Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the
street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest
female member of his church, a most pious and exemplary old
dame, poor, widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of
reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead
friends of long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied
gravestones. Yet all this, which would else have been such heavy
sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul, by
religious consolations and the truths of Scripture, wherewith
she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years. And
since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the good grandam's
chief earthly comfort--which, unless it had been likewise a
heavenly comfort, could have been none at all--was to meet her
pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be refreshed
with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing Gospel truth,
from his beloved lips, into her dulled, but rapturously
attentive ear. But, on this occasion, up to the moment of
putting his lips to the old woman's ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the
great enemy of souls would have it, could recall no text of
Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it
then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the
immortality of the human soul. The instilment thereof into her
mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop down
dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous
infusion. What he really did whisper, the minister could never
afterwards recollect. There was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder
in his utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to
the good widows comprehension, or which Providence interpreted
after a method of its own. Assuredly, as the minister looked
back, he beheld an expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy
that seemed like the shine of the celestial city on her face, so
wrinkled and ashy pale.
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Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church
member, he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden
newly-won--and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale's own sermon,
on the Sabbath after his vigil--to barter the transitory
pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume
brighter substance as life grew dark around her, and which would
gild the utter gloom with final glory. She was fair and pure as
a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. The minister knew well that
he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her
heart, which hung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting
to religion the warmth of love, and to love a religious purity.
Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away
from her mother's side, and thrown her into the pathway of this
sorely tempted, or--shall we not rather say?--this lost and
desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to
condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a
germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear
black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this
virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt
potent to blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked
look, and develop all its opposite with but a word. So--with a
mightier struggle than he had yet sustained--he held his Geneva
cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of
recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness
as she might. She ransacked her conscience--which was full of
harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag--and
took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand imaginary
faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids
the next morning.
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