Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/294

288 four years, the coming out from Cork, at the last and almost finishing touch of the whole, presented, Theobald Mathew, with the impression made on my mind, when he stood on the dock, by the packet, on the Lee, as the vessel sailed away. His countenance is a marked one, and would be distinguished as such in a crowd of strangers. But grief and blasted hopes have so scathed his warm heart, that though he retains that benignity of expression so peculiarly his own, yet the pencil of sorrow has so shaded it, continued anxiety has so paralyzed that hope which ever is, and ever must be the wellspring of the soul, that there seems a trembling doubting in every feature, whether to settle into a desponding passiveness, or struggle to maintain that wonted complacency which has seemed an innate and inseparable part of his whole constitution. The scourge that has laid waste his people has withered, has scathed his very soul. He stood "between the living and the dead," like a Phineas, till the plague was measurably stayed, when, in letting go his strained grasp, he found, he felt that his own hand had been weakened, and though he complained not, he saw, he knew that many who had cried "Hosanna," if they did not say "crucify him, crucify him," would turn away and walk no more with him. The palsy that shook his body was a faint shadow of the palsy that withered the springs of his heart, and dried up the life-blood of his soul. Great as was his goodness, and good as was his greatness, they neither of them had power to sustain a fabric whose framework was gentleness and confiding love.