Herald Of The United States

From the Boston Weekly Magazine.

MERCY ON AFFLICTION.

AN EASTERN STORY.

BOZALDAB, caliph of Egypt had dwelt securely for many years in the silken pavilions of pleasure, and had every morning anointed his head with the oil of gladness, when his only son Aboram, for whom he had crowded his treasures with gold, extended his dominions with conquests, and secured them with impregnable fortresses, was suddenly wounded as he was hunting, with an arrow from an unknown hand, and expired in the field.
Bozaldab, in the distraction of grief and despair, refused to return to his palace, and retired to the gloomiest grotto in the neighboring mountain; he there rolled himself on the dust, tore away the hairs of his hoary beard, and dashed the cup of consolation, that patience offered him, to the ground. He suffered not his minstrels to approach his presence ; but listened to the screams of melancholy birds of midnight, that flit through the solitary vaults and echoing chambers of pyramids, "Can that God be benevolent," he cried, "who thus wounds the soul, as from an ambush, with unexpected sorrows, and crushes his creatures in a moment with irremediable calamity ? Ye lying Imans, prate to us no more of the justice and the kindness of an all-directing and all-loving Providence : He, whom ye pretend reigns in heaven, is far from protecting the miserable ones of men, that he perpetually delights to blast the sweetest flowers in the garden of Hope ; and, like a malignant giant, to beat down the strongest towers of happiness with the iron mace of his anger. If this Being possessed the goodness and the power with which flattering priests have invested him, he would doubtless be inclined and enabled to banish those evils which render the world a dungeon of distress, a vale of vanity and woe.-I will continue in it no longer."
At that moment he furiously raised his hand, which despair had armed with a dagger, to strike deep into his bosom ; when suddenly thick flashes of lightning shot through the cavern, and a being of more than human beauty and magnitude, arrayed in azure robes, crowned with amaranth, and waving a branch of palm in his right hand, arrested the trembling and astonished caliph, and said, with a majestic smile, "follow me to the top of this mountain." "Look from hence," said the awful conductor : "I am Caloc, the angel of peace ; look from hence into the valley."
Bozaldab opened his eyes and beheld a barren, a sultry and solitary inland, in the midst of which sat a pale meagre and ghastly figure : It is a merchant just perishing with famine, and lamenting that he could find neither wild berries, nor a single spring in this forlorn desert ; and begging the protection of heaven against the tigers that would now certainly destroy him, since he had consumed the last fuel that he had collected to make nightly fires to affright them. He then cast a casket of jewels on the sand, as trifles of no use ; and crept, feeble and trembling, to an eminence, where he was accustomed to sit every evening to watch the setting sun, and to give a signal that might happen to approach the island.
"Inhabitant of heaven," cried Bozaldab, "suffer not this wretch to perish by the fury of wild beasts." "Peace," said the angel, "and observe."
He looked again, and behold a vessel arrived at the desolate Isle. What words can paint the raptures of the starving merchant, when the captain offered to transport him to his native country, if he would reward him with half the jewels in his casket. No sooner had this pitiless commander received the stipulated sum, than he held a consultation with his crew, and they agreed to seize the remaining jewels, and leave the unhappy exile in the same helpless and lamentable condition in which they discovered him. He wept and trembled, intreated and implored in vain.
"Will heaven permit such injustice to be practised !"exclaimed Bozaldab.-"Look again," said the angel, and behold the very Ship, in which, short-sighted as thou art, thou wishest the merchant might embark,dashed in pieces on a rock : dost thou hear the cries of the sinking sailors ? Presume not to direct the Governor of events. The man whom thou hast pitied shall be taken from this dreary solitude, but not by the method thou wouldst prescribe. His vice was avarice, by which he became not only abominable, but wretched ; he fancied some mighty charm in wealth, which, like the wand of Abdiel, would gratify every wish, and obviate every fear.-- This wealth he has now been taught not only to despise, but abhor ; he casts his jewels upon the sand, and confessed them to be useless : he offered part of them to the mariners, and perceived them to be pernicious; he has now learnt, that they are rendered useful or vain, good or evil, only by the situation and temper of the possessor.- Happy is he whom distress has taught wisdom! But turn thine eyes to another and more interesting scene."
The caliph instantly beheld. a magnificent palace, adorned with the statues of his ancestors wrought in jasper ; the ivory doors of which, turning on hinges of the gold of Golconda, discovered a throne of diamonds, surrounded with the rajas of fifty nations, and with ambassadors of various habits, and different complexions ;-on which sat Aboram, the much lamented son of Bozaldab, and by his side a princess fairer than a Houri.
"Gracious Allah !-it is my son," cried the caliph, "O, let me hold him to my heart !"-"Thou canst not grasp an unsubstantial vision," replied the angel. "I am now shewing thee what would have been the destiny of thy son, had he continued longer upon the earth.""And why," returned Bozaldab, "was he not permitted to continue ? Why was not I suffered to be a witness of so much felicity and power ?" "Consider the sequel," replied he that dwells in the Heavens.
Bozaldab looked earnestly and saw the countenance of his son, on which he had been used to behold the placid smile of simplicity and the vivid blushes of health, now distorted with rage, and now fixed in the insensibility of drunkenness, it was again animated with disdain, it became pale with apprehension, and appeared to be withered by intemperance ; his hands were stained with blood, and he trembled by turns with fury and terror : the palace of lately shining with oriental pomp, changed suddenly into the cell of a dungeon, where his son lay stretched out on the cold pavement; gagged and bound, with his eyes put out.-- Soon after he perceived the favorite sultana, who before was seated by his side, enter with a bowl of poison, which she compelled Aboram to drink, and afterwards married the successor to his throne.
"Happy," said Caloc, "is he whom Providence has by the angel of death snatched from guilt ! from whom that power is withheld, which, if he had possessed, would have accumulated upon himself yet greater misery than it could bring upon others."
"It is enough," cried Bozaldab; "I adore the inscrutable schemes of Omniscience !~From what dreadful evil has my son been rescued by a death which I rashly bewailed as unfortunate and premature : a death of innocence and peace, which has blessed his memory on earth, and transmitted his soul above the skies."
"Cast away the dagger," replied the heavenly messenger, "which thou wast preparing to plunge into thine own heart. Exchange complaint for silence, and doubt for adoration. Can a mortal look down, with giddiness and stupefaction, into the vast abyss of eternal wisdom ? Can a mind that sees not infinitely, perfectly comprehend any thing among an infinity of objects mutually relative ? Can the channels, which thou hast cut to receive the annual inundations of the Nile, contain the water of the ocean ?-Remember, that perfect happiness cannot be conferred upon a creature, for perfect happiness is an attribute as incommunicable as perfect power and eternity."
The angel, while he was speaking thus, stretched out his pinions to fly back to the Empyreum; and the flutter of his wings was like the rushing of a cataract.