San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-06-21
CHAPTER TX.
THE INTERIOR OF A HEART.


While thus suffering under
bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured
by some black trouble of the soul, and
given over to the Vaccinations of his
deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr..
Dimmesdale had achieved brilliant
popularity in his sacred Office. He won it,
in great part, by his sorrows.
To the high mountain peaks of faith
and sanctity he would have climbed had
not the tendency been thwarted by the
burden, whatever it might be, of crime
or anguish, beneath which it was his
doom to totter. 1t kept him down on
level with the lowest; him, the man of
ethereal attributes, whose voice the an
gels might else have listened to and
that gave him sympathies so intimate
with the sinful brotherhood of mankind;
so that his heart vibrated in unison with
theirs, and received their pain into itself,
and sent its own throb of pain through
a thousand other hearts in gushes of sad,
persuasive eloquence. Oftenest per-
suasive, but sometimes terrible!
The people knew not the power that
moved them thus. They deemed the
young clergyman a miracle of holiness.
They fancied him the mouthpiece of
heavens messages of wisdom and re-
buke and love. In their eyes the very
ground on which he trod was sanctifed.
The virgins of his church grew pale
around him, victims of passion so i'm
bued with religious sentiment that they
imagined it to be all religion and brought
it openly in their white bosoms as their
most acceptable sacrifice before the altar.
The aged members of his flock, beholding
Mr.. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble while
they were themselves so rugged in their
infrmity, believed that he would go
heayenward before them and enjoined it
upon their children that their old bones
should be buried close to their young
pastors holy grave. And all this time,
perchance, when poor Mr.. Dimmesdale
was thinking of his grave, he questioned
with himself whether the grass would
ever grow ON it, because an accursed
thing must there be buried!
1t is inconceivable, the agony with
which this public veneration tortured
himl 1t was his genuine impulse to
adore the truth, and to reckon all things
shadowlike, and utterly devoid of weight
or value, that had not its divine essence
as the life within their life. Then, what
was he?-a substance?-or the dimmest
of all shadows? He longed to speak
out, from his own pulpit, at the full
height of his voice, and tell the people
what he was. II, whom you behold in
these black garments of the priesthood;
l, who ascend the sacred desk and turn
my pale face heavenward, taking upon
myself to hold communion, in your be-
half, with the Most High Omniscience;
/, in whose daily life you discern the
sanctity of Enoch; |, whose footsteps,
as you suppose, leave a CLEAN along my
earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that
shall come after me may be guided tC
the regions of the blest; l, who have
laid the hand of baptism upon YOU
children; |, who have breathed the part
ing prayer over your dying friends, t.
whom the amen sounded family from 1
world which they had Quilted; |, you
pastor, whom you SO reverence and trust
am utterly pollution and lier'
More than once Mr.. Dimmesdale hat
gone into the pulpit with a purpos
never to come down its steps until h
should have spoken words like tn
above. More than once he had clearet
his throat and drawn in the long, dee
and tremulous breath which, when sen
forth again, would come burdened wit
the black secret of his soul. More tina
once-nay, more than ahundred time