The Responsibilities of the Pastor's Wife [pp. 379-383]

OF THE PASTOR'S WIFE.
brilliance rather than charm with their song.
The bluebird, for example, looks bluer amid
the heavy foliage of the cedar than with us,
and the cardinal is certainly of the brightest
red as he darts into the thick cover; the blackbird startles with his cat-like scream as he
flutters amid the orange boughs, and the little
ground-dove goes so quietly along, only stopping to pick up the fallen seeds-the very picture of innocence and love; the crows caw and
caw again as they fly up, at evening, to the
wooded heights of the hills; the kingfisher
darts, with a flash of his plumage, from the
secret place of the mangrove or black-bush,
upon his firny prey in the shallows; and the
lonely heron almost compels you to meditation
as you stand watchling, him, as it were, watching his own shadow in the crystal tides.
But this paper shall now be closed with two
quotations, one from a historian of the early
times of Mlay and Lancaster, the other from
the muse of the celebrated Moore, who spent a
few of his juvenile years in Bermuda, whether
admiring more the beauty of her daughters or
the beauty of the scenery, it were hard to tell.
The historian says: "He [May] found it [the
island] a terrestrial paradise, abounding with
citron, orange, and lemon trees. Here was
seen the towering palm, whose straight and
naked stem shoots up to an immense height,
crowned with a cupola of foliage resembling
the feathers of the ostrich, overtopping all
his fellows of the forest. Contrasted with the
deep, rough green of the cedar was seen the
tall papaw, with its bright gray stems and
leaves of emerald green, bearing a fruit in
shape and color, when ripe, resembling the
lemon, but filled with a yellow pulp and black
seeds, unpalatable to the European taste.
Groves of mangoes, bananas, and plantains,
together with labyrinths of unknown aromatic
under-wood, crowned numerous little islands
only a stone's-throw from each other, forming
miniature bays and harbors, whose rocky inlets were fringed with various hues reflected
from transparent waves, beneath whose surface
glided fish of unknown shapes and colors. A
scene so novel, so romantic, and unknown riveted, for a time, the attention of the wanderers,
and they lost sight of their calamities in contemplation of the wonders around them. No
vestige of human habitation was to be seen; all
was silence and solitude, interrupted only occasionally by the murmurs of the distant breakers, the carols of the feathery tribes, and the
spicy hum of the southern breeze as it swept
the lofty cedars. Birds of bright plumage were
seen feeding upon the berries of odoriferous
shrubs, wild hogs were grazing in the valleys,
and great whales gamboling in the deep.
Scenes like these the poets in all ages have
delighted to dwell upon, and we have reason to
believe that this island once in reality rivaled
the famous Calypso in imagination. Our immortal Shakspeare has, with justice, made it
the scene of his shipwreck, making Ariel t(
warble forth his wild notes amidst rocks still
more wild than the echoes. He seems to
allude to the heavy dews and the continued
turbulence of the breakers when Ariel says:
'Where once thou call'dst me up at dun midnight
To fetch heaven's dew from the still vex'd Bermioothes.'"
And now for the poet Moore:
"But bless the little fairy isle!
How sweetly, after all our ills,
We saw the sunny morning smile
Serenely o'er its fragrant hills,
And felt the pure, delicious flow
Of airs that round this Eden blow
Freshly as e'en the gales that come
O'er our own healthy hills at home.
Could you but see the scenery fair
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd thinik that Nature lavished there
Her purest waves, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
F'or bards to live and saints to die in.
Close to my wooded bank bel,,w
It glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sunhbeams proudly show
'Tlie coral rocks they love to steep.
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
'The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails
As loose they flap around the mast.
'hlie noontide stun in splendor poutrs
That lights up all these leafy shores,
While his own heaven, its clouds and beams,
So pictured in the waters lie,
Thlat each small bark, in passing, seems
'To float along a burning sky!"
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE
PASTOR'S WIFE.
HE relationship of "wife" is the zenith of
a true woman's glory. In this relation ship she first appears on the stage of actionI. While in all the ranges of animated
nature, each one found his coml)lement in a
suitable companion, the inspired pen records,
with appropriate sadness, the declaration, "Bctt
for Adam, there was not found an helpmeet for
him;" and, "The Lord God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and lie slept. And he took
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead
thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had
taken firom man made lhe a woman; and he
brought her to the man," and Adam instinctively recognized his affinity, and said, "'She
shall be called woman, because she was taken
379
THE RESPONSIBILZTIES