Year: 1867

The best portion of the opening chapters
OF Henry Ward Beecher's new novel Is a
New England love passage, the proposal n
Bah Cathcart TO Rachel Liscomb:
They were walking silently and gravely
home one Sunday afternoon, under the tall
elms that line the street for half a mile.
Neither had spoken. There had been some
little parish quarrel, and on that afternoon
/ the text was, \ new commandment
write unto you, that ye love one another -
But, after the sermon was done the text
was the best part fit. Some one said thai
Parson Marsh's sermons were like the
meeting house-the steeple was the only
thing that folks could see after they got
home


They walked slowly, without q word.
Once or twice Biab cssayed tu speak. but
was still silent He plucked flower from
between the pickets of the fence, and un-
| consciously pulled it to pieces, as, with
troubled face, he glanced at Rachel, as fear.
ing she would catch his eye, he looked al
the trees, at the clouds, at the grass, at ey.
cry thing, and saw nothing-nothing but
Rachel. The most solemn hour of human
experience is not that of Death, but of Life
when the heart is born again, and from a
natural heart becomes a heart Of love
w hat wonder that it was a silent hour and
perplexed?


Is the soul confused? Why not, when the
divine spirit, rolling clear, across the aerial
ocean, breaks upon the heart shore with
all the mystery Of heaven? Is it strange
that uncertain lights dim the eye, if above
the head of him that truly loves hover
clouds Of sanity spirits? Why should not
the tongue stammer and refuse the aceus-
toned Offices, when all the world-skies,
trees, plains, hills, atmosphere, and the
solid earth-spring forth in new colors,
with strange weanings, and seem to chant
Tor the soul the glory of that mystic Law
with which God has bound to himself his
infinite realm-the law of Love Then, for
the first time, when one so loves that love
Is sacrifice, death to SELF resurrection and
glory, Is man brought into harmony with
the whole universe; and, like him who
beheld the seventh heaven, hears things
unlawful to be uttered.


The great elm trees sighed as the fitful
breeze swept their tops. The soft shadows
fitted back and forth beneath the walker
feet fell upon them in light and dark, ran
over the ground, quiyered and shook, until
sober Cathcart thought that his heart was
throwing Its shifting network of hope and
fear along the ground before him


How strangely his voice sounded to him
as, at length, all his emotions could only
say Rachel-how did you like the ser.
mon?"


Quietly she answered.


/ like the text.


4 new commandment | write unto
you, that ye love one another Rachel,
will you help me keep it?''


At first she looked down and lost little
color; then raising her face, she turned
upon him her large eyes, with look both
clear and tender. 1t was as If some painful
restrain lad given way, ana ner eyes DlUs-
somed into fun beauty


Not another word was spoken. They
walked home hand in hand. He neither
smiled nor exulted. He saw neither the
trees, nor the long level rays of sunlight
that were slanting across the fields. His
soul was overshadowed with a cloud as if
God were drawing near. He had never felt
so solemn. This woman life had been en-
trusted to him


Long years-the whole length of life-the
eternal years beyond, seemed in an indis-
tinct way to rise up in his imagination. All
that he could say as he left her at the door,
was:


''Bachel, this is forever-forever.


enc again sara nOthlng, out turned 10
him with clear and open face, in which
JOY and trust wrought beauty. 1t seemed
to him as if light fell upon him from her
eyes. There was look that descended and
covered him as with an atmosphere; and
all the way home he was as one walking in
a luminous cloud. He had never felt such
personal dignity as now. He that wins
such love is crowned, and may cab himself
king. He did not feel the earth under his
feet, As he drew near his lodgings, the
sun went down. The children began to
pour forth, no longer restrained. Abiah
turned to his evening chores. No animal
that night but had reason to bless him The
children found him unusually good and
tender And Aunt Keziah said to her sis
ter:


"Abiah's been going to meetin very reg
ular for some weeks, and l shouldn't Won
dor, by the way he looks, if he had got a
hope. | trust he amt deceiving himself ,


He had hope, and he was not deceived;
for in a few months, at the close of the SER
vice one Sunday morning, the minister read
from the pulpit: Marriage is intended be-
tween Abiah Cathcart and Rachel Liscomb,
both of this town, and this is the first pub
4, l. g ~, -