A NARRATIVE

(WRITTEN BY THE SPIRIT OF A YOUNG LADY TO HER BROTHER.)

MY apology for this disclosure is, that I wish you to know the truth. You never saw me in the body. I am a stranger to you. I am a stranger to many who may have an interest to know the misery I suffered during a brief sojourn on earth. I have a dear friend, a brother, who knows my life; yet, my dear brother is a brother still. He mourned my melancholy fate. He saw me degraded, but he never forsook me. He saw me ruined in the sight of the world, but he still loved me as a brother. Oh, my brother! What can I do to requite your favors to me in the day of adversity, in a day which tried your soul, in a day bitter with shame to your heart—not that you had done wrong—Heaven forbid! But I, a weak and imprudent sister, had submitted to the ignominy, the treachery of a base heart, and been lured by the fascinations of a serpent, who beguile me in my innocence. The monster still lives—still survives the wreck his passions have made. He will live when my shame shall be remembered no more. He will live, and, living, feel the quiver which bore my body to the land of graves. He will live, oh my brother! be not angry that he lives! The world wide charity of your benevolence will suffer no wrong by a clemency, diffusive as the morning light. I linger near you to console a heart, bleeding for the misery which led me away from scenes that mocked the wail of a repentant sister—scenes which disturbed the solitude of weary hours—scenes which forbade me friends—scenes which made every nerve of my body to convulse with fear—scenes which wrought decay to my weak frame—and scenes painful beyond the endurance of contemplation.

I turn, and wherever I turn, I see my brother, dismayed with the foul mind that murdered my hopes of life. I see him no where consoled with the smile of gladness, with which he was wont to greet me in, my chamber of despair. I see wrong—a dark cloud still lingers above and around his head, to curse the day made dark by the man, who ruined the hope of a confiding brother. Oh! and may I call him brother? May I call him what my deed, my wrong, would never justify? Yes: He is my brother. He was my brother. He will not disown me. Alas! he did not disown me, when all other friends forsook me. He will speak of me, and call me sister. He did call, me, sister, when others blushed to own me such. And can I forget my brother? Can I forsake when he never forsook? Can I disown when he was always true? Never, no, never.

I see what he sees not. I know what he does not know. All other hearts are not as his. All other minds are not as his. His dear spirit I love—love because it loved me—love because no other love visited me with a smile—a tear—a tear in smiles. No other love came to my sick chamber with such cheerfulness, such readiness, such anxiety, such sympathy, and such pity, as that which melted my soul with gratitude that I had a brother in the day of misfortune. Did I not have friends? Did I not love and confide in my friends? I will say, I had many—many who were near to my heart. I was gay, cheerful, and happy. I was welcomed to the circles of the wealthy though dependent—dependent, as my brother knows, on his arm for protection. I mingled in the society of the fashionable, for my brother was the pride of literary merit; yes, the merit of an offering which minds welcome to drawing-rooms of a populous city—a city desecrated by the relation I am about to give.

Oh, that my brother could see the work! Oh, that I could give even a faint sketch of my wretchedness, when we met after my mission of wrong—more wrong in another—had been consummated! The task overcomes the capacity of recital. I saw him—him whom my brother loved, and because my brother loved I loved also. The mind of one was the mind of the other, I was deceived—he was deceived—both were betrayed. In the betrayer I reposed confidence, as I would in a brother. Oh! how misplaced! But I was weak—not wicked—for I never had been taught that it was wrong to confide in a professed servant of Jesus—a minister of the Gospel. No: I had no wisdom to protect me against wrong from such a quarter; no suspicion to indulge that he would injure me, and no counselor to forewarn me of impending ruin. In that mistaken confidence I loved a man—a deceiver who has made wretched more souls than mine. He professed love—love which thrilled my heart with the impulse of affection—love that seemed to pervade my whole nature, and offer visions of delight to my ardent hopes—love which sought only what would contribute to the luxury of anticipation and distrust no promise or pleasure which his liberality had to bestow. He was my counselor when the dark hour of temptation came. He was my trust when we anticipated all that human minds could expect. He was my wisdom to do what no mind asks me to relate. Oh, my God! Oh, my soul! Oh, my brother! Who was deceived? Who was wronged? Who was betrayed? Never, no, never, need such work be vindicated while mind is mind, and God is judge. Never, let my soul taste again the curse which pollution brings to damn me with its wrath and misery. Never, so long as law is true to mind, and mind is controlled by law. No: nor will the law unbind the wrong which deceived and wounded my trusting spirit. It is that which makes me write a confession of my shame. It is that law, and violation of law, that wounds, but not to heal, which demands words of penitence from a spirit out of the body as wall as in it. Oh! what words will reveal my sorrow? What words will atone for the infatuation or a deluded and ignorant child, drawn away from the path of duty to God and duty to friends, as well as respect for myself? Words will not atone. A bleeding mind, a wronged innocence, a conscience defiled, a soul degraded, a character injured, are these the dregs of bitterness that filled my cup of misery, and which must live to haunt my spirit when my body has returned to dust? Oh, dearest brother! thou hast not known, because thou hast not seen nor felt the sweetness of a mercy which whispers forgiveness like that which make the soul of injured virtue in this world of tenderness and compassion. Thou hast not forgotten our dear mother's love, nor hast thou denied the love she sought to impress on our minds in childhood. Thou rememberest well her kind voice that spake to us words of wisdom in love, and thou knowest that her kindness commanded our natural ignorance with subduing power, and won our obedience to the path of right. Oh! what impressions have been made upon my soul by the tenderness she would manifest toward her children! What melting compassion beamed on her countenance, as she taught us to love the holly message of mercy, revealed from heaven! What reverence dwelt on her brow, when she read the words of that divine Saviour who said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, sin no more." Heaven is merciful. Spirits are merciful in heaven. Oh I that you, and all who are interested in my narrative, might realize how blessed are they who find mercy, in doing what mercy requires. Oh, that minds who have made me unhappy, while in the body, because another had wronged me, might contemplate what I see, so that wisdom and love might temper the blast to the shorn lamb, and offer shelter to the shelterless of misfortune. Oh, that wrong, which bewitches and beguiles the ignorant from the path of duty, might be overcome with the day, whose morning glories never fade, and whose rising sun never sets. Oh! that he whose wrong bore my wasted body to the grave, might find repentance unto life, and smile with no deception on others as I once fondly believed he did on me. Never can I hate such sweetness as wronged me of my innocence, my name, my all on earth, when no injustice, or wrong or misery, consumes the natural instinct of enjoyment. Never could I regret that I loved him with more than respectful attention, but I do regret that my love was unrequited, and I was deceived by professions devoid of all truth. I do regret that what willed me to shame had not been disclosed to my mind, ere the wretchedness I occasioned should have burst upon the heads of the innocent. Yea: I do regret that others were as unwise as myself, and yet not wise in the wisdom of heaven.