The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-05-26


ton strong,r the overseas distich,
9Th. fast
q the wuu;"
and Just as he was about to close it, as, school
boy-like, he did all his homeward epistles at
this time, with calculation of the lessening
number of months, weeks, and days, before he
should return, Mr.. Broadstone was announced.
Mr.. Broadstone came out of time, on purpose
to tell him that the Governor had commuted
his remaining four years to one! If Joy could
kill q man, he would have died. What was
one year7 He had lived through as much as
that already. Then those five, that had fright
ensd him 50, were, after gil, nothing but bug
bear-a mere humbugl
Mr. Broadstone had further brought letters
for him from Constance, Clara, and Edward.
They had written in hope, but not in certainty.
They did not know the news. He was to tell it
them.
Edward had been at Washington. Clara had
written to Mr.. Trimmer, and sent him a daguer-
reotype taken from her mother . beautifaipictu
praying him to let it's dead lips plead with him
for her brother. Constanceprobablyh had clinehed
the business; for she had gone to Carolina,
looked up her relations and the influential con-
nections of her family, near and distant, and be-
witched them all with her gracious beauty, elo-
quence, and lovely melancholy. In midnight
condolences, she had won the hearts of more
than one of the romantic daughters of the South.
In rides, drives, and drawing rooms, she had
Eappealed not in vain to the chivalrous cham
pionship of more than one young man, who had
plenty of it at the service of so beautiful girl,
confessing herself his first, second or third
cousin, and suspected neither of drop of black
blood nor of aggressive Aboltionism. Colonel
Rochemaurice held little aloof. But that
was no matter; for nothing could exceed the
kindness and sympathy shown her by Mr.. and
Mrs. Clement. Constance had paid them a
visit of some days; in the course of which she
told her hostess what Herman would not, that
all which her gallant young lover had done had
been done on her account; and Mr.. Clement
was, during that Congressional term, member
of the House of Representatives. Soon after,
it began to be buzzed about, in the ante-rooms at
Washington and elsewhere, that young Arden's
conduct had been very much misrepresented.
He was very gentlemanly fellow for North
erner, and had not gone into Bondage to steal
negroes at all, but merely to get back, by fair
means if he could, an old family servant, whom
his lady-love had sold in q girlish freak and
wished very properly to have back again and
as for st. Dominique, he was a detestable
scoundrel, who merited to be tarred and feath-
cred as disgrace to the South.
| So, all the wires had been pulled-wire.pul-
| lers only know how-and here was the result.
Herman's postscript was not soon finished. In
the course of it he found room to beg Edward
to take the girls to Europe. They had all
| worked hard enough to earn little vacation,
he said it would make the remainder of his
absence seem shorter to them reading their
descriptions of what they saw would almost en-
able him to see it with them and he should
feel less restless, when he knew no longer that
they were so near, and yet apart. He was sure
that their health must have been shaken by
their suffering, and wished to see no trace of it
when he saw them. His will was law at home
now and perhaps Edward was glad, by obey
| ing him in this instance, to find means to di-
vert some of his thoughts before they distracted
him. He soon embarked with his charges,
and left Herman to devote himself, with quiet
mind, to tending the diseased bodies, and souls
in many cases far more grievously diseased, Of
the outcasts of society about him. He present
ly found himself admitted to field of useful
ness so very great and blessed, that he thought
he could almost have been contented to pass
his whole life in it, if it had not been for Con
stance. 1t must be acknowledged that that
was very great If.
His former life for some years had been a
remarkably apt preparation for his present; a
singularly apt one, / do not say; for suppose
that, if we were more in the habit than we are
of looking at life religiously, we should more
often see that it is Gods won't busily and stsad
ly, though little by little, to train his few obedient
sons and daughters for uses higher and broader
than they know or think even in this world
Herman believed that it is almost as difficult
for man, living among men, to keep heresy OF
infdelity, as the smallpox, to himself. DE
had striven hard, therefore, as a good citizen Of
the commonwealth of Christ, to reach the knowl
edge and practice of pure and genuine
Christianity. Though he did not expect to be
able, in the spare hours left to him by his own
very engrossing profession, to explore for him
self the whole field of the allengrossing pro
fession of theology, he was not contented to be
in religious matters an ignorant or passivey In
structed layman. He was happy in the friend
ship of clergyman of natural critical ability
as he believed, much greater than his own, and
of integrity and piety inferior to that of no man
| This gentleman, after the researches and ex
perience of his own diligent and studious fifty
years of manhood, was better able than himself
to Judge from what religious writer's he would
be likely to gain trustworthy guidance, and
from what ones he would not. So at least
thought his modest young disciple. Was he very
servile and weak-minded? Herman read, but
marked and inwardly dgested, too, for the bene
fit of his unlearned and unintellectual neigh
|
gould be perfect physician to the body, who
was not also physician of the soul for, in this
mortal life, the body and soul are kneaded SC
inextricably together, that anything which
hurts the one very much almost always makes
the other sick. He strongly disapprovcd OF
prOselytism, in general; because he thought
that it was often much easier to take mans
creed away, than to give him another instead
of it, and that any tolerably Christian creed
honestly and earnestly held, was great deal
better than none and Constance was the only
convert, from creed happily held, whom he
had even tried to make. BIT when he found
any of his Boston patients suffering from Calvin
ism, skeptieism, or any form of religious de-
precision, he made it his business to go to the
bottom of their difficulty, as if it had been his
own, studied, thought and oheered them out OF
it, and had thus added to his faith knowledge,
which now stood him in good stead. He had
made his mind conduit, through which he
poured the ideas of those hetter-informed than
himself in religion, into the minds of those
worse informed than himself fltering through
his own clear soul and eloquent speech, the
muddy flow of many wholesome but heavy
| sermon and obscure treatise. Qignifed with
out distance, kindly without familiarity, and
sympathizing without mawkishness, he at once
commanded, sustained, and soothed those
placed under his care and any account of the
influence which, from the beginning of his
stewardship, he exerted in the prison, would
seem fabulous to any one who has yet to see the
feats of that almost omnipotent person, the
right man or woman, in the right place
"Be done SWARM /" said a pretty bad sub
ject, soon after this time, to- his felow in the
workshop, on hearing coming step,
"What for? faint nobody only Arden
"He don't like it."