Life of Father Hecker by Walter Elliott
page 23 of 597 (03%)
page 23 of 597 (03%)
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where it was accidentally destroyed by fire:
"There were points of resemblance in my own and my boy maker's nature. In him, regularity, order, and obedience were fixed principles; and with us both, Time represented Eternity. As the days of his young manhood came his pursuits and tastes in life changed. Deep thought took possession of his mind, and with it a tender love for souls and a heart-hungriness for a further knowledge of what man was given a soul for, and the way in which he was to save it. As these thoughts were maturing in his mind I often noticed his troubled look. One Sunday in particular, he lingered behind the congregation and stood before me, with a new expression in his keen gray eye; and amid the silence of the deserted aisles he thus apostrophized me: 'Farewell, old friend! fashioned by these hands, thou representest Truth, the eternal. What man is ever seeking, through me thou hast found. Here I stand, not man's but God's noblest work, as yet not having repaid my Maker with one act of duty or of service. Thou hast faithfully performed thy mission; henceforth I labor to perform mine.' With a grave and sad look my boy maker, now a young man, left me. I felt then that we had looked our last upon each other in this place; but little did either of us dream of where, when, and how we would meet again. For thirty-five years I labored on unchanged, though I must own to having had some ailments now and then. About this period of my existence I overheard straggling remarks, as the worshippers passed out of the church, which led me to conclude that some change was contemplated, and my suspicions were confirmed by the rector proposing from the pulpit the erection of a new church edifice in another part of the city, to be fashioned after a more modern style of architecture. . . . In accordance with the promise made my boy maker, I was to go back to him. My heart bounded at the prospect. |
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