Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 6, December 1849

OR THE FOUNDATION OF MORALS.

BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

The family of the Widow Berien had risen from their evening devotions, and were preparing to hasten to bed that they might rest from the toils of the day past, and to prepare for the fatigues of that which was to come. One by one they had taken leave of the mistress of the house, and had withdrawn, and Louise advanced to give her mother the evening kiss and receive the evening benediction—when the mother pointed to a chair and requested her daughter to sit down. The movements of the girl evinced an understanding of the object of her mother, and her countenance showed that she had drawn herself up to sustain the rebuke which had been prepared for her, for when both were seated Louise turned her face to her mother to discover, if possible, by the appearance of severity there, how the storm was to commence.

“You have seen Adolph again, to-day,” said Madam Berien, in a mild tone, and with a glance which conveyed nothing like anger.

“I met him returning from the field.”

“And what did he say?”

“It is scarcely necessary for me to repeat what he said or what I replied—it was probably not much different from what others in similar circumstances say. Not greatly different from what passed between you and my father at our ages, and in our situation.”

“And that, Louise, shows me that you still persist in the resolution to marry Adolph.”

“I have changed neither my inclinations nor my wishes so far as I may resolve on such matters.”

“And my opinions are to go for nothing?”

“Can you say that, dear mother? Can you say that your opinion, your command, and your wishes go for nothing, when for two years I have postponed our union solely in deference to your wishes, and here renew my promise, that while I will marry no one but Adolph, in my present state of feeling, I will assuredly not marry him until you shall have given your consent, or at least, withdrawn your opposition.”

“My consent will not easily be obtained under existing circumstances. I do not object to the condition, appearance, or general conduct—”

“On what then, dear mother, have you founded your hostility to Adolph?”

“On nothing. I have no hostility to Adolph—I wish him well—I love him as the son of my cousin, on his father’s side, and his mother was the friend and companion of my childhood, and both of them were my long continued neighbors—but—”

“But what, mother? Tell me, is there any secret reason for your dislike to the connection with the family? Has he or have his parents committed crimes which would bring disgrace upon us if known? Tell me; I would not do aught that might be construed into discredit; nor would I have my happiness destroyed by vague insinuations—speak to me, mother, plainly. I can bear the truth. I have too much of your own character to shrink from what I ought to know or ought to do, and I have also too much of your firmness to relinquish a settled object on account of imaginary or only great difficulties. I can bear disappointment if it is in the way of duty, or I can meet and conquer obstacles. Let me know on what ground I stand. If Adolph has committed aught against the laws, or if there is aught against his condition which should operate with the most delicate and fastidious, I can and will relinquish all association with him. I know how necessary his presence is to my happiness, but I know also how cherished is the good name of the family.”

“Louise, you know how amid all the tumults of the revolutions with which the country has been visited; revolutions that shook the throne and altar—revolutions that in attempting to purify the political condition of the nation destroyed its religion; you know, how amid all these tumults and disorganizations, when religion had been driven by the sword from her temples, and by ridicule from our dwellings, I have sought to cherish her in our domestic circle. Morning and evening have I gathered you around our family altar, and sought to keep alive in you the faith which has been the salvation of man, and which must be the guardian of woman’s position and woman’s purity.”

“I know, dear mother,” said Louise, as she recalled all the cares and labor which had been used to keep her feet in the ways of truth. “I know, dear mother, how great has been your devotion; how constant your vigilance in our behalf, and how your service has been that of the priest at well as the mother.”

“And thus, my dear child, while the wickedness and folly of our people have done more against religion than heresy itself would attempt, while the services of the altar have been performed to such a meagre audience, that the voice of the priest has been echoed along the vacant aisles of the church, and no impressions of religion on the Sabbath have sanctified a thought on the other days of the week; nay, when as in some of the neighboring cities and villages, the priest himself has poured ridicule on his office, and made the mysteries of religion a theme for mirth and laughter, till children have done mockery to their God and his service, by mimicking in their plays the solemnities of the sanctuary, and have been encouraged and rewarded by the laughter and applause of men and women; have I not sought to save you from the contamination, and to keep alive in your heart the love of God and a conformity to the will of his Church?”

“You have, you have, dear mother, and I sometimes have thought when I have kneeled with you in morning and evening devotion, that you had gathered up the fragments of the consecrated yet broken altar, to erect a place of sacrifice in your own heart, and I have loved religion more that you have pleaded its cause, strengthened its sentiment in my bosom, and stood forward for all the duties and services which may be performed by one of our sex. And I know, dear mother, that the will for the sacraments, the pure intentions which you excite are better, more profitable to us than the sacraments themselves without such intentions. But why, dear mother, do you now with such solemnity recall these things; why, when alluding to my relations with Adolph, do you refer to your religious zeal and effective exertions? Poor as have been the fruits from your cultivation of my religious sentiments, have I ever denied or derided what you taught? has my conduct ever done injustice to the lessons of love and purity you have imparted? or have I ever said aught that intimated a doubt of, or disrelish for, the doctrine and service of our holy church? I ask not in anger; I ask not, indeed, in unsanctified confidence, but I ask in sincerity—if I have offended against God and the church, let me know my errors; nay, while sensible of my want of zeal and efforts toward perfection, I avow myself ready and willing to improve by any advice or corrective which you may impart.”

“I have not, my dear child, had reason to doubt of the exactness and purity of your faith—no observation which I have been able to make, and I have carefully watched—oh! how vigilant must a widowed mother be over the purity of faith and conduct of her orphan daughter—I have, I repeat to you, found nothing in your faith to reprove, nothing in your religion and stated exercises unworthy of a Christian. But—”

“But, mother—but—what can you mean? You talk to me earnestly of my association with, and my affection for Adolph—you allude to my faith and my conduct, and say that you find nothing in my faith to censure, and nothing in my religious exercises unworthy a Christian, but you omit to approve of my conduct. You avoid reference to that, unless you were approaching it with the terrible—‘But.’”

“I was approaching it—and—”

“Does my mother mean that there is aught in my conduct, my conduct with Adolph, because it is evident that the remarks all tend thitherward—does my mother suspect impropriety of conduct in me—mother, mother, for Heaven’s sake, spare me that imputation. For me and my thoughts, my inmost thoughts, your chamber has been as much the seat of the confessional as the place of the altar, and not a feeling of my heart, not an impulse of passion, not a motive or a wish has been withheld from you that would have been uttered in explanation or confession to the priest. I know there is wrong, dear mother, in the world. I am human, with human passions and human weaknesses, but not a thought of impurity has ever been uttered to me by Adolph, or been suggested by our relations with each other. Blessed queen of purity! in this thing I am innocent, in word and thought. Dear mother, let me not suffer—let not Adolph suffer in your estimation upon such a suspicion, he is above such weakness and wickedness, and I should need no further monition from Heaven to avoid his society, than the discovery that his words, nay, that our meeting suggested thoughts unsanctioned by my religion, unworthy of your approval.”

Louise paused in her vehement appeal. She had gone to the very verge of propriety in her asseverations, and she saw nothing in her mother’s countenance which indicated any change of sentiment. The girl felt for a moment indignant. The language of her mother implied a charge of the most painful character, and though it might not reach to the extent which, at first, she seemed to suppose, yet she felt that maidenly propriety is scarcely less outraged by an imputation of habitual association with the dangerous and the impure, than by a charge of crime committed—and she started at the bare hint of the wrong, and was stung to the soul when her vehement disclaimer seemed to work no change in the mind of her accusing mother.

The warmth of Louise’s feelings betrayed no disrespect to her mother, and perhaps the good woman felt pleased at the sensitiveness of her daughter on such a subject. Still there was no removal of the objection which was felt against Adolph, and she replied:

“Your justification of your conduct, and your sensitiveness on the subject to which you supposed I referred, show how important you and all deem the fame of a young woman; how essential to her is not only a pure mind, but an unsuspected character; and that to which I have referred is so intimately connected with what you suspect, that I shall take your virtuous indignation at what you imagined my allusion, as almost as applicable to my meaning as to your suspicions.”

“What is it you mean, mother?”

“I mean, that with all the kindness of Adolph’s manners—with all the respect he has shown for me, and his affection to you, he is tainted with the infidelity of the times, and not merely neglects the offices of the church, but ridicules the Christian religion.”

“Never, mother, never; depend on it, some one has slandered Adolph to you.”

“Does Adolph frequent, I will not say the sacraments of his church, but the church itself?”

“I see him frequently there.”

“You see him there, my daughter, when he expects you are ready to return—but never does he assist in the services of the church?”

“I am not able to assert how often he attends the church, mother; but I think as frequently as most of the young men of this department, at least, of our village.”