PAGE 5
The Way Of Transgressors
by
“Bring me my children,” the dying mother said, rousing up from a state of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought both her mother and her husband to her bedside.
“What did you want, dear Amanda?” asked the husband, laying his hand gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of coming dissolution.
“My dear babes,” she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an effort. “My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am laid at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!”
Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud. The infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when she had a little recovered herself.
“Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!” she said, with tender animation. “My sweet, sweet baby! I cannot give you up!” And she clasped it to her breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled over her pale cheek. “And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?” she asked.
Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was brought in and lifted upon the bed.
“Don’t cry, ma,” said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her mother’s cheeks, “don’t cry; I’ll always be good.”
“Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!” the mother sobbed, eagerly kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers; and then clasped the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.
The children were, after a time, removed, but the thoughts of the dying mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.
“I now see and feel,” said she, looking up into the face of her mother, after having lain with closed eyes for about ten minutes, “that all my sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be upon me, would have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to be guided by you. I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way. How could it have been otherwise, and I so strangely regardless of all the laws of health? But, my dear mother, the past is beyond recall; and now I leave to you the dear little ones from whom I must soon part for ever. I feel calmer than I have felt for some time. The bitterness of the last agony seems over. But I do not see you, nor you, dear husband! Give me your hands. Here, let my head rest on your bosom. It is sweet to lie thus–Anna–dear child! Mary–sweet, sweet babe!”–
The lips of the young wife and mother moved feebly, and inarticulate whispers fell faintly from her tongue for some moments, and then she sank to sleep–and it was a sleep from which none wake in the body.
Thus, at the age of twenty-six, abused and exhausted nature gave up the struggle; and the mother, who had violated the laws of health, sank to the earth just at the moment when her tenderest and holiest duties called loudest for performance.
Who, in this brief and imperfect sketch, does not recognise familiar features? Amanda Beaufort is but one of a class which has far too many representatives. These are in every town and village, in every street and neighbourhood. Why do we see so many pale-faced mothers? Why are our young and lovely females so soon broken down under their maternal duties? The answer, in far too many cases, may be found in their early and persevering transgression of the most palpable physiological laws. The violation of these is ever followed, sooner or later, in a greater or less degree, by painful consequences. Sometimes life is spared to the young mother, and she is allowed to linger on through years of suffering that the heart aches to think of. Often death terminates early her pains, and her babes are left a legacy to the cold charities of an unfeeling world. How sad, how painful the picture! Alas! that it is a true one.