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New England Chattels; Or, Life In The Northern Poor-house

Creator: Samuel H. Elliot (author)
Date: 1858
Publisher: H. Dayton, New York
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7

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1284  

Under the second division of the subject, he represented earnestly the great and solemn fact that any one who goes into eternity is a sinner, condemned and vile, and utterly lost forever, in consequence of his sinfulness, except as he may have the forgiveness of God through repentance of sin and faith in the merits of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus. He represented the certainty of a solemn, searching, judgment day, when the hearts of all men would be laid open, and every one, willing or unwilling, be required to give a strict account of himself to God, the Searcher of Hearts. "Then," said he, "what a painful revelation of the sins and follies of life will be made! Is it not enough to startle and affright you here? Do you not tremble when you think of your manifold iniquities -- the sins, and all the shameful vices of your lives? Oh! how will they appear be- fore the great white throne -- before God the judge of the world?" He besought them to consider these solemn truths then, even while gathered around the cold remains of their deceased friend, and so by timely repentance escape the horrors of the judgment day.

1285  

Mr. Rodman's prayer was in some sense a repetition of his sermon, although as he got nearer and nearer to the mercy-seat it waxed more fervent, and breathed out earnest and affectionate supplications in behalf of the desolate group that surrounded him.

1286  

Mr. Rodman had begun to see and to feel the misery -- the blight and mildew of the poor-house system under which these wrecks of humanity were plodding their way to the grave. Frequent short conversations with the Haddocks and Phillips' had contributed to awaken his interest in the matter, so that he was often found alluding to the poor in his sermons and prayers, to the evident surprise and discontent of his parishioners, Messrs. Smith, Newcombe, Shire & Co. But still his eyes were holden that he should not see the whole truth.

1287  

After the services of the hour were closed, he went among the people -- the paupers, shaking hands with all and saying a few words to them. As he came near where Mag Davis was sitting, coiled up something like a catamount ready to spring on her pre}^, she spoke out in her usual sententious and sarcastic manner -- "Your sermon, parson Rodman, was, I doubt not, every word 'ont true, but it was no new thing to one of us; we've all of us sinned under just sich truth of the law all our born days, having had the law but not kept it. Now, havn't you a Gospel for such poor devils as we are -- some invitation, some entreaty, some word of marcy -- some promise -- hey?"

1288  

"Don't be troubling the minister here," said Captain Bunce, rudely coming up and making preparations to receive the coffin, which consisted of the plainest stained boards, with few -- very few ornaments! "Mr. Rod- man is tired, and we have much to do!"

1289  

The conversation closed, and Mr. Rodman fell back to his place, but the arrow had left the bow, and it quivered deep in his own soul. His sermon had recoiled on himself, and the whole power of its thunder was echoing along the domains of his own heart. He had proclaimed the terrors of the law to those who knew the law, but yet had all their life known and resisted it, were still resisting it. They had not felt the tender pleadings of the Gospel -- had not so seen the suffering Saviour and his cross, as that their sorrow and love were revived, but they stood trembling when the Gospel might, and the Gospel alone could do them good. Mr. Rodman's eyes were now opened, and he was forever made a soul-friend and pleader for these miserable, wretched outcasts, the forgotten people of the gay and busy world. And all the way to the grave he meditated over the subject. He accused himself bitterly, too, for his past blindness and obtuseness of heart; that he could see the poor wretches suffer and die without reflecting on their need of all the consolations the Gospel is fitted to impart to them -- without sympathy for them, without any earnest thought or action in their behalf, they of the highways and hedges, for whom the son of God suffered and proclaimed the Gospel!

1290  

Aunt Dorothy's remains were taken to their last resting place on a large common sleigh bottom. It was usual to take the bodies of inmates of the poor-house to their burial in a similar manner. A hearse was not thought of for a moment. The funeral charges of a pauper are not, says the law, "to exceed six dollars." In the summer, when one died, the remains were carried in a sort of lumber-wagon. The whole thing was economically arranged, and the grave was made along side of others from the poor-house, so that the general locality could be known without the necessity of particularizing it by the help of marble! No head-stones were furnished for their graves. They slumbered in them who were their tenants, forgotten and unknown, till the judgment morn.

1291  

The storm was a fearful one in which aunt Dorothy's corpse was lowered to its rest, forbidding all remarks, and requiring every degree of exertion, and all haste possible. But the tempest of the old songstress' mind was hushed; her cares and difficulties were ended. Little thought or cared she for the storm that howled a requiem over her.

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