Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCES.

ALFONSO was a lad of about eighteen years. A part of his grandmother's house was occupied as a shop for the sale of drugs, the property of an Italian physician, who also owned the tejeria or tile-factory. The lad was employed in the dispensing of medicines and the selling of drugs. His father, who bore the character of being vacillating and erratic in his disposition, had left the town for many years, and contributed nothing to the support of his family.

Alfonso was intelligent and inquiring. I was drawn towards him by his tractable disposition, and the proper and thoughtful remarks he often made during our conversations. His mind was cast in a religious mould, and I was glad to teach him, as far as I was able, to have a just conception of God's revealed will. His acquaintance

with Materia Medica assisted us in the inquiries after Him who made nature; his knowledge of physical diseases led us to the study of moral depravity, and to the contemplation of Him whose blood alone can cleanse the soul from defilement. "In contemplation of created things,

By steps we may ascend to God."-MILTON.

But I studiously abstained from saying anything to make him dissatisfied with his own creed. And when he spoke to me of my own heresy, as he considered it, I explained to him the true nature of heresy, and cleared myself of the charge without needless and uncharitable reflections. In accounting for the diversity of Christian sects, I said that no man could get to Maturin without travelling; but there were more ways than one, depending in a great measure upon the point of starting; that it was also optional to travel to the city by way of the river or on land, care being taken to pursue the right tract or course. So may we not assume it to be quite possible safely to journey towards heaven, albeit at the risk of greater difficulties and dangers by the way, either

Differing Faiths.

119

by the elaborated but hearty sincere worship of the Catholics, or the simple spiritual one of the Puritans, or the rationalising aspirations towards perfection of the Christian Philosophers? The aim and intent of every medico was to restore health, but the systems adopted need not necessarily be exactly the same. Provided with all necessary appliances, and with equally skilful navigators, and bound for the same place, no two ships can pursue the same course with mathematical precision, though they may certainly arrive at the same appointed port.

This wonderful dissimilarity, beautiful in its very variety, without ascribing to God the authorship of confusion, is attributable to Himself, who has given a distinct individuality to each mind and person, and permits them, through their own idiosyncrasies, to see the beauty and aspire after the practice of a holy life.

About this time I received a communication from a Protestant missionary in Trinidad, offering to send me tracts for distribution, printed in Spanish, in refutation of Romanism.

[ocr errors]

He that dies a martyr," says Colton," proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool." And as I did not desire to deprive the missionary of the honour of martyrdom, I declined to receive his tracts for circulation. I was not interested in reclaiming Spaniards from their Catholicism, such as it was, but in making them understand the dignity of their manhood. To make a worse Protestant of a bad Romanist is no part of my ambition.

There was a man came to Demerara, in British Guiana, who accepted from his admirers the rather blasphemous soubriquet of "the Angel Gabriel." He traversed the city of Georgetown with a trumpet in his hand, which he blew to gather the mob. The burthen of his harangue, always religio-political, was intended to set one part of the community against the other; race against race; and Christian faith and practice against Christian faith and practice. No doubt the man sincerely believed that he was doing God's work; and his zeal, which had fed on the oppositions, and incarcerations, and ill-treatment he had undergone in other

[blocks in formation]

countries, may be attributed to the purest and holiest motives. And when, at last, his preaching caused a simultaneous uprising, rioting, and shopbreaking throughout the country, for which he was tried and imprisoned, he doubtless regarded himself as a soldier of "the noble army of martyrs."

Alfonso was becoming everything that I could desire. I must confess that I loved the lad; and the afternoon that did not bring him to me seemed to have passed unsatisfactorily. He was ill once for a week, and I went to see him once only, for I was not acquainted with his mother and his grandmother. On the following week, he attended his business, but did not come over to see me as at other times, and the earlier part of the third week I spent in the vicinity of the Laguna Grande. I lost no time, on my return to the city, to go into the drug-shop, and look after my little friend. After the usual salutations, I observed to him that we had become strangers to each other, and that I was at a loss to account for it.

"O" said Alfonso, rather flippantly, "I am

« AnteriorContinuar »