more mildly, "Yes, we were his affectionate sons, and since my name is on the stone, I am satisfied, brother. We have not drawn together kindly of late years, and perhaps never may; but I acknowledge and respect your worth; and here, before our own friends, and before the friends of our father, with my foot above his head, I express my willingness to be on better terms with you; and if we cannot command love in our hearts, let us, at least, brother, bar out all unkindness." 10. The minister, who had attended the funeral, and had something intrusted to him to say publicly before he left the church-yard, now came forward, and asked the elder brother why he spake not regarding this matter. He saw that there was something of a cold, and sullen pride rising up in his heart; for not easily may any man hope to dismiss from the chamber of his heart, even the vilest guest, if once cherished there. With a solemn, and almost severe air, he looked upon the relenting man, and then, changing his countenance into serenity, said gently, "Behold how good a thing it is, And how becoming well, Together such as brethren are, 11. The time, the place, and this beautiful expression of a natural sentiment, quite overcame a heart, in which many kind, if not warm affections dwelt; and the man thus appealed to, bowed down his head and wept,-" Give me your hand, brother;"—and it was given, while a murmur of satisfaction arose from all present, and all hearts felt kindlier and more humanely toward each other. 12. As the brothers stood, fervently but composedly, grasping each other's hand, in the little hollow that lay between the grave of their mother, long since dead, and of their father, whose shroud was happily not yet still, from the fall of dust to dust, the minister stood beside them with a pleasant countenance, and said, "I must fulfill the promise I made to your father on his death-bed. I must read to you a few words which his hand wrote, at an hour when his tongue denied its office. แ 13. "I must not say that you did your duty to your old father; for did he not often beseech you, apart from one another, to be reconciled, for your own sakes as Christians, for his sake, and for the sake of the mother who bare you and, Stephen, who died that you might be born? When the palsy struck him for the last time, you were both absent, nor was it your fault that you were not beside the old man when he died. «Shroud, winding sheet. 14. "As long as sense continued with him here, did he think of you two, and of you two alone. Tears were in his eyes, I saw them there, and on his cheek too, when no "reath came from his lips. But of this no more. He died with this paper in his hand; and he made me know that I was to read it to you over his grave. I now obey him."My sons, if you will let my near the dust of your mother, al, till, in the name of God and one another as you used to do. Jug." ones lie quiet in the grave, depart not from my buriChrist, you promise to love Dear boys, receive my bless 15. Some turned their heads away to hide the tears that needed not to be hidden;-and when the brothers had relcased each other from a long and sobbing embrace, many went up to them, and in a single word or two, expressed their joy at this perfect reconcilement. The brothers themselves walked away from the church-yard, arm in arm, with the minister to the manse." 16. On the following Sabbath, they were seen sitting with their families in the same pew, and it was observed, that they read together from the same Bible when the minister gave out the text; and that they sung together, taking hold of the same psalin-book. The same psalm was sung, (given out at their own request,) of which one verse had been repeated at their father's grave;-a larger sum than usual was on that Sabbath found in the plate for the poor,-for love and charity are sisters. And ever after, both during the peace and the troubles of this life, the hearts of the brothers were as one, and in nothing were they divided. Wilson. CHAPTER VI. DIALOGUES. SECTION I. The Sultan' and Mr. Пloward, the Philanthropist. Sultan. ENGLISHMAN, you were invited hither to receive public thanks, for our troops restored to health by your prescriptions. Ask a reward adequate to your services. a Manse, the parsonage house. Si-tan, a title of the Turkish emperor. c Phil-an'-thropist, a person of general benevolence. & Pre-scrip-tions, medical directions of remedies. e Ad'e-quate, equa!, sufficient. Howard. Sultan, the reward I ask, is, leave to preserve more of your people still. Sult How more? my subjects are in health; no contagior visits them. How. The prisoner is your subject. There, misery, more contagious than disease, preys on the lives of hundreds: sentenced but to confinement, their doom is death. Immured in damp and dreary vaults, they daily perish; and who cau tell but that, among the many hapless sufferers, there may be hearts bent down with penitence, to heaven and you, for every slight offense-there may be some, among the wretched multitude, even innocent victims. Let me seek them out ; Jet me save them and you. Sul. Amazement! retract your application: curb this weak pity, and accept our thanks. How. Restrain my pity;-and what can I receive in recompense for that soft bond which links me to the wretched? and, while it sooths their sorrow, repays me more than all the gifts an empire can bestow!-But, if it be a virtne repugnant to your plan of government, I apply not in the namie of Pity, but of Justice. Sul. Justice! How. The justice that forbids all, but the worst of criminals, to be denied that wholesome air the very brute creation freely takes. Sul. Consider for whom you plead—for men (if not base culprits) so misled, so depraved, they are dangerous to our state, and deserve none of its blessings. How. If not upon the undeserving,-if not upon the wretched wanderer from the paths of rectitude,-where shall the sun diffuse his light, or the clouds distill their dew? Where shall spring breathe fragrance, or autumn pour its plenty? Sul. Sir, your sentiments, still more your character, excite my curiosity. They tell me that in our camps you visited each sick man's bed,-administered yourself the healing draught,―encouraged our savages with the hope of life, or pointed out their better hope in death.-The widow speaks your charities, the orphan lisps your bounties, and the rough Indian melts in tears to bless you.-I wish to ask why you have done all this?-what is it that prompts you thus to befriend the miserable and forlorn? How. It is in vain to explain: the time it would take to reveal to you Sul. Satisfy my curiosity in writing then. a Re-tract, to recant Re-pugnant, contrary, inconsistent. How. Nay, if you will read, I'll send a book in which is already written why I act thus. Sul. What book? what is it called? How. "The Christian Doctrine." There you will find all I have done was but my duty. Sul. Your words recall reflections that distract me; nor can I bear the pressure on my mind, without confessing-I am a Christian! Mrs. Inchbald. SECTION II. Cadmus and Hercules. b Hercules. Do you pretend to sit as high on Olympus as Hercules? Did you kill the Nemean lion, the Erymanthean boar, the Lernean serpent, and Stymphalian birds? Did you destroy tyrants and robbers?-You value yourself greatly on subduing one serpent: I did as much as that while I lay in my cradle. Camus. It is not on account of the serpent that I boast myself a greater benefactor to Greece than you. Actions should be valued by their utility, rather than their splendor. I taught Greece the art of writing, to which laws owe their precision and permanency. You subdued monsters; I civilized men. It is from untamed passions, not from wild beasts, that the greatest evils arise to human society. By wisdom, by art, by the united strength of civil community, men have been enabled to subdue the whole race of lions, bears, and serpents; and, what is more, to bind by laws and wholesome regulations, the ferocious violence and dangerous treachery of the human disposition. Had lions been destroyed only in single combat, men had had but a bad time of it ;-and what but laws could awe the men who killed the lions? The genuine glory, the proper distinction of the rational species, arise from the perfection of the mental powers. Courage is apt to be fierce, and strength is often exerted in acts of oppression; but wisdom is the associate of justice. It assists her to form equal laws, to pursue right measures, to correct power, protect weakness, and to unite individuals in a common interest and general welfare. Heroes may kill tyrants, but it is wisdom and laws that prevent tyranny and oppression. The operations of policy far surpass the labors of Herrules, preventing many evils which valor and might cannot even redress. You heroes regard nothing but glory; and a Cad-mus, king of Thebes, introduced eters into Grecce. Her'-cu-les, a heathen Deity. CO-lym' pus, a mountain in Greece. scarcely consider whether the conquests which raise your fame, are really beneficial to your country. Unhappy are the people who are governed by valor, not directed by prudence, and not mitigated by the gentle arts! Her. I do not expect to find an admirer of my strenuous life, in the man who taught his countrymen to sit still and read; and to lose the hours of youth and action in idle speculation and the sport of words. Cad. An ambition to have a place in the registers of fame is the Eurystheus which imposes heroic labors on mankind The muses incite to action, as well as entertain the hours o. repose; and I think you should honor them for presenting to heroes so noble a recreation, as may prevent their taking up the distaff, when they lay down the club. Her Wits as well as heroes can take up the distaff. What think you of their thin-spun systems of philosophy, or lascivious poems, or Milesian fables? Nay, what is still worse, are there not panegyrics on tyrants, and books that blaspheme the gods, and perplex the natural sense of right and wrong? I believe if Eurystheus were to set me to work again, he would find me a worse task than any he imposed he would make me read over a great library, and I would serve it as I did the Hydra, I would burn as I went on, that one chimera might not rise from another, to plague mankind. I should have valued myself more on clearing the library than on cleansing the Augean stables. Cad. It is in those libraries only, that the memory of your labor exists. The heroes of Marathon, the patriots of Thermopyla, owe their fame to me. All the wise institutions of lawgivers, and all the doctrines of sages, had perished in the ear like a dream related, if letters had not preserved them. O Hercules! it is not for the man who preferred virtue to pleasure, to be an enemy to the muses. Let Sardanapalus, and the silken sons of luxury, who have wasted life in inglorious case, despise the records of action, which bear ne honorable testimony to their lives: but true merit, heroic virtue, should respect the sacred source of lasting boner. Her Indeed, if writers employed themselves only in refording the acts of great inen, much might be said in their Javor. But why do they trouble, people with their meditations? Can it be of any consequence to the world what an idle man has been thinking? Cad. Yes it may. The most important and extensive al a thu thens, the person employed by 16 Pan-e-gyr-ics, eulogy, formal praise. Jupo, the step mother of Hercules, to task Hydra, a monster with many heada >im in hazardous undertakings, in the hoped Chi-me'ra, a vain, ille favey. ca destroying him. Sa-da-nap-a-lus, king of Assyria. |