, nor had it ever occurred to him that shoes were a necessary accommodation. Those who want nothing are apt to forget how many there are who want every thing. Mrs. Incle went on; "I got to this village about seven this morning; and while I sat on the church-yard wall to rest and meditate how I should make myself known at home, I saw a funeral; I inquired whose it was, and learned it was my sister's. This was too much for me, and I sank down in a fit, and knew nothing that happened to me from that moment, till I found myself in the work-house with my father and Mr. Worthy."

Here Mrs. Incle stopped. Grief, shame, pride, and remorse, had quite overcome Mr. Bragwell. He wept like a child, and said he hoped his daughter would pray for him; for that he was not in a condition to pray for himself, though he found nothing else could give him any comfort. His deep dejection brought on a fit of sickness. "O! said he, I now begin to feel an expression in the sacrament which I used to repeat without thinking it had any meaning, the remembrance of my sins is grievous, the burden of them is intolerable. O! it is awful to think what a sinner a man may be, and yet retain a decent character! How many thousands are in my condition, taking to themselves all the credit of their prosperity, instead of giving God the glory! heaping up riches to their hurt, instead of dealing their bread to the hungry! O! let those who hear of the Bragwell family, never say that vanity is a little sin. In me it has been the fruitful parent of a thousand sins—selfishness, hardness of heart, forgetfulness of God. In one of my sons vanity was the cause of rapine, injustice, extravagance, ruin, self-murder. Both my daughters were undone by vanity, thought it only wore the more harmless shape of dress, idleness, and dissipation. The husband of my daughter Incle it destroyed, by leading him to live above his station, and to despise labor. Vanity insnared the souls even of his pious parents, for while it led them to wish their son in a better condition, it led them to allow such indulgences as were unfit for his own. O! you who hear of us, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God; resist high thoughts; let every imagination be brought into obedience to the Son of God. If you set a value on finery look into that grave; behold the moldering body of my Betsy, who now says to Corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother, and my sister. Look to the bloody and brainless head of her husband. O, Mr. Worthy, how does Providence mock at human foresight! I have been greedy of gain, that the son of Mr. Squeeze might be a great man; he is dead; while the child of Timothy Incle, whom I had doomed to beggary, will be my heir. Mr. Worthy, to you I commit this boy's education; teach him to value his immortal soul more, and the good things of this life less than I have done. Bring him up in the fear of God, and in the government of his passions. Teach him that unbelief and pride are at the root of all sin. I have found this to my cost. I trusted in my riches; I said, 'To-morrow shall be as this day and more abundant.' I did not remember that for all these things God would bring me to judgment. I am not sure that I believe in a judgment: I am not sure that I believe in a God."

Bragwell at length grew better, but he never recovered his spirits. The conduct of Mrs. Incle through life was that of an humble Christian. She sold all her sister's finery which her father had given her, and gave the money to the poor; saying, "It did not become one who professed penitence to return to the gayeties of life." Mr. Bragwell did not oppose this; not that he had fully acquired a just notion of the self-denying spirit of religion, but having a head not very clear at making distinctions, he was never able after the sight of Squeeze's mangled body, to think of gayety and grandeur, without thinking at the same time of a pistol and bloody brains; for, as his first introduction into gay life had presented him with all these objects at one view, he never afterward could separate them in his mind. He even kept his fine beaufet of plate always shut; because it brought to his mind the grand unpaid-for sideboard that he had seen laid out for Mr. Squeeze's supper, to the remembrance of which he could not help tacking the idea of debts, prisons, executions, and self-murder.

Mr. Bragwell's heart had been so buried in the love of the world, and evil habits had become so rooted in him, that the progress he made in religion was very slow; yet he earnestly prayed and struggled against sin and vanity; and when his unfeeling wife declared she could not love the boy unless he was called by their name instead of Incle, Bragwell would never consent, saying he stood in need of every help against pride. He also got the letter which Squeeze wrote just before he shot himself, framed and glazed; this he hung up in his chamber, and made it a rule to go and read it as often as he found his heart disposed to vanity.