THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN." 223 fearful power-"DEATH!" "Strange that there should be such a word," he said, "and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires, and wants one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and for ever!" It was a warm, golden evening; and as he walked to the other end of the verandah, he saw Tom busily intent on his Bible, pointing, as he did so, with his finger to each successive word, and whispering them to himself with an earnest air. "Want me to read to you, Tom?" said St. Clare, seating himself carelessly by him. "If mas'r pleases," said Tom, gratefully; plainer." "mas'r makes it so much St. Clare took the book, and glanced at the place, and began reading one of the passages which Tom had designated by the heavy marks around it. It ran as follows: "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." St. Clare read on in an animated voice, till he came to the last of the verses. "Then shall the King say unto them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they answer unto him, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he say unto them, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me.' St. Clare seemed struck with this last passage, for he read it twice-the second time slowly, and as if he were revolving the words in his mind. "Tom," he said, "these folks that get such hard measure seem to have been doing just what I have-living good, easy respectable lives; and not troubling themselves to inquire how many of their brethren were hungry or athirst, or sick, or in prison.” Tom did not answer. St. Clare rose up and walked thoughtfully up and down the verandah, seeming to forget everything in his own thoughts: so absorbed was he, that Tom had to remind him twice that the tea-bell had rung, before he could get his attention. St. Clare was absent and thoughtful all tea-time. After tea, he and Marie and Miss Ophelia took possession of the parlour, almost in silence. Marie disposed herself on a lounge, under a silken mosquito curtain, and was soon sound asleep. Miss Ophelia silently busied herself with her knitting. St. Clare sat down to the piano, and began playing a soft and melancholy movement with the Eolian accompaniment. He seemed in a deep reverie, and to be soliloquising to himself by music. After a little, he opened one of the drawers, took out an old music-book, whose leaves were yellow with age, and began turning it over. "There," he said to Miss Ophelia, "this was one of my mother's "ooks, and here is her handwriting-come and look at it. She copied and arranged this from Mozart's Requiem." Miss Ophelia came ac cordingly. "It was something she used to sing often," said St. Clare. "I think can hear her now.' He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that grand old Latin piece, the "Dies Ira.". Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn by the sound to the very door, where he stood earnestly. He did not understand the words, of course; but the music and manner of singing appeared to affect him strongly, especially when St. Clare sang the more pathetic parts. Tom would have sympathised more heartily if he had known the meaning of the beautiful words: "Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuæ viæ, "Quærens me, sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus, St. Clare threw a deep and pathetis expression into the words; for the shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, and he seemed to hear his mother's voice leading his. Voice and instrument seemed both living, and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem. When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his hand a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor. "What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!" said he a righting of all the wrongs of ages!-a solving of all moral problems by an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image." "It is a fearful one to us," said Miss Ophelia. "It ought to be to me, I suppose," said St. Clare, stopping thoughtfully. "I was reading to Tom this afternoon that chapter in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from Heaven as the reason; but no-they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm.” 66 Perhaps," said Miss Ophelia, "it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm." "And what," said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep feeling, "what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education, and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose; who has floated on a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker ?" "I should say," said Miss Ophelia, "that he ought to repent, and begin now." 66 Always practical, and to the point !" said St. Clare, his face breakng out into a smile. "You never leave me any time for general reflec These lines have been thus rather inadequately translated: "Think, O Jesus, for what reason Thou endured'st earth's spite and treason, QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION. 225 tions, cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you have a kind of eternal now always in your mind." "Now is all the time I have anything to do with," said Miss Ophelia. "Dear little Eva-poor child!" said St. Clare, "she had set her simple little soul on a good work for me." It was the first time since Eva's death that he had ever said as many words as these of her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very strong feeling. 66 My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice, that lies at the foundation of all our society, and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle. That is, I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing." "If you knew all this," said Miss Ophelia, "why didn't you do it?" "Oh, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs." "Well, are you going to do differently now?" said Miss Ophelia. "God only knows the future," said St. Clare. "I am braver than I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks." "And what are you going to do?" "My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out," said St. Clare, “beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet done nothing; and perhaps at some future day, it may appear that I can do something for a whole class, something to save my country from the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all civilised nations." "Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will voluntarily emancipate?" said Miss Ophelia. "I don't know," said St. Clare. "This is a day of great deeds Heroism and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there, in the earth. The Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs, at an immense pecuniary loss; and, perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not estimate honour and justice by dollars and cents." "I hardly think so," said Miss Ophelia. "But suppose we should rise up to-morrow and emancipate, who would educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? They never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and unpractical ourselves ever to give them much of an idea of that industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. They will have to go north, where labour is the fashion-the universal custom; and tell me, now, is there enough Christian philanthropy among your northern states to bear with the process of their education and elevation? You send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but could you endure to have the heathen sent into your towns and villages 226 THOUGHTS OF A DEAD MOTHER. and give your time, and thoughts, and money, to raise them to the Christian standard? That's what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families in your town would take in a negro man and woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the northern states that would take them in? how many families that would board them? and yet they are as white as many a woman north or south. You see, cousin, I want justice done We are in a bad position. We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally severe." us. "Well, cousin, I know it is so," said Miss Ophelia. "I know it was so with me, till I saw that it was my duty to overcome it; but I trust I have overcome it, and I know there are many good people at the north who in this matter need only to be taught what their duty is to do it. It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among us than to send missionaries to them; but I think we would do it." "You would, I know," said St. Clare. "I'd like to see anything you wouldn't do, if you thought it your duty!" "Well, I'm not uncommonly good," said Miss Ophelia. "Others would, if they saw things as I do. I intend to take Topsy home, when I go. I suppose our folks will wonder, at first; but I think they will be brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are many people at the north who do exactly what you said." "Yes, but they are a minority; and if we should begin to emancipate to any extent, we should soon hear from you." Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments and St. Clare's countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression. "I don't know what makes me think of my mother so much to night," he said. "I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were near me. I keep thinking of things she used to say. Strange what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!" St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes more, and then said "I believe I'I go down street, a few moments, and near the news to night" He took mis пat, and passed out. Tom followed him to the passage out of the court, and asked if he should attend him. "No, my boy," said St. Clare; "I shall be back in an hour." Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful moonlight even. ing, and he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the fountain and listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home, and that he should soon be a free man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles of his brawny arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they would soon belong to himself, and how much they could do to work out the freedom of his family. Then he thought of his noble young master, and, ever second to that, came the habitual prayer that he had always offered for him; and then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom ne now thought of among the angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that bright face and golden hair were looking upon him, out of the spray of the fountain. And, so musing, he fell asleep, and dreamed he saw her coming bounding towards him, just as she used to come, with a wreath of jessamine in her hair, her cheeks bright, and her eyes radiant with delight; but, as he looked, she seemed to rise from the ground; her cheeks wore a paler hue-her eyes had a deep, divine radiance, a golden halo seemed around her head—and she vanished from his sight; and Tom was awakened by a loud knocking, and the sound of many voices at the gate, He hastened to undo it; and, with smothered voices, and heavy tread, came several men, bringing a body, wrapped in a cloak, and lying on a shutter. The light of the lamp fell full on the face; and Tom gave a wild cry of amazement and despair, that rang through all the galleries, as the men advanced with their burden to the open parlour door, where Miss Ophelia still sat knitting. St. Clare had turned into a café, to look over an evening paper. As he was reading, an affray arose between two gentlemen in the room, who were both partially intoxicated. St. Clare and one or two others made an effort to separate them, and St. Clare received a fatal stab in the side with a bowie-knife, which he was attempting to wrest from one of them The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and screams servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing themselves on the ground, or running distractedly about lamenting. Tom and Miss Ophelia alone seemed to have any presence of mind: for Marie was in strong hysteric convulsions. At Miss Ophelia's direction, one of the lounges in the parlour was hastily prepared, and the bleeding form laid upon it. St. Clare had fainted, through pain and loss of blood; but as Miss Ophelia applied restoratives, he revived, opened his eyes, looked fixedly on them, looked earnestly around the room, his eyes travelling wistfully over every object, and finally they rested on his mother's picture. The physician now arrived, and made his examination. It was evident, from the expression of his face, that there was no hope; but he applied himself to dressing the wound, and he and Miss Ophelia and Tom proceeded composedly with this work, amid the lamentations and sobs and cries of the affrighted servants, who had clustered about the doors and windows of the verandah. "Now," said the physician, "we must turn all these creatures out; all depends on his being kept quiet." St. Clare opened his eyes, and looked fixedly on the distressed beings whom Miss Ophelia and the doctor were trying to urge from the apart ment. "Poor creatures!" he said, and an expression of bitter selfreproach passed over his face. Adolph absolutely refused to go. Terror had deprived him of all presence of mind; he threw himself along on the floor, and nothing could persuade him to rise. The rest yielded to Miss Ophelia's urgent representations, that their master's safety depended on their stillness and obedience. St. Clare could say but little; he lay with his eyes shut, but it was evident that he wrestled with bitter thoughts. After a while, he laid his hand on Tom's who was kneeling beside him, and said, "Tom! poor fellow!" ૨ |