590

....

Pour in divine refreshments on my soul;

Then let Him smile, whose gentle smile could cheer
The shades of hell, and scatter all its gloom.
Forget me not in that important hour;
Recal these earnest sighs; look kindly o'er
The long-recorded file of humble prayer
Sent to thy glorious seat; Thou who, at once,
Dost past, and present, and the future view,
Give back an answer in that sullen moment,
When all things else shall fail. No sound of joy,
No sight of beauty, no delightful scene,
Shall aught avail; nor sun, nor sparkling stars,
Shall yield one gentle, one propitious ray,
To gild the fatal dusk, or cheer the soul.
Then let the Sun of Righteousness arise,
With dawning light; and be the prospect clear
Beyond the dismal gulf; let darting beams
Of glory meet my view. Be hell defied
On that triumphant day; oh! let me give
A parting challenge to infernal rage,
And sing salvation to the Lamb for ever!

The Elder's Death- Bed.*

Mrs. Rowe,

prayer.

On

For six years' sabbaths I had seen the Elder in bis accustomed place beneath the pulpit, and with a sort of solemn fear, had looked on his stedfast countenance during sermon, psalm, and returning to the scenes of my infancy, I now met the pastor going to pray by his death-bed; and with the privilege which nature gives us to behold, even in their last extremity, the loving and the beloved, I turned to accompany him to the house of sorrow, signation, and of death.

And now,

of re

for the first time, I observed, walking close to the feet of his horse, a little boy about ten years of age, who kept frequently looking up in the pastor's face, with his blue eyes bathed in tears. A changeful expression of grief, hope, and despair, made almost Abridged from an affecting article in " Blackwood's Magazine," written, it is sup

posed, by JOHN WILSON, Esq.

pale

and

was

fur

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They had to send his grandson

pale, cheeks which otherwise were blooming in health and beauty;
and I recognised, in the small features and smooth forehead of
childhood, a resemblance to the aged man, who, we understood,
was now lying on his death-bed.
for me through the snow, mere child as he is," said the minister,
looking tenderly on the boy; "but love makes the young heart
bold-and there is One who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."
As we slowly approached the cottage, through a deep snow-drift,
which the distress within had prevented the inmates from removing,
peeping out from the door, brothers and sisters of our little
guide, who quickly disappeared, and then their mother showed
herself in their stead, expressing, by her raised eyes, and her arms
folded across her breast, how thankful she was to see, at last, the
pastor, beloved in joy and trusted in trouble.

we saw,

A few words sufficed to say who the stranger was—and the dying man, blessing me by name, held out to me his cold shrivelled hand, in token of recognition. I took my seat at a small distance from the bedside, and left a closer station for those who were more dear. The pastor sat down near his elder's head—and by the bed, leaning on it with gentle hands, stood that matron his daughter-in-law-a figure that would have sainted a higher dwelling, and whose native beauty was now more touching in its grief. But religion upheld her whom nature was bowing down; not now for the first time were the lessons taught by her father to be put into practice, for I saw that she was clothed in deep mourning—and she behaved like the daughter of a man whose life had not only been irreproachable, but lofty, with fear and hope fighting desperately, but silently, in pure and pious heart.

the core of her

"If the storm do not abate," said the sick man after a pause, “it will be hard for my friends to carry me over the drifts to the kirkyard." This sudden approach to the grave struck, as with a bar of ice, the heart of the loving boy-and with a long deep sigh, he fell down with his face like ashes on the bed, while the old man's palsied right hand had just strength to lay itself upon his head.

66

“God has been gracious to me a sinner," said the dying man. During thirty years that I have been an elder in your kirk, never

have I missed sitting there one sabbath. Wher the mother of my children was taken from me-it was on a Tuesday she died-and on Saturday she was buried. We stood together when my Alice was let down into the narrow house made for all living. On the sabbath I joined in the public worship of God-she commanded me to do so the night before she went away. I could not join in the psalm that sabbath, for her voice was not in the throng. Her grave was covered up, and grass and flowers grew there."

The old man ceased speaking—and his grandchild, now able to endure the scene,-for strong passion is its own support-glided softly to a little table, and bringing a cup in which a cordial had been mixed, held it in his small soft hands to his grandfather's lips. He drank, and then said, " Come closer to me, Jamie, and kiss me, for thine own and for thy father's sake;" and as the child fondly pressed his rosy lips on those of his grandfather, so white and withered, the tears fell over all the old man's face, and then trickled down on the golden head of the child, at last sobbing in his bosom, Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father nor thy mother, for that, thou knowest and feelest, is the commandment of God."

66

The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the loving old man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather's bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees, and hid her face with her hand." Oh! if my husband knew but of this, he would never, never desert his dying father!" And I now knew that the elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son.

At this affecting time the minister took the family-bible on his knees, and said, " Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;" and be read with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses,

Within thy tabernacle, Lord,

Who shall abide with thee?
And in thy high and holy hill,
Who shall a dweller be?

The man that walketh uprightly,

And worketh righteousness,
And as he thinketh in his heart,

So doth he truth express."

Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and a tall finelooking man entered, but with a lowering and dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck, by the melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, and looked with a ghastly face towards his father's death-bed. When the psalm ceased, the elder said, with a solemn voice, "My son, thou art come in time to receive thy father's bless ing. May the remembrance of what will happen in this room, ere the morning again shine over the hazel-glen, win thee from the error of thy ways. Thou art here to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, whom thou hast forgotten."

The minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not recovered his speech, and said "William! for three years past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house of God. They who fear not the thunder may tremble at the still small voice-now is the hour for repentance that your father's spirit may carry up to heaven tidings of a contrite soul saved from the company of sinners!"

The

young man, with much effort, advanced to the bedside, and at last found voice to say-" Father, I am not without the affections of nature-and I hurried home the moment I heard that the minister had been seen riding towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and if ever I have made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness; for though I may not think as you do on matters of religion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness."

"Come near to me, William; kneel down by the bed-side, and let my hand feel the head of my beloved son-for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my first-born, and thou art my only living son. All thy brothers and sisters are lying in the kirkyard, beside her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so

much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my soulay, too much the pride, for there was not in all the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William. If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it again with right thoughts. I have sorely wept for thee-ay, William, when there was none near meeven as David wept for Absalom-for thee, my son, my son !"

A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his despair. The pastor said, with a sterner voice and austerer countenance than were natural to him," Know you whose band is now lying on your rebellious head? but what signifies the word FATHER to him who has denied God, the Father of us all?" "Oh! press him not too hardly," said his weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner of the room, where she tried to conceal herself in grief, fear, and shame; "spare, oh, spare my husband-he has ever been kind to me;" and with that she knelt down beside him, with her long, soft, white arms mournfully and affectionately laid across his neck. "Go thou, likewise, my sweet little Jamie," said the elder, "go even out of bosom, and kneel down beside thy father and thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with one yearning prayer." The child did as the solemn voice commanded, and knelt down, somewhat timidly, by his father's side; nor did the unhappy man decline encircling with his arm the child too much neglected, but still dear to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and debasing influence of infidelity.

my

"Put the word of God into the hands of my son, and let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to St. John." The pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, "There was a time wheu none, William, could read the scriptures better than couldst thou-can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth?" He had not forgotten them-there was no need of the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bed-side. The sacred stream of the Gospel had worn a channel in his heart, and the waters were again flowing.