SOME years ago a British regiment was stationed at quarters not far from Madras, during the hottest season of the year. It was a fine Sunday afternoon, when the officers were exempted from all duty, and a large party of them was assembled at the private apartments of Major E—, a gentleman very popular in his manners, and of high family in this country. Among the most boisterous of the guests thus met at the dinner was, we grieve to say, the young chaplain, who was remarkable, unhappily, not for the fear of God, or strict attention to his regimental duties, but for his inclination to dissipation, and his inconsistent partiality for all sorts of gaiety. The feast which the party was enjoying had proceeded far; the bottle had gone freely round, and the guests impatiently called for the removal of the scarcely tasted dishes, and the appearance of wines and spirituous liquors. As the bearers entered, laden with dessert and wine, the major rose, and with a flushed face called out from the other end of the table to the young clergyman to say grace, at the conclusion of the dinner. “You know you’re the chaplain,” he added lightly, “and you must support the religion of the regiment, old fellow!” When this mock speech had concluded, the major sat down, and all eyes were turned on the young clergyman.
Before, however, we proceed with our brief narrative, we may observe that, as some of our readers may know, in India during the summer months, houses of all sorts are infested by a terrible insect known as the white ant. When a horde of these dreadful little animals enter a house they destroy every article of furniture that they can lay hold of, sever the planks and rafters of the ceiling, and cut like a saw through the thickest piece of wood. If the attendants at the feast had not been engaged with the viands as they came out of the dining-room, they might have perceived a multitude of these animals creeping in and out, and swarming in the crevices of the large beams and rafters, whitening the ceiling with their multitude, and surely but silently sawing through an immense beam which mainly supported the roof.
When Major E— sat down, the chaplain stood up with his glass in his hand, his flushed face and his crimson cheek giving but too unmistakable evidence of the pleasures of the table having been indulged in very freely. Such a description, we would fondly hope, represents a past state of things; it was of such spiritual guides that Cowper wrote the stinging lines
“The master of the pack
Cries, ‘Well done, saint!’ and slaps him on the back.
Is this the path of sanctity? Is this,
To stand a way-mark in the road to bliss?
Himself a wanderer from the narrow way
His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray.”
Instead of returning thanks, the young man, for he was but a comparative youth, steadying himself with his left hand, and looking half tipsily round the room, called out, “Let us drink,” a sally which was received with roars of laughter.
The tropical sun shining in through the open window, lit up faces bleared and crimsoned with excitement, and now convulsed with laughter at conduct so well fitted to have produced a very different emotion. A moment afterward, however, a change came over the company, and their countenances that had gleamed with mirth became pale with terror. As the young man sat down, a mass of timber above them, cut through by the white ants and freed from the hold of the mortar and bricks, rushed downwards, crushing with its enormous weight the splendid table, and crashing in unutterable ruin decanters, bottles, glasses, dishes, in short, every component of the feast. A cloud of dust, mortar, and lime filled the hot thick air, and eddied in clouds to the ceiling, covering the remains of the banquet with a thick whitish smoke. The noisome animals, too, creeping from the ruins, covered the crushed viands with their disgusting numbers.
It is long since that event happened, but those who witnessed the scene will never forget the terror and the surprise that spread over the faces of the guests, turning boisterous revelers into sobered and terrified men. But no terror expressed by the most timid of the officers was at all equal to the agony felt by and visible in the countenance of the unfortunate young clergyman, who appeared bereft of all power of action. The attendants soon rushed in, and succeeded in clearing away part of the ruin, but the guests hurried from the interrupted revel. Most of them easily got rid of the disagreeable impression which the incident had created, as soon as they had left the place. The young chaplain alone remained, stunned and sobered by the catastrophe, being aroused from his stupor by the total departure of the guests. Then seizing his hat, he hurried in a state of great mental distress to the grand parade-ground in front of his quarters and there wandered in blank desolation of soul. A sense of his daring impiety, uttered at a moment when he might have been hurried into eternity, pierced him to the quick.
He remained in a state of almost hopeless despair for some days, and after a few weeks he threw up his situation and returned to England. His friends procured him an appointment in a rural part of the country, where he lived an altered man, and I believe possessed the fear of God.
S. H.
Written in 1857