His first care was to take the father of the family aside, and gather from him the story of his misfortunes. It was a long and mournful tale, and Mr. Cleveland was obliged, more than once, to pretend a sudden call out of the room, that he might hide his emotion. And the tale was by no means told in vain. True to his new resolutions, Mr. Cleveland thankfully accepted the work which Providence had given him to do, and the family of emigrants, to this day, mention the name of Cleveland with tears of gratitude and love, and, when they implore God’s mercy for themselves, never forget to invoke, for their kind benefactor, Heaven’s choicest blessings. Nor is that the only family whose hearts glow at the mention of Mr. Cleveland’s name. Far and wide his name is known, and honoured, and beloved.
And Mr. Cleveland has found out the real secret of happiness. It is true that he and Tom still have their squabbles, for Tom is really a provoking fellow, and Mr. Cleveland is, and always will be, an eccentric, impulsive man, but his heart, which, when we first introduced him to our readers, was far from being right with God, or with his fellow-men, is now the dwelling-place of love and kindness, and the experience of every day contributes to strengthen the new principles he has imbibed, and to confirm him in the right.
Reader! art thou sad or solitary? I can offer thee a certain cure for all thy woes. Contemplate the life of Him who spake as never man spake. Follow him through all those years of toil and suffering. See him wherever called by the sorrows of his human brethren, and witness his deeds of mercy and his offices of love, and then—“go thou and do likewise.”
REBECCA.
HER words were few, without pretence
To tricks of courtly eloquence,
But full of pure and simple thought,
And with a guileless feeling fraught,
And said in accents which conferred
Poetic charm on household word.
She needed not to speak, to be
The best loved of the company—
She did her hands together press
With such a child-like gracefulness;
And such a sweet tranquillity
Upon her silent lips did lie,
And such unsullied purity
In the blue heaven of her eye.
She moved among us like to one
Who had not lived on earth alone;
But felt a dim, mysterious sense
Of a more stately residence,
And seemed to have a consciousness
Of an anterior happiness—
To hear, at times, the echoes sent
From some unearthly instrument
With half-remembered voices blent—
And yet to hold the friendships dear,
And prize the blessings of our sphere—
In sweet perplexity to know
Which of the two was dreamy show,
The dark green earth, the deep blue skies,
The love which shone in mortal eyes,
Or those faint recollections, telling
Of a more bright and tranquil dwelling.