Page:Twice-Told Tales (1851) vol 2.djvu/228

 Another, whose family refused to follow him, had been enabled,—such was his gift of holy fortitude,—to leave them to the mercy of the world. The youngest of the elders, a man of about fifty, had been bred from infancy in a Shaker village, and was said never to have clasped a woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception of a closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect. Old Father Ephraim was the most awful character of all. In his youth, he had been a dissolute libertine, but was converted by Mother Ann herself, and had partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early Shakers. Tradition whispered, at the firesides of the village, that Mother Ann had been compelled to sear his heart of flesh with a red-hot iron, before it could be purified from earthly passions.

However that might be, poor Martha had a woman's heart, and a tender one, and it quailed within her as she looked round at those strange old men, and from them to the calm features of Adam Colburn. But perceiving that the elders eyed her doubtfully, she gasped for breath, and again spoke.

'With what strength is left me by my many troubles,' said she, 'I am ready to undertake this charge, and to do my best in it.'

'My children, join your hands,' said Father Ephraim.

They did so. The elders stood up around, and the Father feebly raised himself to a more erect position, but continued sitting in his great chair.

'I have bidden you to join your hands,' said he, 'not in earthly affection, for ye have cast off its chains for ever; but as brother and sister in spiritual love, and helpers of one another in your allotted task. Teach