Upon his return to his dear native town, Morton was received by his father with his usual quiet affection; for old Mr. Morton was one of that nearly obsolete school of parents, husbands, and members of society, that do not think their duties in either relation require any sounding of trumpets, and who are of opinion that those who feel most deeply and sincerely religion, Christian charity, or human affections, are generally people who seldom make any parade of either. This sect seems to be very nearly extinct, or at least their leading principles, I have been told, are exploded from the creeds of modern saints; but as my acquaintance with modern saints is, thank God, very limited, I cannot vouch for the fact.
It was not long after Morton's return, when the young people of his own age and standing began to perceive an alteration in his manners, and that he, who was a leader in their gay parties, was now a moping, stupid, silent, dull creature, without any of his former animation and gaiety. The young ladies took it for granted that he was in love; and as it was evident that he was not in love with any of them, why of course some nymph in the Pacific had stolen his heart; and as, moreover, they had no idea of the existence in that remote and unknown quarter of creation of any females more fascinating than the amphibious and lascivious damsels of the Sandwich Islands, (to convert whom from the error of their ways, more missionaries have been sent out, or volunteered their services, than to all the rest of the "poor ignorant heathen" put together,) or the ladies of the North West Coast, who smell too strong of train-oil to comprehend the truths of Christianity, or rather of Calvanism, which is altogether another affair, and who are in consequence left in their original and antediluvian darkness.
Impressed with this idea, and feeling both grieved and mortified that so excellent a young gentleman as Charles Morton should give himself up to such an absurd and, in their estimation, unnatural passion, the young ladies of New Bedford determined to tease him out of it; much upon the same principle as the Roman emperors endeavored to suppress the Christian religion by exposing its professors to wild beasts: the wild beasts grew fat upon Christians, and Christianity grew fat and strong upon persecution. Perhaps if the diademed tyrants had treated it with indifference, the effects would have been otherwise.