The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 01, November, 1857

"Ah," said Olivia, "you indeed have reason to be comforted, because you can see in yourself the fruit of your sorrows; but I am not improving; I am only crushed and darkened,—not amended."

"Have patience with thyself, child; weeping must endure for a night; all comes not at once. 'No trial for the present seemeth joyous'; but 'afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit';—have faith in this afterwards. Some one says that it is not in the tempest one walks the beach to look for the treasures of wrecked ships; but when the storm is past we find pearls and precious stones washed ashore. Are there not even now some of these in your path? Is not the love between you and your husband deeper and more intimate since this affliction? Do you not love your other children more tenderly? Did you not tell me that you had thought on the sorrows of every house in this village? Courage, my child! that is a good sign. Once, as you read the papers, you thought nothing of those who lost friends; now you notice and feel. Take the sorrows of others to your heart; they shall widen and deepen it. Ours is a religion of sorrow. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering; our Father is the God of all consolation; our Teacher is named the Comforter; and all other mysteries are swallowed up in the mystery of the Divine sorrow. 'In all our afflictions He is afflicted.' God refuseth not to suffer;—shall we?"

There is no grave so desolate that flowers will not at last spring on it. Time passed with Albert and Olivia with healing in its wings. The secret place of tears became first a temple of prayer, and afterwards of praise; and the heavy cloud was remembered by the flowers that sprung up after the rain. The vacant chair in the household circle had grown to be a tender influence, not a harrowing one; and the virtues of the lost one seemed to sow themselves like the scattered seeds of a fallen flower, and to spring up in the hearts of the surviving ones. More tender and more blessed is often the brooding influence of the sacred dead than the words of the living.

Olivia became known in the abodes of sorrow, and a deep power seemed given her to console the suffering and distressed. A deeper power of love sprung up within her; and love, though born of sorrow, ever brings peace with it. Many were the hearts that reposed on her; many the wandering that she reclaimed, the wavering that she upheld, the desolate that she comforted. As a soul in heaven may look back on earth, and smile at its past sorrows, so, even here, it may rise to a sphere where it may look down on the storm that once threatened to overwhelm it.

It was on the afternoon of just such another summer day as we have described at the opening of our story, that Olivia was in her apartment, directing the folding and laying away of mourning garments. She took up the dark veil and looked on it kindly, as on a faithful friend. How much had she seen and learned behind the refuge of its sheltering folds! She turned her thoughts within herself. She was calm once more, and happy,—happy with a wider and steadier basis than ever before. A new world seemed opened within her; and with a heart raised in thankfulness she placed the veil among her most sacred treasures.

Yes, there by the smiling image of the lost one,—by the curls of her glossy hair,—by the faded flowers taken from her bier, was laid in solemn thankfulness the Mourning Veil.

PENDLAM: A MODERN REFORMER

My theatre-going friend pulled up suddenly in his ambling discourse concerning the merits of the last actress, dropped his voice to a whisper, touched my arm, and pointed with his cane.

"Look! the Reverend John Henry Pendlam!"

"Coming out of a bar-room! Ho, ho! Sir Reverend!"

I spoke gayly, but with an indefinably serious sentiment at heart I was interested in this John Henry Pendlam; not particularly on account of the reputation for eloquence and zeal which he had so early and rapidly achieved, but his approaching marriage with my friend's second cousin, Susan D–, (whom I had myself even barely escaped marrying,) quickened a personal curiosity regarding my successor.

"He is on no base errand," replied Horatio. "He goes about carrying the Gospel into these dens. The papers you see in his hand are tracts. Shall I introduce you?"

Before I could fairly answer, No, (for I felt a repugnance to making the acquaintance of any man who was to marry Susan,) Pendlam, standing a moment in the gas-light before the door of the saloon, observed my friend, and advanced quickly.

"Too late to escape!" cried the young clergyman, seizing Horatio by the collar. "I have you, truant!" And he drew a tract upon him, like a revolver.

"I surrender!" said Horatio. "If it's you, don't shoot; I'll come down, as the treed coon said to the hunter."

"Don't think to disarm me by a pleasantry," replied Pendlam, brandishing his spiritual weapon. "This is my sermon on the theatre, which you engaged to hear me preach; I have had it printed for you."

"Really," said Horatio, with a humorous smile, "I had forgotten my promise. Besides, I was engaged,—let me see, it was two Sundays ago, wasn't it?—yes, I was engaged to dine with Miss Kellerton."

"The actress! On Sunday!" said Pendlam, with a shocked expression. "But you might have heard me in the morning."

"In the morning we rode together," laughed Horatio.

I knew all this was a fiction on the part of my friend, designed to mystify the minister. I said nothing, to avoid an introduction; I had stepped aside, and now stood, amused and observant, under the street lamp. Pendlam especially I studied, with one eye (figuratively speaking) on him, and the other on Susan. I compared him with myself, and had no doubt but she was weak enough to consider him the handsomer man of the two. He was of medium height, slightly built, of a nervous temperament, with bright, quick-glancing eyes, and vehement gestures. The chief characteristic of the man seemed intensity. It manifested itself in his eager movements, in his emphasis and tones of voice, in his swiftly changing expression, in his wild hair, in his neckerchief, which seemed to have been tied with a jerk, and in his dress throughout, which was evidently that of a man who had things of vaster importance to think of.

He was whirling Horatio away in a torrent of eloquence, poured out against the sins of the age, and mainly against the theatre, which he denounced as the citadel of dissipation and all immoralities; and my poor friend, who had opened the gates of this flood by his indiscreet pleasantry, was vainly endeavouring to escape and rejoin me, when I observed a person come out of the saloon, and gradually draw near, until he stood within a few feet of the zealous reformer. A group watched him from the door. Before I suspected his object, he threw out the coils of a concealed whip, and springing upon Pendlam from behind, dealt him furious successive blows over the shoulders and head. I ran to the rescue. But already Horatio had seized the whip.

"Good for evil," cried Pendlam, as I was on the point of throttling the assailant. "My friend, how have I injured you?"

"Interfering with my business! getting away my custom! insulting folks with your cursed tracts!" frothed the angry man. "I swore to cowhide you, and I've done it!"

"If that is the case, I have no complaint to make," said Pendlam. "You can go on with your cowhiding."

"You've had enough for once!" growled the other, rolling up the lash.

"But if I deserve whipping for doing my duty, I deserve a good deal more," cried Pendlam. "And if you are to be my castigator for each offence, you will find yourself pretty well employed. It would be less trouble, I should think, to do a little more, while you have your hand in. Meanwhile, take this tract upon the sin of Anger, carry it home with you, and read it carefully at your leisure."

Muttering threats, the man returned to the saloon, amid the laughs and acclamations of his constituents. Pendlam followed impulsively, and left the tract within. He then returned to us. Up to this time, he had appeared exalted and firm; but now there came a reaction; his voice forsook him, he trembled violently, and we were obliged to give him the support of our arms. As we conducted him away, his condition might have been taken for that of many others who get into difficulty in bar-rooms. Arrived at his boarding-house, he thanked us with pathetic earnestness, and urged us to go in.

"On one condition," said Horatio,—"that you say no more about the theatres."

Pendlam smiled faintly. "I should think I might refrain from that and kindred topics, at least until my shoulders have done smarting! But I assure you, my zeal will only be quickened by the occurrences of this night. The first horsewhipping is a great event. I now know what it is to be a martyr!"

We went in and conversed. My repugnance to forming a friendship with the man who was to marry Susan had vanished. I found him rather too zealous,—almost fanatical; but we forgive every thing in a man who shows generosity of heart, and sincere aspirations. Horatio took a paper from his pocket and read for the twentieth time a certain criticism upon Miss Kellerton's acting; occasionally looking up, to listen to some remark from either Pendlam or myself,—then returning to his favorite article.

I had the honor of differing, on many essential points, with my new clerical acquaintance; and we were soon on excellent terms of courteous dispute. I assumed the philosopher, and expressed candidly my conviction that his intellect had early projected itself into doctrines which would prove too confined for its future growth. I remember distinctly his reply.

"On the contrary, it is you," he said, "who, I perceive, will some day come over upon the very ground I now occupy. Our modern ways of thinking have become too free and lax. We cannot draw the rein and tighten the girth."

There was a charming sparkle in his blue eyes as he spoke. I gave him my hand, and we parted. As we walked away together, Horatio asked how I liked him.

"He is in earnest, and that is everything. But mark me, he is not the man for Susan."

"Your jealousy!" said Horatio.

"Not a bit! I see a discrepancy."

"Where?"

"In my mind's eye, Horatio."

I concluded that silence was discretion, and refused to answer more questions. Horatio looked at his watch.

"We have just time to see Miss Kellerton in the last act of 'The Stranger.' She is great! You should see her, when she turns and embraces the children; it's a scene of overwhelming pathos! Come!"

"With Pendlam's printed sermon in your pocket?"

Horatio laughed. "We will read it during the dance!"

But I declined; and he went alone into the theatre.

Not long after, I received a certain wedding card, and, in consequence, made a certain call. Susan was all blushes and smiles at sight of me; but I was cool and circumspect.

"We are friends, are we not?" I said, "We once thought we were more than that; but we became older and wiser. We agreed to disagree, very properly. It did not break our hearts; and that shows that it is better as it is."

"Perhaps," murmured Susan.

"Let us be quite frank with each other; that is the best way, Susan. We are good friends?"

"O, yes!" said Susan.

"Thank you, dear Susan,—if I may still call you so, in the sense of friendship. I know your husband, and love him. I congratulate you on having so noble a companion."

Susan sighed, and concealed a tear. Just then Pendlam entered. He seemed abstracted, and took a quick turn across the room; then gave me a surprised look, a pleased smile, and a cordial grasp of the hand. The next hour I was oblivious of all external things, in the delightful excitement of our conversation. I even forgot Susan. Poor Susan! the trouble was, she was not intellectual; not at all imaginative; but a very plain, matter-of-fact person, with deep affections, and paramount instincts. During that memorable hour, she spoke not one word. When at length I observed her consciously, she was gazing at us with a look of weariness and vacancy.

"Is it not so?" cried Pendlam.

He appealed to her. She smiled sweetly, and said with simplicity that she scarcely understood any thing that had been said.

I could see that Pendlam was a little shocked. From clear, joyous heights of poetic discourse, we looked down, and saw how far off below was her beingless mind. To the vision we then enjoyed, there was something thick and earthy in her expression. It was the first time Pendlam had observed it; I had seen it before. And even as before, I looked back, with wonder at myself, to the earlier period when I deemed her beauty peerless.

Both Pendlam and I were chilled. The fine tension of the spiritual chords relaxed, and gave forth heavier music. Susan failing to ascend to us, we came down to her. She now made haste to atone for her long silence by talking freely of the pretty new church, and the people she saw out Sunday; and she seemed proud and happy when she brought out her wedding gifts, and I praised them.

It was several weeks before I again saw Pendlam. I went with Horatio to hear him preach. The sermon surprised me. Many of the thoughts which I had advanced in our private conversations, and which he had opposed, were reproduced, but very slightly modified, in his discourse.

"Pendlam is enlarging," whispered Horatio. "The very things you said to him the first time you met!"

I was gratified by the fact, and gratified that Horatio observed it; regarding it as evidence of Pendlam's emancipation from his chains.

The services over, the young clergyman made his way to us through the crowd.

"I have so much wished to see you!" he exclaimed, grasping my hand. "You were a little astonished at my sermon."

"And a good deal pleased," I added.

Pendlam's delicate and changing features colored finely.

"You think I have altered my views, I see by your smile. Not at all, except that I have gone farther."

"I am glad you have gone farther," I answered.

"But in the same direction, I assure you!" said Pendlam, quickly. "Step by step, step by step."

"You were on your way back to Paul and the Fathers."

"Yes; and on my arrival among them, I found myself one of the Fathers! It was a necessary experience. As Paul spoke by authority, so I, when I stand where Paul stood, also speak by authority. We must first be obedient, before we can be free. You see where I am," said Pendlam.

Here a young woman came forward, and, with tears in her eyes, thanked her pastor for the glorious truths he had that day preached.

"They are not my truths; they are the Lord's; I am but his mouthpiece," answered Pendlam, well pleased.

A gray-haired deacon now approached.—"On the hull," said he, "I liked your sarmon tolerable well, Brother Pendlam; but it warn't one o' your best; and if anybody else had preached it, I should have thought it contained a little dangerous doctrine."

Pendlam blushed. This compliment did not please him quite so well. But before he could shape a reply, quite an old woman seized his hand and kissed it.

"God bless you for those words! They have done my soul good, sir!"

Her gratitude and piety were quite affecting. Tears gushed into Pendlam's eyes. The deacon turned away with a smirk and an ominous shake of the head.

Horatio had found Susan. Pendlam took my arm, and we walked out of the church. The crowd pressed on before us; and as we reached the vestibule, we overheard suppressed voices the merits of the sermon.

"It was full of beautiful truth!" said a sweet young girl's voice.

"The most eloquent discourse I ever heard!" added a young man with a singing-book under his arm.

"For my part," remarked a portly and well-dressed pillar of the church, "I was a good deal surprised. Rather too wild and flowery. Must have a bad tendency."

"What we want is sound doctrine," observed another prosperous pillar.

"Better let such abstract subjects alone."

"Dangerous doctrine! dangerous doctrine!" chimed in the gray-haired deacon.

On reaching the open air, I observed that Pendlam was quite tremulous and flushed.

"You see," he said with a smile, "what it is to be a minister."

We went home to his house. Horatio had arrived before us, in company with Susan and her mother. The latter was looking very uncomfortable at seeing me, I thought, for she had hated me cordially since my affair with her daughter.

"I declare, John Henry," she said, in her energetic way, "I hope you never will preach another such sermon as long as I live! I couldn't make neither head nor tail to it." And she gathered up her Sunday things, which she had taken off in the parlour, with an air of offended piety that occasioned a general smile. Pendlam smiled with the rest.

"Well, Horatio, you next,—what did you think of my sermon?"

"I liked it."

"Good! but give your reason."

"Because you said nothing about the theatre. I was mortally afraid you would; for, d'ye see, you had a distinguished theatrical personage in your audience."

"Indeed! I was not aware; who?"

"Miss Kellerton herself!"

"Is it possible?" Pendlam looked surprised, Susan interested, Mrs. D– (with her Sunday things on her arm) amazed.

"She told me she was going to hear you, to show you that she could be quite as tolerant as yourself. She expects you to return the compliment, and go to her benefit."

Poor Pendlam hardly knew what to say in his confusion. Susan spoke up,—

"Why didn't you point her out to me? I have such a curiosity to see her."

"It was to her I took off my hat, coming away from the church door."

"To her!" broke forth Mrs. D–, "to an actress! Horatio, I'm ashamed of you. You wouldn't have caught me walking with you, if I had known!" She shook her Sunday things indignantly; and there was another general smile, as she took these representatives of her piety abruptly out of the room.

"Ail this is very interesting," said Pendlam, recovering his equanimity. "I wonder what sort of a sermon I shall preach next Sabbath?"

We were invited to stay to luncheon. Horatio consented; but I declined, and took my leave, much to the gratification of Susan's mother, no doubt.

Some months passed before I again saw Pendlam. Our next meeting was in the street. I observed him coming towards me with the peculiarly abstracted and intense expression which his face assumed under excitement.

"What now?" I asked.

"A little difficulty with my people," he said, with a forced smile. "I have just come from a church meeting; it was terribly hot there!"

"No serious trouble, I hope?"

"O, no,—only, you will hardly be surprised to hear, my preaching has been somewhat too liberal for them."

"Why, sir," I cried, "if I remember right, you were for restoring the more rigorous and stringent forms of religion; drawing the rein and tightening the girth."

"Most certainly! and do you not see? Step by step I worked back to the primitive and central principle, the soul of all religion. You know what that is. It is Love! This I have preached," said Pendlam, his features suffused, his eyes glistening bright; "and this I shall continue to preach, while life lasts. Persecution cannot influence me. I know my duty, and I shall perform it, at all risks. You see where I am," added Pendlam.

I was thrilled to admiration by his enthusiasm and heroic resolution. At the same time I saw him in that transitional state which is so full of peril to persons of certain temperaments, escaping into too sudden freedom and light from the walls of a narrow and gloomy belief; and I could not but smile, with mingled amusement and commiseration, at his singular step-by-step processes.

It was during the following autumn that Horatio and I one day looked in upon a reform meeting, held at the Melodeon. The audience was thin, the speakers numerous. The platform was crowded with male and female reformers, among whom I recognized our clerical friend Pendlam. A celebrated female orator sat down, and Pendlam stood up. The audience cheered a little; the platform cheered a good deal. He at first stammered and hesitated, not from want of thoughts, but from their pressure and multitude. They soon fused, however, and poured forth streams of fire, rather largely mixed with smoke.

"There is no other religion but Love," declared the speaker. "And where Love is, there is Religion; in the Mohammedan, in the Mormon, in the savage,—I care not for names. And where Love is not, there Religion is not, though her image be preserved and clothed in all Christian forms. Theology and sects fall away from it; it is alone vital; it is eternal, it is unitary, it is God. Here I proclaim it to the world; here I announce to you and to all where I stand."

This speech was reported along with others in the morning papers. It was not long before Pendlam had more church business to perplex him; and he soon withdrew from the pastorship of his troublesome flock. A number of these went with him; there was a schism in the church; and the following spring, a new society was formed, which gave Pendlam a call.

I also gave him a call, at his house. Changes had taken place since my last visit. I was shocked at Susan's altered appearance. She had had an infant, and untold trouble along with it. The bloom of the bride was gone, and the finer permeating beauty of the happy mother had failed to replace it. Mrs. D– was with her. This excellent lady received me with surprising politeness, and brought out the little Pendlam for my inspection.

"Is it possible, Susan, that this living, breathing, dimpled little wonder is yours?"

"I suppose it is," said the blushing Susan.

"Where is its father?" I inquired, for John Henry had not yet appeared.

"It hasn't got any father!" ejaculated Mrs. D–, with grim sarcasm. "A man can't be a reform-preacher, and a father too. His sermons, lectures, and conventions are of too much importance for him even to think of his wife and child."

I looked to see poor Susan writhe with pain under these harsh words. But she merely heaved a sigh, and let fall a tear on the babe, which she had taken from its grandmother's arms.

"I will speak to Mr. Pendlam," she said, as she hastily left the room.

"I am glad you have come," said Mrs. D–, bitterly, seating herself on the sofa. "I am glad to see any person enter this house, who isn't all eaten up with the evils of society. I have heard about the evils of society till I'm heartily sick of them. People that come to see Pendlam don't generally talk about anything else. It's the ruin of him, as I tell Susan; I never in this world can be reconciled to his leaving his church."

Mrs. D– became confidential, and abused her daughter's husband in a style which did not argue much for the peace of his household during that energetic lady's visits. Her indignation against him had quite swallowed up her old cherished resentment against myself. She soon went so far as to insinuate a regret that Susan had not married a man of solid sense and some mental ballast, (meaning me,) instead of a hotheaded reformer.

Susan reentered. "Mr. Pendlam is very busy; but he will come down presently."

She sighed, and took a seat. Mrs. D– continued her abuse of her son-in-law, in her daughter's presence,—which I thought in very bad taste, to say the least. Susan uttered not one word in her husband's defence, but simply sat and sighed. I defended and praised him; for which act of friendship I earned not one look of gratitude from her, and only contempt and sneers from her mother.

I was glad when Pendlam appeared. He was looking care-worn and toil-worn; his expression had grown more intense than ever. His face lighted up a little at sight of me; but it was some minutes before his mind seemed capable of extricating itself from its abstractions, and meeting me upon social grounds.

"You will excuse me. I am heartily rejoiced to see you. I was hard at work. Just pass your hand over my forehead; it will relieve the pressure upon my brain. My mission is now fully revealed to me; everything is reform, reform. I have been led here step by step. Your magnetism is very soothing. The old crumbling walls of creeds and conventionalities are to be swept away, and their foundations subjected to the plough and the harrow. I am in the harness. I have no motive for concealment; I tell you frankly where I stand," said Pendlam. Another long sigh from Susan. Mrs. D– tossed her contemptuous chin, and expressed scorn in divers significant ways.