The plank was placed, the crowd were mute; A sullen plunge, and then the corse Oh! God, what piercing cry was that! With that last shriek her spirit fled: The son and mother following, Left me to tell this tale. C. M. N. A FEW PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF DR. ALEXANDRE VINET. BY L'A. During the summer of 1846, I spent several weeks in the Canton of Vaud, and a considerable portion of that time, at Lausanne itself. The academy was then in session, and Dr. Vinet, who had been retained in his professorship, alone of all his early colleagues, was giving daily lectures on French literature. These lectures took place in the hall of the academy, before breakfast, and notwithstanding this latter somewhat untoward circumstance, drew a full audience of students, and frequently of the citizens and strangers also. The reputation of the doctor was European. He had been titled by the University of Berlin, an institution whose diploma is coveted by every literary aspirant of Europe, as a sort of letter-patent to the regard of his contemporaries and posterity-coveted by almost every man but Vinet himself. At Paris, his opinion in politics, philosophy, as well as in literature, was always received with the deepest respect. He was one of the few thinkers of our day. And at home too, the "prophet" had "honor." Amid the contumely and personal insults heaped upon the evangelical Christians-the Momiers-by their enemies of the establishment, Dr. Vinet passed untouched. His amiability, his profound humility, his well-known love of peace, secured him not only the forbearance, but the affection of all parties. And so, as I first remarked, when his fellow-professors of the new persuasion were ejected sans ceremonie from their professorial chairs, he was retained by, I believe, the unanimous vote of the appointing powers. it The Doctor's subject was a congenial one. He had long before written works of greater or less importance upon it. It afforded a wide field for the exercise of his subtle analytic abilities and that display of the imaginative and the eloquent, which he possessed alike in a most remarkable degree. His sarcasm too, was terrible. When discussing the literature and the philosophy-if philosophy may be called-of Voltaire and his associates, he gave loose reins to this dangerous power, and really, it seems hardly extravagant to say, that he victimized Voltaire himself. Voltaire's wit was indeed overwhelming, but not always from intrinsic force-as with those geniuses of the dinner-table, whose hits are infallible, because they have the laugh on their own side. It happened not seldom during a lecture that the students dropped their pens in despair at following Vinet, in his condensed and rapid train of thought. Brilliant allusions flashed out here and there; comparisons the most unexpected, yet of an aptness withal, which elevated them to the highest form of wit. Then he would open a slow and steady stream of eloquence, gradually increasing in force and rapidity, till it became a very torrent. This eloquence was genuine-it lay, as Webster says, "in the man, in the subject." The lecturer's delivery could furnish it with no embellishments. Those brilliant lies of gesture and tone and well-adjusted pause, were never called in play. The Doctor's personal appearance was not remarkably attractive. You might see him, any morning before the lecture, rapidly pacing the square of the Academy, with hands clasped behind his back, the long fingers interlaced, a la treille, and with eyes fixed upon the ground. He was very tall and very slim, and wore a very ambiguous bottlegreen coat-neither a frock-coat nor an overcoat-a distressingly ambiguous coat. His shoulders had the true student stoop, as if the yoke of application had ridden them since infancy. His face was long, with high, heavy cheek-bones, sunken eyes and the complexion of a Mohawk. His mouth resembled, in shape and general expression, that of Henry Clay. When the Doctor entered the lecture-room, he looked neither to right nor left, but made for the pulpit, as if impelled thither by some invisible and irresistible force. After a few moments spent in silent prayer, he drew forth the manuscript, and still sitting, recapitulated the discourse of the previous day and entered on the subject in hand. His enunciation was distinct, though always more or less rapid. His gestures were rare; rare in more senses than one-occasionally somewhat amusing. As he became excited in his subject, he forgot the manuscript before him and shut his eyes, now and then peeping at his audience through the eye-lashes. His broad mouth widened fearfully; the long, deep lines of his countenance were contorted into all imaginable forms, and with his lank forefinger laid beside his nose, and sliding slowly up and down, the whole presented an exhibition of such perfect self-satisfaction as was irresistibly contagious. Dr. Vinet's style of preaching contained nothing peculiarly wor thy of remark. His eloquence was often impassioned, himself as well as his audience being almost invariably wrought up to weeping. He was of course forbidden the use of the national churches. and in the summer of 1846, the seceders from the establishment, had not yet secured themselves a building for worship. They assembled in private houses, and in some parts of the Canton of Vaud, were denied even this poor privilege. At Lausanne, however, this blind, disgraceful course of persecution had been suspended, and whenever it was announced among the members of the secession, that Dr. Vinet was about to preach, the other reunions were deserted. But it was rarely known beforehand, when or where he proposed to hold forth. His humility, which certainly surpassed that of any man I ever knew, was the sole cause of this. He was unwilling to foster the spirit of personal pride in his own "deceitful" heart, or lay the stumbling-block in the road of others. His sermon on Human Glory contrasted with that which cometh of God only, is a most faithful embodiment of his own principles. One hardly dares read it twice. One day, before the commencement of a lecture, the students placed a wreath of flowers above his pulpit, as a compliment to their old and esteemed professor. The professor heard of it before entering, and quietly suggested that it be removed, refusing, till then, to take his seat. He underwent almost incessant bodily suffering; at times, of the most severe kind. That disease so common with sedentary men, the dreadful gravel, had fastened on him, at a comparatively early age. It threw him occasionally into utter torture, till he writhed in his very chair, before the class, His son-his only son-was incurably, and almost totally deaf and afflicted, in addition, with a difficulty of speech. His pecuniary means were limited. But he was patient and prayerful. From this great alembic of bodily and spiritual affliction, he came forth purified and brightened. His character furnished the rarest combination of talents and humility, that one may meet with in a century. His disregard of human approbation amounted almost to a fault. Vanity, like laziness, is a universal and original sin; but with the world, its sinfulness lies rather in its exhibition by its possessor, than its existence within. It disgusts every body, because every body has more or less of it, himself. Dr. Vinet possessed as little of this dangerous ingredient as any man—perhaps none at all. "Diogenes his lantern needs no more, A modest man is found-the search is o'er !" On my return to Switzerland from the south, in the spring of '47, I found the friends of the evangelical church, in deep anxiety regarding the health of Dr. Vinet. He was reported to be failing, day by day, and at length, the news arrived of his decease, on the first morning-if my memory serves me-of the month of May. It was the signal for general grief, not only to the religious world but to the literary, throughout Europe. THE HYMN OF NIGHT. [From the French of Lamartine.] Day dies along thy hills Oh! Earth, where my steps languish! When shall you, my eyes, when shall you, alas! Hail the divine splendors Of the day which never dies? Are they open for darkness, These altered looks of day? Why do they pass by turns, From its brightness, to thy funeral shades, oh Night? My soul is not yet weary Of admiring the work of the Lord, The kindling raptures of this bosom that adores it, God of day! God of night! God of every hour! It is going to veil the threshold of thy holy dwelling, These shining choirs that thy finger alone conducts, This star that appears, this star that flies, I understand them, Lord, every thing sings, every thing teaches me That the heavens are alive, and that thy providence Fills with its virtue all that it has produced These waves of gold, of azure, of light, These misty worlds that the eye cannot count, Oh! my God! they are the dust That rises beneath thy steps! Ye nights! unroll in silence The leaves of the book of the skies; Ye stars! move in unison Ye winds, fold your wings! Spread thy billows upon the shore, oh! sea, And quiet the images of the God who has given thee thy waves. Know ye his name? Nature joins in vain her hundred voices, Star murmurs to star: What God imposed our laws upon us? Wave asks of wave: Who is he that curbs us? The thunderbolt says to the north wind, Dost thou know how thy God is named? But the stars, earth and man Cannot speak his name. How narrow are thy temples, Lord, for my soul: Fall, ye powerless walls, fall; Let me see this heaven that ye hide from me! Divine Architect! thy domes are of flame: How narrow are thy temples, Lord, for my soul! Behold the temple where thou dwellest' Under the vault of the firmament Thou rekindlest these rapid fires By their eternal motion. All these creations of thy word, Balanced on their double pole, Float upon the bosom of thy brightness, And from the heavens where their fires grow pale They reflect upon our globe, fires borrowed from thee! The ocean sports At the feet of its king; The north wind shakes Its wings with fright; The thunderbolt praises thee And fights for thee; The lightning, the tempest Crown thy head with a triple ray; |