view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous
mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough to comprise
all of life within itself. At all events, the
health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine
had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the
guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose
piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials
in his favour than any that he could have produced
in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was
one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble
art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor.
To such a professional body Roger Chillingworth was
a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested
his familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery
of antique physic; in which every remedy contained
a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients,
as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result
had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian captivity,
moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties
of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from
his patients that these simple medicines, Nature’s
boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a
share of his own confidence as the European Pharmacopoeia,
which so many learned doctors had spent centuries
in elaborating.
This learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at
least the outward forms of a religious life; and early
after his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine,
whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was
considered by his more fervent admirers as little
less than a heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should
he live and labour for the ordinary term of life,
to do as great deeds, for the now feeble New England
Church, as the early Fathers had achieved for the
infancy of the Christian faith. About this period,
however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently
begun to fail. By those best acquainted with
his habits, the paleness of the young minister’s
cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion
to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty,
and more than all, to the fasts and vigils of which
he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the
grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring
his spiritual lamp. Some declared, that if Mr.
Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause
enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer
trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other
hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief
that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it
would be because of his own unworthiness to perform
its humblest mission here on earth. With all
this difference of opinion as to the cause of his
decline, there could be no question of the fact.
His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still
rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy
of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight
alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over
his heart with first a flush and then a paleness,
indicative of pain.
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