The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860

Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry.
"Was it I that longed for oblivion,
O wonderful Love! was it I,
That deep in its easeful water
My wounded soul might lie?
That over the wounds and anguish
The easeful flood might roll?
A river of loving-kindness
Has healed and hidden the whole.
Lo! in its pitiful bosom
Vanish the sins of my youth,–
Error and shame and backsliding
Lost in celestial ruth.

"O grace too great!
O excellency of my new estate!

"No more, for the friends that love me,
I shall veil my face or grieve
Because love outrunneth deserving;
I shall be as they believe.
And I shall be strong to help them,
Filled of Thy fulness with stores
Of comfort and hope and compassion.
Oh, upon all my shores,
With the waters with which Thou dost flood me,
Bid me, my Father, o'erflow!
Who can taste Thy divineness,
Nor hunger and thirst to bestow?
Send me, oh, send me!
The wanderers let me bring!
The thirsty let me show
Where the rivers of gladness spring,
And fountains of mercy flow!
How in the hills shall they sit and sing,
With valleys of peace below!"

Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms!
For revelation fades and fades away,
Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn;
And evening comes to find the soul a prey,
That was caught up to visions at the dawn;
Sword of the spirit,–still it sheathes in rust,
And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust.

High lies the better country,
The land of morning and perpetual spring;
But graciously the warder
Over its mountain-border
Leans to us, beckoning,–bids us, "Come up hither!"
And though we climb with step unfixed and slow,
From visioning heights of hope we look off thither,
And we must go.

And we shall go! And we shall go!
We shall not always weep and wander so,–
Not always in vain,
By merciful pain,
Be upcast from the hell we seek again!
How shall we,
Whom the stars draw so, and the uplifting sea?
Answer, thou Secret Heart! how shall it be,
With all His infinite promising in thee?

Beloved! beloved! not cloud and fire alone
From bondage and the wilderness restore
And guide the wandering spirit to its own;
But all His elements, they go before:
Upon its way the seasons bring,
And hearten with foreshadowing
The resurrection-wonder,
What lands of death awake to sing
And germs of hope swell under;
And full and fine, and full and fine,
The day distils life's golden wine;
And night is Palace Beautiful, peace-chambered.
All things are ours; and life fills up of them
Such measure as we hold.
For ours beyond the gate,
The deep things, the untold,
We only wait.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WILD HUNTSMAN

The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. Without attributing any great importance to the warning he had given him, Mr. Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was becoming a pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as good as many others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after the first few days.

The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the back-yard of the Institute was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about in Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not easily stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great cities, but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. It soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, however innocent he may be of them.

In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, as far as he could see the white of it.

Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,–a robber, say,–without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he could do as a marksman.

The nature of the mark that Dick chose for experimenting upon was singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go through the glass without glancing or having its force materially abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's ears, if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick satisfied himself that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened to be anything behind it, the glass would not materially alter the force or direction of the bullet.

About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want of practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and regain its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For his first trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and after the hour when the Rockland people were like to be stirring abroad. He was so far established now that he could do much as he pleased without exciting remark.