"Edward Morton" Brownson's Quarterly Review for 1845

Edward Morton

*Edward Morton was a wealthy Protestant, who, because of his wealth and fame, fell into sin with women.  But he remembered a young woman, Katharine Howard, whom he loved.  He proposed to her, but there was one problem, she had become a Catholic and was not going to put up with his nonsense.  This is a lesson for those who are contemplating marriage.  

It is with melancholy pleasure that I sit down to record the few incidents of my short and unprofitable life. Mine is no remarkable story. I have lived pretty much unknown by the world; my presence has hardly been recognized, my absence will not be remarked. Few have cared for me, and have outlived nearly all whose affections I had won, or whose love gave to this mortal existence its charm. I am old and solitary before having passed the middle age of man. My work, such as it is, is done, and I am calmly waiting the hand of disease, which is heavy upon me, to release me from bondage.

My story is one of spiritual life. It is a tale of sin, of shame, of error, of grace resisted, of privileges neglected, divine admonitions unheeded, of self-will, of self-confidence, pride, vanity, and- I hope, of repentance, of submission, of humility, and of final forgiveness and reconciliation. What I am is known to Him who knoweth all, and if aught good, it is through his grace, not my merit. What I have been, I shudder to think, and yet must faithfully record, as the only atonement I can make for the past.

I was the only son of parents, who, if not distinguished for their wealth and fashion, were yet remarked for their high intellectual qualities, literary attainments, and social position. My mother was a woman of a lofty spirit, generous and noble sentiments, and tender affections. She loved her child, sought to cultivate his mind and heart, and to prepare him for a distinguished career in the world. My father was a clergyman, with some peculiarities, and, as it was generally said, eccentricities of doctrine and character. Yet he was a man of eminent ability, of stern integrity of character, of high and philanthropic aims, devoted to his calling, and faithful in the discharge of the duties of his sacred profession, according to his own understanding of them. The peculiar bent of his mind was speculative, and his preaching was of a philosophical cast. He had high notions of human ability, believed that man was endowed with all the natural and moral strength necessary to enable him to maintain a pure and consistent walk before God, to resist temptation, to avoid falling, and under all circumstances to maintain himself upright, and in his integrity. His great boast was, that he believed and preached a liberal and rational Christianity; that he had no respect for empty forms and ceremonies,- for creeds and confessions; and that he looked at a man’s daily walk, not at the form of worship he adopted. “Men,” he said, “are good under forms of worship, and bad under all. It is the man’s life that commends the creed and the worship, not the creed and the worship that commend the life. Show me what a man is and does, and I will ask you no questions concerning the doctrine he believes, or the church to which he belongs.”

In these views he educated his only son. I was taught to be honest, to give every one his due, to speak the truth, to avoid whatever was indecorous or disreputable; to be mild, courteous, kind,- never to give way to any violent passion; but to be calm, collected, serious, high-minded, honorable, prudent, generous, and disinterested in my life and walk. This comprised the greater part of the moral and religious instruction I received. In religion proper, however, I was taught that there is one Supreme Being, who has revealed himself in the works of nature, and, on various occasions, in the life and instructions of holy men of old, especially in the life and doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest and best man that ever lived. By studying his example, as set forth by the Evangelists, by studying nature, and especially by consulting my own heart, and listening to its natural promptings, I could never fail to know what is my duty, and knowing my duty, I of course should be equal to its performance.

From home I went to school, where I learned many things about natural objects, received some instructions about Greek and Roman history; but where a religious education and all allusion to the great distinguishing features of the Christian religion were carefully avoided, for fear of violating the law which prohibited the introduction of sectarianism. What religious instruction I did receive casually and indirectly tended to confirm the instructions I received from my father.

From the school I was sent to the academy, and from that to the university. I was required to study hard, and the professors did their best to make me an accomplished scholar. But in the university the same general religious theory predominated. We heard little of Christianity, but a great deal of pagan Greece and Rome; very little of God and religion, but much of nature and science; nothing of faith, but enough of reason. We were trained to avoid superstition, and to be rational, to take it for granted that truth ends where mystery begins, and that what is not comprehensible to the simplest understanding is not worth comprehending. During the four years I was in the university, I acquired a little rhetoric, less logic, a good deal of Greek and Latin, considerable familiarity with the common reading of the history of classical antiquity, some philosophy,- such as is collected from Horace and Aristophanes, Plautus and Catullus,- made respectable progress in the physical sciences, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, etc., and was finally able to graduate with the honors of my class; but totally ignorant of the history of the world from the decline of classical literature to its revival in the fifteenth century. I had been taught to regard that long period as a blank in human history, or as given up to Popish superstition and monkish ignorance, not worth considering in the general progress of society, or studying in these enlightened days, since Luther has emancipated the mind from its thralldom, and Bacon and Newton have put it on the track of true philosophical investigation.  

My associations were classical; my tastes were Grecian and Roman models; and my moral maxims were derived from pagan moralists, philosophers, and poets. I had no feeling that I was a child of Chrisitan antiquity; I felt my heart beat with a lofty pride that I too was a man, when I read of Leonidas and his Spartans, of Aristides, of the noble old Hannibals and Scipios; but was unmoved at the tale of the early Christian martyrs. The martyrdom of Peter and Paul, of John, of Ignatius, of Justin, Irenaeus, Laurence, and so many others, was all a matter of course, the result of the folly of men who chose rather to be crucified, to be cast into the caldron of burning oil, or to the wild beasts in the amphitheater, than to abandon a crotchet they had got into their heads. These men of no classical tastes; they were unable to appreciate the beauty of Grecian art, or to feel the rich poetry of heathen mythology. I gathered no moral strength from reading the lives and legends of saints and martyrs, written in barbarous monkish Latin, and I never once asked what these saints and martyrs had done for the progress of society. I only saw in them a race of weak and superstitious men and women, who thought more of telling their beads, of kissing the crucifix, of the relics of some old saint who perhaps never lived, than of the noble remains of the classical world, and the treasures of wisdom and poetry they contained. I scoffed at the old Gothic cathedral, but worshipped in the Parthenon.

Thus came I from the university, a bad Christian, and a miserable abortion of a heathen; with no love for Christianity, only an imperfect appreciation of pagan antiquity; and only a tolerable acquaintance with physical science. Yet my father was satisfied, my mother was delighted, and my friends set me down as a young man destined one day to do honor to his alma mater and to his country. Predicitions were numerous, hopes ran high. Now I have fulfilled them, this narrative, if completed, will tell.

Chapter II

Soon after my return from college, and before I had decided on what profession I would study, I had the misfortune to lose both my father and my mother. They both died, almost on the same day, of a malignant fever. I was left alone in the world. For a long time I was overcome with my loss; sunk in a profound grief, I could take no interest in what was passing around me, and bestow no thought on my own future relations or movements. Time and the natural buoyancy of youth, after a while, softened by grief, and I began gradually to recover my self-possession, and the elasticity of my spirits. I still mourned the loss of my parents; I still felt, at times, my loneliness, but I was young, the world was still new and attractive. But my ambition to hold a distinguished place in society had, however, subsided. The terrible blow had deeply impressed me with the shortness and uncertainty of life, and with the vanity of all human pursuits. I felt that there was nothing worth living for, and that it was better to die, to lie peacefully in the grave, to return to the elements from which I was taken, than to live and struggle on in this vain and transitory world.

This feeling, which I found everywhere expressed by my favorite Greek and Roman poets, suggested the only proper course to be taken; namely, to seize the present moment, to live while I lived, to make the most of what was offered me, and to gather every flower that might bloom along my pathway. Life is short, why waste it in grave cares and tormenting struggles? Life is uncertain, why then reckon on tomorrow? Today is all I can call my own, and for today only let me live. A wealthy relative dying just about this time left me, with what I had inherited from my parents, the heir of an ample fortune, adequate to all my wants, and superseding the necessity of any exertion of my own. I resolved to sit down and enjoy life as long as it should last. I would gather around me every luxury my fancy suggested, every pleasure that could be tasted, and my life should glide away smoothly, without other care than that of making the most of the present hour.

I fancied I had no very vicious propensities; I was of a mild and equable disposition, of generous sentiments, of courteous manners, taking no pleasure in seeing or causing pain, and finding no little of my pleasure in contributing to that of others. I wished well to all men, had no desire to harm a living thing, but merely desired to live and find my own pleasure in my own way. I wished to disturb nobody, and wished nobody to disturb me. My tastes were not coarse and vulgar, but refined. I had great horror of all vulgar sensuality, of all coarse criminals; I must have all in good taste, decorated with the most beautiful creations of art.

With this view, I collected me a splendid library of rare and costly books in elegant bindings; collected also paintings and statuary from the best masters, and arranged every thing about and within my dwelling with the most exquisite taste and the chastest beauty. Horses, carriages, hounds, and other ministers of pleasure were in harmony with the whole. I had senses for pleasure, a soul for beauty, and I was rarely thwarted in my wishes. What can withstand youth, health, wealth, fine tastes, engaging address, just enough of wit to be piquant, and of sentiment to smooth and polish the whole?

For some few years I led such a life as may be imagined. I was, indeed, no vulgar sensualist; I practiced on the principle, that to enjoy the most, and to make the most of life, I must cultivate my whole nature, and be what the Germans call “many-sided.” No one taste, appetite, or passion must be allowed to become predominant, but all was to be cultivated in equilibrium; no one was to be indulged to excess, but each to be indulged as near to the point where indulgence ceases to be pleasurable and becomes painful as possible without reaching that point. This was my grand life-plan. Thus I cultivated art and science, became a tolerable proficient in philosophy, and respectable for my literary attainments. There were few subjects on which I might not have been consulted, from the profound mysteries of antique philosophy down to the best breed of dogs or horses, and the proper method of managing them; from the composition of an epic or symphony to the composition of a new dish for dinner; from the construction  of a cathedral to the readiest way of dismissing a mistress.

 Several years wore away, not without some hollow pleasure; but I found not after all what I craved. My grounds, books, dogs, horses, pictures, statuary, friends, dinners, mistresses, all the most perfect in their kind, were far from always satisfying me. Various as they were, they are times palled and wearied me with their monotony. Sometimes I failed to maintain myself within the prescribed limits. A Margaret or Lilia, with her soft blue eye, sweet smile, guileless heart, and generous confidence, wound herself too closely around the heart, and was not to be dismissed without leaving an unpleasant feeling behind, and causing a little too much perturbation. Not that I cared much for her when fairly gone, but she could not always, without too much effort, be banished from the memory.  I contrived, however, to escape pretty generally from all painful reflections, and to sustain myself tolerably well. If I did not attain all the pleasure I might wish, was I not making the most of life? Was I not securing all that so vain and worthless a world as this could be expected to give?

One day, however, as I was meditating on arresting a passion which was engrossing me somewhat too much for my perfect tranquility, and I was a little disturbed with the resistance I had to overcome, an old man suddenly entered my apartment, unannounced. He was a stranger, though I had frequently seen him before. He had frequently presented himself before me when I was on some of my pleasure excursions, and once, when I was returning from the chase, wearied and half sad, he had attempted to address me, but was repulsed. He was a man of singular appearance and strange manners. He appeared to have been in his youth of a robust frame and of a striking manly beauty, but he was now bent nearly double, yet, perhaps, not wholly with age; his head was partially bald, and his long thin locks were perfectly white; his face was deeply furrowed, yet one felt not with years, but by causes not easy to divine; but his large, full, black eye beamed with more than its natural brilliancy, and seemed to burn with an unearthly fire, and under its fixed gaze you had an uneasy sensation, and you half trembled. Some how or other, though I knew not his name, who he was, whence he came, or where he lived, or what concern he could have with me, his image was often before me, and I felt that in some undefined way he was connected with my pleasures and destined to interrupt them. The memory of him would often come up, like the voice of conscience, just as I held the cup of pleasure to my lips, to dash it to the ground.

He came near me, and, straightening himself up as much as possible,  and extedning his thin, bony, and trembling hand towards me with a gesture as if pronouncing a curse, before I could gather strength to address him, exclaimed in a voice which had lost nothing of its fullness or energy, “Edward Morton, I have you now where you cannot escape me. Hear

me?” 

“But who are you,” I replied, “and what would you with me?”

“Who I am matters not. What I want of you is – nothing. It is you that have need of me.”

“I respect age and misfortune, but I am not aware that I am in want of any thing they have to give.”

“You know not what you want. You want every thing; you are poor and destitute, ay, mean and despicable.”

“You speak uncivilly, and presume on my known mildness of disposition, and unwillingness to resent personal indignities.”

“Personal indignities to you! I came not in here to speak  to you in civil terms. I care not for your natural mildness or your natural roughness. Whether you are pleased or displeased at what I say, I care not. I came in here to bring you what you need.”

“And what is it you think I need?”

“You need to be told that you are poor and miserable, a mean and despicable wretch,- and that I tell you. You need to see a face that can look on you with contempt, and that you may see if you will raise your eyes.”

“I know not why you should address me in this rude manner. I am sure I have never wronged you.”

“Wronged me! Pray, who do you think yourself? You never had power to do me good or evil.”

“Why, then, address me so uncourteously?”

“I speak as seems to me good. When you deserve to be addressed as a man, I will speak to you in other terms. Till then, I can only tell you how poor and contemptible you are, and how much I loathe you; may you remember what I tell you, and find pleasure in contemplating yourself. I go now. I shall see you again hereafter.”

So saying, he left me, bewildered and not a little angry. I rung to send a servant to watch his motions, but he had suddenly disappeared, and no one had seen him, or could discover which way he had gone.

Chapter II

For a long while I pondered on this old man, his sudden appearance and disappearance, his rude speech, and his possible motive for insulting me. I at first concluded he must be insane; but his manner, though singular, was not that of a madman. His look was firm, and his words and tones appeared to be measured, and his whole address, excepting the meaning of his words, was polished, and betokened a man of the world. He did not appear to be angry, or to be moved by any sudden fit of passion or humor, but to act on a settled plan, with the cool deliberate intention of offering me an insult.

There was something extraordinary about this old man. While he was in your presence you felt he was your master, and you were awed into submission. You could not but feel that he had a sort of right to say to you what he pleased. His words did not seem to be idle words; I was therefore unable, after he had left me, to get them out of my mind. They stuck by me. It was odd that this old man should call me poor and destitute, mean and contemptible, since my wealth was very extensive, and I was generally esteemed for the elevation of my sentiments, my generosity, and nice sense of honor. I was liberal, and despised everything approaching littleness of mind or narrowness of soul.

Yet this old man knows and means what he says. His are not the lips to utter falsehood, nor his the heart to harbor malice. After all, is he not right? Am I not really what he calls me? I half suspect it; And yet I know not what better I could have done than I have done, or how I could have been really superior to what I am? All things, all men and women, even in their best estate, are vanity. “Vanitas vanitatum,” saith the wise man, habet amplius homo de universo labore suo quo laborat sub sole?”  We are mere children of an hour, mere bubbles floating on the ocean, reflecting for a moment the sun’s ray, then bursting and giving place to a new succession, as frail and as brief. What is good or evil for such short-lived and transitory nothings? All is a vain show. Pleasure itself is not worth seeking, nor its loss worth a regret. And yet is there nothing wiser or better under the sun, than the seize the fleeting pleasure as it flies past us, and hold it as long as we may. The only way to be wise and good is to please thyself. I am then wise and good. He that is wise and good is not mean and contemptible. Old man, thou art, therefore, wrong, and I will not let thy words disturb me.

And yet, logical as was my conclusion, I was not altogether satisfied with it. The old man, rough as was his address, I felt was not likely to be mistaken, and I could not get rid of the suspicion that his words contained quite too much truth. I became thoughtful, sad, almost perturbed. I lost somewhat of my relish for my accustomed pursuits, sports, and luxuries. The simple fact that all things seemed to me to be nothing but vanity arrested by thoughts, and I asked, if this feeling of the emptiness of all things did not come from a secret conviction that I had that in me which was superior to them all, and therefore not itself altogether vanity. Why is it that nothing really satisfies me, and that, with pleasures for every one of my senses, I am ill at ease, and, in spite of myself, feel a craving for something superior to them all? This life of mine seems the wisest and best to my reason, and yet I have thoughts which stray beyond it, aspirations which rise above it, a thirst for I know not that which comes not within its scope. Would not this indicate that I am myself superior to these things which I have gathered around me, and therefore capable of tasting a higher good than that which they provide me?

And yet, what is better than this life I lead? You talk of knowledge. I have tried it. My curiosity is satisfied. I have learned enough to know that it is useless to seek knowledge unless one can apply it to some end; and to what end shall I apply it? To know for the mere sake of knowing may satisfy us in early youth, but not when we have learned that knowledge in itself considered is as vain as any other acquisition. I may, indeed, enter into the political world, suffer myself to be drawn into the whirlpool of party strife, turn demagogue, court the dear people, beg their sweet voices, and, perhaps, reach the presidential chair. But to what end? What pleasure can a wise man receive from the bribed shouts and suffrages of the mob? What is power? A gilded slavery. Fame? A word, born and dying in the sound that makes it? “But you may use power for the good of your fellow beings.” Nonsense! Who knows what is for their good or their evil? The more power one attains, the more complete his slavery. Power is sought only for private ends, and I have no private ends, not better and more easily satisfied without it than with it. No, Dr. Martin Luther, thou art right in thy famous chorus,

“He who loves not wine, women, and song, shall be a fool all his life long.”

Still, my debate within myself continued. One day, when more than usually perplexed, the strange old man suddenly entered my room, and, with a more friendly expression of countenance than formerly, addressed me.

“Well, Edward, I see you have not forgotten what I told you. You are half inclined to believe that I spoke the truth. I have watched you since, and I believe I can be of some service to you.”

“But tell me, father,” said I, “why you spoke to me in such rude and uncivil terms.”

“Because you deserved them; you are surrounded by miserable flatterers, who study to say only what they imagine will please you. I came to tell you the truth, and to let you see yourself as you are.”

“But were you not afraid that I should be offended and offer you violence?”

“No. I have long since learned to fear no man, especially a rich voluptuary. Besides, I knew you despised the herd around you, and I believed you had good sense enough left to distinguish the voice of truth from that of mere sycophancy.” 

“But could you not have told me the same truth in a gentler tone?”

“No! Had a spoken in a softer tone, in milder terms, you would have thought me an old fool come to admonish you, and you would have forgotten my words as soon as I had departed.”

“But why do you take an interest in me? I am a stranger to you,- at least you are a stranger to me. I know not why you should care for me. I live for myself, and trouble not myself about others, and do not wish others to trouble themselves about me.”

“Young man,- for you are still young,- you say rightly that I am a stranger to you; but you are no stranger to me; I have watched near you for many years. Wherefore, I need not tell you. We may yet become friends, but whether so or not is of no consequence to me. You marvel who I am, and why I concern myself about you. Who I am I will tell you soon, but, before I do, be assured that I ask nothing of you. You have nothing I want, nothing I envy, nothing I do not despise. I care for you, for you seem lone and friendless in the world; and I pity you, and am here from sheer compassion, solely because you need me, and know it not.”

“But tell me who you are?”

“I have no name; I had a name, but it had been lost for many years, and I am in the world without being of it. My early life is the counterpart of your own. I, too, once possessed youth, health, wealth, and lived a round of vain pleasures, in a circle of vainer admirers. Here,” taking a beautiful miniature from his pocket and handing it to me. “You have seen this before, I believe. You start! Do you know where is the original?” 

I did start surely enough, for it was a miniature of Katharine Howard. “Where is she?” I exclaimed. “Do you know? Tell me, tell me, instantly?”

“Be patient, my young friend. Ask yourself where you think she is, and where you sought to drive her?”

“Does she live?” Say but she lives, or, old dotard, I will break your head.”

“Ah! Who is rude now? Where is my fine gentleman? My polished man of the world, my soft sybarite? Really, you have some life left, and will not die of the wrinkle of a roseleaf.”

“No more! Tell me where you obtained this picture?”

“Near the artificial lake on which you love to row in the still summer evening.”

“Alas! She is dead! She has destroyed herself. Fool, monster, that I am!”

“Yes, fool and monster both, no doubt of that.”

“Do not reproach me, old man.”

“There is no need of that, you spare me that task; but I said not that she was dead. So much innocence and virtue, such angelic loveliness, cannot die. She is safe. She lives.”

“In the flesh?”

“Why ask you that? Believe you in other life than that in the flesh?”

“You mock me. Say that Katharine Howard is still in this world, and then do by me as you will.”

“She is safe, and beyond your reach.”

“In this world?”

 “Are not your servants trusty? Did they ever fail to do your bidding?”

“Leave me, old man, leave me. I am a wretch, and would be alone.”

“No, I leave you not now. I know what is on your mind. I know the order you whispered. I know how faithfully it was executed; I see you writhe, it is well. You have a conscience after all. But where is your philosophy?”

“Old man, prate not to me of philosophy. You know I am damned,- that I suffer the tortures of hell-fire.”

“But you are a wise and learned man; you have read and studied much; you know all the sciences; you are said to be a great philosopher. Surely your philosophy must serve you now; it must be able to quench these fires of hell, soothe your conscience, and give peace to your soul.”

“Alas! Alas! What a wretch I am! O, I am bowed to the earth; I roll in dust and ashes.” And throwing myself down, I beat the floor, I beat my head, I was a madman.

“Come, come,” said the old man, “this is childish. I thought it was a precept of your philosophy never to regret the past nor to apprehend the future.”

“But I loved her. O God, how I loved her!”

“Well, love will play strange pranks with philosophy, it must be owned. But will one who loves” Here he whispered a word in my ear, which sent a cold thrill through my heart.

“Well,” continued he, “I see you have some human feeling left; I have some hope of you; once you have failed in your purpose, and it is not quite so bad as you fear. Katharine Howard, the daughter of my old friend and benefactor, is still alive, unharmed; but no thanks to you.

“God be thanked, do with me as you will.”

“Sit up, then, and be a man; dare look your own past face in the face, and read the lesson it teaches? It is useless to ask you to listen to my tale today; calm yourself, betake yourself to your philosophy, and when that has consoled you, and you are free from perturbation, I will see you again.”

So saying, he left me. But alas for my philosophy and my boasted life-plan! I was humbled in the dust. Katharine Howard was a sweet girl of eighteen, an orphan, left in part to my care. I had provided her with the best instructors, and had secured her the very best education to be obtained. She had grown up into a tall, dignified, and graceful lady. I can say no more of her, except that her virtue surpassed her beauty, and the firmness of her principles was superior even to her accomplishments. I believed she loved me; I forgot my trust as guardian, and, defeated in my purpose, had attempted to conceal my mortification by an act which must be nameless. I had tried to drive all thoughts of her from my mind; her picture, which had been taken for me, brought her fresh before me, and the whole enormity of my conduct rushed upon me in an instant. The old man’s assurance that she yet lived, while it reassured me a little, did not reconcile me to myself at all, and that night I bent my knees in prayer, and vowed repentance and a holy life.

Chapter IV

The next morning, a little calmed by the resolution I had taken the previous night, I sent early for the clergyman on whose ministrations I sometimes attended, and who was the successor of my father. He was an amiable, companionable man; well-bred, gentlemanly, somewhat studious in his habits, and had made himself familiar with the lighter literature of most nations and ages. He was sprightly, often brilliant in conversation, and was one of my few acquaintances that was least intolerable. He came at my request, met me with a pleasant smile and a cordial greeting, and began instantly a poetical quotation from one of his favorite authors.

“Sit down, Mr. Middleton,” said I.  “Sit down, I have sent for you to have some serious conversation with you.”

“Serious conversation with me! But – but – why – what is the matter, Mr. Morton? You look grave,- you look disturbed. Why, has any accident occurred?”

“Mr. Middleton, you are a professed minister of the gospel. It is yours to instruct the ignorant, to reclaim the erring, and to aid the sinner in making his peace with God. Tell me, what shall I do to be saved?”

“O, that is perfectly easy. Repent of your sins, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“But what is it to repent? And what is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“To repent is to be sorry that you have sinned, to cease to do wrong, to amend your life, and do right for the future. To believe on the Lord Jesus is to believe that he was a great and good man, extraordinarily endowed, and sent into the world to be the model of human perfection; and also to have full confidence that if you follow his example you will have true righteousness and be acceptable to your Maker.”

“But here are my sins which I have committed. They are black, and cry to heaven for vengeance. How shall I efface them, and escape the punishment they so richly deserve?”

“Give yourself no trouble about them. This idea of punishment is all a mere bugbear. There is no other punishment for sin than its natural consequences. You put your hand into the fire, it is burned, because such is the law of your nature. You do wrong, you suffer the consequence, for the same reason; cease to do wrong, do right, and then you will experience the natural consequences of doing right.”

“But will not the memory of the past remain, and also the consequences of my past wrong-doing? Is there or is there not remission of sin?”

“Why, Mr. Morton, in what school of theology have you studied? Forgiveness of sins there certainly is, but no remission of the penalty which the order of nature attaches to transgression. The forgiveness is nothing but the complacency with which God regards the penitent. When you cease to do wrong and come to do right, you are regarded by the great Author of the universe precisely as if you had never done wrong. He looks upon you in the same light he does upon those who have always walked uprightly. This is forgiveness. It is admitting you, notwithstanding your past errors, to the rewards which are attached by the order of nature to well doing. Beyond this there is no forgiveness. ‘As I live,’ saith the Lord, ‘I will not clear the guilty.’ The remission of the punishment of sin is a notion that sprung up subsequent to the times of Christ; it is without foundation, and withal, of dangerous tendency. No, Sir, if you have sinned you must suffer the consequences, be they what they may. We can hardly expect the Almighty to work a miracle in our behalf. He has made all things well. He has given us a perfect law. If we conform to it we receive good; if we do not, we receive evil. Here is the whole mystery of redemption and reconciliation.”

“But what am I to do with this terrible remorse I suffer?”

“Bear it like a man. You have brought it upon you by your own folly, disdain to pine and whimper under it, or to ask Almighty God to change the beneficent order he has established to interpose to relieve you from it. No man should ever shrink from submitting to the natural consequences of his own actions. You are to be submissive and humble. But true submission is in accepting the order God has established; and true humility is in being satisfied with it, and in bearing without a murmur whatever it requires you to suffer.”

“But is there no mercy?”

“Mercy? Yes, in the order itself, but no extra-mercy. The order established is good, and if good it is merciful; for mercy is nothing but a special aspect of goodness, the face of goodness turned towards the suffering.”

“But what am I to do in order to do right, and to bring myself within the category of those who will receive good?”

“Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. You love God by loving his children, the same as you see and know God in his works. To love him you must love your fellow-men, and seek to do them good.”

“But what is their good?”

“Their good? Why, you must seek to relieve their sufferings, to elevate their condition, to enlighten them, to aid them in cultivating their natures, and in attaining to perfection.”

“But tell me, Mr. Middleton, what is the destiny of man? What were we made for?”

“Made for? For perfection to be sure. We were made imperfect; our law is progress, and our end is perfection. We must become men, full-grown men, with all our faculties fully and harmoniously cultivated, and then we shall have fulfilled our destiny?”

“And then?”

“Why, then – nothing. When a being has fulfilled its destiny, it has nothing more to do. But we shall never fulfill our destiny, but be always fulfilling it. We shall grow larger and larger forever, but never fully attain our growth. Thus we are destined, properly speaking, to eternal progress, to be eternally rising higher and higher, and approaching nearer and nearer to God.”

“But, Mr. Middleton, I have no heart to go into these speculations today. I feel that I have made a mistake and done wrong. I am here, a sinner, and I wish not to be one. What will you do with me. I want the inward peace of mind which flows from the consciousness that we have done right, and the full conviction that we are now in a state of reconciliation with the Supreme Being. How shall I get it?”

“Repair the wrong you have done so far as in your power; resolve to do wrong no more; be on your guard against temptations; cultivate a serious state of mind; acquire habits of reflection; and seek out opportunities of doing good to those around you who may need your good offices. Be not cast down, nor unduly elated. You may have done wrong, but you must know that your wrong-doing has not offended God, or alienated his affections from you. He is always placable. Your good actions cannot benefit him, and your evil actions cannot injure him. Have no uneasiness so far as he is concerned, and so far as concerns yourself cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and all will go well with you. You will become absorbed in your plans of reform and works of beneficence; your remorse will soon spend its strength; and, your conscience now satisfied, you will recover and maintain inward peace and security.”

Our conversation lasted some hours, but all that was said was to the same purpose, and, strange as it may seem, afforded me no little consolation. The old man had assured me that Katharine yet lived, and was safe. It was true I knew not where she was, and it was no slight torture to be separated from her. But I trusted I could find her, and could easily pacify her for the great wrong I had meditated against her. The wrong I had already done her, I could therefore undo. Then my remorse was not for having sinned against God. I felt no compunction for my conduct before God, but only because I had done foul injustice to a human being whom I loved. If this injustice towards her was repaired, I should be freed from all remorse; and, if I could but recover her I could go on as well as ever. Life could recover its wonted tone, and I should enjoy myself as well as I had done before. I had no peace to make with God, and no judgment from him to apprehend. I was humbled indeed, but not before God. I was only humbled in my own eyes, before myself. But by my correct future behavior I could recover my self-respect. I was not too old to marry, and, although averse to binding myself in the chains of wedlock, yet I felt I could consent to marry Katharine Howard, and also that I ought to do so in order to make her a proper reparation for the injustice I had done. In other respects I would be more circumspect, and would take pains to find out and relieve distress. All this passed through my mind in a few moments, and I found my cheerfulness returning. Mr. Middleton was invited to stay to dinner; a few other friends dropping in at the dinner hour, we made up a gay and brilliant party; and I forgot or was ashamed to remember the folly I had enacted the previous night.

Dinner over and the guests dispersed, I retired to meditate some plan for discovering the retreat of Katharine, and commencing my proposed reforms. But it was no easy matter to hit upon a feasible plan, for I had not the least clue to her probable place of residence. The old man knew where she was, but nobody knew or could guess where he himself was to be found; many had seen him, but no one knew his residence. He would suddenly present himself before you, without your knowing whence he came, and as suddenly disappear without your being able to say whither he went. Yet he must be found, and could not be found till he chose to appear. Nothing could be done, then, till he made his appearance. I gave orders to my servants, if they caught sight of him, to watch him, and not lose sight of him till they discovered his lodgings, confident that, if I could meet him again, I could induce him to disclose to me Katharine’s place of concealment. These orders given I had nothing to do but wait patiently till I could obtain a meeting with the old man.

But I had to wait many weeks, and even months, before the old man came again. This waiting was no pleasant affair, but I managed it as well as I could.  The resolution I had taken, and which I was fully determined to keep, had calmed my conscience, and I could join without much distraction in my usual pleasures and pursuits. My brow was as serene as ever, my smile as gracious, and my heart for the most part of the time tolerably quiet. I recalled my old philosophy, and fancied I had been too hasty in rejecting it. Why did I suffer myself to be cheated out of my senses by an old man’s scruples, or to be disturbed by a foolish passion. She was a sweet girl, and perhaps loved me, but she was, like all her sex, artful, and sought but to take advantage of my love for her to triumph over me. These women are never to be trusted. They are always seeking to ensnare our affections merely to gratify their own vanity, for their own caprice, ambition, or interest. They are well enough in their proper place, but woe to the man who suffers them to wind around his heart. He may well envy Laocoon in the foul embrace of the serpents.

Time wore on, and I was fast recovering my former equanimity and carelessness, when I chanced to form a new acquaintance which came very near putting Katharine out of my head. This acquaintance was in its first stages, sufficiently familiar to be pleasant and attractive, and not sufficiently intimate to make its loss severely felt, when suddenly my old friend or enemy- as yet I knew not which- appeared before me, with a wrathful countenance, and an eye flashing the most cutting reproof.

Chapter V

“Admirable young man!” said he, after gazing at me with a most withering look for some moments. “Admirable young man!” said he, in a tone of cutting irony. “How sincerely you repent, and how firmly you adhere to your pious resolutions! You have repaired the wrong you have done, and made your peace with God, I presume. You have washed your heart clean, become a new man, and are prepared to commence a new career.”

“Old man, do not reprove me too severely. I have resolved, and I will keep my resolution. Tell me where is Katharine Howard?”

“Wherefore? What is she to you, and what would you with her?”

“Make honorable reparation for the wrong I have done her.”

“How?”

“By giving her an honorable marriage.”

“But whom do you propose for bridegroom.”

“Myself.”

“Yourself! And I presume you have not even doubted of your acceptableness?”

“Not at all. She loves me, and she cannot doubt my love to her. Its violence was a proof of its warmth and sincerity. And I do not apprehend that I am a man likely to be rejected as a husband, even though I might be a lover.”

“Then you are really willing to offer yourself in marriage to Katharine Howard, and you do not doubt that she will accept you?”

“Let me see her, and I will make the offer, and you shall see whether it will be rejected or not.”

“Go with me and you shall see her.”

“Where is she?”

“Not far off. Half an hour’s ride will bring us to the house where she has resided ever since____”

“No matter when. But has she really been so near me all this time, and I have not suspected it?”

“There are many things, young man, close to us, which we dream not of, and the good we are seeking abroad is always under our eyes did we but know it. But come with me, and you shall see the young lady herself, that is, in case she will consent to see you.”

About a half an hour’s drive brought us to an old-fashioned house, buried in a grove, and which I had supposed to be untenanted. It had formerly belonged to my own estate, but had been sold for some purpose by my predecessor, and, as it was not in the direction of my usual drives, I had paid little attention to it, and had never thought of inquiring whether it was inhabited or not. We entered, and the old man led me into a small, plainly, but neatly furnished parlor, and commanded me to be seated. I obeyed, and he left me alone.  I expected him to return in a moment with Katharine. But time passed, a full hour passed, and no one entered, and no sound of human voice or footstep was heard. My patience began to give way, and I felt the old man was playing me a trick. This waiting a full hour in suspense, and especially to see one to whom you have come to make a proposal of marriage, is no pleasant affair, and makes one half envy St. Laurence broiling on the gridiron. But all things are destined to have an end. The old man at length returned followed by Katharine herself. I had never seen her so beautiful. Neatly and simply dressed, but with exquisite tastes, so as to set off her fine figure in all its fulness, grace, and dignity. Her countenance was mild and serene, her expression cheerful. “She has not suffered,” said I, and, for the first time, a doubt flashed across my mind, whether, after all, my proposal would be so acceptable as I first imagined. But diffidence was not one of my faults, and the doubt vanished as quickly as it came.

“Katharine,” said the old man, “I introduce you to Mr. Edward Morton, whom perhaps you may remember having once seen.”

“O Katharine,” I exclaimed, “rising and rushing towards her to fall on my knees at her feet, “God be thanked. I see you again.”

“Be seated, Mr. Morton,” replied she, in a quiet, commanding tone, which I dared not disobey. I did not kneel, but returned to the couch on which I had been sitting, abashed, and awed into my own insignificance. She turned to her protector, “Leave us alone, my more than father,” she said; “you can rely on your daughter, and I have that to say to Mr. Morton which I would not pain him by having a third person hear.” The old man went out, and Katharine took a seat quite near but opposite me. She looked at me silently for a few moments; for an instant her color changed, and there seemed to be passing a struggle within. It was but for an instant, and her calm, serene, and almost cheerful look returned.

“Mr. Morton,” at length she broke silence by saying, “why have you sought me, and what pleasure could you expect it would give either of us for you to he here? What is your wish?”

The quiet and half business-like tone in which this was spoken nearly disconcerted me; but I remembered the passing change of color, and replied, “Katharine, I have come to atone for my past baseness, and to begin the amendment of my life be asking your forgiveness.”

“I have forgiven you, Mr. Morton; and hope you will not delay a moment to ask forgiveness of Him whom you have offended more than you have me. Do you wish anything else of me?”

Yes, Katharine, yes. You once loved me, you owned it to me. I loved you, as you well know.”

“How did you manifest your love to me?”

“But you have forgiven me. You have just assured me of your forgiveness. If you have forgiven me, you can love me, and do love me still. I am a better man than I was. I come to assure you of my repentance, that I bitterly repent the wrong I have done. But no great harm has been done. My heart is yours, and I come to beg you to accept it, and my hand with it.”

“A fair proposal, Mr. Morton,” said she, in a tone of most exquisite sweetness, I frankly assure you would not have been rejected. I should have thanked you for it, and have modestly but joyfully accepted it.”

“And why not now?”

“It is too late.”

“O, say not so. You are not married?” said I, a terrible suspicion crossing my mind.

“No, not yet.”

“Are you betrothed?”

“No; and to relieve you on this point, for I see it troubles you, I have no prospect of being, and no wish to be, unless it be to heaven.”

“Why, then, say it is too late?”

“Because, Mr. Morton, I am better acquainted with you than I was. You were the son of my father’s spiritual director and most honored friend. You were the idol of my young dreams, and almost from my cradle I was taught to love and reverence you. Your kindness to the orphan, and the provision you made for my education, the tenderness you showed me, and the fatherly care you took of me, bound me to you by the strong tie of gratitude. I grew up for you; I sought to accomplish myself for you; I lived for you, and for you only. All my future clustered around you, and even heaven itself, it seemed, would be no heaven to me unless shared with you. This was sinful idolatry. I knew it, even then, but I said to myself, I would rather be damned with Mr. Morton, than to go to heaven without him. It was so I loved you. In an evil hour, you sought to abuse my love and my confidence. You revealed to me in a word your real character. I saw the foulness of your principles and the hollowness of your heart. And I knew I had loved the demon in the guise of an angel of light. You are now, in reality, what you were then; and can I bind my fate to yours, or aggravate your doom so much as to aid you in ever calling any decent woman your wife?”

“I know, Katharine, I was wrong, that I was base; but passion carries us sometimes beyond ourselves, and I would not in my sober moments do what I would have done in that evil hour. I heartily repent of the wrong I did, and I will do all I can to atone for it.”

“That is your duty, and gladly would I believe, for your sake, that you are capable of doing it. But as yet you have not repented. You have merely regretted the loss of an instrument of pleasure, a toy, or plaything; and, as for atonement, you are willing if you cannot recover the lost toy in one way to do it in another. In all you are profoundly selfish and hollow-hearted. You think it would be a pleasure to you to call me yours, and to have me for your slave. But you think of nothing beyond your own pleasure. You have no high, no solemn aim in what you propose. You do not even think of my good, far less the glory of God.”

“Upon my word, Kate, you have learned to preach, and, if you were only a man, we would have you tonsured and clapped in a cassock forthwith. In what theological seminary have you been studying the last year?”

“I understand your sneer, Mr. Morton, and its intent. I have studied in no seminary; I am a weak and sinful woman; but I have learned this much, thanks to other teachers than those you provided me, that I was made for a higher destiny than can be attained on this earth, and that in all I do, even in the tenderest and most sacred affections of the human heart, I am to seek the greater glory of God. My mind, heart, soul, and body are his, and must be dedicated exclusively to his service; and though I may love and marry, it must be for love of him, because by so doing I can best honor and serve him. Marriage is a holy sacrament, and you – you believe in no sacrament, and hold marriage to be nothing but a gross union for low, earthly, and sensual purposes. How could there be marriage between us?”

“You talk finely, Kate, but marriage is a union of two hearts which mutually love, for their mutual happiness.”

“Say for their mutual pleasure, and you will express your thought with more precision. The pleasure being the end of the marriage, when it ceases to be attained, the marriage is null, and either party is at liberty to seek pleasure elsewhere. Such, I am aware, are your views of marriage; but I hold marriage to be a holy union, and incapable of being formed except when both parties form it for the love of God, and form it not for their own personal pleasure, but for the purpose of serving God and obtaining his blessing. I can never consent to be united to a man who entertains such views as yours, because there could be no marriage between us, and nothing but profanation of the temple of God.”

“Really, much you say, Kate, seems to me like nonsense. True, such notions have been taught by a certain class of professed Christians, refining on notions borrowed from Oriental philosophy, and reinforced by the asceticism of monks and anchorites of the ages of Popish superstition and ignorance. But you know that no such notions are countenanced in the school in which we were brought up. My father was your father’s minister, your own spiritual father, and I am sure he never taught any such nonsense about marriage. He taught that the marriage is in the mutual love, and that where the love is, there is valid marriage in the sight of heaven, and that it is merely for the purpose of maintaining some little order and regularity in society that the formal ceremony of marriage is at all necessary. Those who are united by love God has married, and whom God has joined together let no one put asunder.”

“I respect your father, Mr. Morton, as my father’s friend, and for the many amiable qualities and generous dispositions he possessed. But I have learned, God be praised, to abjure his doctrines. It is not mine to judge him. He has gone to give an account for what he taught, and I leave him in the hands of his God, who will do him justice tempered with infinite mercy. But the blasting effects of his doctrine you may read in your own unprofitable life. From the very bottom of your heart you despise the life you lead, and all who can be the dupes of your sophistry. To what baseness are not you, who call yourself a gentleman, prepared to descend? And at what a terrible expense are you not willing to purchase your own selfish gratification? What can you say in your defense?”

“Nothing.”

“And yet you will continue your course, and continue to do that which you cannot justify in your own eyes, and in defense of which you have not one word to offer.”

“Very likely.”

“And you ask me to love you, to give myself up to you, to be yours, to love, serve, and obey you until death?”

“Yes. Where will you find one more worthy of you? I am not, perhaps, just what I should be, and yet I do not feel particularly humbled when I compare myself with others. Few men, I apprehend, can be found who are my superiors; and I do not think the proudest of your sex would stoop very much if they should stoop so low as to accept the offer I have made you.”

“You rate yourself very highly,” Mr. Morton. I would much rather be the wife of the meanest laborer in the streets, in case the grace of God has renewed his heart, than to be the wife of such a man as you are.”

“You said you had forgiven me. It is not true. You think you have me in your power, and you are now taking your revenge.  You imagine you triumph over me. Well, triumph away; I cannot blame you.”

“No, I seek no revenge, no triumph. I tell you plainly why I cannot accept your proposal. I will be the wife of no man, who I have not good reason to believe is a true believer in Jesus Christ, and who loves his God even more than he will love me,- so much that he would not even for my sake do aught against the divine law,- and certainly I can never be the wife of one who never knew any love but love of himself.”

“Well, if I were a good Christian in you sense, could you, would you, then consent to be mine?”

“It will be time enough for you to put that question, and for me to answer it, when you have become a good Christian. Till then let it rest. If you should seek to become a Christian for the sake of obtaining me for your wife, you could not become one. There are other reasons enough why you should seek to become a Christian. You have your own soul to save, and you will find it much harder for you to spend eternity without God, than this short life without me. “But,” said she, rising with great dignity and solemnity, “go now, and make your peace with God. We meet no more. Without Christ there is no good for you; with him you can desire no other good. Farewell, and may God in mercy touch your heart, and make you his child.”

So saying, she left the room. In a few moments the old man reentered. “Well, Edward, your proposal was listened to, was it not?”

“Yes, with a vengeance.”

“Accepted?”

“Why do you mock me. You had trained her before I saw her, and she has but followed your instructions. But no matter. She shall be mine yet. By heavens! I will not be thwarted by an old dotard and a silly young girl of nineteen. I give you fair warning. She shall be mine. Her pride shall be humbled, and yours too. Remember what I say. Nothing but death shall snatch from me my prize.”

“You are young, and have not learned the vanity of big words. You are imprudent, too, for so wise a man. You should not threaten, you should keep your purpose to yourself. However, it must be as God wills. The girl, I think, is safe under his protection.”

Chapter VI

The old man was right, and I felt humbled under a sense of my imprudence; but I could not consent to abandon my resolution. I would suffer no woman to thwart  my desires, or to triumph over me and live. Moreover, I became more attached to Katharine than ever. True, her views on marriage were not such as I could entertain for myself, but they were precisely such as every man wishes his wife to entertain and act upon. Most men, too, however little they care for religion and piety themselves, are well pleased to have their wives religious and pious. Katharine’s recent conversion, though it had carried her, as I could easily gather from the tone of her remarks, into a church with which I had no sympathy, and which I looked upon as long since dead and buried, rather enhanced her in my estimation, and made me still more desirous of possessing her, of calling her mine, and binding her to me for life.

Nevertheless, I was no stranger to the arts of the sex. I did not believe her rejection was positive. She felt that I was at her feet, and there she intended to keep me till she had enjoyed her triumph. No woman can forego the opportunity of exercising her power, and of sporting with her victim. But I was too old to become a dupe, and too much the master of myself to become the slave of another. In the present case, the triumph should be on the other side. “Kate shall be mine,” said I, and I returned to my room. “She is a splendid creature, and, with her, I half believe I could be as good as Parson Middleton himself, or, which is somewhat more, as good as his creed requires him to be. For her I think I could leave off my follies, and be faithful, considerate, and kind. She has mind, too, and knows what she says. She is none of your weak, puny creatures, that dissolve in your arms, and leave you nothing but the memory of having embraced an unsubstantial vision. She has sentiment, that I know; but she knows how to control it, and let it appear only as it is wanted. She is just the woman a man like me, satiated and wearied with the world, and the whole herd around him, needs for his wife. ‘Heaven’s best gift is the last.’ She shall be mine.

“But that old dragon is no duenna. There is no tampering with him, and he has an many eyes as Argus, and is as omnipresent as the Devil. He keeps strict watch, and there is no eluding him. If I believed in spirits, whether good or bad, I should half believe him more than mortal. He has certainly Fortunatus’s cap, and has the power of seeing without being seen. Then he seems to be able to read more than can be seen. He knows one’s thoughts, most secret thoughts, and I much doubt whether he is not now taking note of what is passing in my mind and heart. Never mind, old man. You are bent on thwarting me, but I know a spell which will prove too mighty for you. You ward loves, and loves me too. I need but sit quiet and she will seek me of her own accord. She is pious, and will think it a sad thing that my soul should be lost. She believes I love her, and that she can have power over me which may be exerted for my spiritual good. It would be so glorious a thing to pluck me as a brand from the burning. She must try. Love, disguising itself under the form of Christian charity, will make her anxious to meet me, anxious to converse with me, and – the rest is easy enough.”

All this was consoling, and relieved by mortified vanity not a little. Nevertheless, I had a secret misgiving. I did not really fear that my free notions and practice would be in my way, for your pious women are rarely afraid of the dissolute, and in general rather prefer the rake, probably out of charity, in hopes of being the instrument of reforming him. But there was something so calm, so frank, so sweet, and withal so firm, in Katharine’s manner, that I feared that her heart was far from superhuman, was more than I could say; but evidently her heart was satisfied, and she had no longer the craving to love or to be loved. It can’t be so, and yet it must. If so, my chances are small; if not so, I can hardly account for her perfect quiet and serenity. There are those who speak of the doubts and anxieties of love, who tell us what they call the pains of love are worth all other pleasures. It is true, we cling to these pains, we cherish them, we are afraid to let them go, afraid to find ourselves free from them, and it must be admitted that they give a piquant variety to the dull monotony of the voluptuary’s life; but pain is pain, and I have never yet found pain pleasant, nor preferable to pleasure. Thus we hold on to these pains with a death-grasp, not because we would retain them, but because we dread that if we lose them we should find something worse, and because we hope they will soon end in pleasure. But alas!  Vain is the voluptuary’s hope. He never is, but is always just a-going, to be blessed.  He perpetually renews the old myth of Tantalus. He is parched with thirst; the bubbling fountain sparkles before his eyes; it rises almost to his lips; he stoops to drink it; it recedes, and keeps ever beyond his reach. He is famished. Trees grow around him; their branches loaded with delicious fruit, bending down, invite him to reach forth his hand, to take and eat. He extends his hand, a breeze wafts the branch aside, or it rises just enough to keep him from grasping it. Yet there it hangs, and ever does he reach forth his hand, sure this time he shall succeed; but ever as before does it elude his grasp. But my business is not to moralize, but to relate my story. I found myself in a very unpleasant position, and, in spite of my good opinion of myself, of my general good fortune,- in spite of my philosophy which taught me to take all things easy, and never to go out of my way even for pleasure, I became a prey to contending emotions, and was crucified by my fears, doubts, and anxieties. Katharine had got into my head, and would not be expelled; she was fast winding her arms around my heart and her embrace would not be relaxed. The only good I could see for me in life was to call this girl mine, and by a holy rite since I could- and would, now- by no other. I felt she was necessary to me; but was I necessary to her?

I spent considerable  time in brooding over the matter, and in contriving plans for bringing it to a successful issue. The more I dwelt on it, the more I fancied I loved; and the more I persuaded myself I loved, the more I feared I might not be able to make my threat good. No plan I could devise seemed feasible; one was adopted, and then another, each to be in turn rejected. Till at length it occurred to me, what I had forgotten, that Katharine was still my ward, and at any rate I might drive to the old-fashioned house, and call upon her. She could hardly refuse to see me, and if she did, it was but a refusal, and would be a refusal from which I could gather hope; for it would prove that she had not ceased to regard me, and therefore feared to see me. I lost no time, called, was admitted without any delay, and found Katharine alone. “Fortune favors the brave,” said I. “Every thing I could wish.”

Katharine received me civilly, but cooly, invited me to be seated, and pursued her occupation. I was rarely at a loss, but at this moment I felt as awkward as the student just from the university, and almost wished for hat or cane to play with. But I rallied instantly. “Katharine,” said I, “I was very much displeased with the termination of our last interview.”

“Why so, Mr. Morton?”

“Because we are old friends, or rather, I am an old friend. We have always been much together from your childhood, and I am not willing to hear those rascally words, ‘We meet no more.’ They are sometimes, I own, pleasant words enough, but intolerable from beautiful lips, and especially from lips we love and have often kissed. One could more easily hear one’s sentence to be hung.”

“But you have made them words of no meaning. Had they affected you so seriously, you would hardly have come to hear them repeated.”

Stop there, Kate; no repeating them again. Say anything else you will; but not that “we meet no more.’ For meet again we will. If you go to hell, I will meet you there; nay, I will even go to heaven but what I will meet you again.”

“In the first mentioned place I hope neither of us will ever be found, and in the last, I trust I shall have no unwillingness to meet you.”

“Thank you for that, Kate. But would you really be willing to meet me in heaven?”

“Why not? You could not enter there without being thoroughly purified from all that makes me unwilling to meet you here, and there you would not be paying unacceptable addresses to a sinful mortal, but would be absorbed, heart and soul, in the love and adoration of Him who is love itself.”

“That can be without my going so far. My divinity is here, and I ask no higher good than to be permitted to worship at its shrine, and to feel that my worship is not altogether unacceptable.”

“Mr. Morton hardly does credit to his reputation. He does not understand the simplest elements of the art of flattering.”

“I bit my lips, for I saw I had made a blunder. The girl was too sincerely devout to tolerate such a form of address.”

“Well, tell me, Katharine, do you really hope to go to heaven?”

“Relying on God’s goodness and promises, I hope to obtain pardon for my sins, and life everlasting through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.”

“But what sins have you ever been guilty of?”

“Pardon me, Mr. Morton. I believe it is my own province to choose my own confessor. But this one sin I will confess even to you, that of having loved the creature more than the Creator.”

“Do you continue to commit that sin?”

“I hope not.”

“Some little remains of it are however left; is it not so?”

“I think not. I think I can say with truth, ‘O my God, I love thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, for thou art infinitely amiable and deserving of all love.’”

“Then you reserve no love for us mortals. Your new creed is a very harsh one. What were we placed here for but to love one another, and help one another endure this vain world as well as we can?”

“I am not forbidden but commanded to love all men, but for the love of God, because they are those whom God has created, and for whom Jesus Christ has died. We love the children for the sake of the father.”

“But this is not a love very flattering to us.”

“Unquestionably not, and possibly a love that should be would be as little to the credit of him who should have it.”

“But how do you expect to spend an eternity in heaven? Will you not get out of employment, or grow tired of singing forever the same song?”

“Did Mr. Morton ever tire of loving truth, beauty, goodness?”

“Of loving beauty, no; but as for your truth and goodness, I have never found them.”

“That is because you have not sought them where they were to be found.”

“I have sought far and wide, in pretty much all nations and ages, in all creeds, literatures, and sciences.”

“I must correct Mr. Morton. He has never sought them in God, nor in the creed of God’s Church. In all your study, tell me truly, did you ever study a Catholic book?”

“O, Catholicism, I have not studied, I own; but then that was long since exploded by the Reformers, and it is unnecessary to reinvestigate it.”

“If you are not acquainted with Catholicism, how can you so promptly decide whether it was exploded or not?”

“Why, it is exploded by the judgment of the world, and according to the most enlightened minds of all countries for the last three centuries.”

“How happens it, then, that we see no symptoms of its decline? And that, in our own day, men who certainly stand at the head of all departments of literature, art, and science, are devoted Catholics?”

“We will waive this discussion if you please. All creeds and religions are alike to me. So far as I prefer one to another, it is that which I learned from my father and mother, and which you learned from yours. We may dispute forever on religious topics, and elicit no truth but this, that the subjects discussed are above, or below, the faculties of the human mind. Nothing certain is or can be known. We may have opinions, persuasions, nothing more. You have been caught by the romance of chivalry and the Middle Ages; perhaps, even, by that of abbeys and convents, and in a fit of spleen at your friend, or of a momentary despondency, you have laid your head on the bosom of Mother Church. Let it repose there, you will wake all too soon. There is no long repose for the overwrought and wearied soul.”

“You speak with confidence, with more confidence than it seems to me you are authorized to speak with. The Catholic Church promises you both certainty and repose, and millions, during eighteen hundred years, can testify that they have found them. How can you know, without having made the experiment, that the testimony of all these, many of whom, even you must admit, were the greatest, purest, and best men and women that have ever lived, is deserving no confidence? How know you, Sir, that one cannot repose sweetly and securely on the holy bosom of this tender and loving mother? You talk of the wearied soul. Have you ever felt the wearisomeness of life?”

“Have I? Ay, and felt that blessed would be the day when I could sleep in the tomb, and dissolve and mingle with my kindred elements.”

“And of what have you had to complain? You have had all the world has to offer; you have received its choicest gifts; you have had no care, no anxiety, no trouble. You have on this point all that men of the world most envy. Rarely have you formed a wish which was not gratified almost as soon as formed. Wealth, talents, learning, health, pleasures for every sense,- what have you needed? In your boundless variety how could the soul become weary?”

“No, there is one thing I want that I have not; one acquisition I have not made, but which I might have made. Let me have that and I will be satisfied. Let me call my adored Katharine mine; let her forget the insult she received; let her consent to share my earthly fortune with me, and I should never again complain of weariness, or call this a vain world.”

“Perhaps at this moment you speak sincerely, and yet you can only be affecting sincerity. Your pride is wounded, and you would soothe it. Very likely, were I to grant your request, that wound would be healed. But the new pleasure would pall, the new toy would be cast aside, and you would still say, ‘One thing is wanting!’”

“No Katharine, you wring me. I am sincere. I love truly, honorably, and honestly, and I feel in your presence a holy and chastening influence. You have power over me; you would fix my affections and fill my heart.

And so you have said to a dozen others, just as sincerely, and as truly. Some of them believed you, and you laughed at your dupes, and cast them away.

“O, they were morning glories, closed, faded, and died in the first ray of sunshine that struck them. There was nothing of them.”

“As much as of me, and more too.” No, talk not of this. I know your life is a gilded misery. I will not mock you. For your own sake I pity you. With all your learning, and wisdom, and talents, and possessions, you are the most miserable man of my acquaintance.”

“Those we pity we would relieve. Why not, then, out of pure charity, take compassion on me, and seek to make my life less wretched, and perhaps turn it to some good account?”

“Because to do what you ask would not be charity, but madness. There is no good for you on your present state. You bear in you the source of your wretchedness, and your misery comes from what you most esteem and most tenderly cherish.”

“But who knows but you might bring me into a better state? Perhaps you might even make a convert of me, and you would have the glory of working out my reformation.”

“Higher power than mine must do that. Nobody but God, and your own will cooperating with his grace, can change your condition, or render your reformation possible.”

“But God works by instruments, and he may have chosen you to be the instrument of my conversion. Your eloquence would be all powerful. Already I feel I could half become a Catholic for your sake.”

“But not for God’s sake? No. Then you cannot for mine. No, no, Sir, talk not of this. You think you can impose on my weak wit, and you would fain make me through your hollow device, but will leave myself to be seduced by arguments which you yourself urge with a half sneer. You must resort to subtler arts, lay your plans deeper, or else give up all hopes. All this which you say is seen through at a glance, and would excite my mirth, if the subject was not too grave for laughter.”

“Kate, this is too bad. You are trifling with me, you love me, you know you do.”

“Certainly, for I am commanded to love my enemies, to bless them that curse me, and to do good to them that despitefully use me.”

“I am not your enemy Kate.”

“How long since you were my enemy? Were those ruffians from whom the good old man rescued me the servants of my friend?”

“O, I was a madman then, and you know you have forgiven me.”

“Yes; but because I have forgiven a madman, it does not follow that I should trust myself in his power.”

“But I am not a madman now.”

“Yet may be one tomorrow. What security can you give me that you will not be.”

“My word, the word of a gentleman.”

“A gentleman! Pray, what are your claims to be a gentleman? No, do not undertake to enumerate them; I know them already. And your word, that is worth – what costs the breath to make it.”

“You are severe, Kate.”

“Not half so severe as you deserve”

“Well, I mut bear it. But you will think better of it hereafter. You might save me, but you will not, and since you will not when you might, my soul will be demanded at your hands.”

“If I rated your soul no higher than you yourself rate it, the demand would not frighten me. But I have wasted too much time in idle words. I once believed you a great man, but I find you not one of whom I could boast. Learn to see yourself as I see you, or, rather, learn to see yourself as God sees you, and then I shall be happy to see you again. Till then, Mr. Morton, I have the honor to wish you a good morning.”

“Not so fast. You remember I am your guardian.”

“I remember it. Are your ruffians at hand, and your harem prepared? Go, say no more. Go, get a good conscience and clean hands, before you undertake to woo or to threaten.”

I left very much as I was bidden,- not much elated with my success it is true, but far from being discouraged. I was fully convinced of the sincerity of the girl’s religious convictions, and somewhat surprised that she had been able to subdue her early passionate attachment to me. But I saw clearly enough, that, if subdued, it was not quite eradicated. Her religion required her to eradicate it entirely, but the habit of many years left yet its traces, and I was sure her love could be revived, and with proper care nursed again into full vigor. “She shall be mine,” said I. “I feel more sure of it than I did this morning.” In the mean time I will look a little into this Catholicism to which she seems to be so devoted. Perhaps, after all, there may be something in it. It has had a strange, eventful history, and the fact that it is now standing, vigorous and as active as ever, and counting more adherents, as some say, than at any former period, is almost a miracle. It is strange that I have never thought of examining it.