A Daughter of the Covenant

A Daughter of the Covenant : A TALE OF LOUISIANA. Rev. L^P.^BOWEN, D. D., Author of '* The Old Preacher's Story/' 14 The Days of Makemie," etc. RICHMOND, VA.: The Presbyterian Committee of Publication. PS \ I 1*3 printed bt Whittet & Shepperson, kichmond, \'a. CONTENTS. Page. CHAPTER I. Hope Cottage, 7 CHAPTER II. The Baptism, 17 CHAPTER III. The Visitor, . .27 CHAPTER IV. Last of the Ouachitas, ..... 39 CHAPTER V. Taught and Teaching, ..... 52 CHAPTER VI. Four Snowy Heads, 66 CHAPTER VII. The Pastor's Call, 80 CHAPTER VIII. Voices in the "Wilderness, . .92 CHAPTER IX. New Immigrant, 102 4 Contents. CHAPTER X. Page. Don and Henri, 115 CHAPTER XI. Life Currents, . .128 CHAPTER XII. Crtstalization, ...... 141 CHAPTER XIII. Dens and Caves, 151 CHAPTER XIV. The Manuscript, ...... 162 CHAPTER XV. Books, 172 CHAPTER XVI. Great Silly Boys, . .184 CHAPTER XVII. When Calvin Wakes, 194 CHAPTER XVIII. The Pic nic, 204 CHAPTER XIX, The Bescue, 216 CHAPTER XX. Manuscript Complete, .... 228 Contents. 5 CHAPTER XXI. Page. The Elect Lady, 240 CHAPTER XXII. The Removal, 252 CHAPTER XXIII. The Wedding, . .263 CHAPTER XXIV. The Death Song, ...... 273 A Daughter of the Covenant. CHAPTER I. Hope Cottage. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."^- Joshua xxiv. 15. OTJ could not have entered a sweeter JL Southern home. Houses, like people, have personality — each one its own temper and temperament. This was built for a bride, and seemed to know it, and itself looked bride-like — the Spanish mosses and Confederate jasmines hanging about it like altar-wreaths. Hinting of Longfellow and Evangeline and all romantic dreams, the Ouachita, proud of his clear, gliding waters and his willows, flowed on his way like a poem. The sunshine of the blue sky, and the sunshine of the rippling river, held communion like confidential neighbors. The landscape, with its soft quietude, was a lullaby. 8 A Daughter of the Covenant. There on the trellised gallery — for what is a Southern dwelling without its gallery ? — a cra dle rested amid its flowery setting. The cottage and cradle wore a harmonious blending, as if made for each other. Of all the tasteful furni ture there was nothing more pleasing and con genial. A home which has never known that decoration is a color without its complementary tints. A cradle with its sleeping occupant is an idyll. Flights of holy sentiment circle about it like humming-birds around Louisiana flowers. The initiated listener catches strains from the harpers by the Throne. Hearts beat close to Bethlehem's plains — "And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them." The cradle ! it is an ark of bulrushes tenanted by one who may lead to the Land of Promise. It is a basketful of the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, good ness, faith, meekness, temperance. Heaven and earth clasp hands about it. Frailty and inde structibility, mortality and eternity join in the cradle song. The young mother comes from the door and takes her seat by the sleeper. Of course, her eyes are upon it — mother's eyes that see many A Daughter of the Covenant. 9 things. So a moth'er once looked upon a Child in a manger. A year ago, after much planning and radiant expectancy, the newly-married completed the cottage and moved in. The building of a home is the building of a world. It is a star of the first magnitude taking its place among the con stellations. When Mary, the daughter of Mary, and Jean, the son of Jean, cam© together it was said by those who were supposed to know, that they were well matched. It meant that they were of the same social sphere and of the same church. When Presbyterians marry any but Presbyte rians there may be no sin committed, but a part of the glory of marriage is lost. And the child that is born feels the dearth of ancestral sym pathy. Prom times whereof the memory of man run neth not to the contrary, the Lairds and the La Fontaines were of godly lineage. The one was transparently of Scotch and the other of Huguenot descent. There was no bar sinister in that pedigree. They were like the limpid bayous that come from east and west and form the sunny tides of our beautiful river. Religion is enriched when well-mated. Years ago the two families had settled as 10 A Daughter of the Covenant. neighbors among a population where testimony for the pure and good was needed, and where each needed the other. They were the years and territories pervaded by that indifference to God's Word, and that laxness of morals which Romanism had imported and perpetuated in Louisiana. The disregard for God's Sabbaths brought in on that wave, and still disgracing the statute-books of the State, was abroad with all its noxious poisons. The Holy Day was merely one of the holidays, and often the worst. The Lairds and the La Fontaines knew what that meant. In Europe the ancestry of both had fought that battle to the death. They knew of the designs of Rome to acclimatize her ancient tyranny in America, and even to establish the Inquisition in New Orleans. These bolder eruptions the New World was not going to bear, but the stealthy and more baneful influences of loose religiousness and social dethronements of Deity were more difficult to neutralize. The taints were in the air. But God had his witnesses. Scattered here and there along the dreamy water-courses were faithful households, who put honor upon the Ten Commandments and would not be seduced. A covenant religion, confirmed and solidified by successive generations, was alone likely to have A Daughter of the Covenant. 11 backbone to resist tbe strain. The Lairds and La Fontaines had good memories and knew the foe. They had inherited the testimonies of Patrick Hamilton and the Colignys. They had not forgotten those old mountain crags, Calvin and Knox. If necessary, the Ouachita would have had her martyrs as well as the Rhone and the Clyde. And Mary, the daughter of Mary, and Jean, the son of Jean, were reared as their forefathers had been. They had not yielded to the fascina tions of the daughters of Ashdod and the incur sions of the sons of Philistia; and the Cupid that brought their hearts together had been bred upon the Confession of Faith and the Cate chisms. The girl and boy had played together upon the grassy banks of the whispering river, and the pictures of mistletoe and 3rellow jasmine and the birds, were the same in the memories of both. The light that came so pensively through the church windows, the sound of the old hymns, and the tones of Mr. Allenson, the pastor, were the same in the heart of each. The pews were in as close touch as the homes. There is safety in marriages between well-known old neighbors. And now the young mother sits and gazes upon the features of the third in the line of 12 A Daughter of the Covenant. names — Mary, the daughter of Mary, the daughter of Mary. Perhaps, if traced back, it might have been carried through a dozen High land Marys. Does the spirit of prophecy now rest upon her as upon Anna in the temple? Does the future sparkle with visions of a charm ing girlhood and womanhood — shining with something of the light of the Saviour's Trans figuration raiment? This is motherhood. She is praying. The father enters and stoops and kisses the babe very gently — fatherhood, daughterhood ! The sun is halving himself behind the trees across the river. The spell of an approaching ceremonial is upon the two and upon the pic turesque scene. The mocking-bird up in the water-oak, now changing into "the soft, sw^et, pensive, solemn strain" as sung of the bird by Richard Henry Wilde, seems to be practicing, an entire choir in himself, some of the hymns for the coming Sabbath. "I have seen our pastor," said the youthful father, "and made all arrangements for the bap tism. There is nothing he more enjoys, and he at once began talking about it like one of the apostles. Mary, the holy ordinance which made us one on that brightest of mornings was not more precious than this," A Daughter of the Covenant. 13 "No," she answered, "for it is the same God that hallows both. We had alreaay plighted our hearts to each other; we have already plighted this immortal to God." "We both prayed," he continued, "that the little one might be a daughter, giving her to the great Head of the Church before she was born. We remembered God's foreordination of the un born Jeremiah. Jer. i. 5." "To-day while baby slept," she said, "there was a silent drawing toward that sacred room which you helped me to plan. The architect could never understand the interest we felt in building that special chamber — our ingenuity in making it tasteful and attractive, arranged so as to take in as much as possible of the curves of the river and the blue of the sky. We meant it to be the holy of holies to our home-temple. For why should not the Father who seeth in secret have the choicest room? While there to-day I seemed to see distinctly mingling in her life what is loveliest in Mary's two grand mothers." "I have called that secluded chamber 'Mary's Shrine,' " he answered.

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