Have you not often felt your own insufficiency to effect your own wishes in the commonest things? and how can you imagine yourself, by your own acts, equal to raise up a frail and sinful nature sufficiently to be received into the presence of perfect purity? There is no hope for any but in the mediation of Christ!""This is what the Moravians used to tell us," said Path-finder to Cap in a low voice; "rely on it, Mabel is right.""Right enough, friend Pathfinder, in the distances, but wrong in the course.I'm afraid the child will get the Sergeant adrift, at the very moment when we had him in the best of the water and in the plainest part of the chan-nel."
"Leave it to Mabel, leave it to Mabel; she knows better than any of us, and can do no harm.""I have heard this before," Dunham at length replied.
"Ah, Mabel! it is strange for the parent to lean on the child at a moment like this!""Put your trust in God, father; lean on His holy and compassionate Son.Pray, dearest, dearest father; pray for His omnipotent support.""I am not used to prayer.Brother, Pathfinder -- Jasper, can you help me to words?"Cap scarcely knew what prayer meant, and he had no answer to give.Pathfinder prayed often, daily, if not hourly; but it was mentally, in his own simple modes of thinking, and without the aid of words at all.In this strait, therefore, he was as useless as the mariner, and had no reply to make.As for Jasper Eau-douce, though he would gladly have endeavored to move a mountain to re-lieve Mabel, this was asking assistance it exceeded his power to give; and he shrank back with the shame that is only too apt to overcome the young and vigorous, when called on to perform an act that tacitly confesses their real weakness and dependence on a superior power.
"Father," said Mabel, wiping her eyes, and endeavoring to compose features that were pallid, and actually quiver-ing with emotion, "I will pray with you, for you, for _my-self_; for us _all_.The petition of the feeblest and humblest is never unheeded."There was something sublime, as well as much that was supremely touching, in this act of filial piety.The quiet but earnest manner in which this young creature prepared herself to perform the duty; the self-abandonment with which she forgot her sex's timidity and sex's shame, in order to sustain her parent at that trying moment; the loftiness of purpose with which she directed all her powers to the immense object before her, with a woman's devotion and a woman's superiority to trifles, when her affections make the appeal; and the holy calm into which her grief was compressed, rendered her, for the moment, an object of something very like awe and veneration to her compan-ions.
Mabel had been religiously educated; equally without exaggeration and without self-sufficiency.Her reliance on God was cheerful and full of hope, while it was of the humblest and most dependent nature.She had been ac-customed from childhood to address herself to the Deity in prayer; taking example from the Divine mandate of Christ Himself, who commanded His followers to abstain from vain repetitions, and who has left behind Him a pe-tition which is unequalled for sublimity, as if expressly to rebuke the disposition of man to set up his own loose and random thoughts as the most acceptable sacrifice.The sect in which she had been reared has furnished to its fol-lowers some of the most beautiful compositions in the lan-guage, as a suitable vehicle for its devotion and solicitations.
Accustomed to this mode of public and even private prayer, the mind of our heroine had naturally fallen into its train of lofty thought; her task had become improved by its study, and her language elevated and enriched by its phrases.When she kneeled at the bedside of her father, the very reverence of her attitude and manner pre-pared the spectators for what was to come; and as her affectionate heart prompted her tongue, and memory came in aid of both, the petition and praises that she offered up were of a character which might have worthily led the spirits of angels.Although the words were not slavishly borrowed, the expressions partook of the simple dignity of the liturgy to which she had been accustomed, and was probably as worthy of the Being to whom they were ad-dressed as they could well be made by human powers.
They produced their full impression on the hearers; for it is worthy of remark, that, notwithstanding the pernicious effects of a false taste when long submitted to, real sub-limity and beauty are so closely allied to nature that they generally find an echo in every heart.
But when our heroine came to touch upon the situation of the dying man, she became the most truly persuasive;for then she was the most truly zealous and natural.The beauty of the language was preserved, but it was sustained by the simple power of love; and her words were warmed by a holy zeal, that approached to the grandeur of true elo-quence.We might record some of her expressions, but doubt the propriety of subjecting such sacred themes to a too familiar analysis, and refrain.
