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The Sea Lions; or The Lost Sealers, a novel by James Fenimore Cooper |
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Chapter 25 |
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_ Chapter XXV "Beyond the Jewish ruler, banded close, _Hillhouse's Judgment._
In the first place, a vast deal of snow had fallen; fallen, indeed, to such a degree, as even to cover the terrace, block up the path that communicated with the wreck, and nearly to smother the house and all around it. The winds were high and piercing, rendering the cold doubly penetrating. The thermometer now varied essentially, sometimes rising considerably above zero, though oftener falling far below it. There had been many storms in September, and October was opening with a most blustering and wintry aspect. In one sense, however, the character of the season had changed; the dry, equal cold, that was generally supportable, having been succeeded by tempests that were sometimes a little moist, but oftener of intense frigidity. Of course the equinox was past, and there were more than twelve hours of sun. The great luminary showed himself well above the northern horizon; and though his circuit described an arch that did not promise soon to bring him near the zenith at meridian, it was a circuit that seemed about to enclose Sealer's Land, by carrying the orb of day so far south, morning and evening, as to give it an air of travelling round the spot. These changes had not occurred without suffering and danger. Enormous icicles were suspended from the roof of the house, reaching to the ground, the third and fourth successions of these signs of heat and cold united, the earlier formations having been knocked down and thrown away. Mountains of drifted snow were to be seen in places, all along the shore; and wreaths that threatened fearful avalanches were suspended from the cliffs, waiting only for the increase of the warmth, to come down upon the rocks beneath. Once already had one of these masses fallen on the wreck; and the Oyster Pond men had been busy for a week digging into the pile, in order to go to the rescue of the Vineyarders. There was much generosity and charitable feeling displayed in this act; for, owing to the obstinate adherence of Daggett and his people to what they deemed their rights, Roswell had finally been compelled to cut to pieces the upper works of his own schooner to obtain fuel that might prevent his own party from freezing to death. The position of the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond was to be traced only by a high mound of snow, which had been arrested by the obstacle she presented to its drift; but her bulwarks, planks, deck, top-timbers, stern-frame--in short, nearly all of the vessel above water, had actually been taken to pieces, and carried within the covering of the verandah mentioned, in readiness for the stoves! To render the obstinacy of the other crew more apparent, Daggett had been obliged to do the same! Much of his beloved craft had already disappeared in the camboose, and more was likely to follow. This compelled destruction, however, rather increased than lessened his pertinacity. He clung to the last chip; and no terms of compromise would he now listen to at all. The stranded wreck was his, and his people's; while the other wreck belonged to the men from Oyster Pond. Let each party act for itself, and take care of its own. Such were his expressed opinions, and on them he acted. This state of things had not been brought about in a day. Months had passed; Roswell had seen his last billet of wood put in the camboose; had tried various experiments for producing heat by means of oil, which so far succeeded as to enable the ordinary boiling to be done, thereby saving wood; but, when a cold turn set in, it was quickly found that the schooner must go, or all hands perish. When this decree went forth, every one understood that the final preservation of the party depended on that of the boats. For one entire day the question had been up in general council, whether or not the two whale-boats should be burnt, with their oars and appurtenances, before the attack was made on the schooner itself. Stimson settled this point, as he did so many others, Roswell listening to all he said with a constantly increasing attention. "If we burn the boats first," said the boat-steerer, "and then have to come to the schooner a'ter all, how are we ever to get away from this group? Them boats wouldn't last us a week, even in our best weather; but they may answer to take us to some Christian land, when every rib and splinter of the Sea Lion is turned into ashes. I would begin on the upper works of the schooner first, Captain Gar'ner, resarvin' the spars, though they would burn the freest. Then I would saw away the top-timbers, beams, decks, transoms, and everything down within a foot of the water; but I wouldn't touch anything below the copper, for this here reason: unless Captain Daggett sets to work on his craft and burns her up altogether, we may find mater'als enough in the spring to deck over ag'in the poor thing down there in the cove, and fit her out a'ter a fashion, and make much better weather of it in her than in our boats. That's my opinion, sir." It was decided that this line of conduct should be pursued. The upper works of the schooner were all taken out of her as soon as the weather permitted, and the wood was carried up and stored in the house. Even with this supply, it was soon seen that great economy was to be used, and that there might be the necessity of getting at the vessel's bottom. As for the schooner, as the people still affectionately called the hull, or what was left of the hull, everything had been taken out of her. The frozen oil was carried up to the house in chunks, and used for fuel and lights. A good deal of heat was obtained by making large wicks of canvass, and placing them in vessels that contained oil; though it was very far from sufficing to keep life in the men during the hardest of the weather. The utmost economy in the use of the fuel that had been so dearly obtained, was still deemed all-essential to eventual preservation. Happily, the season advanced all this time, and the month of October was reached. The intercourse between the crews had by no means been great during the two solemn and critical months that were just past. A few visits had been exchanged at noon-day, and when the thermometer was a little above zero; but the snow was filling the path, and as yet there were no thaws to produce a crust on which the men might walk. About a month previously to the precise time to which it is our intention now to advance the more regular action of the legend, Macy had come over to the house, attended by one man, with a proposal on the part of Daggett for the two crews to occupy his craft, as he still persisted in calling the wreck, and of using the house as fuel. This was previously to beginning to break up either vessel. Gardiner had thought of this plan in connection with his own schooner, a scheme that would have been much more feasible than that now proposed, on account of the difference in distance; but it had soon been abandoned. All the material of the building was of pine, and that well seasoned; a wood that burns like tinder. No doubt there would have been a tolerably comfortable fortnight or three weeks by making these sacrifices; then would have come certain destruction. As to the proposal of Daggett, there were many objections to it. A want of room would be one; want of provisions another; and there would be the necessity of transporting stores, bedding, and a hundred things that were almost as necessary to the people as warmth; and which indeed contributed largely to their warmth. In addition was the objection just mentioned, of the insufficiency of the materials of the building; an objection which was just as applicable to a residence in one vessel as a residence in the other. Of course the proposition was declined. Macy remained a night with the Oyster Ponders, and left the house after breakfast next morning; knowing that Daggett only waited for his return with a negative, to commence breaking up the wreck. The mate was attended by the seaman, returning as he had arrived. Two days later, there having been a slight yielding of the snow under the warmth of the noon-day sun, and a consequent hardening of its crust in the succeeding night, Roswell and Stimson undertook to return this visit, with a view to make a last effort to persuade Daggett to quit the wreck and come over to the house altogether. When they had got about half-way between the two places, they found the body of the seaman, stiff, frozen hard, and dead. A quarter of a mile further on, the reckless Macy, who it was supposed greatly sustained Daggett in his obstinacy, was found in precisely the same state. Both had fallen in the path, and stiffened under the terrible power of the climate. It was not without difficulty that Roswell reached the wreck, and reported what he had seen. Even this terrible admonition did not change Daggett's purpose. He had begun to burn his vessel, for there was now no alternative; but he was doing it on a system which, as he explained it to Roswell, was not only to leave him materials with which to construct a smaller craft in the spring, but which would allow of his inhabiting the steerage and cabin as long as he pleased. In some respects the wreck certainly had its advantages over the house. There was more room for exercise, the caverns of the ice being extensive, while they completely excluded the wind, which was now the great danger of the season. It was doubtless owing to the wind that Macy and his companion had perished. As the spring approached, these winds increased in violence; though there had been slight symptoms of their coming more blandly, even at the time when their colder currents were really frightful. A whole month succeeded this visit of Roswell's, during which there was no intercourse. It was September, the March of the antarctic circle, and the weather had been terrific during most of the period. It was during these terrible four weeks that Roswell completed his examination of the all-important subject Mary had marked out for him, and which Stimson had so earnestly and so often placed before his mind. The sudden fate of Macy and his companion, the condition of his crew, and all the serious circumstances with which he was surrounded, conspired to predispose him to inquiry; and what was equally important in such an investigation, to humility. Man is a very different being in high prosperity from what he becomes when the blows of an evil fortune, or the visitations of Divine Providence alight upon him. The skepticism of Roswell was more the result of human pride, of confidence in himself, than in any precept derived from others, or of any deep reasoning process whatever. He conceived that the theory of the incarnation of the Son of God was opposed to philosophy and experience, it is true; and, thus far, he may be said to have reasoned in the matter, though it was in his own way, and with a very contracted view of the subject; but pride had much more to do with even this conclusion, than a knowledge of physics or philosophy. It did not comport with the respect he entertained for his own powers, to lend his faith to an account that conflicted with so many of the opinions he had formed on evidence and practice. Credulous women might have their convictions on the truth of this history, but it was not necessary for men to be as easily duped. There was something even amiable and attractive in this weakness of the other sex, that would ill comport, however, with the greater sternness of masculine judgment. Roswell, as he once told Stimson, hesitated to believe in anything that he could not comprehend. His God must be worshipped for the obvious truth of his attributes and existence. He wished to speak with respect of things that so many worthy people reverenced; but he could not forget that Providence had made him a reasoning creature; and his reason must be convinced. Stephen was no great logician, as the reader will easily understand; but Newton possessed no clearer demonstration of any of his problems than this simple, nay ignorant, man enjoyed in his religious faith, through the divine illumination it had received in the visit of the Holy Spirit. That gloomy month, however, had not been thrown away. All the men were disposed to be serious; and the reading of the bible, openly and aloud, soon became a favourite occupation with every one of them. Although Roswell's reading was directed by the marks of Mary, all of which had reference to those passages that touched on the Divinity of the Saviour, he made no comments that betrayed his incredulity. There is a simple earnestness in the narrative portions of the Gospel that commends its truth to every mind, and it had its effect on that of Roswell Gardiner; though it failed to remove doubts that had so long been cherished, and which had their existence in pride of reason, or what passes for such, with those who merely skim the surface of things, as they seem to exist around them. On the evening of that particular day in October, to which we desire now to advance the time, and after the most pleasant and cheerful afternoon and sunset that any on the island had seen for many months, Roswell and Stimson ventured to continue their exercise on the terrace, then again clear of impediments, even after the day had closed. The night promised to be cold, but the weather was not yet so keen as to drive them to a shelter. Both fancied there was a feeling of spring in the wind, which was from the north-east, a quarter that brought the blandest currents of air into those seas, if any air of that region deserved such a term at all. "It is high time we had some communications with the Vineyarders," said Roswell, as they turned at that end of the terrace which was nearest to the wreck. "A full month has passed since we have seen any of them, or have heard a syllable of their doings or welfare." "It's a bad business this separation, Captain Gar'ner," returned the boat-steerer; "and every hour makes it worse. Think how much good might have been done them young men had they only been with us while we've been reading the book of books, night and morning, sir!" "That good book seems to fill most of your thoughts, Stephen--I wish I could have your faith." "It will come in time, sir, if you will only strive for it. I'm sure no heart could have been harder than mine was, until within the last five years. I was far worse as a Christian, Captain Gar'ner, than I consider you to be; for while you have doubts consarning the Divinity of our Blessed Lord, I had no thought of any one of the Trinity. My only God was the world; and sich a world, too, as a poor sailor knows. It was being but little better than the brutes." "Of all the men with me, you seem to be the most contented and happy. I cannot say I have seen even a sign of fear about you, when things have been at the worst." "It would be very ungrateful, sir, to mistrust a Providence that has done so much for me." "I devoutly wish I could believe with you that Jesus was the Son of God!" "Excuse me, Captain Gar'ner; it's jist because you do not _devoutly_ wish this, that you do not believe. I think I understand the natur' of your feelin's, sir. I had some sich once, myself; though it was only in a small way. I was too ignorant to feel much pride in my own judgment, and soon gave up every notion that went ag'in Scriptur'. I own it is not accordin' to natur', as we know natur', to believe in this doctrine; but we know too little of a thousand things to set up our weak judgments in the very face of revelation." "I am quite willing to believe all I can understand, Stephen; but I find it difficult to credit accounts that are irreconcilable with all that my experience has taught me to be true." "They who are of your way of thinkin', sir, do not deny that Christ was a good man and a prophet; and that the apostles were good men and prophets; and that they all worked miracles." "This much I am willing enough to believe; but the other doctrine seems contrary to what is possible." "Yet you have seen, sir, that these apostles believed what you refuse. One thing has crossed my mind, Captain Gar'ner, which I wish to say to you. I know I'm but an ignorant man, and my idees may be hardly worth your notice; but sich as they be, I want to lay 'em afore you. We are told that these apostles were all men from a humble class in life, with little l'arnin', chosen, as it might be, to show men that faith stood in need of no riches, or edication, or worldly greatness, of any sort. To me, sir, there is a wholesome idee in that one thing." "It gives us all a useful lesson, Stephen, and has often been mentioned, I believe, in connection with the doctrines of Christianity." "Yes, sir--so I should think; though I don't remember ever to have heard it named from any pulpit. Well, Captain Gar'ner, it does not agree with our notions to suppose that God himself, a part of the Ruler and Master of the Universe, should be born of a woman, and come among sinners in order to save 'em from his own just judgments." "That is just the difficulty that I have in believing what are called the dogmas of Christianity on that one point. To me, it has ever seemed the most improbable thing in the world." "Just so, sir--I had some sort of feelin of that natur' myself once. When God, in his goodness, put it into my heart to believe, however, as he was pleased to do in a fit of sickness from which I never expected to rise, and in which I was led to pray to him for assistance, I began to think over all these matters in my own foolish manner. Among other things, I said to myself, 'is it likely that any mortal man would dream of calling Christ the Son of God, unless it was put into _his_ mind to say so?' Then comes the characters of them men, who all admit were upright and religious. How can we suppose that they would agree in giving the same account of sich a thing, unless what they said had been told to them by some tongue that they believed?" Roswell smiled at Stephen's reasoning, which was not without a certain point, but which an ingenious man might find the means of answering in various ways. "There is another thing, sir, that I've read in a book," resumed the boat-steerer, "which goes a great way with me. Jesus allowed others to call him the Son of God, without rebuking them for doing so. It does really seem that they who believe he was a good man, as I understand is the case with you, Captain Gar'ner, must consider this as a strong fact. We are to remember what a sin idolatry is; how much all ra'al worshippers abhor it; and then set that feelin' side by side with the fact that the Son did riot think it robbery to be called the equal of the Father. To me, that looks like a proof that our belief has a solid foundation." Roswell did not reply. He was aware that it would not be just to hold any creed responsible for the manner in which a person like Stimson defended it. Still, he was struck with both of this man's facts. The last, he had often met in books; but the first was new to him. Of the two, this novel idea of the improbability of the apostles' inventing that which would seem to be opposed to all men's notions and prejudices, struck him more forcibly than the argument adduced from the acquiescence of the Redeemer in his own divinity. The last might be subject to verbal criticism, and could possibly be explained away, as he imagined; but the first appeared to be intimately incorporated with the entire history of Christ's ministrations on earth. These were the declarations of John the Baptist, the simple and unpretending histories of the Gospels, the commentaries of St. Paul, and the venerable teachings of the church through so many centuries of varying degrees of faith and contention, each and all going to corroborate a doctrine that, in his eyes, had appeared to be so repugnant to philosophy and reason. Wishing to be alone, Roswell gave an order to Stimson to execute some duty that fell to his share, and continued walking up and down the terrace alone for quite an hour longer. The night was coming in cold and still. It was one of those last efforts of winter in which all the terrible force of the season was concentrated: and it really appeared as if nature, wearied with its struggle to return to a more genial temperature, yielded in despair, and was literally returning backwards through the coldest of her months. The moon was young, but the stars gave forth a brightness that is rarely seen, except in the clear cold nights of a high latitude. Each and all of these sublime emblems of the power of God were twinkling like bright torches glowing in space; and the mind had only to endow each with its probable or known dimensions, its conjectural and reasonable uses, to form a picture of the truest sublimity in which man is made to occupy his real position. In this world, where, in a certain sense, he is master, where all things are apparently under his influence, if not absolutely subject to his control; where little that is distinctly visible is to be met with that does seem to be created to meet his wants, or to be wholly at his disposal, one gets a mistaken and frequently a fatal notion of his true place in the scale of the beings who are intended to throng around the footstool of the Almighty. As the animalculae of the atmospheric air bear a proportion to things visible, so would this throng seem to bear a proportion to our vague estimates of the spiritual hosts. All this Roswell was very capable of feeling, and in some measure of appreciating; and never before had he been made so conscious of his own insignificance, as he became while looking on the firmament that night, glowing with its bright worlds and suns, doubtless the centres of other systems in which distance swallowed up the lesser orbs. Almost every one has heard or read of that collection of stars which goes by the name of the Southern Cross. The resemblance to the tree on which Christ suffered is not particularly striking, though all who navigate the southern hemisphere know it, and recognize it by its imputed appellation. It now attracted Roswell's gaze; and coming as it did after so much reading, so many conversations with Stephen, and addressing itself to one whose heart was softened by the fearful circumstances that had so long environed the sealers, it is not surprising that it brought our young master to meditate seriously on his true condition in connection with the atonement that he was willing to admit had been made for him, in common with all of earth, at the very moment he hesitated to believe that the sufferer was, in any other than a metaphorical sense, the Son of God. It is not our intention to describe more of the religious for me. Where there is the same knowledge, there is too much companionship, like, for worship and reverence." "But we are told that man was created after the image of God." "In his likeness, Captain Gar'ner--with _some_ of the Divine Spirit, but not with all. That makes him different from the brutes, and immortal. I have convarsed with a clergyman who thinks that the angels, and archangels, and other heavenly beings, are far before even the Saints in Heaven, such as have been only men on 'arth." The idea of not having a Deity that he could not comprehend had long been one of Roswell Gardiner's favourite rules of faith. He did not understand by this pretending dogma, that he was, in any respect, of capacity equal to comprehend with that of the Divine Being, but simply that he was not to be expected or required to believe in any theory which manifestly conflicted with his knowledge and experience, as both were controlled by the powers of induction he had derived directly from his Creator. In a word, his exception was one of the most obvious of the suggestions of the pride of reason, and just so much in direct opposition to the great law of regeneration, which has its very gist in the converse of this feeling --Faith. As our young master paced the terrace alone, that idea of the necessity of the Creator's being incomprehensible to the created, recurred to him. The hour that succeeded was probably the most important in Roswell Gardiners life. So intense were his feelings, so active the workings of his mind, that he was quite insensible to the intensity of the cold; and his body keeping equal motion with his thoughts, if one may so express it, his frame actually set at defiance a temperature that might otherwise have chilled it, warmly and carefully as it was clad. Truly there were many causes existing at that time and place, to bring any man to a just sense of his real position in the scale of created beings. The vault above Roswell was sparkling with orbs floating in space, most of them far more vast than this earth, and each of them doubtless having its present or destined use. What was that light, so brilliant and pervading throughout space, that converted each of those masses of dark matter into globes clothed with a glorious brightness? Roswell had seen chemical experiments that produced wonderful illuminations; but faint, indeed, were the most glowing of those artificial torches, to the floods of light that came streaming out of the void, on missions of millions and millions of miles. Who, and what was the Dread Being--dread in his Majesty and Justice, but inexhaustible in Love and Mercy--who used these exceeding means as mere instruments of his pleasure? and what was he himself, that he should presume to set up his miserable pride of reason, in opposition to a revelation supported by miracles that must be admitted to come through men inspired by the Deity, or rejected altogether? In this frame of mind Roswell was made to see that Christianity admitted of no half-way belief; it was all true, or it was wholly false. And why should not Christ be the Son of God, as the Fathers of the Church had perseveringly, but so simply proclaimed, and as that church had continued to teach for eighteen centuries? Roswell believed himself to have been created in the image of God; and his much-prized reason told him that he could perpetuate himself in successors: and that which the Creator had given _him_ the power to achieve, could he not in his own person perform? For the first time, an inference to the contrary seemed to be illogical. Then the necessity for the great expiation occurred to his mind. This had always been a stumbling-block to Roswell's faith. He could not see it; and that which he could not see he was indisposed to believe. Here was the besetting weakness of his character; a weakness which did not suffer him to perceive that could he comprehend so profound a mystery, he would be raised far above that very nature in which he took so much pride. As he reflected on this branch of the subject, a thousand mysteries, physical and moral, floated before his mind; and he became aware of the little probability that he should have been endowed with the faculties to comprehend this, the greatest of them all. Had not science gradually discovered the chemical processes by which gases could be concentrated and disengaged, the formation of one of those glittering orbs above his head would have been quite as unintelligible a mystery to him, as the incarnation of the Saviour. The fact was, that phenomena that were just as mysterious to the human mind as any that the dogmas of Christianity required to be believed, exist hourly before our eyes without awakening skepticism, or exciting discussion; finding their impunity in their familiarity. Many of these phenomena were strictly incomprehensible to human understandings, which could reason up to a fountain-head in each case; and there it was obliged to abandon the inductive process, purely for the want of power to grapple with the premises which control the whole demonstration. Could Mary Pratt have known what was going on in Roswell Gardiner's soul that night, her happiness would have been as boundless as her gratitude to God. She would have seen the barrier that had so long interposed itself to her wishes broken down; not by any rude hand, but by the influence of those whisperings of the Divine Spirit, which open the way to men to fit themselves for the presence of God. _ |
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