صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[blocks in formation]

duty lay in the foreign field. His piety was above doubt. His energy with perseverance, and his zeal with prudence, were well tried and known. His heroic fortitude and his high enterprise would make him ready for bold and noble deeds of moral daring in the great work of giving the Bible to the Orient, and I confess I had strong desires that he should undertake the service.

He accepted the appointment, and was ordained by the Presbytery of Newark, in the city of Newark, N. J., to the work of the ministry.

CHAPTER VII.

MISSION TO THE EAST.

MR. RIGHTER left this country, for the last time as it proved, on the 30th of September, 1854. He sailed in the steamer Pacific, which was lost in the following year, having never been heard from after leaving port. A large number of his friends were on board to bid him farewell, in the confident hope of greeting him again after an abserce of three years. He departed cheerfully, joyfully, to enter upon the great work that had been committed to him, that of disseminating the Word of God throughout that part of the world where it was first published, and where the gospel had its earliest triumphs. The voyage across the Atlantic was pleasant and prosperous. He writes to his mother, on board the

"STEAMER PACIFIC, Oct. 7th, 1854.

"MY DEAR MOTHER: How well I remember the last look of friends at parting, their farewell adieus on the wharf! How they linger with me still, by night and by day, as I sail upon the ocean,

48

LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.

assuring me, in tenderness and love, that I do nòt go alone, but the Spirit and prayers of friends encompass me round in all my way. Though far on the wide waters I am not alone or lonely—the same stars gleam nightly in the sky as at homethe same moon shines out to cheer us on our voyage-the same God, who upholds the pillars of the land, doth likewise plant his footsteps in the mighty deep, and place around and underneath us his everlasting arms. He commands the winds and waves concerning us to bear us safely over the sea, and we thus go on our way rejoicing.

"I enjoy much the purity and poetry of the sea, the ideas of grandeur and sublimity it inspires, constantly mirroring to us God in his attributes of infinity and eternity, and lifting the soul away from earth to heaven. Whither shall we go from his presence, whither shall we fly from his Spirit? If we ascend into heaven he is there; if we make our bed in hell, behold, he is there; if we take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall his hand lead us, and his right hand uphold us.' Above, beneath, around, all speaks to us of him, the same ever-living, ever-acting, wonder-working God.

"We have had a delightful passage, speeding on through the ocean day after day, calm and tranquil as a May morning. Varying incidents

[ocr errors]

LANDING AT LIVERPOOL.

49

are constantly occurring to interest and entertain. Now, we see a steamer in the distant horizon; now a vessel with all sails spread to the breeze, a splendid sight upon the wide ocean; and now a whale spouting the water high in air; and then an iceberg, an hundred and fifty feet above the water, resplendent as the sunlight falls upon it from afar. Then new and pleasant acquaintances are formed on board; new entertainments invented-games, concerts, and lectures-all to make the time flit quickly by, yet as the sun sinks in liquid, golden glory, behind the western wave, our thoughts ever turn toward home, and those we love in that far-off land. Indeed, the ties that bind us there seem to grow, at once, stronger and more tender as time and distance intervene the more between us."

Landing at Liverpool on the eleventh day, he proceeded the next morning to London. Here he called upon the officers of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who received him with great cordiality, promising to co-operate with the American Society in giving the Bible to the Eastern nations. He found that the British institution was printing an edition of five thousand copies for circulation at Constantinople and in the vicinity, and that it had a number already on deposit there, which could be brought into imme

50

ISLE OF WIGHT.

diate use. The cordial reception which he met with from the friends of the Bible in London was very animating to his spirits, which were always buoyant and hopeful.

Here he spent one or two days in company with his friends, Rev. E. D. G. Prime, and Mr. D. E. Hawley, of New York, who had left home with him, and who were to be his travelling companions until they should reach Rome, where they were to separate. At Havre they were joined by Mr. Richard C. McCormick, Jr., Corresponding Secretary of the New York Young Men's Christian Association, who went with him to the Crimea, and subsequently left him at Constantinople. The time that they spent in the Isle of Wight was passed delightfully among the scenes of beauty and of interest with which that charming spot of earth abounds, the most interesting of which are the sacred places that have become familiar to the whole Christian world, through the sweet pages of Leigh Richmond's "Annals of the Poor," the cottage and the graves of the "Dairyman and his Daughter," and the home and burial-place of "Little Jane." In a letter to his brother he says:

"We made an excursion to the Isle of Wight, which we saw in the full perfection of autumnal beauty. Here we visited the grave and cottage of the 'Dairyman's Daughter;' saw the room in

« السابقةمتابعة »