The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-01-20

aged friend and benefactor. My heart
burned within me as a sudden gleam of
stormy sunlight tipt it with fire-and I
felt, at the moment, an lnexpressble sense
of the sublimity of the character of that
gray-headed shepherd, who had, for fifty
years abode in the wilderness, keeping to-
gether his own happy little flock.
As / was ascending q knoll, saw be-
fore me on horseback an old man, with his
long white hairs beaten against his face,
who nevertheless advanced with calm
countenance against the hurricane. It
was no other than my father, of whom I
had been thinking-for my father had I
called him for many years-and for many
years my father had he truly been. My
surprise at meeting him on such moor
on such day, was but momentary, for I
knew that he was shepherd who had
cared not for the winters wrath. As he
stopped to take my hand kindly into his
and to give bis blessing to his long ex-
pected visitor, the wind fell calm-the
whole face of the sky was softened, and
brightness, like smile, went over the
blushing and crimsoned snow. The very
elements seemed then to respect the
hoary-head of four score-and after our
first greeting was over, when I looked
around, in my affection, felt how beau
tiful was winter.
81 am going, said he, "to visit man
at the point of death-a man whom you
cannot have forgotten-whose head will
be missed in the kirk next Sabbath by all
my congregations devout man who
feared God all his days, and whom, on
this awful trial, God will assuredly re-
member. am going, my son, to the
Hazel-Glen."
I knew well in childhood that lonely
farm house, 80 far off among the beautiful
wild green hills-and it was not likely that
had forgotten the name Of its possessor.
For six years Sabbaths ] had seen the
elder in bis accustomed place beneath the
pulpit-and, with q sort of solemn fear,
had looked on bis steadfast countenance
during sermon, psalm and prayer. On re-
turning to the scenes Of my infancy, l
now met the pastor going to pray by his
death bed-and with the privileges which
nature gives Us to behold, even in their
last extremity, the loving and the be-
loyed, I turned to accompany him to the
hou.e Of sorrov, resignation and death.
And now, for the first time, / observed,
walking close to tho feet of his horse, q
little boy of about ten years Of age, who
kept frequently looking up in the pastors
face, with bis blue eyes bathed in tears. A
changeful expression of grief, hope, and
despair, made almost pale cheeks, that
otherwise were blooming in health and
beauty,-and recognized, in the small
features and emooth forehead Of child
hood, q resemblance to the aged man
whom We understood was now lying on
his death bed. =
"They had to send his grandson for me
through the snow, mere child as he is,''
said the minister to me, looking tenderly
on the boy; "but love makes the young
heart bold-and there is One who tempers
the wind to the shorn lamb"
again looked on the fearless child with
his rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and yellow
hair, 90 unlike grief or sorrow, yet now
sobbing aloud as if his heart would break.
81 do not fear but that my grandfather
will yet recover, soon as the minister has
said one single prayer by his bedside. l
had no hope, or little, az / was running
by myself to the manse over hill after
hill, but l am full of hopes now that we
are together and oh if Go suffers my
grandfather to recover, will lie awake all
the long winter nights blessing him for his
mercy. Twill rise up in the middle of the
darkness, and pray to him in the oold on
my naked kness!"
| And here his voice was choked, while
he kept his eyes fixed, as if for consolation
and encouragement, on the solemn and
plying countenance of the kind-hearted
pious old man.
! We soon left the main road, and struck
off through scenery that, covered as it was
with the bewilderins snow, / sometimes
dimly and sometimes viyidly remembered;
our little guide keeping ever short dis
lance before US, and with sagacity like
that of instinct, showing US our course, OF
which no trace was visible, save OCCASION
ally his own little footprints as he had
been hurrying to the manse.
After crossing for several miles, morass,
and frozen rivulet, and drifted hollow, with
here and there the top of stone-wall
peeping through the snow, or the more
visible circle of sheep-bught, we de-
scended into the Hazel Glen, and saw be-
! fore us the solitary house Of the dying elder.
A CLEAN of days gone by came suddenly
over my soul. The last time that l had
been in this Glen was On day in June,
fifteen years before, holiday, the birth
day of the King. A troop of laughing
schoolboys, headed by our benign pastor,
we danced over the sunny braes, and
startled the linnets from their nests among
the yellow broom. Austere as seemed to
US the elders Sabbath face when sitting in
the kirk, we school-boys knew that it had
its weekday smiles-and we few on the
wings ofjoy to our annual festival of curds
and cream in the farmhouse of that little
sylvan world. We rejoiced in the flowers