The visitor looked shocked and distressed. She felt anxious to speak a message of peace to the wretched old man; but his bitterness of spirit and rebellion of will made her find it difficult to address him. Thinking that to reflect on the trials of others might divert his mind from his own, or give him an indirect lesson on resignation under them, she said, after a few moments’ hesitation, “I have recently been visiting one who has known much affliction—a poor man of the name of Charles Hayes—”
“Charles Hayes!” interrupted the pauper; “as if I did not know him!—my schoolfellow when I was a boy, and my neighbour for twenty long years! I always said he would come to the workhouse—what with his bad health and his silly scruples about turning an honest penny; thinking everything wrong which did not square with his odd notions, and helping others when he had scarcely enough for himself! I always said he would come to the workhouse. And yet, see what a world this is!” continued Butler with a burst of indignation; “no sooner is he quite laid on the shelf than the gentry take to petting and pampering him as if he were one of themselves! The squire gets him into an alms-house, the ladies send him blankets and broth, the parson takes a pleasure in visiting him, and he is watched day and night with as much care as if he were one of the lords of the land!”
“Watched by an orphan whom he had generously brought up.”
“Other people have brought up children,” cried the pauper, with something like a groan, “and have had no comfort in them. Charles Hayes had never a child of his own, but he finds one like a daughter by his sick-bed; he has always been poor, but now in his age I don’t believe that he wants for anything—a friend seems to meet him wherever he turns; and they say that in spite of his weakness and pain he calls himself contented and happy! Oh! this is a bad world!—a miserable world! Why should his lot be so different from mine? Why should he have peace, and I have nothing but trouble? Why should his friends stick by him, and all mine forsake me? Why, when I am wearing out my days in a workhouse, should he rest in a home of his own?”
An answer was on the visitor’s lips, but consideration for the feelings of the pauper prevented her from uttering it aloud—“Because _the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow therewith_.” There would have been no use in attempting to point out to the repining old man how godliness, even in this world, brings its reward; nor did the lady know enough of the events of Butler’s life to be aware how completely his present miseries were the natural consequences of his own conduct. Self had ever been his first object; to gratify self had been the business of his life. He had not served God in the time of his health; he could not look to God in the hour of his helplessness and need. He had done nothing to benefit man, and man cared nothing for him now, though compassion might bring a few, like the visitor at the workhouse, to spend some minutes beside him as a disagreeable duty.