Truly, a deep
humiliation has fallen upon the town."
And the chagrin of this respected gentleman was wholly sincere. The
Puritanical distinction between clergy and laity had scarcely faded in
his mind. The pastor of the First Church had belonged to a cherished
class,--a class whose moral and intellectual consequence must be
maintained by avoidance of all dangerous inquiries, common interests,
and secular amusements. A minister attending a Jenny-Lind
Charity-Concert in a play-house, or leading armed men in the most sacred
cause for which human blood might be shed,--what offences would these
have been to this titular Colonel of Foxden, who had won his honors by a
six-months' finery and dining as aide-de-camp to some forgotten
Governor!
"I fear I shall not be back before you wish to close the house."
"Never mind, you remember the old arrangement: door-key under the
scraper,--light burning in the drawing-room."
With hearty thanks I went forth to keep my appointment with Dr. Burge.
II.
The narrative here takes us to a portion of the shadowy perturbation
which any who have turned these pages as a fictitious rendering of the
grotesque in experience will do well to omit. Only a mortifying, though
perchance salutary, sense of human infirmity comes from beholding one
set over the people as intercessor and counsellor struggling in the
meshes of that snare which the Enemy had spread for the undisciplined
and wandering multitude.
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