Our fate is seal'd! 'Tis now in vain to sigh
For home, or friends, or country left behind.
Come, dry those tears, and lift the downcast eye
To the high heaven of hope, and be resign'd;
Wisdom and time will justify the deed,
The eye will cease to weep, the heart to bleed.
Love's thrilling sympathies, affections pure,
All that endear'd and hallow'd your lost home,
Shall on a broad foundation, firm and sure,
Establish peace; the wilderness become,
Dear as the distant land you fondly prize,
Or dearer visions that in memory rise.
The moan of the wind tells of the coming rain that it bears upon its
wings; the deep stillness of the woods, and the lengthened shadows
they cast upon the stream, silently but surely foreshow the bursting
of the thunder-cloud; and who that has lived for any time upon the
coast, can mistake the language of the waves; that deep prophetic
surging that ushers in the terrible gale? So it is with the human
heart - it has its mysterious warnings, its fits of sunshine and
shade, of storm and calm, now elevated with anticipations of joy,
now depressed by dark presentiments of ill.
All who have ever trodden this earth, possessed of the powers of
thought and reflection, of tracing effects back to their causes,
have listened to these voices of the soul, and secretly acknowledged
their power; but few, very few, have had courage boldly to declare
their belief in them: the wisest and the best have given credence to
them, and the experience of every day proves their truth; yea, the
proverbs of past ages abound with allusions to the same subject, and
though the worldly may sneer, and the good man reprobate the belief
in a theory which he considers dangerous, yet the former, when he
appears led by an irresistible impulse to enter into some fortunate,
but until then unthought-of speculation; and the latter, when he
devoutly exclaims that God has met him in prayer, unconsciously
acknowledge the same spiritual agency. For my own part, I have no
doubts upon the subject, and have found many times, and at different
periods of my life, that the voice in the soul speaks truly; that if
we gave stricter heed to its mysterious warnings, we should be saved
much after-sorrow.
Well do I remember how sternly and solemnly this inward monitor
warned me of approaching ill, the last night I spent at home; how it
strove to draw me back as from a fearful abyss, beseeching me not to
leave England and emigrate to Canada, and how gladly would I have
obeyed the injunction had it still been in my power. I had bowed to
a superior mandate, the command of duty; for my husband's sake, for
the sake of the infant, whose little bosom heaved against my
swelling heart, I had consented to bid adieu for ever to my native
shores, and it seemed both useless and sinful to draw back.
Yet, by what stern necessity were we driven forth to seek a new
home amid the western wilds? We were not compelled to emigrate.
Bound to England by a thousand holy and endearing ties, surrounded
by a circle of chosen friends, and happy in each other's love,
we possessed all that the world can bestow of good - but WEALTH.
The half-pay of a subaltern officer, managed with the most rigid
economy, is too small to supply the wants of a family; and if of
a good family, not enough to maintain his original standing in
society. True, it may find his children bread, it may clothe them
indifferently, but it leaves nothing for the indispensable
requirements of education, or the painful contingencies of sickness
and misfortune. In such a case, it is both wise and right to
emigrate; Nature points it out as the only safe remedy for the
evils arising out of an over-dense population, and her advice is
always founded upon justice and truth.
Up to the period of which I now speak, we had not experienced much
inconvenience from our very limited means. Our wants were few, and
we enjoyed many of the comforts and even some of the luxuries of
life; and all had gone on smoothly and lovingly with us until the
birth of our first child. It was then that prudence whispered to the
father, "you are happy and contented now, but this cannot always
last; the birth of that child whom you have hailed with as much
rapture as though she were born to inherit a noble estate, is to
you the beginning of care. Your family may increase, and your wants
will increase in proportion; out of what fund can you satisfy their
demands? Some provision must be made for the future, and made
quickly, while youth and health enable you to combat successfully
with the ills of life. When you married for inclination, you knew
that emigration must be the result of such an act of imprudence in
over-populated England. Up and be doing, while you still possess
the means of transporting yourself to a land where the industrious
can never lack bread, and where there is a chance that wealth and
independence may reward virtuous toil."
Alas! that truth should ever whisper such unpleasant realities to
the lover of ease - to the poet, the author, the musician, the man
of books, of refined taste and gentlemanly habits. Yet he took the
hint, and began to bestir himself with the spirit and energy so
characteristic of the glorious North, from whence he sprung.
"The sacrifice," he said, "must be made, and the sooner the better.
My dear wife, I feel confident that you will respond to the call of
duty, and, hand-in-hand and heart-in-heart we will go forth to meet
difficulties, and, by the help of God, to subdue them."
Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm,
that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this
great epoch in our lives; that, like Lot's wife, I still turned and
looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was
leaving.
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