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THE boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss,
wandered about as if in a maze, wondering at the
great blank that death had made; or, warming himself
at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant
forgetfulness, — shouting, — up the stairs, — to the accustomed
door, and bursts in upon the cold chamber, so
long closed, where the bitter knowledge comes upon
him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is
has heard his clatter upon the floor, his bound at the
old latch, and, fancying what it may mean, has come up
in time to soothe him and bear him off with her. The
parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, in
the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may be, the
stified sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads
and half drags him down, and opens his door upon
them.

“What now, Esther? Has Reuben caught a fall?”

“No, sir, no fall; he 's not harmed, sir. It 's only
the old room, you know, sir, and he quite forgot himself.”

“Poor boy! Will he come with me, Esther?”

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“No, Mr. Johns. I 'll find something 'll amuse him;
hey, Ruby?”

And the parson goes back to his desk, where he forgets
himself in the glow of that great work of his. He
has been taught, as never before, that “all flesh is
grass.” He accepts his loss as a punishment for having
thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this
life; henceforth the flesh and its affections shall be
mortified in him. He has transferred his bed to a little
chamber which opens from his study in the rear, and
which is at the end of the long dining-room, where
every morning and evening the prayers are said, as
before. The parishioners see a light burning in the
window of his study far into the night.

For a time his sermons are more emotional than before.
Oftener than in the earlier days of his settlement
he indulges in a forecast of those courts toward which
he would conduct his people, and which a merciful God
has provided for those who trust in Him; and there is
a coloring in these pictures which his sermons never
showed in the years gone.

“We ask ourselves,” said he, “my brethren, if we
shall knowingly meet there — where we trust His grace
may give us entrance — those from whom you and I
have parted; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall
greet us, not alone from Him whom to love is life, but
from those dear ones who seem to our poor senses to be

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resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I believe
that by God's great goodness,” (and here he looked, not
at his people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there)—
“I believe that we shall; that His great love shall
so delight in making complete our happiness, even by
such little memorials of our earthly affections (which
must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great
harvest of His abounding grace); that all the dear
faces of those written in the Golden Book shall beam a
welcome, all the more bounteous because reflecting His
joy who has died to save.”

And the listeners whispered each other as he paused,
“He thinks of Rachel.”

With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on, —

“Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself,
`Of what value shall human ties be, or their memories,
in His august presence whom to look upon is life?
What room shall there be for other affections, what
room for other memories, than those of “the Lamb that
was slain”?'

“Nay, my brethren,” (and here he turns his eyes
upon them again,) “we do know in our hearts that
many whom we have loved fondly — infants, fathers,
mothers, wives, may be — shall never, never sit with
the elect in Paradise; and shall we remember these
in heaven, going away to dwell with the Devil and his
angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge that

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some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is
wearing out ages of suffering? `No,' you may say, `for
we shall be possessed in that day of such sense of the
ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, that all
shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of
His supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings
of our hearts, even to the suppression of the dearest
ties of earth, where they conflict with His ordained purpose,
will they not also overrule all the longings in respect
of friends who are among the elect, in such sort
that the man we counted our enemy, the man we
avoided on earth, if so be he have an inheritance in
heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart
as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly,
my brethren? Ah, let us beware, — let us beware how
we entertain any opinions of that future condition of
holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are
dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which
are colored by our short-sighted views, which are not
in every iota accordant with the universal love of Him
who is our Master!”

“This man lives above the world,” said the people;
and if some of them did not give very cordial assent to
these latter views, they smothered their dissent by a
lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty to
give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the
more by reason of their utterance. And yet their

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limited acceptance diffused a certain chill, very likely, over
their religious meditations. But it was a chill which
unfortunately they counted it good to entertain, — a
rigor of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful,
indeed, if they did not make a merit of their placid intellectual
admission of such beliefs as most violated the
natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so sure
that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their
tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original
depravity, that, when their parson propounded a
theory that gave a shock to their natural affections, they
submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however much
their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds
of such a protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to
investigate. There was a determined shackling of all
the passional nature. What wonder that religion took a
harsh aspect? As if mere intellectual adhesion to theological
formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge
of the Infinite! — as if our sensibilities were to be outraged
in the march to heaven! — as if all the emotional
nature were to be clipped away by the shears of
the doctors, leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul
to enter upon the joys of Paradise!

Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought
of Rachel only as a gift that God had bestowed to try
him, and had taken away to work in him a humiliation
of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled

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with the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them
to his purposes as preacher, and wrought on with a zeal
that knew no abatement and no rest.

In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor
Wolcott to preach the Election Sermon before
the Legislature convened at Hartford: an honorable
duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to
fulfill. The “Hartford Courant” of that date said, —
“A large auditory was collected last week to listen to
the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, minister of Ashfield.
It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting discourse,
and won the undivided attention of all the listeners.
We have not recently listened to a sermon
more able or eloquent.”

In that day even country editors were church-goers
and God-fearing men.

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