In that never-to-be-forgotten year when the Pilgrim Fathers of New England rose up from their knees beneath the cliffs of Holland and embarked, there dwelt, where Derwent-Water pours its swift current into the black gorges of a lonely tarn, the descendant of a house, rich in ancestral memories and renowned in arms. Often had these massive walls rung to the battle clarion and its floors echoed to the tread of mail-clad men. But their descendant, though inheriting all the lofty heroism of his race, is, with a heart subdued by grace, a man of scholarly tastes, of peace, and of God.
Amid the family circle where are the mother that reared, the wife that cherishes him, and the children who climb his knees, he lives, labors, and prays. “Surely,” said some looker at the outward appearance, “this man does not serve God for naught. Has not God made a hedge about him and all that he has? He would have his good things in both lives. Is he willing to sacrifice anything? Would he do anything with the Cross of Christ other than build it into the masonry of his castles or inscribe it upon the banner folds of his vassals?” Let us see.
He enters his library, a room of antique mould; the roof groined and blazoned reflects a thousand hues of soft light from lamps of fretted gold. The thickly carpeted floor returns no echo to the footfall. View him as he stands beneath that mellow light: The face is the face of a prophet. The pure white brow, which no hardship has bronzed and around which the locks of early manhood are clustering, is as radiant with goodness as heaven’s own light. The eyes suffused, not dimmed, by that mist which is the forerunner of tears, are turned toward heaven, while from their calm depths, pure as those through which wanders the light of stars, beam glances of gentle affection, a humility not assumed but ingrained like the summer flush upon the cheek of a ripened grape. The strong, firm lips are slightly parted with an expression of purpose and action; motionless they seem to utter, “Father, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Thoughtful he stands, then bows that stately head in deep contrition before God. He kneels, indeed, upon an embroidered cushion, but it is wet with tears. This man of noble blood and old descent, who sayeth “to this man ’Go,’ and he goeth, and to another ’Come,’ and he cometh,” grovels in the dust before his Maker. In his anguish he prostrates himself upon the floor; he cannot get low enough before his God. It is in his heart to embark with the Pilgrims, and he asks counsel of Heaven: “Father, wilt Thou that I leave these towers of my ancestors, moistened with their blood and beneath whose shadows their bones lie mouldering, and my mother now in the wane of life? Wilt Thou that I should take the wife of my bosom, my little ones reared in luxury and with tenderness, that I myself ever having lived and loved among the gifted and the great should go forth with my brethren to the wilderness? Tell me, O my Father, that it is my duty, and I will fling my whole estate into thy treasury as willingly as ever prodigal wasted his in riotous living; I will venture my life and the lives of those dearer to me than my own as readily as ever one of my warrior ancestors laid lance in rest to break a hedge of spears. Thou knowest that I love mother, wife, and children, comfort, refinement, wealth; that life is sweet to the lusty and the young. Thou knowest how dear to me are these old trees beneath which in childhood I played, these swelling hills, these gently sloping vales, this fair stream whose gleam I love at the sunset hour to catch through green foliage and to whose murmur I love to listen, this chosen retreat filled with books that embalm the lore of centuries whither I may retire after drinking a thousand inspirations from without, and in silent prayer and thought make them my own, growing in the reaches of my lonely thought to greater affluence of progress and power. But I love Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, more than these; therefore let me go. Already my brother and my kindred deem that I shrink from sacrifice and thus shall thy name be dishonored through me. Thou lovest me not, else wouldst Thou chasten me, wouldst permit me to endure hardness. Surely I am a bastard and no son. He that never suffered never loved.”