Chapter XXXV: The Minister’s Farewell

A Sabbath day in New England. Who can describe it?—the sublime stillness, the hush which falls on every living thing, filling the very atmosphere with a spirit of prayer. The trees seem to wave their branches as if they were palms, ready to be thrown along the pathway to church, rendering it more holy. The birds, calmed by the profound quiet, float through the air dreamily and without fear. So completely does the spirit of God pervade the earth and sky, that whispered thanksgiving seems the only language which would not break the charm of profound holiness.

A morning like this dawned on the streets of New Haven, lighting them half with sunshine, wrapping them half in shadows. Every house was still, every footstep fell restrainedly on the sidewalk. The college grounds were deserted, and lay spread out beneath the stooping elm-trees one carpet of mossy greenness. Through this sacred calm, first one bell and then another rung out a clear summons to church. Then the streets filled with neatly-dressed people, family groups, couples walking close together, and children excited by the bells into quicker steps than their parents thought decorous.

A grave, subdued look was remarkable in all these people. Friends scarcely ventured to smile a recognition as they met. The little girls cast shy glances at each other’s bonnets, and looked down again demure and conscience-stricken by their own wicked curiosity. Thus, the streets that intersect Yale College grounds were threaded with a kind of life that seemed like absolute stillness.

Into the various churches these devout people diverged, and directly after the bells ceased ringing, the streets were empty again.

One place of worship, a small, new church, that had consolidated the worshipers of a home-mission station, was more than usually full that Sabbath. The young minister, a man so beloved and reverenced in his congregation that a glow of blessings followed him wherever he moved, was that day to take leave of his people. “It might be for years, and it might be forever.” After building up the church and converting a handful of inquirers into a thriving brotherhood, his health had gradually broken down, and a long sea-voyage was deemed the only hope left to him.

It was not remarkable that the good people who entered the church should pass up the aisles with sad countenances and lingering steps, or that many a loving eye should grow misty as it turned on the minister, when he appeared in the dim twilight around the altar more like a ghost than a human being. With his eyes bent upon the ground, he saw no one, though such yearning looks were fastened on him, but moved up to the sacred desk and sunk to his knees, it would seem as much from weakness as devotion.

All the ceremonies of that morning were doubly impressive from the sadness that lay on the congregation. But when the clergyman spoke,—when his altering tones were gathered up and poured forth upon the audience,—one deep throb of sympathy beat from heart to heart, filling the whole church with sorrow.

The discourse was a strange one. The pastor who had done so much for them, whose lips had been so exemplary that he was considered “little less than the angels,” seemed pleading with his people for forgiveness of some great transgression,—for shortcomings and backslidings of which no one believed him capable. As he warmed and grew more earnest, his startling eloquence swelled over them like cries of loving anguish. His voice thrilled with the pathos of unshed tears. There was no argument in his sermons,—scarcely an attempt at method;—but every sentence went trembling from soul to soul with solemnity and power.

When the sermon was over,—when the last farewell was taken and the minister lifted his shaking hands in benediction,—the suppressed grief broke out; sobs rose from various parts of the house, and tearful eyes looked into each other claiming sympathy. Long after other worshipers had left their sanctuaries, the congregation remained together, hovering around the church, or standing sadly in the pews, waiting for the pastor to come forth.

He tried to avoid these simple, loving people, whose wealth of affection oppressed him, and there, in the dim vestry sat, motionless, with the sacred vestments still shrouding his person, and the heart under them ready to break.

He arose at last, slowly and sadly divested himself of gown and band, cast one look around the little room, twice sacred to him, and went drearily forth. The church was yet full. He recoiled a moment, trembling with a new shock, then walked down the aisle with a mournful smile on his lip, saying farewell, and hearing nothing but blessings till he came to the door. There a sorrowing crowd gathered around him, swelling the tide of anguish till speech forsook him, and, with a pathetic gesture, he passed from among them. The pastor went home slowly, with his head bent down, and his sorrowful eyes too weary for uplifting. A white garment fluttered before him, footsteps lingered on the grass by the unpaved street he was treading. At first he took no heed, but after a little a subtle thrill stirred his heart, and he looked up. A fair young girl was before him gliding over the grass with sorrowful slowness. She paused an instant,—hesitated and turned as if to go back. Then he saw her face clearly,—its troubled paleness and the look of suppressed tears that left deep bluish shadows around the eyes, and a flush upon the drooping lids.

They stood thus, face to face, looking at each other, with yearning sorrow. The girl must have stepped forward first; for he stood motionless. During one instant their hands clasped, neither spoke,—a look—oh, how much more pathetic than words!—passed between them, and they parted in painful quietness.

He stood mute and still a little time after she passed from his sight, not in reflection, but dumb, as if his guardian angel had just looked upon him and fled, after seeing what manner of man he was. Then he turned suddenly, resolved to speak out the love that had so long slept, a mute blessing in his innermost heart; but in the anguish of that farewell she had walked rapidly, and the flutter of her cloud-like garments among the shrubbery around a cottage-house which was her home, sent back a shadowy farewell. Then the usual fiend that tortured him came in, goading that sensitive conscience with its sharp memories.

“Who am I, and what am I, that this hand should thrill so after her clasp,—or these lips dare to syllable her name,” he muttered, despondently. “God forgive me this wild thought. Ah me! Hereafter, I must lead a lonely life, and ask nothing of my Lord but mercy and forgiveness.”

He lifted his eyes to heaven, and God’s light that fell from thence, revealed how sad they were.

“It was only for a moment,” he murmured; “only for one little moment. I do not struggle, Lord. I do not complain. Was not the divine Jesus lonely as a man,—was not his holy nature tortured while in thraldom with humanity? Is it hard, then, that I, so frail, so wicked, with sin burning red on my forehead, should pass through life a lonely being,—an exile whose hopes all lie in the hereafter?”

He looked back once more through the misty sorrow that vailed his eyes. One of the cottage windows was open, and through it appeared a white figure leaning out, as if eager to lessen the space that lay between her and the unhappy object she was gazing on. She saw that he was regarding her, but gave no signal that would have seemed sacrilegious on the holy day; but, unconsciously, she stretched forth her arms, the wind caught in her loose sleeves and they fluttered out like wings that quivered with desire to flee towards him.

Then, with a deep sigh, the minister moved homeward, comforted, and smitten with holy tenderness. It seemed to him as if for one little moment an angel of God’s own sending had hovered over him.