Chapter 4 - Page 2

deceased. The deacon assumed the duty of taking charge of everything. The
chest of Daggett was removed to his house for safe-keeping, the key having
been taken from the pocket of his vest, and the necessary orders were
given for the final disposition of the body.

The deacon had another serious, and even painful half hour, when he first
looked upon the corpse. There it lay, a senseless shell, deserted by its
immortal tenant, and totally unconscious of that subject which had so
lately and so intensely interested them both. It appeared as if the
ghastly countenance expressed its sense of the utter worthlessness of all
earthly schemes of wealth and happiness. Eternity seemed stamped upon the
pinched and sunken features; not eternity in the sense of imperishable
matter, but in the sense of the fate of man. Had all the gold of the
Indies lain within his reach, the arm of Daggett was now powerless to
touch it. His eye could no longer gloat upon treasure, nor any part of his
corporeal system profit by its possession. A more striking commentary on
the vanity of human wishes could not, just then, have been offered to the
consideration of the deacon. His moral being was very strangely
constituted. From early childhood he had been accustomed to the cant of
religion; and, in many instances, impressions had been made on him that
produced effects that it was easy to confound with the fruits that real
piety brings forth. This is a result that we often find in a state of
society in which appearances are made to take the place of reality. What
is more, it is a result that we may look for equally among the formalists
of established sects, and among the descendants of those who once deserted
the homes of their fathers in order to escape from the impiety of so
meretricious an abuse of the substance of godliness. In the case of the
latter, appearances occupy the mind more than that love of God which is
the one great test of human conversion from sin to an improving state of
that holiness, without which we are told no man shall see his Creator;
without which, indeed, no man could endure to look upon that dread Being
face to face.

The deacon had all the forms of godliness in puritanical perfection. He
had never taken the "name of his God in vain," throughout the course of a
long life; but, he had abstained from this revolting and gratuitous sin,
more because it was a part of the teachings of his youth so to do, and
because the neighbours would have been shocked at its commission, than
because he felt the deep reverence for his Maker, which it became the
insignificant being that was the work of his hand to entertain; and which
would, of itself, most effectually have prevented any wanton use of his
holy name, let the