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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9591.txt b/9591.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e58586 --- /dev/null +++ b/9591.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7270 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, Old Portraits, by Whittier, Part 1, +From Vol. VI., The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches +#36 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Old Portraits, Part 1, From Volume VI., + The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches + + +Author: John Greenleaf Whittier + +Release Date: December 2005 [EBook #9591] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 25, 2003] + + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD PORTRAITS *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES + + PERSONAL SKETCHES AND TRIBUTES + + HISTORICAL PAPERS + + BY + + JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + + + + +CONTENTS + +OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES. + JOHN BUNYAN + THOMAS ELLWOOD + JAMES NAYLER + ANDREW MARVELL + JOHN ROBERTS + SAMUEL HOPKINS + RICHARD BAXTER + WILLIAM LEGGETT + NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS + ROBERT DINSMORE + PLACIDO, THE SLAVE POET + +PERSONAL SKETCHES AND TRIBUTES. + THE FUNERAL OF TORREY + EDWARD EVERETT + LEWIS TAPPAN + BAYARD TAYLOR + WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING + DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + LYDIA MARIA CHILD + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + LONGFELLOW + OLD NEWBURY + SCHOOLDAY REMEMBRANCES + EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE + +HISTORICAL PAPERS. + DANIEL O'CONNELL + ENGLAND UNDER JAMES II. + THE BORDER WAR OF 1708 + THE GREAT IPSWICH FRIGHT + THE BOY CAPTIVES + THE BLACK MEN IN THE REVOLUTION AND WAR OF 1812 + THE SCOTTISH REFORMERS + THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH + GOVERNOR ENDICOTT + JOHN WINTHROP + + + + + + OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES + + Inscribed as follows, when first collected in book-form:-- + To Dr. G. BAILEY, of the National Era, Washington, D. C., these + sketches, many of which originally appeared in the columns of the + paper under his editorial supervision, are, in their present form, + offered as a token of the esteem and confidence which years of + political and literary communion have justified and confirmed, on + the part of his friend and associate, + THE AUTHOR. + + + + JOHN BUNYAN. + + "Wouldst see + A man I' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee?" + +Who has not read Pilgrim's Progress? Who has not, in childhood, +followed the wandering Christian on his way to the Celestial City? Who +has not laid at night his young head on the pillow, to paint on the +walls of darkness pictures of the Wicket Gate and the Archers, the Hill +of Difficulty, the Lions and Giants, Doubting Castle and Vanity Fair, +the sunny Delectable Mountains and the Shepherds, the Black River and +the wonderful glory beyond it; and at last fallen asleep, to dream over +the strange story, to hear the sweet welcomings of the sisters at the +House Beautiful, and the song of birds from the window of that "upper +chamber which opened towards the sunrising?" And who, looking back to +the green spots in his childish experiences, does not bless the good +Tinker of Elstow? + +And who, that has reperused the story of the Pilgrim at a maturer age, +and felt the plummet of its truth sounding in the deep places of the +soul, has not reason to bless the author for some timely warning or +grateful encouragement? Where is the scholar, the poet, the man of taste +and feeling, who does not, with Cowper, + + "Even in transitory life's late day, + Revere the man whose Pilgrim marks the road, + And guides the Progress of the soul to God!" + +We have just been reading, with no slight degree of interest, that simple +but wonderful piece of autobiography, entitled Grace abounding to the +Chief of Sinners, from the pen of the author of Pilgrim's Progress. It +is the record of a journey more terrible than that of the ideal Pilgrim; +"truth stranger than fiction;" the painful upward struggling of a spirit +from the blackness of despair and blasphemy, into the high, pure air of +Hope and Faith. More earnest words were never written. It is the entire +unveiling of a human heart; the tearing off of the fig-leaf covering of +its sin. The voice which speaks to us from these old pages seems not so +much that of a denizen of the world in which we live, as of a soul at the +last solemn confessional. Shorn of all ornament, simple and direct as +the contrition and prayer of childhood, when for the first time the +Spectre of Sin stands by its bedside, the style is that of a man dead to +self-gratification, careless of the world's opinion, and only desirous to +convey to others, in all truthfulness and sincerity, the lesson of his +inward trials, temptations, sins, weaknesses, and dangers; and to give +glory to Him who had mercifully led him through all, and enabled him, +like his own Pilgrim, to leave behind the Valley of the Shadow of Death, +the snares of the Enchanted Ground, and the terrors of Doubting Castle, +and to reach the land of Beulah, where the air was sweet and pleasant, +and the birds sang and the flowers sprang up around him, and the Shining +Ones walked in the brightness of the not distant Heaven. In the +introductory pages he says "he could have dipped into a style higher than +this in which I have discoursed, and could have adorned all things more +than here I have seemed to do; but I dared not. God did not play in +tempting me; neither did I play when I sunk, as it were, into a +bottomless pit, when the pangs of hell took hold on me; wherefore, I may +not play in relating of them, but be plain and simple, and lay down the +thing as it was." + +This book, as well as Pilgrim's Progress, was written in Bedford prison, +and was designed especially for the comfort and edification of his +"children, whom God had counted him worthy to beget in faith by his +ministry." In his introduction he tells them, that, although taken from +them, and tied up, "sticking, as it were, between the teeth of the lions +of the wilderness," he once again, as before, from the top of Shemer and +Hermon, so now, from the lion's den and the mountain of leopards, would +look after then with fatherly care and desires for their everlasting +welfare. "If," said he, "you have sinned against light; if you are +tempted to blaspheme; if you are drowned in despair; if you think God +fights against you; or if Heaven is hidden from your eyes, remember it +was so with your father. But out of all the Lord delivered me." + +He gives no dates; be affords scarcely a clue to his localities; of the +man, as he worked, and ate, and drank, and lodged, of his neighbors and +contemporaries, of all he saw and heard of the world about him, we have +only an occasional glimpse, here and there, in his narrative. It is the +story of his inward life only that he relates. What had time and place +to do with one who trembled always with the awful consciousness of an +immortal nature, and about whom fell alternately the shadows of hell and +the splendors of heaven? We gather, indeed, from his record, that he was +not an idle on-looker in the time of England's great struggle for +freedom, but a soldier of the Parliament, in his young years, among the +praying sworders and psalm-singing pikemen, the Greathearts and Holdfasts +whom he has immortalized in his allegory; but the only allusion which he +makes to this portion of his experience is by way of illustration of the +goodness of God in preserving him on occasions of peril. + +He was born at Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in 1628; and, to use his own +words, his "father's house was of that rank which is the meanest and most +despised of all the families of the land." His father was a tinker, and +the son followed the same calling, which necessarily brought him into +association with the lowest and most depraved classes of English society. +The estimation in which the tinker and his occupation were held, in the +seventeenth century, may be learned from the quaint and humorous +description of Sir Thomas Overbury. "The tinker," saith he, "is a +movable, for he hath no abiding in one place; he seems to be devout, for +his life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes, in humility, goes +barefoot, therein making necessity a virtue; he is a gallant, for he +carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all +his substance with him. He is always furnished with a song, to which his +hammer, keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder of the kettle- +drum; where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. +The companion of his travel is some foul, sun-burnt quean, that, since +the terrible statute, has recanted gypsyism, and is turned pedlaress. So +marches he all over England, with his bag and baggage; his conversation +is irreprovable, for he is always mending. He observes truly the +statutes, and therefore had rather steal than beg. He is so strong an +enemy of idleness, that in mending one hole he would rather make three +than want work; and when he hath done, he throws the wallet of his faults +behind him. His tongue is very voluble, which, with canting, proves him +a linguist. He is entertained in every place, yet enters no farther than +the door, to avoid suspicion. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and +Banbury, he dies a beggar." + +Truly, but a poor beginning for a pious life was the youth of John +Bunyan. As might have been expected, he was a wild, reckless, swearing +boy, as his father doubtless was before him. "It was my delight," says +he, "to be taken captive by the Devil. I had few equals, both for +cursing and swearing, lying and blaspheming." Yet, in his ignorance and +darkness, his powerful imagination early lent terror to the reproaches of +conscience. He was scared, even in childhood, with dreams of hell and +apparitions of devils. Troubled with fears of eternal fire, and the +malignant demons who fed it in the regions of despair, he says that he +often wished either that there was no hell, or that he had been born a +devil himself, that he might be a tormentor rather than one of the +tormented. + +At an early age he appears to have married. His wife was as poor as +himself, for he tells us that they had not so much as a dish or spoon +between them; but she brought with her two books on religious subjects, +the reading of which seems to have had no slight degree of influence on +his mind. He went to church regularly, adored the priest and all things +pertaining to his office, being, as he says, "overrun with superstition." +On one occasion, a sermon was preached against the breach of the Sabbath +by sports or labor, which struck him at the moment as especially designed +for himself; but by the time he had finished his dinner he was prepared +to "shake it out of his mind, and return to his sports and gaming." + +"But the same day," he continues, "as I was in the midst of a game of +cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to +strike it a second time, a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my +soul, which said, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy +sins and go to hell?' At this, I was put to an exceeding maze; +wherefore, leaving my cat upon the ground, I looked up to Heaven, and it +was as if I had, with the eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus +look down upon me, as being very hotly displeased with me, and as if He +did severely threaten me with some grievous punishment for those and +other ungodly practices. + +"I had no sooner thus conceived in my mind, but suddenly this conclusion +fastened on my spirit, (for the former hint did set my sins again before +my face,) that I had been a great and grievous sinner, and that it was +now too late for me to look after Heaven; for Christ would not forgive me +nor pardon my transgressions. Then, while I was thinking of it, and +fearing lest it should be so, I felt my heart sink in despair, concluding +it was too late; and therefore I resolved in my mind to go on in sin; +for, thought I, if the case be thus, my state is surely miserable; +miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable if I follow them; I can +but be damned; and if I must be so, I had as good be damned for many sins +as be damned for few." + +The reader of Pilgrim's Progress cannot fail here to call to mind the +wicked suggestions of the Giant to Christian, in the dungeon of Doubting +Castle. + +"I returned," he says, "desperately to my sport again; and I well +remember, that presently this kind of despair did so possess my soul, +that I was persuaded I could never attain to other comfort than what I +should get in sin; for Heaven was gone already, so that on that I must +not think; wherefore, I found within me great desire to take my fill of +sin, that I might taste the sweetness of it; and I made as much haste as +I could to fill my belly with its delicates, lest I should die before I +had my desires; for that I feared greatly. In these things, I protest +before God, I lie not, neither do I frame this sort of speech; these were +really, strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose +mercy is unsearchable, forgive my transgressions." + +One day, while standing in the street, cursing and blaspheming, he met +with a reproof which startled him. The woman of the house in front of +which the wicked young tinker was standing, herself, as he remarks, "a +very loose, ungodly wretch," protested that his horrible profanity made +her tremble; that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing she had ever +heard, and able to spoil all the youth of the town who came in his +company. Struck by this wholly unexpected rebuke, he at once abandoned +the practice of swearing; although previously he tells us that "he had +never known how to speak, unless he put an oath before and another +behind." + +The good name which he gained by this change was now a temptation to him. +"My neighbors," he says, "were amazed at my great conversion from +prodigious profaneness to something like a moral life and sober man. +Now, therefore, they began to praise, to commend, and to speak well of +me, both to my face and behind my back. Now I was, as they said, become +godly; now I was become a right honest man. But oh! when I understood +those were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well; for +though as yet I was nothing but a poor painted hypocrite, yet I loved to +be talked of as one that was truly godly. I was proud of my godliness, +and, indeed, I did all I did either to be seen of or well spoken of by +men; and thus I continued for about a twelvemonth or more." + +The tyranny of his imagination at this period is seen in the following +relation of his abandonment of one of his favorite sports. + +"Now, you must know, that before this I had taken much delight in +ringing, but my conscience beginning to be tender, I thought such +practice was but vain, and therefore forced myself to leave it; yet my +mind hankered; wherefore, I would go to the steeple-house and look on, +though I durst not ring; but I thought this did not become religion +neither; yet I forced myself, and would look on still. But quickly +after, I began to think, 'How if one of the bells should fall?' Then I +chose to stand under a main beam, that lay overthwart the steeple, from +side to side, thinking here I might stand sure; but then I thought again, +should the bell fall with a swing, it might first hit the wall, and then, +rebounding upon me, might kill me for all this beam. This made me stand +in the steeple door; and now, thought I, I am safe enough; for if a bell +should then fall, I can slip out behind these thick walls, and so be +preserved notwithstanding. + +"So after this I would yet go to see them ring, but would not go any +farther than the steeple-door. But then it came in my head, 'How if the +steeple itself should fall?' And this thought (it may, for aught I know, +when I stood and looked on) did continually so shake my mind, that I +durst not stand at the steeple-door any longer, but was forced to flee, +for fear the steeple should fall upon my head." + +About this time, while wandering through Bedford in pursuit of +employment, he chanced to see three or four poor old women sitting at a +door, in the evening sun, and, drawing near them, heard them converse +upon the things of God; of His work in their hearts; of their natural +depravity; of the temptations of the Adversary; and of the joy of +believing, and of the peace of reconciliation. The words of the aged +women found a response in the soul of the listener. "He felt his heart +shake," to use his own words; he saw that he lacked the true tokens of a +Christian. He now forsook the company of the profane and licentious, and +sought that of a poor man who had the reputation of piety, but, to his +grief, he found him "a devilish ranter, given up to all manner of +uncleanness; he would laugh at all exhortations to sobriety, and deny +that there was a God, an angel, or a spirit." + +"Neither," he continues, "was this man only a temptation to me, but, my +calling lying in the country, I happened to come into several people's +company, who, though strict in religion formerly, yet were also drawn +away by these ranters. These would also talk with me of their ways, and +condemn me as illegal and dark; pretending that they only had attained to +perfection, that they could do what they would, and not sin. Oh! these +temptations were suitable to my flesh, I being but a young man, and my +nature in its prime; but God, who had, as I hope, designed me for better +things, kept me in the fear of His name, and did not suffer me to accept +such cursed principles." + +At this time he was sadly troubled to ascertain whether or not he had +that faith which the Scriptures spake of. Travelling one day from Elstow +to Bedford, after a recent rain, which had left pools of water in the +path, he felt a strong desire to settle the question, by commanding the +pools to become dry, and the dry places to become pools. Going under the +hedge, to pray for ability to work the miracle, he was struck with the +thought that if he failed he should know, indeed, that he was a castaway, +and give himself up to despair. He dared not attempt the experiment, and +went on his way, to use his own forcible language, "tossed up and down +between the Devil and his own ignorance." + +Soon after, he had one of those visions which foreshadowed the wonderful +dream of his Pilgrim's Progress. He saw some holy people of Bedford on +the sunny side of an high mountain, refreshing themselves in the pleasant +air and sunlight, while he was shivering in cold and darkness, amidst +snows and never-melting ices, like the victims of the Scandinavian hell. +A wall compassed the mountain, separating him from the blessed, with one +small gap or doorway, through which, with great pain and effort, he was +at last enabled to work his way into the sunshine, and sit down with the +saints, in the light and warmth thereof. + +But now a new trouble assailed him. Like Milton's metaphysical spirits, +who sat apart, + +"And reasoned of foreknowledge, will, and fate," he grappled with one of +those great questions which have always perplexed and baffled human +inquiry, and upon which much has been written to little purpose. He was +tortured with anxiety to know whether, according to the Westminster +formula, he was elected to salvation or damnation. His old adversary +vexed his soul with evil suggestions, and even quoted Scripture to +enforce them. "It may be you are not elected," said the Tempter; and the +poor tinker thought the supposition altogether too probable. "Why, +then," said Satan, "you had as good leave off, and strive no farther; for +if, indeed, you should not be elected and chosen of God, there is no hope +of your being saved; for it is neither in him that willeth nor in him +that runneth, but in God who showeth mercy." At length, when, as he +says, he was about giving up the ghost of all his hopes, this passage +fell with weight upon his spirit: "Look at the generations of old, and +see; did ever any trust in God, and were confounded?" Comforted by these +words, he opened his Bible took note them, but the most diligent search +and inquiry of his neighbors failed to discover them. At length his eye +fell upon them in the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. This, he says, +somewhat doubted him at first, as the book was not canonical; but in the +end he took courage and comfort from the passage. "I bless God," he +says, "for that word; it was good for me. That word doth still +oftentimes shine before my face." + +A long and weary struggle was now before him. "I cannot," he says, +"express with what longings and breathings of my soul I cried unto Christ +to call me. Gold! could it have been gotten by gold, what would I have +given for it. Had I a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand times +over for this, that my soul might have been in a converted state. How +lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I thought to be converted men +and women. They shone, they walked like a people who carried the broad +seal of Heaven with them." + +With what force and intensity of language does he portray in the +following passage the reality and earnestness of his agonizing +experience:-- + +"While I was thus afflicted with the fears of my own damnation, there +were two things would make me wonder: the one was, when I saw old people +hunting after the things of this life, as if they should live here +always; the other was, when I found professors much distressed and cast +down, when they met with outward losses; as of husband, wife, or child. +Lord, thought I, what seeking after carnal things by some, and what grief +in others for the loss of them! If they so much labor after and shed so +many tears for the things of this present life, how am I to be bemoaned, +pitied, and prayed for! My soul is dying, my soul is damning. Were my +soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah I how rich +should I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and water! I +should count these but small afflictions, and should bear them as little +burdens. 'A wounded spirit who can bear!'" + +He looked with envy, as he wandered through the country, upon the birds +in the trees, the hares in the preserves, and the fishes in the streams. +They were happy in their brief existence, and their death was but a +sleep. He felt himself alienated from God, a discord in the harmonies of +the universe. The very rooks which fluttered around the old church spire +seemed more worthy of the Creator's love and care than himself. A vision +of the infernal fire, like that glimpse of hell which was afforded to +Christian by the Shepherds, was continually before him, with its +"rumbling noise, and the cry of some tormented, and the scent of +brimstone." Whithersoever he went, the glare of it scorched him, and its +dreadful sound was in his ears. His vivid but disturbed imagination lent +new terrors to the awful figures by which the sacred writers conveyed the +idea of future retribution to the Oriental mind. Bunyan's World of Woe, +if it lacked the colossal architecture and solemn vastness of Milton's +Pandemonium, was more clearly defined; its agonies were within the pale +of human comprehension; its victims were men and women, with the same +keen sense of corporeal suffering which they possessed in life; and who, +to use his own terrible description, had "all the loathed variety of hell +to grapple with; fire unquenchable, a lake of choking brimstone, eternal +chains, darkness more black than night, the everlasting gnawing of the +worm, the sight of devils, and the yells and outcries of the damned." + +His mind at this period was evidently shaken in some degree from its +balance. He was troubled with strange, wicked thoughts, confused by +doubts and blasphemous suggestions, for which he could only account by +supposing himself possessed of the Devil. He wanted to curse and swear, +and had to clap his hands on his mouth to prevent it. In prayer, he +felt, as he supposed, Satan behind him, pulling his clothes, and telling +him to have done, and break off; suggesting that he had better pray to +him, and calling up before his mind's eye the figures of a bull, a tree, +or some other object, instead of the awful idea of God. + +He notes here, as cause of thankfulness, that, even in this dark and +clouded state, he was enabled to see the "vile and abominable things +fomented by the Quakers," to be errors. Gradually, the shadow wherein he +had so long + + "Walked beneath the day's broad glare, + A darkened man," + +passed from him, and for a season he was afforded an "evidence of his +salvation from Heaven, with many golden seals thereon hanging in his +sight." But, ere long, other temptations assailed him. A strange +suggestion haunted him, to sell or part with his Saviour. His own +account of this hallucination is too painfully vivid to awaken any other +feeling than that of sympathy and sadness. + +"I could neither eat my food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine +eye to look on this or that, but still the temptation would come, Sell +Christ for this, or sell Christ for that; sell him, sell him. + +"Sometimes it would run in my thoughts, not so little as a hundred times +together, Sell him, sell him; against which, I may say, for whole hours +together, I have been forced to stand as continually leaning and forcing +my spirit against it, lest haply, before I were aware, some wicked +thought might arise in my heart, that might consent thereto; and +sometimes the tempter would make me believe I had consented to it; but +then I should be as tortured upon a rack, for whole days together. + +"This temptation did put me to such scares, lest I should at sometimes, I +say, consent thereto, and be overcome therewith, that, by the very force +of my mind, my very body would be put into action or motion, by way of +pushing or thrusting with my hands or elbows; still answering, as fast as +the destroyer said, Sell him, I will not, I will not, I will not; no, not +for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds; thus reckoning, lest I +should set too low a value on him, even until I scarce well knew where I +was, or how to be composed again. + +"But to be brief: one morning, as I did lie in my bed, I was, as at other +times, most fiercely assaulted with this temptation, to sell and part +with Christ; the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell him, +sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak; +against which, also, in my mind, as at other times, I answered, No, no, +not for thousands, thousands, thousands, at least twenty times together; +but at last, after much striving, I felt this thought pass through my +heart, Let him go if he will; and I thought also, that I felt my heart +freely consent thereto. Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the +desperateness of man's heart! + +"Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot from the +top of a tree, into great guilt, and fearful despair. Thus getting out +of my bed, I went moping into the field; but God knows with as heavy a +heart as mortal man, I think, could bear; where, for the space of two +hours, I was like a man bereft of life; and, as now, past all recovery, +and bound over to eternal punishment. + +"And withal, that Scripture did seize upon my soul: 'Or profane person, +as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright; for ye know, +how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was +rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it +carefully with tears." + +For two years and a half, as he informs us, that awful scripture sounded +in his ears like the knell of a lost soul. He believed that he had +committed they unpardonable sin. His mental anguish 'was united with +bodily illness and suffering. His nervous system became fearfully +deranged; his limbs trembled; and he supposed this visible tremulousness +and agitation to be the mark of Cain. 'Troubled with pain and +distressing sensations in his chest, he began to fear that his breast- +bone would split open, and that he should perish like Judas Iscariot. He +feared that the tiles of the houses would fall upon him as he walked in +the streets. He was like his own Man in the Cage at the House of the +Interpreter, shut out from the promises, and looking forward to certain +judgment. "Methought," he says, "the very sun that shineth in heaven did +grudge to give me light." And still the dreadful words, "He found no +place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears," sounded +in the depths of his soul. They were, he says, like fetters of brass to +his legs, and their continual clanking followed him for months. +Regarding himself elected and predestined for damnation, he thought that +all things worked for his damage and eternal overthrow, while all things +wrought for the best and to do good to the elect and called of God unto +salvation. God and all His universe had, he thought, conspired against +him; the green earth, the bright waters, the sky itself, were written +over with His irrevocable curse. + +Well was it said by Bunyan's contemporary, the excellent Cudworth, in his +eloquent sermon before the Long Parliament, that "We are nowhere +commanded to pry into the secrets of God, but the wholesome advice given +us is this: 'To make our calling and election sure.' We have no warrant +from Scripture to peep into the hidden rolls of eternity, to spell out +our names among the stars." "Must we say that God sometimes, to exercise +His uncontrollable dominion, delights rather in plunging wretched souls +down into infernal night and everlasting darkness? What, then, shall we +make the God of the whole world? Nothing but a cruel and dreadful +_Erinnys_, with curled fiery snakes about His head, and firebrands in His +hand; thus governing the world! Surely, this will make us either +secretly think there is no God in the world, if He must needs be such, or +else to wish heartily there were none." It was thus at times with +Bunyan. He was tempted, in this season of despair, to believe that there +was no resurrection and no judgment. + +One day, he tells us, a sudden rushing sound, as of wind or the wings of +angels, came to him through the window, wonderfully sweet and pleasant; +and it was as if a voice spoke to him from heaven words of encouragement +and hope, which, to use his language, commanded, for the time, "a silence +in his heart to all those tumultuous thoughts that did use, like +masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow and make a hideous noise +within him." About this time, also, some comforting passages of +Scripture were called to mind; but he remarks, that whenever he strove to +apply them to his case, Satan would thrust the curse of Esau in his face, +and wrest the good word from him. The blessed promise "Him that cometh +to me, I will in no wise cast out" was the chief instrumentality in +restoring his lost peace. He says of it: "If ever Satan and I did strive +for any word of God in all my life, it was for this good word of Christ; +he at one end, and I at the other. Oh, what work we made! It was for +this in John, I say, that we did so tug and strive; he pulled, and I +pulled, but, God be praised! I overcame him; I got sweetness from it. +Oh, many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for this blessed sixth +chapter of John!" Who does not here call to mind the struggle between +Christian and Apollyon in the valley! + +That was no fancy sketch; it was the narrative of the author's own +grapple with the Spirit of Evil. Like his ideal Christian, he "conquered +through Him that loved him." Love wrought the victory the Scripture of +Forgiveness overcame that of Hatred. + +He never afterwards relapsed into that state of religious melancholy from +which he so hardly escaped. He speaks of his deliverance as the waking +out of a troublesome dream. His painful experience was not lost upon +him; for it gave him, ever after, a tender sympathy for the weak, the +sinful, the ignorant, and desponding. In some measure, he had been +"touched with the feeling of their infirmities." He could feel for those +in the bonds of sin and despair, as bound with them. Hence his power as +a preacher; hence the wonderful adaptation of his great allegory to all +the variety of spiritual conditions. Like Fearing, he had lain a month +in the Slough of Despond, and had played, like him, the long melancholy +bass of spiritual heaviness. With Feeble-mind, he had fallen into the +hands of Slay-good, of the nature of Man-eaters: and had limped along his +difficult way upon the crutches of Ready-to-halt. Who better than +himself could describe the condition of Despondency, and his daughter +Much-afraid, in the dungeon of Doubting Castle? Had he not also fallen +among thieves, like Little-faith? + +His account of his entering upon the solemn duties of a preacher of the +Gospel is at once curious and instructive. He deals honestly with +himself, exposing all his various moods, weaknesses, doubts, and +temptations. "I preached," he says, "what I felt; for the terrors of the +law and the guilt of transgression lay heavy on my conscience. I have +been as one sent to them from the dead. I went, myself in chains, to +preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my conscience which I +persuaded them to beware of." At times, when he stood up to preach, +blasphemies and evil doubts rushed into his mind, and he felt a strong +desire to utter them aloud to his congregation; and at other seasons, +when he was about to apply to the sinner some searching and fearful text +of Scripture, he was tempted to withhold it, on the ground that it +condemned himself also; but, withstanding the suggestion of the Tempter, +to use his own simile, he bowed himself like Samson to condemn sin +wherever he found it, though he brought guilt and condemnation upon +himself thereby, choosing rather to die with the Philistines than to deny +the truth. + +Foreseeing the consequences of exposing himself to the operation of the +penal laws by holding conventicles and preaching, he was deeply afflicted +at the thought of the suffering and destitution to which his wife and +children might be exposed by his death or imprisonment. Nothing can be +more touching than his simple and earnest words on this point. They show +how warm and deep were him human affections, and what a tender and loving +heart he laid as a sacrifice on the altar of duty. + +"I found myself a man compassed with infirmities; the parting with my +wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling +the flesh from the bones; and also it brought to my mind the many +hardships, miseries, and wants, that my poor family was like to meet +with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who +lay nearer my heart than all beside. Oh, the thoughts of the hardships I +thought my poor blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces. + +"Poor child! thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion +in this world! thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, +nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind +should blow upon thee. But yet, thought I, I must venture you all with +God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you: oh! I saw I was as a man +who was pulling down his house upon the heads of his wife and children; +yet I thought on those 'two milch kine that were to carry the ark of God +into another country, and to leave their calves behind them.' + +"But that which helped me in this temptation was divers considerations: +the first was, the consideration of those two Scriptures, 'Leave thy +fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust +in me;' and again, 'The Lord said, verily it shall go well with thy +remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat them well in the time +of evil.'" + +He was arrested in 1660, charged with "devilishly and perniciously +abstaining from church," and of being "a common upholder of +conventicles." At the Quarter Sessions, where his trial seems to have +been conducted somewhat like that of Faithful at Vanity Fair, he was +sentenced to perpetual banishment. This sentence, however, was never +executed, but he was remanded to Bedford jail, where he lay a prisoner +for twelve years. + +Here, shut out from the world, with no other books than the Bible and +Fox's Martyrs, he penned that great work which has attained a wider and +more stable popularity than any other book in the English tongue. It is +alike the favorite of the nursery and the study. Many experienced +Christians hold it only second to the Bible; the infidel himself would +not willingly let it die. Men of all sects read it with delight, as in +the main a truthful representation of the 'Christian pilgrimage, without +indeed assenting to all the doctrines which the author puts in the month +of his fighting sermonizer, Great-heart, or which may be deduced from +some other portions of his allegory. A recollection of his fearful +sufferings, from misapprehension of a single text in the Scriptures, +relative to the question of election, we may suppose gave a milder tone +to the theology of his Pilgrim than was altogether consistent with the +Calvinism of the seventeenth century. "Religion," says Macaulay, "has +scarcely ever worn a form so calm and soothing as in Bunyan's allegory." +In composing it, he seems never to have altogether lost sight of the +fact, that, in his life-and-death struggle with Satan for the blessed +promise recorded by the Apostle of Love, the adversary was generally +found on the Genevan side of the argument. Little did the short-sighted +persecutors of Bunyan dream, when they closed upon him the door of +Bedford jail, that God would overrule their poor spite and envy to His +own glory and the worldwide renown of their victim. In the solitude of +his prison, the ideal forms of beauty and sublimity, which had long +flitted before him vaguely, like the vision of the Temanite, took shape +and coloring; and he was endowed with power to reduce them to order, and +arrange them in harmonious groupings. His powerful imagination, no +longer self-tormenting, but under the direction of reason and grace, +expanded his narrow cell into a vast theatre, lighted up for the display +of its wonders. To this creative faculty of his mind might have been +aptly applied the language which George Wither, a contemporary prisoner, +addressed to his Muse:-- + + "The dull loneness, the black shade + Which these hanging vaults have made, + The rude portals that give light + More to terror than delight; + This my chamber of neglect, + Walled about with disrespect,-- + From all these, and this dull air, + A fit object for despair, + She hath taught me by her might, + To draw comfort and delight." + +That stony cell of his was to him like the rock of Padan-aram to the +wandering Patriarch. He saw angels ascending and descending. The House +Beautiful rose up before him, and its holy sisterhood welcomed him. He +looked, with his Pilgrim, from the Chamber of Peace. The Valley of +Humiliation lay stretched out beneath his eye, and he heard "the curious, +melodious note of the country birds, who sing all the day long in the +spring time, when the flowers appear, and the sun shines warm, and make +the woods and groves and solitary places glad." Side by side with the +good Christiana and the loving Mercy, he walked through the green and +lowly valley, "fruitful as any the crow flies over," through "meadows +beautiful with lilies;" the song of the poor but fresh-faced shepherd- +boy, who lived a merry life, and wore the herb heartsease in his bosom, +sounded through his cell:-- + + "He that is down need fear no fall; + He that is low no pride." + +The broad and pleasant "river of the Water of Life" glided peacefully +before him, fringed "on either side with green trees, with all manner of +fruit," and leaves of healing, with "meadows beautified with lilies, and +green all the year long;" he saw the Delectable Mountains, glorious with +sunshine, overhung with gardens and orchards and vineyards; and beyond +all, the Land of Beulah, with its eternal sunshine, its song of birds, +its music of fountains, its purple clustered vines, and groves through +which walked the Shining Ones, silver-winged and beautiful. + +What were bars and bolts and prison-walls to him, whose eyes were +anointed to see, and whose ears opened to hear, the glory and the +rejoicing of the City of God, when the pilgrims were conducted to its +golden gates, from the black and bitter river, with the sounding +trumpeters, the transfigured harpers with their crowns of gold, the sweet +voices of angels, the welcoming peal of bells in the holy city, and the +songs of the redeemed ones? In reading the concluding pages of the first +part of Pilgrim's Progress, we feel as if the mysterious glory of the +Beatific Vision was unveiled before us. We are dazzled with the excess +of light. We are entranced with the mighty melody; overwhelmed by the +great anthem of rejoicing spirits. It can only be adequately described +in the language of Milton in respect to the Apocalypse, as "a seven-fold +chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." + +Few who read Bunyan nowadays think of him as one of the brave old English +confessors, whose steady and firm endurance of persecution baffled and in +the end overcame the tyranny of the Established Church in the reign of +Charles II. What Milton and Penn and Locke wrote in defence of Liberty, +Bunyan lived out and acted. He made no concessions to worldly rank. +Dissolute lords and proud bishops he counted less than the humblest and +poorest of his disciples at Bedford. When first arrested and thrown into +prison, he supposed he should be called to suffer death for his faithful +testimony to the truth; and his great fear was, that he should not meet +his fate with the requisite firmness, and so dishonor the cause of his +Master. And when dark clouds came over him, and he sought in vain for a +sufficient evidence that in the event of his death it would be well with +him, he girded up his soul with the reflection, that, as he suffered for +the word and way of God, he was engaged not to shrink one hair's breadth +from it. "I will leap," he says, "off the ladder blindfold into +eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if thou wilt +catch me, do; if not, I will venture in thy name!" + +The English revolution of the seventeenth century, while it humbled the +false and oppressive aristocracy of rank and title, was prodigal in the +development of the real nobility of the mind and heart. Its history is +bright with the footprints of men whose very names still stir the hearts +of freemen, the world over, like a trumpet peal. Say what we may of its +fanaticism, laugh as we may at its extravagant enjoyment of newly +acquired religious and civil liberty, who shall now venture to deny that +it was the golden age of England? Who that regards freedom above +slavery, will now sympathize with the outcry and lamentation of those +interested in the continuance of the old order of things, against the +prevalence of sects and schism, but who, at the same time, as Milton +shrewdly intimates, dreaded more the rending of their pontifical sleeves +than the rending of the Church? Who shall now sneer at Puritanism, with +the Defence of Unlicensed Printing before him? Who scoff at Quakerism +over the Journal of George Fox? Who shall join with debauched lordlings +and fat-witted prelates in ridicule of Anabaptist levellers and dippers, +after rising from the perusal of Pilgrim's Progress? "There were giants +in those days." And foremost amidst that band of liberty-loving and God- +fearing men, + + "The slandered Calvinists of Charles's time, + Who fought, and won it, Freedom's holy fight," + +stands the subject of our sketch, the Tinker of Elstow. Of his high +merit as an author there is no longer any question. The Edinburgh Review +expressed the common sentiment of the literary world, when it declared +that the two great creative minds of the seventeenth century were those +which produced Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim's Progress. + + + + + + + THOMAS ELLWOOD. + +Commend us to autobiographies! Give us the veritable notchings of +Robinson Crusoe on his stick, the indubitable records of a life long +since swallowed up in the blackness of darkness, traced by a hand the +very dust of which has become undistinguishable. The foolishest egotist +who ever chronicled his daily experiences, his hopes and fears, poor +plans and vain reachings after happiness, speaking to us out of the Past, +and thereby giving us to understand that it was quite as real as our +Present, is in no mean sort our benefactor, and commands our attention, +in spite of his folly. We are thankful for the very vanity which +prompted him to bottle up his poor records, and cast them into the great +sea of Time, for future voyagers to pick up. We note, with the deepest +interest, that in him too was enacted that miracle of a conscious +existence, the reproduction of which in ourselves awes and perplexes us. +He, too, had a mother; he hated and loved; the light from old-quenched +hearths shone over him; he walked in the sunshine over the dust of those +who had gone before him, just as we are now walking over his. These +records of him remain, the footmarks of a long-extinct life, not of mere +animal organism, but of a being like ourselves, enabling us, by studying +their hieroglyphic significance, to decipher and see clearly into the +mystery of existence centuries ago. The dead generations live again in +these old self-biographies. Incidentally, unintentionally, yet in the +simplest and most natural manner, they make us familiar with all the +phenomena of life in the bygone ages. We are brought in contact with +actual flesh-and-blood men and women, not the ghostly outline figures +which pass for such, in what is called History. The horn lantern of the +biographer, by the aid of which, with painful minuteness, he chronicled, +from day to day, his own outgoings and incomings, making visible to us +his pitiful wants, labors, trials, and tribulations of the stomach and of +the conscience, sheds, at times, a strong clear light upon +contemporaneous activities; what seemed before half fabulous, rises up in +distinct and full proportions; we look at statesmen, philosophers, and +poets, with the eyes of those who lived perchance their next-door +neighbors, and sold them beer, and mutton, and household stuffs, had +access to their kitchens, and took note of the fashion of their wigs and +the color of their breeches. Without some such light, all history would +be just about as unintelligible and unreal as a dimly remembered dream. + +The journals of the early Friends or Quakers are in this respect +invaluable. Little, it is true, can be said, as a general thing, of +their literary merits. Their authors were plain, earnest men and women, +chiefly intent upon the substance of things, and having withal a strong +testimony to bear against carnal wit and outside show and ornament. Yet, +even the scholar may well admire the power of certain portions of George +Fox's Journal, where a strong spirit clothes its utterance in simple, +downright Saxon words; the quiet and beautiful enthusiasm of Pennington; +the torrent energy of Edward Burrough; the serene wisdom of Penn; the +logical acuteness of Barclay; the honest truthfulness of Sewell; the wit +and humor of John Roberts, (for even Quakerism had its apostolic jokers +and drab-coated Robert Halls;) and last, not least, the simple beauty of +Woolman's Journal, the modest record of a life of good works and love. + +Let us look at the Life of Thomas Ellwood. The book before us is a +hardly used Philadelphia reprint, bearing date of 1775. The original was +published some sixty years before. It is not a book to be found in +fashionable libraries, or noticed in fashionable reviews, but is none the +less deserving of attention. + +Ellwood was born in 1639, in the little town of Crowell, in Oxfordshire. +Old Walter, his father, was of "gentlemanly lineage," and held a +commission of the peace under Charles I. One of his most intimate +friends was Isaac Pennington, a gentleman of estate and good reputation, +whose wife, the widow of Sir John Springette, was a lady of superior +endowments. Her only daughter, Gulielma, was the playmate and companion +of Thomas. On making this family a visit, in 1658, in company with his +father, he was surprised to find that they had united with the Quakers, a +sect then little known, and everywhere spoken against. Passing through +the vista of nearly two centuries, let us cross the threshold, and look +with the eyes of young Ellwood upon this Quaker family. It will +doubtless give us a good idea of the earnest and solemn spirit of that +age of religious awakening. + +"So great a change from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behavior, +which we had formerly found there, into so strict a gravity as they now +received us with, did not a little amuse us, and disappointed our +expectations of such a pleasant visit as we had promised ourselves. + +"For my part, I sought, and at length found, means to cast myself into +the company of the daughter, whom I found gathering flowers in the +garden, attended by her maid, also a Quaker. But when I addressed her +after my accustomed manner, with intention to engage her in discourse on +the foot of our former acquaintance, though she treated me with a +courteous mien, yet, as young as she was, the gravity of her looks and +behavior struck such an awe upon me, that I found myself not so much +master of myself as to pursue any further converse with her. + +"We staid dinner, which was very handsome, and lacked nothing to +recommend it to me but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse, which we +could neither have with them, nor, by reason of them, with one another; +the weightiness which was upon their spirits and countenances keeping +down the lightness that would have been up in ours." + +Not long after, they made a second visit to their sober friends, spending +several days, during which they attended a meeting, in a neighboring +farmhouse, where we are introduced by Ellwood to two remarkable +personages, Edward Burrough, the friend and fearless reprover of +Cromwell, and by far the most eloquent preacher of his sect and James +Nayler, whose melancholy after-history of fanaticism, cruel sufferings, +and beautiful repentance, is so well known to the readers of English +history under the Protectorate. Under the preaching of these men, and +the influence of the Pennington family, young Ellwood was brought into +fellowship with the Quakers. Of the old Justice's sorrow and indignation +at this sudden blasting of his hopes and wishes in respect to his son, +and of the trials and difficulties of the latter in his new vocation, it +is now scarcely worth while to speak. Let us step forward a few years, +to 1662, considering meantime how matters, political and spiritual, are +changed in that brief period. Cromwell, the Maccabeus of Puritanism, is +no longer among men; Charles the Second sits in his place; profane and +licentious cavaliers have thrust aside the sleek-haired, painful-faced +Independents, who used to groan approval to the Scriptural illustrations +of Harrison and Fleetwood; men easy of virtue, without sincerity, either +in religion or politics, occupying the places made honorable by the +Miltons, Whitlocks, and Vanes of the Commonwealth. Having this change in +view, the light which the farthing candle of Ellwood sheds upon one of +these illustrious names will not be unwelcome. In his intercourse with +Penn, and other learned Quakers, he had reason to lament his own +deficiencies in scholarship, and his friend Pennington undertook to put +him in a way of remedying the defect. + +"He had," says Ellwood, "an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a +physician of note in London, and he with John Milton, a gentleman of +great note for learning throughout the learned world, for the accurate +pieces he had written on various subjects and occasions. + +"This person, having filled a public station in the former times, lived a +private and retired life in London, and, having lost his sight, kept +always a man to read for him, which usually was the son of some gentleman +of his acquaintance, whom, in kindness, he took to improve in his +learning. + +"Thus, by the mediation of my friend Isaac Pennington with Dr. Paget, and +through him with John Milton, was I admitted to come to him, not as a +servant to him, nor to be in the house with him, but only to have the +liberty of coming to his house at certain hours when I would, and read to +him what books he should appoint, which was all the favor I desired. + +"He received me courteously, as well for the sake of Dr. Paget, who +introduced me, as of Isaac Pennington, who recommended me, to both of +whom he bore a good respect. And, having inquired divers things of me, +with respect to my former progression in learning, he dismissed me, to +provide myself with such accommodations as might be most suitable to my +studies. + +"I went, therefore, and took lodgings as near to his house (which was +then in Jewen Street) as I conveniently could, and from thenceforward +went every day in the afternoon, except on the first day of the week, +and, sitting by him in his dining-room, read to him such books in the +Latin tongue as be pleased to have me read. + +"He perceiving with what earnest desire I had pursued learning, gave me +not only all the encouragement, but all the help he could. For, having a +curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read and +when I did not, and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the +most difficult passages to me." + +Thanks, worthy Thomas, for this glimpse into John Milton's dining-room! + +He had been with "Master Milton," as he calls him, only a few weeks, +when, being one "first day morning," at the Bull and Mouth meeting, +Aldersgate, the train-bands of the city, "with great noise and clamor," +headed by Major Rosewell, fell upon him and his friends. The immediate +cause of this onslaught upon quiet worshippers was the famous plot of the +Fifth Monarchy men, grim old fanatics, who (like the Millerites of the +present day) had been waiting long for the personal reign of Christ and +the saints upon earth, and in their zeal to hasten such a consummation +had sallied into London streets with drawn swords and loaded matchlocks. +The government took strong measures for suppressing dissenters' meetings +or "conventicles;" and the poor Quakers, although not at all implicated +in the disturbance, suffered more severely than any others. Let us look +at the "freedom of conscience and worship" in England under that +irreverent Defender of the Faith, Charles II. Ellwood says: "He that +commanded the party gave us first a general charge to come out of the +room. But we, who came thither at God's requiring to worship Him, (like +that good man of old, who said, we ought to obey God rather than man,) +stirred not, but kept our places. Whereupon, he sent some of his +soldiers among us, with command to drag or drive us out, which they did +roughly enough." Think of it: grave men and women, and modest maidens, +sitting there with calm, impassive countenances, motionless as death, the +pikes of the soldiery closing about them in a circle of bristling steel! +Brave and true ones! Not in vain did ye thus oppose God's silence to the +Devil's uproar; Christian endurance and calm persistence in the exercise +of your rights as Englishmen and men to the hot fury of impatient +tyranny! From your day down to this, the world has been the better for +your faithfulness. + +Ellwood and some thirty of his friends were marched off to prison in Old +Bridewell, which, as well as nearly all the other prisons, was already +crowded with Quaker prisoners. One of the rooms of the prison was used +as a torture chamber. "I was almost affrighted," says Ellwood, "by the +dismalness of the place; for, besides that the walls were all laid over +with black, from top to bottom, there stood in the middle a great +whipping-post. + +"The manner of whipping there is, to strip the party to the skin, from +the waist upward, and, having fastened him to the whipping-post, (so that +he can neither resist nor shun the strokes,) to lash his naked body with +long, slender twigs of holly, which will bend almost like thongs around +the body; and these, having little knots upon them, tear the skin and +flesh, and give extreme pain." + +To this terrible punishment aged men and delicately nurtured young +females were often subjected, during this season of hot persecution. + +From the Bridewell, Ellwood was at length removed to Newgate, and thrust +in, with other "Friends," amidst the common felons. He speaks of this +prison, with its thieves, murderers, and prostitutes, its over-crowded +apartments and loathsome cells, as "a hell upon earth." In a closet, +adjoining the room where he was lodged, lay for several days the +quartered bodies of Phillips, Tongue, and Gibbs, the leaders of the Fifth +Monarchy rising, frightful and loathsome, as they came from the bloody +hands of the executioners! These ghastly remains were at length obtained +by the friends of the dead, and buried. The heads were ordered to be +prepared for setting up in different parts of the city. Read this grim +passage of description:-- + +"I saw the heads when they were brought to be boiled. The hangman +fetched them in a dirty basket, out of some by-place, and, setting them +down among the felons, he and they made sport of them. They took them by +the hair, flouting, jeering, and laughing at them; and then giving them +some ill names, boxed them on their ears and cheeks; which done, the +hangman put them into his kettle, and parboiled them with bay-salt and +cummin-seed: that to keep them from putrefaction, and this to keep off +the fowls from seizing upon them. The whole sight, as well that of the +bloody quarters first as this of the heads afterwards, was both frightful +and loathsome, and begat an abhorrence in my nature." + +At the next session of the municipal court at the Old Bailey, Ellwood +obtained his discharge. After paying a visit to "my Master Milton," he +made his way to Chalfont, the home of his friends the Penningtons, where +he was soon after engaged as a Latin teacher. Here he seems to have had +his trials and temptations. Gulielma Springette, the daughter of +Pennington's wife, his old playmate, had now grown to be "a fair woman of +marriageable age," and, as he informs us, "very desirable, whether regard +was had to her outward person, which wanted nothing to make her +completely comely, or to the endowments of her mind, which were every way +extraordinary, or to her outward fortune, which was fair." From all +which, we are not surprised to learn that "she was secretly and openly +sought for by many of almost every rank and condition." "To whom," +continues Thomas, "in their respective turns, (till he at length came for +whom she was reserved,) she carried herself with so much evenness of +temper, such courteous freedom, guarded by the strictest modesty, that as +it gave encouragement or ground of hope to none, so neither did it +administer any matter of offence or just cause of complaint to any." + +Beautiful and noble maiden! How the imagination fills up this outline +limning by her friend, and, if truth must be told, admirer! Serene, +courteous, healthful; a ray of tenderest and blandest light, shining +steadily in the sober gloom of that old household! Confirmed Quaker as +she is, shrinking from none of the responsibilities and dangers of her +profession, and therefore liable at any time to the penalties of prison +and whipping-post, under that plain garb and in spite of that "certain +gravity of look and behavior,"--which, as we have seen, on one occasion +awed young Ellwood into silence,--youth, beauty, and refinement assert +their prerogatives; love knows no creed; the gay, and titled, and wealthy +crowd around her, suing in vain for her favor. + + "Followed, like the tided moon, + She moves as calmly on," + +"until he at length comes for whom she was reserved," and her name is +united with that of one worthy even of her, the world-renowned William +Penn. + +Meantime, one cannot but feel a good degree of sympathy with young +Ellwood, her old schoolmate and playmate, placed, as he was, in the same +family with her, enjoying her familiar conversation and unreserved +confidence, and, as he says, the "advantageous opportunities of riding +and walking abroad with her, by night as well as by day, without any +other company than her maid; for so great, indeed, was the confidence +that her mother had in me, that she thought her daughter safe, if I was +with her, even from the plots and designs of others upon her." So near, +and yet, alas! in truth, so distant! The serene and gentle light which +shone upon him, in the sweet solitudes of Chalfont, was that of a star, +itself unapproachable. + +As he himself meekly intimates, she was reserved for another. He seems +to have fully understood his own position in respect to her; although, to +use his own words, "others, measuring him by the propensity of their own +inclinations, concluded he would steal her, run away with her, and marry +her." Little did these jealous surmisers know of the true and really +heroic spirit of the young Latin master. His own apology and defence of +his conduct, under circumstances of temptation which St. Anthony himself +could have scarcely better resisted, will not be amiss. + +"I was not ignorant of the various fears which filled the jealous heads +of some concerning me, neither was I so stupid nor so divested of all +humanity as not to be sensible of the real and innate worth and virtue +which adorned that excellent dame, and attracted the eyes and hearts of +so many, with the greatest importunity, to seek and solicit her; nor was +I so devoid of natural heat as not to feel some sparklings of desire, as +well as others; but the force of truth and sense of honor suppressed +whatever would have risen beyond the bounds of fair and virtuous +friendship. For I easily foresaw that, if I should have attempted any +thing in a dishonorable way, by fraud or force, upon her, I should have +thereby brought a wound upon mine own soul, a foul scandal upon my +religious profession, and an infamous stain upon mine honor, which was +far more dear unto me than my life. Wherefore, having observed how some +others had befooled themselves, by misconstruing her common kindness +(expressed in an innocent, open, free, and familiar conversation, +springing from the abundant affability, courtesy, and sweetness of her +natural temper) to be the effect of a singular regard and peculiar +affection to them, I resolved to shun the rock whereon they split; and, +remembering the saying of the poet + + 'Felix quem faciunt aliena Pericula cantum,' + +I governed myself in a free yet respectful carriage towards her, thereby +preserving a fair reputation with my friends, and enjoying as much of her +favor and kindness, in a virtuous and firm friendship, as was fit for her +to show or for me to seek." + +Well and worthily said, poor Thomas! Whatever might be said of others, +thou, at least, wast no coxcomb. Thy distant and involuntary admiration +of "the fair Guli" needs, however, no excuse. Poor human nature, guard +it as one may, with strictest discipline and painfully cramping +environment, will sometimes act out itself; and, in thy case, not even +George Fox himself, knowing thy beautiful young friend, (and doubtless +admiring her too, for he was one of the first to appreciate and honor the +worth and dignity or woman,) could have found it in his heart to censure +thee! + +At this period, as was indeed most natural, our young teacher solaced +himself with occasional appeals to what he calls "the Muses." There is +reason to believe, however, that the Pagan sisterhood whom he ventured to +invoke seldom graced his study with their personal attendance. In these +rhyming efforts, scattered up and down his Journal, there are occasional +sparkles of genuine wit, and passages of keen sarcasm, tersely and fitly +expressed. Others breathe a warm, devotional feeling; in the following +brief prayer, for instance, the wants of the humble Christian are +condensed in a manner worthy of Quarles or Herbert:-- + + "Oh! that mine eye might closed be + To what concerns me not to see; + That deafness might possess mine ear + To what concerns me not to hear; + That Truth my tongue might always tie + From ever speaking foolishly; + That no vain thought might ever rest + Or be conceived in my breast; + That by each word and deed and thought + Glory may to my God be brought! + But what are wishes? Lord, mine eye + On Thee is fixed, to Thee I cry + Wash, Lord, and purify my heart, + And make it clean in every part; + And when 't is clean, Lord, keep it too, + For that is more than I can do." + +The thought in the following extracts from a poem written on the death of +his friend Pennington's son is trite, but not inaptly or inelegantly +expressed:-- + + "What ground, alas, has any man + To set his heart on things below, + Which, when they seem most like to stand, + Fly like the arrow from the bow! + Who's now atop erelong shall feel + The circling motion of the wheel! + + "The world cannot afford a thing + Which to a well-composed mind + Can any lasting pleasure bring, + But in itself its grave will find. + All things unto their centre tend + What had beginning must have end! + + "No disappointment can befall + Us, having Him who's all in all! + What can of pleasure him prevent + Who lath the Fountain of Content?" + +In the year 1663 a severe law was enacted against the "sect called +Quakers," prohibiting their meetings, with the penalty of banishment for +the third offence! The burden of the prosecution which followed fell +upon the Quakers of the metropolis, large numbers of whom were heavily +fined, imprisoned, and sentenced to be banished from their native land. +Yet, in time, our worthy friend Ellwood came in for his own share of +trouble, in consequence of attending the funeral of one of his friends. +An evil-disposed justice of the county obtained information of the Quaker +gathering; and, while the body of the dead was "borne on Friends' +shoulders through the street, in order to be carried to the burying- +ground, which was at the town's end," says Ellwood, "he rushed out upon +us with the constables and a rabble of rude fellows whom he had gathered +together, and, having his drawn sword in his hand, struck one of the +foremost of the bearers with it, commanding them to set down the coffin. +But the Friend who was so stricken, being more concerned for the safety +of the dead body than for his own, lest it should fall, and any indecency +thereupon follow, held the coffin fast; which the justice observing, and +being enraged that his word was not forthwith obeyed, set his hand to the +coffin, and with a forcible thrust threw it off from the bearers' +shoulders, so, that it fell to the ground in the middle of the street, +and there we were forced to leave it; for the constables and rabble fell +upon us, and drew some and drove others into the inn. Of those thus +taken," continues Ellwood, "I was one. They picked out ten of us, and +sent us to Aylesbury jail. + +"They caused the body to lie in the open street and cartway, so that all +travellers that passed, whether horsemen, coaches, carts, or wagons, were +fain to break out of the way to go by it, until it was almost night. And +then, having caused a grave to be made in the unconsecrated part of what +is called the Churchyard, they forcibly took the body from the widow, and +buried it there." + +He remained a prisoner only about two months, during which period he +comforted himself by such verse-making as follows, reminding us of +similar enigmas in Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_: + + "Lo! a Riddle for the wise, + In the which a Mystery lies. + + RIDDLE. + "Some men are free whilst they in prison lie; + Others who ne'er saw prison captives die. + + CAUTION. + "He that can receive it may, + He that cannot, let him stay, + Not be hasty, but suspend + Judgment till he sees the end. + + SOLUTION. + "He's only free, indeed, who's free from sin, + And he is fastest bound that's bound therein." + + +In the mean time, where is our "Master Milton"? We, left him deprived of +his young companion and reader, sitting lonely in his small dining-room, +in Jewen Street. It is now the year 1665; is not the pestilence in +London? A sinful and godless city, with its bloated bishops fawning +around the Nell Gwyns of a licentious and profane Defender of the Faith; +its swaggering and drunken cavaliers; its ribald jesters; its obscene +ballad-singers; its loathsome prisons, crowded with Godfearing men and +women: is not the measure of its iniquity already filled up? Three years +only have passed since the terrible prayer of Vane went upward from the +scaffold on Tower Hill: "When my blood is shed upon the block, let it, O +God, have a voice afterward!" Audible to thy ear, O bosom friend of the +martyr! has that blood cried from earth; and now, how fearfully is it +answered! Like the ashes which the Seer of the Hebrews cast towards +Heaven, it has returned in boils and blains upon the proud and oppressive +city. John Milton, sitting blind in Jewen Street, has heard the toll of +the death-bells, and the nightlong rumble of the burial-carts, and the +terrible summons, "Bring out your dead!" The Angel of the Plague, in +yellow mantle, purple-spotted, walks the streets. Why should he tarry in +a doomed city, forsaken of God! Is not the command, even to him, "Arise +and flee, for thy life"? In some green nook of the quiet country, he may +finish the great work which his hands have found to do. He bethinks him +of his old friends, the Penningtons, and his young Quaker companion, the +patient and gentle Ellwood. "Wherefore," says the latter, "some little +time before I went to Aylesbury jail, I was desired by my quondam Master +Milton to take an house for him in the neighborhood where I dwelt, that +he might go out of the city for the safety of himself and his family, the +pestilence then growing hot in London. I took a pretty box for him in +Giles Chalfont, a mile from me, of which I gave him notice, and intended +to have waited on him and seen him well settled, but was prevented by +that imprisonment. But now being released and returned home, I soon made +a visit to him, to welcome him into the country. After some common +discourse had passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, +which, having brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with +me and read it at my leisure, and when I had so done return it to him, +with my judgment thereupon." + +Now, what does the reader think young Ellwood carried in his gray coat +pocket across the dikes and hedges and through the green lanes of Giles +Chalfont that autumn day? Let us look farther "When I came home, and had +set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem which he +entitled _Paradise Lost_. After I had, with the best attention, read it +through, I made him another visit; and, returning his book with due +acknowledgment of the favor he had done me in communicating it to me, he +asked me how I liked it and what I thought of it, which I modestly but +freely told him; and, after some farther discourse about it, I pleasantly +said to him, 'Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost; what hast thou +to say of Paradise Found?' He made me no answer, but sat some time in a +muse; then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another subject." + +"I modestly but freely told him what I thought" of Paradise Lost! What +he told him remains a mystery. One would like to know more precisely +what the first critical reader of that song "of Man's first disobedience" +thought of it. Fancy the young Quaker and blind Milton sitting, some +pleasant afternoon of the autumn of that old year, in "the pretty box" at +Chalfont, the soft wind through the open window lifting the thin hair of +the glorious old Poet! Back-slidden England, plague-smitten, and +accursed with her faithless Church and libertine King, knows little of +poor "Master Milton," and takes small note of his Puritanic verse-making. +Alone, with his humble friend, he sits there, conning over that poem +which, he fondly hoped, the world, which had grown all dark and strange +to the author, "would not willingly let die." The suggestion in respect +to Paradise Found, to which, as we have seen, "he made no answer, but sat +some time in a muse," seems not to have been lost; for, "after the +sickness was over," continues Ellwood, "and the city well cleansed, and +become safely habitable again, he returned thither; and when afterwards I +waited on him there, which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occasions +drew me to London, he showed me his second poem, called Paradise Gained; +and, in a pleasant tone, said to me, 'This is owing to you, for you put +it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before I +had not thought of.'" + +Golden days were these for the young Latin reader, even if it be true, as +we suspect, that he was himself very far from appreciating the glorious +privilege which he enjoyed, of the familiar friendship and confidence of +Milton. But they could not last. His amiable host, Isaac Pennington, +a blameless and quiet country gentleman, was dragged from his house by a +military force, and lodged in Aylesbury jail; his wife and family +forcibly ejected from their pleasant home, which was seized upon by the +government as security for the fines imposed upon its owner. The plague +was in the village of Aylesbury, and in the very prison itself; but the +noble-hearted Mary Pennington followed her husband, sharing with him the +dark peril. Poor Ellwood, while attending a monthly meeting at Hedgerly, +with six others, (among them one Morgan Watkins, a poor old Welshman, +who, painfully endeavoring to utter his testimony in his own dialect, was +suspected by the Dogberry of a justice of being a Jesuit trolling over +his Latin,) was arrested, and committed to Wiccomb House of Correction. + +This was a time of severe trial for the sect with which Ellwood had +connected himself. In the very midst of the pestilence, when thousands +perished weekly in London, fifty-four Quakers were marched through the +almost deserted streets, and placed on board a ship, for the purpose of +being conveyed, according to their sentence of banishment, to the West +Indies. The ship lay for a long time, with many others similarly +situated, a helpless prey to the pestilence. Through that terrible +autumn, the prisoners sat waiting for the summons of the ghastly +Destroyer; and, from their floating dungeon. + + "Heard the groan + Of agonizing ships from shore to shore; + Heard nightly plunged beneath the sullen wave + The frequent corse." + +When the vessel at length set sail, of the fifty-four who went on board, +twenty-seven only were living. A Dutch privateer captured her, when two +days out, and carried the prisoners to North Holland, where they were set +at liberty. The condition of the jails in the city, where were large +numbers of Quakers, was dreadful in the extreme. Ill ventilated, +crowded, and loathsome with the accumulated filth of centuries, they +invited the disease which daily decimated their cells. "Go on!" says +Pennington, writing to the King and bishops from his plague-infected cell +in the Aylesbury prison: "try it out with the Spirit of the Lord! Come +forth with your laws, and prisons, and spoiling of goods, and banishment, +and death, if the Lord please, and see if ye can carry it! Whom the Lord +loveth He can save at His pleasure. Hath He begun to break our bonds and +deliver us, and shall we now distrust Him? Are we in a worse condition +than Israel was when the sea was before them, the mountains on either +side, and the Egyptians behind, pursuing them?" + +Brave men and faithful! It is not necessary that the present generation, +how quietly reaping the fruit of your heroic endurance, should see eye to +eye with you in respect to all your testimonies and beliefs, in order to +recognize your claim to gratitude and admiration. For, in an age of +hypocritical hollowness and mean self-seeking, when, with noble +exceptions, the very Puritans of Cromwell's Reign of the Saints were +taking profane lessons from their old enemies, and putting on an outside +show of conformity, for the sake of place or pardon, ye maintained the +austere dignity of virtue, and, with King and Church and Parliament +arrayed against you, vindicated the Rights of Conscience, at the cost of +home, fortune, and life. English liberty owes more to your unyielding +firmness than to the blows stricken for her at Worcester and Naseby. + +In 1667, we find the Latin teacher in attendance at a great meeting of +Friends, in London, convened at the suggestion of George Fox, for the +purpose of settling a little difficulty which had arisen among the +Friends, even under the pressure of the severest persecution, relative to +the very important matter of "wearing the hat." George Fox, in his love +of truth and sincerity in word and action, had discountenanced the +fashionable doffing of the hat, and other flattering obeisances towards +men holding stations in Church or State, as savoring of man-worship, +giving to the creature the reverence only due to the Creator, as +undignified and wanting in due self-respect, and tending to support +unnatural and oppressive distinctions among those equal in the sight of +God. But some of his disciples evidently made much more of this "hat +testimony" than their teacher. One John Perrott, who had just returned +from an unsuccessful attempt to convert the Pope, at Rome, (where that +dignitary, after listening to his exhortations, and finding him in no +condition to be benefited by the spiritual physicians of the Inquisition, +had quietly turned him over to the temporal ones of the Insane Hospital,) +had broached the doctrine that, in public or private worship, the hat was +not to be taken off, without an immediate revelation or call to do so! +Ellwood himself seems to have been on the point of yielding to this +notion, which appears to have been the occasion of a good deal of +dissension and scandal. Under these circumstances, to save truth from +reproach, and an important testimony to the essential equality of mankind +from running into sheer fanaticism, Fox summoned his tried and faithful +friends together, from all parts of the United Kingdom, and, as it +appears, with the happiest result. Hat-revelations were discountenanced, +good order and harmony reestablished, and John Perrott's beaver and the +crazy head under it were from thenceforth powerless for evil. Let those +who are disposed to laugh at this notable "Ecumenical Council of the Hat" +consider that ecclesiastical history has brought down to us the records +of many larger and more imposing convocations, wherein grave bishops and +learned fathers took each other by the beard upon matters of far less +practical importance. + +In 1669, we find Ellwood engaged in escorting his fair friend, Gulielma, +to her uncle's residence in Sussex. Passing through London, and taking +the Tunbridge road, they stopped at Seven Oak to dine. The Duke of York +was on the road, with his guards and hangers-on, and the inn was filled +with a rude company. "Hastening," says Ellwood, "from a place where we +found nothing but rudeness, the roysterers who swarmed there, besides the +damning oaths they belched out against each other, looked very sourly +upon us, as if they grudged us the horses which we rode and the clothes +we wore." They had proceeded but a little distance, when they were +overtaken by some half dozen drunken rough-riding cavaliers, of the +Wildrake stamp, in full pursuit after the beautiful Quakeress. One of +them impudently attempted to pull her upon his horse before him, but was +held at bay by Ellwood, who seems, on this occasion, to have relied +somewhat upon his "stick," in defending his fair charge. Calling up +Gulielma's servant, he bade him ride on one side of his mistress, while +he guarded her on the other. "But he," says Ellwood, "not thinking it +perhaps decent to ride so near his mistress, left room enough for another +to ride between." In dashed the drunken retainer, and Gulielma was once +more in peril. It was clearly no time for exhortations and +expostulations; "so," says Ellwood, "I chopped in upon him, by a nimble +turn, and kept him at bay. I told him I had hitherto spared him, but +wished him not to provoke me further. This I spoke in such a tone as +bespoke an high resentment of the abuse put upon us, and withal pressed +him so hard with my horse that I suffered him not to come up again to +Guli." By this time, it became evident to the companions of the +ruffianly assailant that the young Quaker was in earnest, and they +hastened to interfere. "For they," says Ellwood, "seeing the contest +rise so high, and probably fearing it would rise higher, not knowing +where it might stop, came in to part us; which they did by taking him +away." + +Escaping from these sons of Belial, Ellwood and his fair companion rode +on through Tunbridge Wells, "the street thronged with men, who looked +very earnestly at them, but offered them no affront," and arrived, late +at night, in a driving rain, at the mansion-house of Herbert Springette. +The fiery old gentleman was so indignant at the insult offered to his +niece, that he was with difficulty dissuaded from demanding satisfaction +at the hands of the Duke of York. + +This seems to have been his last ride with Gulielma. She was soon after +married to William Penn, and took up her abode at Worminghurst, in +Sussex. How blessed and beautiful was that union may be understood from +the following paragraph of a letter, written by her husband, on the eve +of his departure for America to lay the foundations of a Christian +colony:-- + + "My dear wife! remember thou wast the love of my youth, and much the + joy of my life, the most beloved as well as the most worthy of all + my earthly comforts; and the reason of that love was more thy inward + than thy outward excellences, which yet were many. God knows, and + thou knowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence's making; + and God's image in us both was the first thing and the most amiable + and engaging ornament in our eyes." + +About this time our friend Thomas, seeing that his old playmate at +Chalfont was destined for another, turned his attention towards a "young +Friend, named Mary Ellis." He had been for several years acquainted with +her, but now he "found his heart secretly drawn and inclining towards +her." "At length," he tells us, "as I was sitting all alone, waiting +upon the Lord for counsel and guidance in this, in itself and to me, +important affair, I felt a word sweetly arise in me, as if I had heard a +Voice which said, Go, and prevail! and faith springing in my heart at the +word, I immediately rose and went, nothing doubting." On arriving at her +residence, he states that he "solemnly opened his mind to her, which was +a great surprisal to her, for she had taken in an apprehension, as others +had also done," that his eye had been fixed elsewhere and nearer home. +"I used not many words to her," he continues, "but I felt a Divine Power +went along with the words, and fixed the matter expressed by them so fast +in her breast, that, as she afterwards acknowledged to me, she could not +shut it out." + +"I continued," he says, "my visits to my best-beloved Friend until we +married, which was on the 28th day of the eighth month, 1669. We took +each other in a select meeting of the ancient and grave Friends of that +country. A very solemn meeting it was, and in a weighty frame of spirit +we were." His wife seems to have had some estate; and Ellwood, with that +nice sense of justice which marked all his actions, immediately made his +will, securing to her, in case of his decease, all her own goods and +moneys, as well as all that he had himself acquired before marriage. +"Which," he tells, "was indeed but little, yet, by all that little, more +than I had ever given her ground to expect with me." His father, who was +yet unreconciled to the son's religious views, found fault with his +marriage, on the ground that it was unlawful and unsanctioned by priest +or liturgy, and consequently refused to render him any pecuniary +assistance. Yet, in spite of this and other trials, he seems to have +preserved his serenity of spirit. After an unpleasant interview with his +father, on one occasion, he wrote, at his lodgings in an inn, in London, +what be calls _A Song of Praise_. An extract from it will serve to show +the spirit of the good man in affliction:-- + + "Unto the Glory of Thy Holy Name, + Eternal God! whom I both love and fear, + I hereby do declare, I never came + Before Thy throne, and found Thee loath to hear, + But always ready with an open ear; + And, though sometimes Thou seem'st Thy face to hide, + As one that had withdrawn his love from me, + 'T is that my faith may to the full, be tried, + And that I thereby may the better see + How weak I am when not upheld by Thee!" + +The next year, 1670, an act of Parliament, in relation to "Conventicles," +provided that any person who should be present at any meeting, under +color or pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than +according to the liturgy and practice of the Church of England, "should +be liable to fines of from five to ten shillings; and any person +preaching at or giving his house for the meeting, to a fine of twenty +pounds: one third of the fines being received by the informer or +informers." As a natural consequence of such a law, the vilest +scoundrels in the land set up the trade of informers and heresy-hunters. +Wherever a dissenting meeting or burial took place, there was sure to be +a mercenary spy, ready to bring a complaint against all in attendance. +The Independents and Baptists ceased, in a great measure, to hold public +meetings, yet even they did not escape prosecution. Bunyan, for +instance, in these days, was dreaming, like another Jacob, of angels +ascending and descending, in Bedford prison. But upon the poor Quakers +fell, as usual, the great force of the unjust enactment. Some of these +spies or informers, men of sharp wit, close countenances, pliant tempers, +and skill in dissimulation, took the guise of Quakers, Independents, or +Baptists, as occasion required, thrusting themselves into the meetings of +the proscribed sects, ascertaining the number who attended, their rank +and condition, and then informing against them. Ellwood, in his Journal +for 1670, describes several of these emissaries of evil. One of them +came to a Friend's house, in Bucks, professing to be a brother in the +faith, but, overdoing his counterfeit Quakerism, was detected and +dismissed by his host. Betaking himself to the inn, he appeared in his +true character, drank and swore roundly, and confessed over his cups that +he had been sent forth on his mission by the Rev. Dr. Mew, Vice- +Chancellor of Oxford. Finding little success in counterfeiting +Quakerism, he turned to the Baptists, where, for a time, he met with +better success. Ellwood, at this time, rendered good service to his +friends, by exposing the true character of these wretches, and bringing +them to justice for theft, perjury, and other misdemeanors. + +While this storm of persecution lasted, (a period of two or three years,) +the different dissenting sects felt, in some measure, a common sympathy, +and, while guarding themselves against their common foe, had little +leisure for controversy with each other; but, as was natural, the +abatement of their mutual suffering and danger was the signal for +renewing their suspended quarrels. The Baptists fell upon the Quakers, +with pamphlet and sermon; the latter replied in the same way. One of the +most conspicuous of the Baptist disputants was the famous Jeremy Ives, +with whom our friend Ellwood seems to have had a good deal of trouble. +"His name," says Ellwood, "was up for a topping Disputant. He was well, +read in the fallacies of logic, and was ready in framing syllogisms. His +chief art lay in tickling the humor of rude, unlearned, and injudicious +hearers." + +The following piece of Ellwood's, entitled "An Epitaph for Jeremy Ives," +will serve to show that wit and drollery were sometimes found even among +the proverbially sober Quakers of the seventeenth century:-- + + "Beneath this stone, depressed, doth lie + The Mirror of Hypocrisy-- + Ives, whose mercenary tongue + Like a Weathercock was hung, + And did this or that way play, + As Advantage led the way. + If well hired, he would dispute, + Otherwise he would be mute. + But he'd bawl for half a day, + If he knew and liked his pay. + + "For his person, let it pass; + Only note his face was brass. + His heart was like a pumice-stone, + And for Conscience he had none. + Of Earth and Air he was composed, + With Water round about enclosed. + Earth in him had greatest share, + Questionless, his life lay there; + Thence his cankered Envy sprung, + Poisoning both his heart and tongue. + + "Air made him frothy, light, and vain, + And puffed him with a proud disdain. + Into the Water oft he went, + And through the Water many sent + That was, ye know, his element! + The greatest odds that did appear + Was this, for aught that I can hear, + That he in cold did others dip, + But did himself hot water sip. + + "And his cause he'd never doubt, + If well soak'd o'er night in Stout; + But, meanwhile, he must not lack + Brandy and a draught of Sack. + One dispute would shrink a bottle + Of three pints, if not a pottle. + One would think he fetched from thence + All his dreamy eloquence. + + "Let us now bring back the Sot + To his Aqua Vita pot, + And observe, with some content, + How he framed his argument. + That his whistle he might wet, + The bottle to his mouth he set, + And, being Master of that Art, + Thence he drew the Major part, + But left the Minor still behind; + Good reason why, he wanted wind; + If his breath would have held out, + He had Conclusion drawn, no doubt." + +The residue of Ellwood's life seems to have glided on in serenity and +peace. He wrote, at intervals, many pamphlets in defence of his Society, +and in favor of Liberty of Conscience. At his hospitable residence, the +leading spirits of the sect were warmly welcomed. George Fox and William +Penn seem to have been frequent guests. We find that, in 1683, he was +arrested for seditious publications, when on the eve of hastening to his +early friend, Gulielma, who, in the absence of her husband, Governor +Penn, had fallen dangerously ill. On coming before the judge, "I told +him," says Ellwood, "that I had that morning received an express out of +Sussex, that William Penn's wife (with whom I had an intimate +acquaintance and strict friendship, _ab ipsis fere incunabilis_, at +least, _a teneris unguiculis_) lay now ill, not without great danger, and +that she had expressed her desire that I would come to her as soon as I +could." The judge said "he was very sorry for Madam Penn's illness," of +whose virtues he spoke very highly, but not more than was her due. Then +he told me, "that, for her sake, he would do what he could to further my +visit to her." Escaping from the hands of the law, he visited his +friend, who was by this time in a way of recovery, and, on his return, +learned that the prosecution had been abandoned. + +At about this date his narrative ceases. We learn, from other sources, +that he continued to write and print in defence of his religious views up +to the year of his death, which took place in 1713. One of his +productions, a poetical version of the Life of David, may be still met +with, in the old Quaker libraries. On the score of poetical merit, it is +about on a level with Michael Drayton's verses on the same subject. As +the history of one of the firm confessors of the old struggle for +religious freedom, of a genial-hearted and pleasant scholar, the friend +of Penn and Milton, and the suggester of Paradise Regained, we trust our +hurried sketch has not been altogether without interest; and that, +whatever may be the religious views of our readers, they have not failed +to recognize a good and true man in Thomas Ellwood. + + + + + + + JAMES NAYLER. + + "You will here read the true story of that much injured, ridiculed + man, James Nayler; what dreadful sufferings, with what patience he + endured, even to the boring of the tongue with hot irons, without a + murmur; and with what strength of mind, when the delusion he had + fallen into, which they stigmatized as blasphemy, had given place to + clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error in a strain of the + beautifullest humility."--Essays of Elia. + +"Would that Carlyle could now try his hand at the English Revolution!" +was our exclamation, on laying down the last volume of his remarkable +History of the French Revolution with its brilliant and startling word- +pictures still flashing before us. To some extent this wish has been +realized in the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Yet we confess +that the perusal of these volumes has disappointed us. Instead of giving +himself free scope, as in his French Revolution, and transferring to his +canvas all the wild and ludicrous, the terrible and beautiful phases of +that moral phenomenon, he has here concentrated all his artistic skill +upon a single figure, whom he seems to have regarded as the embodiment +and hero of the great event. All else on his canvas is subordinated to +the grim image of the colossal Puritan. Intent upon presenting him as +the fitting object of that "hero-worship," which, in its blind admiration +and adoration of mere abstract Power, seems to us at times nothing less +than devil-worship, he dwarfs, casts into the shadow, nay, in some +instances caricatures and distorts, the figures which surround him. To +excuse Cromwell in his usurpation, Henry Vane, one of those exalted and +noble characters, upon whose features the lights held by historical +friends or foes detect no blemish, is dismissed with a sneer and an +utterly unfounded imputation of dishonesty. To reconcile, in some +degree, the discrepancy between the declarations of Cromwell, in behalf +of freedom of conscience, and that mean and cruel persecution which the +Quakers suffered under the Protectorate, the generally harmless +fanaticism of a few individuals bearing that name is gravely urged. Nay, +the fact that some weak-brained enthusiasts undertook to bring about the +millennium, by associating together, cultivating the earth, and "dibbling +beans" for the New Jerusalem market, is regarded by our author as the +"germ of Quakerism;" and furnishes an occasion for sneering at "my poor +friend Dryasdust, lamentably tearing his hair over the intolerance of +that old time to Quakerism and such like." + +The readers of this (with all its faults) powerfully written Biography +cannot fail to have been impressed with the intensely graphic description +(Part I., vol. ii., pp. 184, 185) of the entry of the poor fanatic, +James Nayler, and his forlorn and draggled companions into Bristol. +Sadly ludicrous is it; affecting us like the actual sight of tragic +insanity enacting its involuntary comedy, and making us smile through our +tears. + +In another portion of the work, a brief account is given of the trial and +sentence of Nayler, also in the serio-comic view; and the poor man is +dismissed with the simple intimation, that after his punishment he +"repented, and confessed himself mad." It was no part of the author's +business, we are well aware, to waste time and words upon the history of +such a man as Nayler; he was of no importance to him, otherwise than as +one of the disturbing influences in the government of the Lord Protector. +But in our mind the story of James Nayler has always been one of +interest; and in the belief that it will prove so to others, who, like +Charles Lamb, can appreciate the beautiful humility of a forgiven spirit, +we have taken some pains to collect and embody the facts of it. + +James Nayler was born in the parish of Ardesley, in Yorkshire, 1616. His +father was a substantial farmer, of good repute and competent estate and +be, in consequence, received a good education: At the age of twenty-two, +he married and removed to Wakefield parish, which has since been made +classic ground by the pen of Goldsmith. Here, an honest, God-fearing +farmer, he tilled his soil, and alternated between cattle-markets and +Independent conventicles. In 1641, he obeyed the summons of "my Lord +Fairfax" and the Parliament, and joined a troop of horse composed of +sturdy Independents, doing such signal service against "the man of +Belial, Charles Stuart," that he was promoted to the rank of +quartermaster, in which capacity he served under General Lambert, in his +Scottish campaign. Disabled at length by sickness, he was honorably +dismissed from the service, and returned to his family in 1649. + +For three or four years, he continued to attend the meetings of the +Independents, as a zealous and devout member. But it so fell out, that +in the winter of 1651, George Fox, who had just been released from a +cruel imprisonment in Derby jail, felt a call to set his face towards +Yorkshire. "So travelling," says Fox, in his Journal, "through the +countries, to several places, preaching Repentance and the Word of Life, +I came into the parts about Wakefield, where James Navler lived." The +worn and weary soldier, covered with the scars of outward battle, +received, as he believed, in the cause of God and his people, against +Antichrist and oppression, welcomed with thankfulness the veteran of +another warfare; who, in conflict with a principalities and powers, and +spiritual wickedness in high places," had made his name a familiar one in +every English hamlet. "He and Thomas Goodyear," says Fox, "came to me, +and were both convinced, and received the truth." He soon after joined +the Society of Friends. In the spring of the next year he was in his +field following his plough, and meditating, as he was wont, on the great +questions of life and duty, when he seemed to hear a voice bidding him go +out from his kindred and his father's house, with an assurance that the +Lord would be with him, while laboring in his service. Deeply impressed, +he left his employment, and, returning to his house, made immediate +preparations for a journey. But hesitation and doubt followed; he became +sick from anxiety of mind, and his recovery, for a time, was exceedingly +doubtful. On his restoration to bodily health, he obeyed what he +regarded as a clear intimation of duty, and went forth a preacher of the +doctrines he had embraced. The Independent minister of the society to +which be had formerly belonged sent after him the story that he was the +victim of sorcery; that George Fox carried with him a bottle, out of +which he made people drink; and that the draught had the power to change +a Presbyterian or Independent into a Quaker at once; that, in short, the +Arch-Quaker, Fox, was a wizard, and could be seen at the same moment of +time riding on the same black horse, in two places widely separated. He +had scarcely commenced his exhortations, before the mob, excited by such +stories, assailed him. In the early summer of the year we hear of him in +Appleby jail. On his release, he fell in company with George Fox. At +Walney Island, he was furiously assaulted, and beaten with clubs and +stones; the poor priest-led fishermen being fully persuaded that they +were dealing with a wizard. The spirit of the man, under these +circumstances, may be seen in the following extract from a letter to his +friends, dated at "Killet, in Lancashire, the 30th of 8th Month, 1652:"-- + +"Dear friends! Dwell in patience, and wait upon the Lord, who will do +his own work. Look not at man who is in the work, nor at any man +opposing it; but rest in the will of the Lord, that so ye may be +furnished with patience, both to do and to suffer what ye shall be called +unto, that your end in all things may be His praise. Meet often +together; take heed of what exalteth itself above its brother; but keep +low, and serve one another in love." + +Laboring thus, interrupted only by persecution, stripes, and +imprisonment, he finally came to London, and spoke with great power and +eloquence in the meetings of Friends in that city. Here he for the first +time found himself surrounded by admiring and sympathizing friends. He +saw and rejoiced in the fruits of his ministry. Profane and drunken +cavaliers, intolerant Presbyters, and blind Papists, owned the truths +which he uttered, and counted themselves his disciples. Women, too, in +their deep trustfulness and admiring reverence, sat at the feet of the +eloquent stranger. Devout believers in the doctrine of the inward light +and manifestation of God in the heart of man, these latter, at length, +thought they saw such unmistakable evidences of the true life in James +Nayler, that they felt constrained to declare that Christ was, in an +especial manner, within him, and to call upon all to recognize in +reverent adoration this new incarnation of the divine and heavenly. The +wild enthusiasm of his disciples had its effect on the teacher. Weak in +body, worn with sickness, fasting, stripes, and prison-penance, and +naturally credulous and imaginative, is it strange that in some measure +he yielded to this miserable delusion? Let those who would harshly judge +him, or ascribe his fall to the peculiar doctrines of his sect, think of +Luther, engaged in personal combat with the Devil, or conversing with him +on points of theology in his bed-chamber; or of Bunyan at actual +fisticuffs with the adversary; or of Fleetwood and Vane and Harrison +millennium-mad, and making preparations for an earthly reign of King +Jesus. It was an age of intense religious excitement. Fanaticism had +become epidemic. Cromwell swayed his Parliaments by "revelations" and +Scripture phrases in the painted chamber; stout generals and sea-captains +exterminated the Irish, and swept Dutch navies from the ocean, with old +Jewish war-cries, and hymns of Deborah and Miriam; country justices +charged juries in Hebraisms, and cited the laws of Palestine oftener than +those of England. Poor Nayler found himself in the very midst of this +seething and confused moral maelstrom. He struggled against it for a +time, but human nature was weak; he became, to use his own words, +"bewildered and darkened," and the floods went over him. + +Leaving London with some of his more zealous followers, not without +solemn admonition and rebuke from Francis Howgill and Edward Burrough, +who at that period were regarded as the most eminent and gifted of the +Society's ministers, he bent his steps towards Exeter. Here, in +consequence of the extravagance of his language and that of his +disciples, he was arrested and thrown into prison. Several infatuated +women surrounded the jail, declaring that "Christ was in prison," and on +being admitted to see him, knelt down and kissed his feet, exclaiming, +"Thy name shall be no more called James Nayler, but Jesus!" Let us pity +him and them. They, full of grateful and extravagant affection for the +man whose voice had called them away from worldly vanities to what they +regarded as eternal realities, whose hand they imagined had for them +swung back the pearl gates of the celestial city, and flooded their +atmosphere with light from heaven; he, receiving their homage (not as +offered to a poor, weak, sinful Yorkshire trooper, but rather to the +hidden man of the heart, the "Christ within" him) with that self- +deceiving humility which is but another name for spiritual pride. +Mournful, yet natural; such as is still in greater or less degree +manifested between the Catholic enthusiast and her confessor; such as the +careful observer may at times take note of in our Protestant revivals and +camp meetings. + +How Nayler was released from Exeter jail does not appear, but the next we +hear of him is at Bristol, in the fall of the year. His entrance into +that city shows the progress which he and his followers had made in the +interval. Let us look at Carlyle's description of it: "A procession of +eight persons one, a man on horseback riding single, the others, men and +women partly riding double, partly on foot, in the muddiest highway in +the wettest weather; singing, all but the single rider, at whose bridle +walk and splash two women, 'Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth,' +and other things, 'in a buzzing tone,' which the impartial hearer could +not make out. The single rider is a raw-boned male figure, 'with lank +hair reaching below his cheeks,' hat drawn close over his brows, 'nose +rising slightly in the middle,' of abstruse 'down look,' and large +dangerous jaws strictly closed: he sings not, sits there covered, and is +sung to by the others bare. Amid pouring deluges and mud knee-deep, 'so +that the rain ran in at their necks and vented it at their hose and +breeches: 'a spectacle to the West of England and posterity! Singing as +above; answering no question except in song. From Bedminster to +Ratcliffgate, along the streets to the High Cross of Bristol: at the High +Cross they are laid hold of by the authorities: turn out to be James +Nayler and Company." + +Truly, a more pitiful example of "hero-worship" is not well to be +conceived of. Instead of taking the rational view of it, however, and +mercifully shutting up the actors in a mad-house, the authorities of that +day, conceiving it to be a stupendous blasphemy, and themselves God's +avengers in the matter, sent Nayler under strong guard up to London, to +be examined before the Parliament. After long and tedious examinations +and cross-questionings, and still more tedious debates, some portion of +which, not uninstructive to the reader, may still be found in Burton's +Diary, the following horrible resolution was agreed upon:-- + +"That James Nayler be set in the pillory, with his head in the pillory in +the Palace Yard, Westminster, during the space of two hours on Thursday +next; and be whipped by the hangman through the streets from Westminster +to the Old Exchange, and there, likewise, be set in the pillory, with his +head in the pillory for the space of two hours, between eleven and one, +on Saturday next, in each place wearing a paper containing a description +of his crimes; and that at the Old Exchange his tongue be bored through +with a hot iron, and that he be there stigmatized on the forehead with +the letter 'B;' and that he be afterwards sent to Bristol, to be conveyed +into and through the said city on horseback with his face backward, and +there, also, publicly whipped the next market-day after he comes thither; +that from thence he be committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and +there restrained from the society of people, and there to labor hard +until he shall be released by Parliament; and during that time be +debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and have no relief except what +he earns by his daily labor." + +Such, neither more nor less, was, in the opinion of Parliament, required +on their part to appease the divine vengeance. The sentence was +pronounced on the 17th of the twelfth month; the entire time of the +Parliament for the two months previous having been occupied with the +case. The Presbyterians in that body were ready enough to make the most +of an offence committed by one who had been an Independent; the +Independents, to escape the stigma of extenuating the crimes of one of +their quondam brethren, vied with their antagonists in shrieking over the +atrocity of Nayler's blasphemy, and in urging its severe punishment. +Here and there among both classes were men disposed to leniency, and more +than one earnest plea was made for merciful dealing with a man whose +reason was evidently unsettled, and who was, therefore, a fitting object +of compassion; whose crime, if it could indeed be called one, was +evidently the result of a clouded intellect, and not of wilful intention +of evil. On the other hand, many were in favor of putting him to death +as a sort of peace-offering to the clergy, who, as a matter of course, +were greatly scandalized by Nayler's blasphemy, and still more by the +refusal of his sect to pay tithes, or recognize their divine commission. + +Nayler was called into the Parliament-house to receive his sentence. +"I do not know mine offence," he said mildly. "You shall know it," said +Sir Thomas Widrington, "by your sentence." When the sentence was read, +he attempted to speak, but was silenced. "I pray God," said Nayler, +"that he may not lay this to your charge." + +The next day, the 18th of the twelfth month, he stood in the pillory two +hours, in the chill winter air, and was then stripped and scourged by the +hangman at the tail of a cart through the streets. Three hundred and ten +stripes were inflicted; his back and arms were horribly cut and mangled, +and his feet crushed and bruised by the feet of horses treading on him in +the crowd. He bore all with uncomplaining patience; but was so far +exhausted by his sufferings, that it was found necessary to postpone the +execution of the residue of the sentence for one week. The terrible +severity of his sentence, and his meek endurance of it, had in the mean +time powerfully affected many of the humane and generous of all classes +in the city; and a petition for the remission of the remaining part of +the penalty was numerously signed and presented to Parliament. A debate +ensued upon it, but its prayer was rejected. Application was then made +to Cromwell, who addressed a letter to the Speaker of the House, +inquiring into the affair, protesting an "abhorrence and detestation of +giving or occasioning the least countenance to such opinions and +practices" as were imputed to Nayler; "yet we, being intrusted in the +present government on behalf of the people of these nations, and not +knowing how far such proceeding entered into wholly without us may extend +in the consequence of it, do hereby desire the House may let us know the +grounds and reasons whereon they have proceeded." From this, it is not +unlikely that the Protector might have been disposed to clemency, and to +look with a degree of charity upon the weakness and errors of one of his +old and tried soldiers who had striven like a brave man, as he was, for +the rights and liberties of Englishmen; but the clergy here interposed, +and vehemently, in the name of God and His Church, demanded that the +executioner should finish his work. Five of the most eminent of them, +names well known in the Protectorate, Caryl, Manton, Nye, Griffith, and +Reynolds, were deputed by Parliament to visit the mangled prisoner. A +reasonable request was made, that some impartial person might be present, +that justice might be done Nayler in the report of his answers. This was +refused. It was, however, agreed that the conversation should be written +down and a copy of it left with the jailer. He was asked if he was sorry +for his blasphemies. He said he did not know to what blasphemies they +alluded; that he did believe in Jesus Christ; that He had taken up His +dwelling in his own heart, and for the testimony of Him he now suffered. +"I believe," said one of the ministers, "in a Christ who was never in any +man's heart." "I know no such Christ," rejoined the prisoner; "the +Christ I witness to fills Heaven and Earth, and dwells in the hearts of +all true believers." On being asked why he allowed the women to adore +and worship him, he said he "denied bowing to the creature; but if they +beheld the power of Christ, wherever it was, and bowed to it, he could +not resist it, or say aught against it." + +After some further parley, the reverend visitors grew angry, threw the +written record of the conversation in the fire, and left the prison, to +report the prisoner incorrigible. + +On the 27th of the month, he was again led out of his cell and placed +upon the pillory. Thousands of citizens were gathered around, many of +them earnestly protesting against the extreme cruelty of his punishment. +Robert Rich, an influential and honorable merchant, followed him up to +the pillory with expressions of great sympathy, and held him by the hand +while the red-hot iron was pressed through his tongue and the brand was +placed on his forehead. He was next sent to Bristol, and publicly +whipped through the principal streets of that city; and again brought +back to the Bridewell prison, where he remained about two years, shut out +from all intercourse with his fellow-beings. At the expiration of this +period, he was released by order of Parliament. In the solitude of his +cell, the angel of patience had been with him. + +Through the cloud which had so long rested over him, the clear light of +truth shone in upon his spirit; the weltering chaos of a disordered +intellect settled into the calm peace of a reconciliation with God and +man. His first act on leaving prison was to visit Bristol, the scene of +his melancholy fall. There he publicly confessed his errors, in the +eloquent earnestness of a contrite spirit, humbled in view of the past, +yet full of thanksgiving and praise for the great boon of forgiveness. A +writer who was present says, the "assembly was tendered, and broken into +tears; there were few dry eyes, and many were bowed in their minds." + +In a paper which he published soon after, he acknowledges his lamentable +delusion. "Condemned forever," he says, "be all those false worships +with which any have idolized my person in that Night of my Temptation, +when the Power of Darkness was above rue; all that did in any way tend to +dishonor the Lord, or draw the minds of any from the measure of Christ +Jesus in themselves, to look at flesh, which is as grass, or to ascribe +that to the visible which belongs to Him. Darkness came over me +through want of watchfulness and obedience to the pure Eye of God. I was +taken captive from the true light; I was walking in the Night, as a +wandering bird fit for a prey. And if the Lord of all my mercies had not +rescued me, I had perished; for I was as one appointed to death and +destruction, and there was none to deliver me." + +"It is in my heart to confess to God, and before men, my folly and +offence in that day; yet there were many things formed against me in +that day, to take away my life and bring scandal upon the truth, of +which I was not guilty at all." "The provocation of that Time of +Temptation was exceeding great against the Lord, yet He left me not; for +when Darkness was above, and the Adversary so prevailed that all things +were turned and perverted against my right seeing, hearing, or +understanding, only a secret hope and faith I had in my God, whom I had +served, that He would bring me through it and to the end of it, and that +I should again see the day of my redemption from under it all,--this +quieted my soul in its greatest tribulation." He concludes his +confession with these words: "He who hath saved my soul from death, who +hath lifted my feet up out of the pit, even to Him be glory forever; and +let every troubled soul trust in Him, for his mercy endureth forever!" + +Among his papers, written soon after his release, is a remarkable prayer, +or rather thanksgiving. The limit I have prescribed to myself will only +allow me to copy an extract:-- + +"It is in my heart to praise Thee, O my God! Let me never forget Thee, +what Thou hast been to me in the night, by Thy presence in my hour of +trial, when I was beset in darkness, when I was cast out as a wandering +bird; when I was assaulted with strong temptations, then Thy presence, in +secret, did preserve me, and in a low state I felt Thee near me; when my +way was through the sea, when I passed under the mountains, there wast +Thou present with me; when the weight of the hills was upon me, Thou +upheldest me. Thou didst fight, on my part, when I wrestled with death; +when darkness would have shut me up, Thy light shone about me; when my +work was in the furnace, and I passed through the fire, by Thee I was not +consumed; when I beheld the dreadful visions, and was among the fiery +spirits, Thy faith staid me, else through fear I had fallen. I saw Thee, +and believed, so that the enemy could not prevail." After speaking of +his humiliation and sufferings, which Divine Mercy had overruled for his +spiritual good, he thus concludes: "Thou didst lift me out from the pit, +and set me forth in the sight of my enemies; Thou proclaimedst liberty to +the captive; Thou calledst my acquaintances near me; they to whom I had +been a wonder looked upon me; and in Thy love I obtained favor with those +who had deserted me. Then did gladness swallow up sorrow, and I forsook +my troubles; and I said, How good is it that man be proved in the night, +that he may know his folly, that every mouth may become silent, until +Thou makest man known unto himself, and has slain the boaster, and shown +him the vanity which vexeth Thy spirit." + +All honor to the Quakers of that day, that, at the risk of +misrepresentation and calumny, they received back to their communion +their greatly erring, but deeply repentant, brother. His life, ever +after, was one of self-denial and jealous watchfulness over himself,-- +blameless and beautiful in its humility and lowly charity. + +Thomas Ellwood, in his autobiography for the year 1659, mentions Nayler, +whom he met in company with Edward Burrough at the house of Milton's +friend, Pennington. Ellwood's father held a discourse with the two +Quakers on their doctrine of free and universal grace. "James Nailer," +says Ellwood, "handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear +demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible. As for +Edward Burrough, he was a brisk young Man, of a ready Tongue, and might +have been for aught I then knew, a Scholar, which made me less admire his +Way of Reasoning. But what dropt from James Nailer had the greater Force +upon me, because he lookt like a simple Countryman, having the appearance +of an Husbandman or Shepherd." + +In the latter part of the eighth month, 1660, be left London on foot, to +visit his wife and children in Wakefield. As he journeyed on, the sense +of a solemn change about to take place seemed with him; the shadow of the +eternal world fell over him. As he passed through Huntingdon, a friend +who saw him describes him as "in an awful and weighty frame of mind, as +if he had been redeemed from earth, and a stranger on it, seeking a +better home and inheritance." A few miles beyond the town, he was found, +in the dusk of the evening, very ill, and was taken to the house of a +friend, who lived not far distant. He died shortly after, expressing his +gratitude for the kindness of his attendants, and invoking blessings upon +them. About two hours before his death, he spoke to the friend at his +bedside these remarkable words, solemn as eternity, and beautiful as the +love which fills it:-- + +"There is a spirit which I feel which delights to do no evil, nor to +avenge any wrong; but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its +own in the end; its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to +weary out all exultation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary +to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in +itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other: if it be betrayed, +it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercy and forgiveness of +God. Its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it +takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by +lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard +it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth +with none to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It +never rejoiceth but through sufferings, for with the world's joy it is +murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein +with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through +death obtained resurrection and eternal Holy Life." + +So died James Nayler. He was buried in "Thomas Parnell's burying-ground, +at King's Rippon," in a green nook of rural England. Wrong and violence, +and temptation and sorrow, and evil-speaking, could reach him no more. +And in taking leave of him, let us say, with old Joseph Wyeth, where he +touches upon this case in his _Anguis Flagellatus_: "Let none insult, but +take heed lest they also, in the hour of their temptation, do fall away." + + + + + + + ANDREW MARVELL + + "They who with a good conscience and an upright heart do their civil + duties in the sight of God, and in their several places, to resist + tyranny and the violence of superstition banded both against them, + will never seek to be forgiven that which may justly be attributed + to their immortal praise."--Answer to Eikon Basilike. + +Among, the great names which adorned the Protectorate,--that period of +intense mental activity, when political and religious rights and duties +were thoroughly discussed by strong and earnest statesmen and +theologians,--that of Andrew Marvell, the friend of Milton, and Latin +Secretary of Cromwell, deserves honorable mention. The magnificent prose +of Milton, long neglected, is now perhaps as frequently read as his great +epic; but the writings of his friend and fellow secretary, devoted like +his own to the cause of freedom and the rights of the people, are +scarcely known to the present generation. It is true that Marvell's +political pamphlets were less elaborate and profound than those of the +author of the glorious _Defence of Unlicensed Printing_. He was light, +playful, witty, and sarcastic; he lacked the stern dignity, the terrible +invective, the bitter scorn, the crushing, annihilating retort, the grand +and solemn eloquence, and the devout appeals, which render immortal the +controversial works of Milton. But he, too, has left his foot-prints on +his age; he, too, has written for posterity that which they "will not +willingly let die." As one of the inflexible defenders of English +liberty, sowers of the seed, the fruits of which we are now reaping, he +has a higher claim on the kind regards of this generation than his merits +as a poet, by no means inconsiderable, would warrant. + +Andrew Marvell was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, in 1620. At the age of +eighteen he entered Trinity College, whence he was enticed by the +Jesuits, then actively seeking proselytes. After remaining with them a +short time, his father found him, and brought him back to his studies. +On leaving college, he travelled on the Continent. At Rome he wrote his +first satire, a humorous critique upon Richard Flecknoe, an English +Jesuit and verse writer, whose lines on Silence Charles Lamb quotes in +one of his Essays. It is supposed that he made his first acquaintance +with Milton in Italy. + +At Paris he made the Abbot de Manihan the subject of another satire. The +Abbot pretended to skill in the arts of magic, and used to prognosticate +the fortunes of people from the character of their handwriting. At what +period he returned from his travels we are not aware. It is stated, by +some of his biographers, that he was sent as secretary of a Turkish +mission. In 1653, he was appointed the tutor of Cromwell's nephew; and, +four years after, doubtless through the instrumentality of his friend +Milton, he received the honorable appointment of Latin Secretary of the +Commonwealth. In 1658, he was selected by his townsmen of Hull to +represent them in Parliament. In this service he continued until 1663, +when, notwithstanding his sturdy republican principles, he was appointed +secretary to the Russian embassy. On his return, in 1665, he was again +elected to Parliament, and continued in the public service until the +prorogation of the Parliament of 1675. + +The boldness, the uncompromising integrity and irreproachable consistency +of Marvell, as a statesman, have secured for him the honorable +appellation of "the British Aristides." Unlike too many of his old +associates under the Protectorate, he did not change with the times. He +was a republican in Cromwell's day, and neither threats of assassination, +nor flatteries, nor proffered bribes, could make him anything else in +that of Charles II. He advocated the rights of the people at a time when +patriotism was regarded as ridiculous folly; when a general corruption, +spreading downwards from a lewd and abominable Court, had made +legislation a mere scramble for place and emolument. English history +presents no period so disgraceful as the Restoration. To use the words +of Macaulay, it was "a day of servitude without loyalty and sensuality +without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of +cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, +and the slave. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every +grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean." It +is the peculiar merit of Milton and Marvell, that in such an age they +held fast their integrity, standing up in glorious contrast with clerical +apostates and traitors to the cause of England's liberty. + +In the discharge of his duties as a statesman Marvell was as punctual and +conscientious as our own venerable Apostle of Freedom, John Quincy Adams. +He corresponded every post with his constituents, keeping them fully +apprised of all that transpired at Court or in Parliament. He spoke but +seldom, but his great personal influence was exerted privately upon the +members of the Commons as well as upon the Peers. His wit, accomplished +manners, and literary eminence made him a favorite at the Court itself. +The voluptuous and careless monarch laughed over the biting satire of the +republican poet, and heartily enjoyed his lively conversation. It is +said that numerous advances were made to him by the courtiers of Charles +II., but he was found to be incorruptible. The personal compliments of +the King, the encomiums of Rochester, the smiles and flatteries of the +frail but fair and high-born ladies of the Court; nay, even the golden +offers of the King's treasurer, who, climbing with difficulty to his +obscure retreat on an upper floor of a court in the Strand, laid a +tempting bribe of L1,000 before him, on the very day when he had been +compelled to borrow a guinea, were all lost upon the inflexible patriot. +He stood up manfully, in an age of persecution, for religious liberty, +opposed the oppressive excise, and demanded frequent Parliaments and a +fair representation of the people. + +In 1672, Marvell engaged in a controversy with the famous High-Churchman, +Dr. Parker, who had taken the lead in urging the persecution of Non- +conformists. In one of the works of this arrogant divine, he says that +"it is absolutely necessary to the peace and government of the world that +the supreme magistrate should be vested with power to govern and conduct +the consciences of subjects in affairs of religion. Princes may with +less hazard give liberty to men's vices and debaucheries than to their +consciences." And, speaking of the various sects of Non-conformists, he +counsels princes and legislators that "tenderness and indulgence to such +men is to nourish vipers in their own bowels, and the most sottish +neglect of our quiet and security." Marvell replied to him in a severely +satirical pamphlet, which provoked a reply from the Doctor. Marvell +rejoined, with a rare combination of wit and argument. The effect of his +sarcasm on the Doctor and his supporters may be inferred from an +anonymous note sent him, in which the writer threatens by the eternal God +to cut his throat, if he uttered any more libels upon Dr. Parker. Bishop +Burnet remarks that "Marvell writ in a burlesque strain, but with so +peculiar and so entertaining a conduct 'that from the King down to the +tradesman his books were read with great pleasure, and not only humbled +Parker, but his whole party, for Marvell had all the wits on his side.'" +The Bishop further remarks that Marvell's satire "gave occasion to the +only piece of modesty with which Dr. Parker was ever charged, namely, of +withdrawing from town, and not importuning the press for some years, +since even a face of brass must grow red when it is burnt as his has +been." + +Dean Swift, in commenting upon the usual fate of controversial pamphlets, +which seldom live beyond their generation, says: "There is indeed an +exception, when a great genius undertakes to expose a foolish piece; so +we still read Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book +it answers be sunk long ago." + +Perhaps, in the entire compass of our language, there is not to be found +a finer piece of satirical writing than Marvell's famous parody of the +speeches of Charles II., in which the private vices and public +inconsistencies of the King, and his gross violations of his pledges on +coming to the throne, are exposed with the keenest wit and the most +laugh-provoking irony. Charles himself, although doubtless annoyed by +it, could not refrain from joining in the mirth which it excited at his +expense. + +The friendship between Marvell and Milton remained firm and unbroken to +the last. The former exerted himself to save his illustrious friend from +persecution, and omitted no opportunity to defend him as a politician and +to eulogize him as a poet. In 1654 he presented to Cromwell Milton's +noble tract in _Defence of the People of England_, and, in writing to the +author, says of the work, "When I consider how equally it teems and rises +with so many figures, it seems to me a Trajan's column, in whose winding +ascent we see embossed the several monuments of your learned victories." +He was one of the first to appreciate _Paradise Lost_, and to commend it +in some admirable lines. One couplet is exceedingly beautiful, in its +reference to the author's blindness:-- + + "Just Heaven, thee like Tiresias to requite, + Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight." + +His poems, written in the "snatched leisure" of an active political life, +bear marks of haste, and are very unequal. In the midst of passages of +pastoral description worthy of Milton himself, feeble lines and hackneyed +phrases occur. His _Nymph lamenting the Death of her Fawn_ is a finished +and elaborate piece, full of grace and tenderness. _Thoughts in a +Garden_ will be remembered by the quotations of that exquisite critic, +Charles Lamb. How pleasant is this picture! + + "What wondrous life is this I lead! + Ripe apples drop about my head; + The luscious clusters of the vine + Upon my mouth do crush their wine; + The nectarine and curious peach + Into my hands themselves do reach; + Stumbling on melons as I pass, + Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. + + "Here at this fountain's sliding foot, + Or at the fruit-tree's mossy root, + Casting the body's vest aside, + My soul into the boughs does glide. + There like a bird it sits and sings, + And whets and claps its silver wings; + And, till prepared for longer flight, + Waves in its plumes the various light. + + "How well the skilful gard'ner drew + Of flowers and herbs this dial true! + Where, from above, the milder sun + Does through a fragrant zodiac run; + And, as it works, the industrious bee + Computes his time as well as we. + How could such sweet and wholesome hours + Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!" + + +One of his longer poems, _Appleton House_, contains passages of admirable +description, and many not unpleasing conceits. Witness the following:-- + + "Thus I, an easy philosopher, + Among the birds and trees confer, + And little now to make me wants, + Or of the fowl or of the plants. + Give me but wings, as they, and I + Straight floating on the air shall fly; + Or turn me but, and you shall see + I am but an inverted tree. + Already I begin to call + In their most learned original; + And, where I language want, my signs + The bird upon the bough divines. + No leaf does tremble in the wind, + Which I returning cannot find. + Out of these scattered Sibyl's leaves, + Strange prophecies my fancy weaves: + What Rome, Greece, Palestine, e'er said, + I in this light Mosaic read. + Under this antic cope I move, + Like some great prelate of the grove; + Then, languishing at ease, I toss + On pallets thick with velvet moss; + While the wind, cooling through the boughs, + Flatters with air my panting brows. + Thanks for my rest, ye mossy banks! + And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks! + Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed, + And winnow from the chaff my head. + How safe, methinks, and strong behind + These trees have I encamped my mind!" + +Here is a picture of a piscatorial idler and his trout stream, worthy of +the pencil of Izaak Walton:-- + + "See in what wanton harmless folds + It everywhere the meadow holds: + Where all things gaze themselves, and doubt + If they be in it or without; + And for this shade, which therein shines + Narcissus-like, the sun too pines. + Oh! what a pleasure 't is to hedge + My temples here in heavy sedge; + Abandoning my lazy side, + Stretched as a bank unto the tide; + Or, to suspend my sliding foot + On the osier's undermining root, + And in its branches tough to hang, + While at my lines the fishes twang." + +A little poem of Marvell's, which he calls Eyes and Tears, has the +following passages:-- + + "How wisely Nature did agree + With the same eyes to weep and see! + That having viewed the object vain, + They might be ready to complain. + And, since the self-deluding sight + In a false angle takes each height, + These tears, which better measure all, + Like watery lines and plummets fall." + + "Happy are they whom grief doth bless, + That weep the more, and see the less; + And, to preserve their sight more true, + Bathe still their eyes in their own dew; + So Magdalen, in tears more wise, + Dissolved those captivating eyes, + Whose liquid chains could, flowing, meet + To fetter her Redeemer's feet. + The sparkling glance, that shoots desire, + Drenched in those tears, does lose its fire; + Yea, oft the Thunderer pity takes, + And there his hissing lightning slakes. + The incense is to Heaven dear, + Not as a perfume, but a tear; + And stars shine lovely in the night, + But as they seem the tears of light. + Ope, then, mine eyes, your double sluice, + And practise so your noblest use; + For others, too, can see or sleep, + But only human eyes can weep." + +The Bermuda Emigrants has some happy lines, as the following:-- + + "He hangs in shade the orange bright, + Like golden lamps in a green night." + +Or this, which doubtless suggested a couplet in Moore's _Canadian Boat +Song_:-- + + "And all the way, to guide the chime, + With falling oars they kept the time." + +His facetious and burlesque poetry was much admired in his day; but a +great portion of it referred to persons and events no longer of general +interest. The satire on Holland is an exception. There is nothing in +its way superior to it in our language. Many of his best pieces were +originally written in Latin, and afterwards translated by himself. There +is a splendid Ode to Cromwell--a worthy companion of Milton's glorious +sonnet--which is not generally known, and which we transfer entire to our +pages. Its simple dignity and the melodious flow of its versification +commend themselves more to our feelings than its eulogy of war. It is +energetic and impassioned, and probably affords a better idea of the +author, as an actor in the stirring drama of his time, than the "soft +Lydian airs" of the poems that we have quoted. + + + AN HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND. + + The forward youth that would appear + Must now forsake his Muses dear; + Nor in the shadows sing + His numbers languishing. + + 'T is time to leave the books in dust, + And oil the unused armor's rust; + Removing from the wall + The corslet of the hall. + + So restless Cromwell could not cease + In the inglorious arts of peace, + But through adventurous war + Urged his active star. + + And, like the three-forked lightning, first + Breaking the clouds wherein it nurst, + Did thorough his own side + His fiery way divide. + + For 't is all one to courage high, + The emulous, or enemy; + And with such to enclose + Is more than to oppose. + + Then burning through the air he went, + And palaces and temples rent; + And Caesar's head at last + Did through his laurels blast. + + 'T is madness to resist or blame + The face of angry Heaven's flame; + And, if we would speak true, + Much to the man is due, + + Who, from his private gardens, where + He lived reserved and austere, + (As if his highest plot + To plant the bergamot,) + + Could by industrious valor climb + To ruin the great work of time, + And cast the kingdoms old + Into another mould! + + Though justice against fate complain, + And plead the ancient rights in vain,-- + But those do hold or break, + As men are strong or weak. + + Nature, that hateth emptiness, + Allows of penetration less, + And therefore must make room + Where greater spirits come. + + What field of all the civil war, + Where his were not the deepest scar? + And Hampton shows what part + He had of wiser art; + + Where, twining subtle fears with hope, + He wove a net of such a scope, + That Charles himself might chase + To Carisbrook's narrow case; + + That hence the royal actor borne, + The tragic scaffold might adorn, + While round the armed bands + Did clap their bloody hands. + + HE nothing common did or mean + Upon that memorable scene, + But with his keener eye + The axe's edge did try + + Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, + To vindicate his helpless right! + But bowed his comely head, + Down, as upon a bed. + + This was that memorable hour, + Which first assured the forced power; + So when they did design + The Capitol's first line, + + A bleeding head, where they begun, + Did fright the architects to run; + And yet in that the state + Foresaw its happy fate. + + And now the Irish are ashamed + To see themselves in one year tamed; + So much one man can do, + That does best act and know. + + They can affirm his praises best, + And have, though overcome, confest + How good he is, how just, + And fit for highest trust. + + Nor yet grown stiffer by command, + But still in the Republic's hand, + How fit he is to sway + That can so well obey. + + He to the Commons' feet presents + A kingdom for his first year's rents, + And, what he may, forbears + His fame to make it theirs. + + And has his sword and spoils ungirt, + To lay them at the public's skirt; + So when the falcon high + Falls heavy from the sky, + + She, having killed, no more does search, + But on the next green bough to perch, + Where, when he first does lure, + The falconer has her sure. + + What may not, then, our isle presume, + While Victory his crest does plume? + What may not others fear, + + If thus he crowns each year? + + As Caesar, he, erelong, to Gaul; + To Italy as Hannibal, + And to all states not free + Shall climacteric be. + + The Pict no shelter now shall find + Within his parti-contoured mind; + But from his valor sad + Shrink underneath the plaid, + + Happy if in the tufted brake + The English hunter him mistake, + Nor lay his hands a near + The Caledonian deer. + + But thou, the war's and fortune's son, + March indefatigably on; + And, for the last effect, + Still keep the sword erect. + + Besides the force, it has to fright + The spirits of the shady night + The same arts that did gain + A power, must it maintain. + + +Marvell was never married. The modern critic, who affirms that bachelors +have done the most to exalt women into a divinity, might have quoted his +extravagant panegyric of Maria Fairfax as an apt illustration:-- + + "'T is she that to these gardens gave + The wondrous beauty which they have; + She straitness on the woods bestows, + To her the meadow sweetness owes; + Nothing could make the river be + So crystal pure but only she,-- + She, yet more pure, sweet, strait, and fair, + Than gardens, woods, meals, rivers are + Therefore, what first she on them spent + They gratefully again present: + The meadow carpets where to tread, + The garden flowers to crown her head, + And for a glass the limpid brook + Where she may all her beauties look; + But, since she would not have them seen, + The wood about her draws a screen; + For she, to higher beauty raised, + Disdains to be for lesser praised; + She counts her beauty to converse + In all the languages as hers, + Nor yet in those herself employs, + But for the wisdom, not the noise, + Nor yet that wisdom could affect, + But as 't is Heaven's dialect." + +It has been the fashion of a class of shallow Church and State defenders +to ridicule the great men of the Commonwealth, the sturdy republicans of +England, as sour-featured, hard-hearted ascetics, enemies of the fine +arts and polite literature. The works of Milton and Marvell, the prose- +poem of Harrington, and the admirable discourses of Algernon Sydney are a +sufficient answer to this accusation. To none has it less application +than to the subject of our sketch. He was a genial, warmhearted man, an +elegant scholar, a finished gentleman at home, and the life of every +circle which he entered, whether that of the gay court of Charles II., +amidst such men as Rochester and L'Estrange, or that of the republican +philosophers who assembled at Miles's Coffee House, where he discussed +plans of a free representative government with the author of Oceana, and +Cyriack Skinner, that friend of Milton, whom the bard has immortalized in +the sonnet which so pathetically, yet heroically, alludes to his own +blindness. Men of all parties enjoyed his wit and graceful conversation. +His personal appearance was altogether in his favor. A clear, dark, +Spanish complexion, long hair of jetty blackness falling in graceful +wreaths to his shoulders, dark eyes, full of expression and fire, a +finely chiselled chin, and a mouth whose soft voluptuousness scarcely +gave token of the steady purpose and firm will of the inflexible +statesman: these, added to the prestige of his genius, and the respect +which a lofty, self-sacrificing patriotism extorts even from those who +would fain corrupt and bribe it, gave him a ready passport to the +fashionable society of the metropolis. He was one of the few who mingled +in that society, and escaped its contamination, and who, + + "Amidst the wavering days of sin, + Kept himself icy chaste and pure." + +The tone and temper of his mind may be most fitly expressed in his own +paraphrase of Horace:-- + + "Climb at Court for me that will, + Tottering Favor's pinnacle; + All I seek is to lie still! + Settled in some secret nest, + In calm leisure let me rest; + And, far off the public stage, + Pass away my silent age. + Thus, when, without noise, unknown, + I have lived out all my span, + I shall die without a groan, + An old, honest countryman. + Who, exposed to other's eyes, + Into his own heart ne'er pries, + Death's to him a strange surprise." + +He died suddenly in 1678, while in attendance at a popular meeting of his +old constituents at Hull. His health had previously been remarkably +good; and it was supposed by many that he was poisoned by some of his +political or clerical enemies. His monument, erected by his grateful +constituency, bears the following inscription:-- + + "Near this place lyeth the body of Andrew Marvell, Esq., a man so + endowed by Nature, so improved by Education, Study, and Travel, so + consummated by Experience, that, joining the peculiar graces of Wit + and Learning, with a singular penetration and strength of judgment; + and exercising all these in the whole course of his life, with an + unutterable steadiness in the ways of Virtue, he became the ornament + and example of his age, beloved by good men, feared by bad, admired + by all, though imitated by few; and scarce paralleled by any. But a + Tombstone can neither contain his character, nor is Marble necessary + to transmit it to posterity; it is engraved in the minds of this + generation, and will be always legible in his inimitable writings, + nevertheless. He having served twenty years successfully in + Parliament, and that with such Wisdom, Dexterity, and Courage, as + becomes a true Patriot, the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, from whence + he was deputed to that Assembly, lamenting in his death the public + loss, have erected this Monument of their Grief and their Gratitude, + 1688." + +Thus lived and died Andrew Marvell. His memory is the inheritance of +Americans as well as Englishmen. His example commends itself in an +especial manner to the legislators of our Republic. Integrity and +fidelity to principle are as greatly needed at this time in our halls of +Congress as in the Parliaments of the Restoration; men are required who +can feel, with Milton, that "it is high honor done them from God, and a +special mark of His favor, to have been selected to stand upright and +steadfast in His cause, dignified with the defence of Truth and public +liberty." + + + + + + JOHN ROBERTS. + +Thomas Carlyle, in his history of the stout and sagacious Monk of St. +Edmunds, has given us a fine picture of the actual life of Englishmen in +the middle centuries. The dim cell-lamp of the somewhat apocryphal +Jocelin of Brakelond becomes in his hands a huge Drummond-light, shining +over the Dark Ages like the naphtha-fed cressets over Pandemonium, +proving, as he says in his own quaint way, that "England in the year 1200 +was no dreamland, but a green, solid place, which grew corn and several +other things; the sun shone on it; the vicissitudes of seasons and human +fortunes were there; cloth was woven, ditches dug, fallow fields +ploughed, and houses built." And if, as the writer just quoted insists, +it is a matter of no small importance to make it credible to the present +generation that the Past is not a confused dream of thrones and battle- +fields, creeds and constitutions, but a reality, substantial as hearth +and home, harvest-field and smith-shop, merry-making and death, could +make it, we shall not wholly waste our time and that of our readers in +inviting them to look with us at the rural life of England two centuries +ago, through the eyes of John Roberts and his worthy son, Daniel, yeomen, +of Siddington, near Cirencester. + +_The Memoirs of John Roberts, alias Haywood, by his son, Daniel Roberts_, +(the second edition, printed verbatim from the original one, with its +picturesque array of italics and capital letters,) is to be found only in +a few of our old Quaker libraries. It opens with some account of the +family. The father of the elder Roberts "lived reputably, on a little +estate of his own," and it is mentioned as noteworthy that he married a +sister of a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace. Coming of age +about the beginning of the civil wars, John and one of his young +neighbors enlisted in the service of Parliament. Hearing that +Cirencester had been taken by the King's forces, they obtained leave of +absence to visit their friends, for whose safety they naturally felt +solicitous. The following account of the reception they met with from +the drunken and ferocious troopers of Charles I., the "bravos of Alsatia +and the pages of Whitehall," throws a ghastly light upon the horrors of +civil war:-- + +"As they were passing by Cirencester, they were discovered, and pursued +by two soldiers of the King's party, then in possession of the town. +Seeing themselves pursued, they quitted their horses, and took to their +heels; but, by reason of their accoutrements, could make little speed. +They came up with my father first; and, though he begged for quarter, +none they would give him, but laid on him with their swords, cutting and +slashing his hands and arms, which he held up to save his head; as the +marks upon them did long after testify. At length it pleased the +Almighty to put it into his mind to fall down on his face; which he did. +Hereupon the soldiers, being on horseback, cried to each other, _Alight, +and cut his throat_! but neither of them did; yet continued to strike and +prick him about the jaws, till they thought him dead. Then they left +him, and pursued his neighbor, whom they presently overtook and killed. +Soon after they had left my father, it was said in his heart, _Rise, and +flee for thy life_! which call he obeyed; and, starting upon his feet, +his enemies espied him in motion, and pursued him again. He ran down a +steep hill, and through a river which ran at the bottom of it; though +with exceeding difficulty, his boots filling with water, and his wounds +bleeding very much. They followed him to the top of the hill; but, +seeing he had got over, pursued him no farther." + +The surgeon who attended him was a Royalist, and bluntly told his +bleeding patient that if he had met him in the street he would have +killed him himself, but now he was willing to cure him. On his recovery, +young Roberts again entered the army, and continued in it until the +overthrow, of the Monarchy. On his return, he married "Lydia Tindall, +of the denomination of Puritans." A majestic figure rises before us, +on reading the statement that Sir Matthew Hale, afterwards Lord Chief +Justice of England, the irreproachable jurist and judicial saint, was +"his wife's kinsman, and drew her marriage settlement." + +No stronger testimony to the high-toned morality and austere virtue of +the Puritan yeomanry of England can be adduced than the fact that, of the +fifty thousand soldiers who were discharged on the accession of Charles +II., and left to shift for themselves, comparatively few, if any, became +chargeable to their parishes, although at that very time one out of six +of the English population were unable to support themselves. They +carried into their farm-fields and workshops the strict habits of +Cromwell's discipline; and, in toiling to repair their wasted fortunes, +they manifested the same heroic fortitude and self-denial which in war +had made them such formidable and efficient "Soldiers of the Lord." With +few exceptions, they remained steadfast in their uncompromising non- +conformity, abhorring Prelacy and Popery, and entertaining no very +orthodox notions with respect to the divine right of Kings. From them +the Quakers drew their most zealous champions; men who, in renouncing the +"carnal weapons" of their old service, found employment for habitual +combativeness in hot and wordy sectarian warfare. To this day the +vocabulary of Quakerism abounds in the military phrases and figures which +were in use in the Commonwealth's time. Their old force and significance +are now in a great measure lost; but one can well imagine that, in the +assemblies of the primitive Quakers, such stirring battle-cries and +warlike tropes, even when employed in enforcing or illustrating the +doctrines of peace, must have made many a stout heart' to beat quicker, +tinder its drab coloring, with recollections of Naseby and Preston; +transporting many a listener from the benches of his place of worship to +the ranks of Ireton and Lambert, and causing him to hear, in the place of +the solemn and nasal tones of the preacher, the blast of Rupert's bugles, +and the answering shout of Cromwell's pikemen: "Let God arise, and let +his enemies be scattered!" + +Of this class was John Roberts. He threw off his knapsack, and went back +to his small homestead, contented with the privilege of supporting +himself and family by daily toil, and grumbling in concert with his old +campaign brothers at the new order of things in Church and State. To his +apprehension, the Golden Days of England ended with the parade on +Blackheath to receive the restored King. He manifested no reverence for +Bishops and Lords, for he felt none. For the Presbyterians he had no +good will; they had brought in the King, and they denied the liberty of +prophesying. John Milton has expressed the feeling of the Independents +and Anabaptists towards this latter class, in that famous line in which +he defines Presbyter as "old priest writ large." Roberts was by no means +a gloomy fanatic; he had a great deal of shrewdness and humor, loved a +quiet joke; and every gambling priest and swearing magistrate in the +neighborhood stood in fear of his sharp wit. It was quite in course for +such a man to fall in with the Quakers, and he appears to have done so at +the first opportunity. + +In the year 1665, "it pleased the Lord to send two women Friends out of +the North to Cirencester," who, inquiring after such as feared God, were +directed to the house of John Roberts. He received them kindly, and, +inviting in some of his neighbors, sat down with them, whereupon "the +Friends spake a few words, which had a good effect." After the meeting +was over, he was induced to visit a "Friend" then confined in Banbury +jail, whom he found preaching through the grates of his cell to the +people in the street. On seeing Roberts he called to mind the story of +Zaccheus, and declared that the word was now to all who were seeking +Christ by climbing the tree of knowledge, "Come down, come down; for that +which is to be known of God is manifested within." Returning home, he +went soon after to the parish meeting-house, and, entering with his hat +on, the priest noticed him, and, stopping short in his discourse, +declared that he could not go on while one of the congregation wore his +hat. He was thereupon led out of the house, and a rude fellow, stealing +up behind, struck him on the back with a heavy stone. "Take that for +God's sake," said the ruffian. "So I do," answered Roberts, without +looking back to see his assailant, who the next day came and asked his +forgiveness for the injury, as he could not sleep in consequence of it. + +We next find him attending the Quarter Sessions, where three "Friends" +were arraigned for entering Cirencester Church with their hats on. +Venturing to utter a word of remonstrance against the summary proceedings +of the Court, Justice Stephens demanded his name, and, on being told, +exclaimed, in the very tone and temper of Jeffreys: + +I 've heard of you. I'm glad I have you here. You deserve a stone +doublet. There's many an honester man than you hanged." + +"It may be so," said Roberts, "but what becomes of such as hang honest +men?" + +The Justice snatched a ball of wax and hurled it at the quiet questioner. +"I 'll send you to prison," said he; "and if any insurrection or tumult +occurs, I 'll come and cut your throat with my own sword." A warrant was +made out, and he was forthwith sent to the jail. In the evening, Justice +Sollis, his uncle, released him, on condition of his promise to appear at +the next Sessions. He returned to his home, but in the night following +be was impressed with a belief that it was his duty to visit Justice +Stephens. Early in the morning, with a heavy heart, without eating or +drinking, he mounted his horse and rode towards the residence of his +enemy. When he came in sight of the house, he felt strong misgivings +that his uncle, Justice Sollis, who had so kindly released him, and his +neighbors generally, would condemn him for voluntarily running into +danger, and drawing down trouble upon himself and family. He alighted +from his horse, and sat on the ground in great doubt and sorrow, when a +voice seemed to speak within him, "Go, and I will go with thee." The +Justice met him at the door. "I am come," said Roberts, "in the fear +and dread of Heaven, to warn thee to repent of thy wickedness with speed, +lest the Lord send thee to the pit that is bottomless!" This terrible +summons awed the Justice; he made Roberts sit down on his couch beside +him, declaring that he received the message from God, and asked +forgiveness for the wrong he had done him. + +The parish vicar of Siddington at this time was George Bull, afterwards +Bishop of St. David's, whom Macaulay speaks of as the only rural parish +priest who, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, was noted +as a theologian, or Who possessed a respectable library. Roberts refused +to pay the vicar his tithes, and the vicar sent him to prison. It was +the priest's "Short Method with Dissenters." While the sturdy Non- +conformist lay in prison, he was visited by the great woman of the +neighborhood, Lady Dunch, of Down Amney. "What do you lie in jail for?" +inquired the lady. Roberts replied that it was because he could not put +bread into the mouth of a hireling priest. The lady suggested that he +might let somebody else satisfy the demands of the priest; and that she +had a mind to do this herself, as she wished to talk with him on +religious subjects. To this Roberts objected; there were poor people who +needed her charities, which would be wasted on such devourers as the +priests, who, like Pharaoh's lean kine, were eating up the fat and the +goodly, without looking a whit the better. But the lady, who seems to +have been pleased and amused by the obstinate prisoner, paid the tithe +and the jail fees, and set him at liberty, making him fix a day when he +would visit her. At the time appointed he went to Down Amney, and was +overtaken on the way by the priest of Cirencester, who had been sent for +to meet the Quaker. They found the lady ill in bed; but she had them +brought to her chamber, being determined not to lose the amusement of +hearing a theological discussion, to which she at once urged them, +declaring that it would divert her and do her good. The parson began by +accusing the Quakers of holding Popish doctrines. The Quaker retorted +by telling him that if he would prove the Quakers like the Papists in one +thing, by the help of God, he would prove him like them in ten. After a +brief and sharp dispute, the priest, finding his adversary's wit too keen +for his comfort, hastily took his leave. + +The next we hear of Roberts he is in Gloucester Castle, subjected to the +brutal usage of a jailer, who took a malicious satisfaction in thrusting +decent and respectable Dissenters, imprisoned for matters of conscience, +among felons and thieves. A poor vagabond tinker was hired to play at +night on his hautboy, and prevent their sleeping; but Roberts spoke to +him in such a manner that the instrument fell from his hand; and he told +the jailer that he would play no more, though he should hang him up at +the door for it. + +How he was released from jail does not appear; but the narrative tells us +that some time after an apparitor came to cite him to the Bishop's Court +at Gloucester. When he was brought before the Court, Bishop Nicholson, a +kind-hearted and easy-natured prelate, asked him the number of his +children, and how many of them had been _bishoped_? + +"None, that I know of," said Roberts. + +"What reason," asked the Bishop, "do you give for this?" + +"A very good one," said the Quaker: "most of my children were born in +Oliver's days, when Bishops were out of fashion." + +The Bishop and the Court laughed at this sally, and proceeded to question +him touching his views of baptism. Roberts admitted that John had a +Divine commission to baptize with water, but that he never heard of +anybody else that had. The Bishop reminded him that Christ's disciples +baptized. "What 's that to me?" responded Roberts. "Paul says he was +not sent to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. And if he was not sent, +who required it at his hands? Perhaps he had as little thanks for his +labor as thou hast for thine; and I would willingly know who sent thee to +baptize?" + +The Bishop evaded this home question, and told him he was there to answer +for not coming to church. Roberts denied the charge; sometimes he went +to church, and sometimes it came to him. "I don't call that a church +which you do, which is made of wood and stone." + +"What do you call it?" asked the Bishop. + +"It might be properly called a mass-house," was the reply; "for it was +built for that purpose." The Bishop here told him he might go for the +present; he would take another opportunity to convince him of his errors. + +The next person called was a Baptist minister, who, seeing that Roberts +refused to put off his hat, kept on his also. The Bishop sternly +reminded him that he stood before the King's Court, and the +representative of the majesty of England; and that, while some regard +might be had to the scruples of men who made a conscience of putting off +the hat, such contempt could not be tolerated on the part of one who +could put it off to every mechanic be met. The Baptist pulled off his +hat, and apologized, on the ground of illness. + +We find Roberts next following George Fox on a visit to Bristol. On his +return, reaching his house late in the evening, he saw a man standing in +the moonlight at his door, and knew him to be a bailiff. + +"Hast thou anything against me?" asked Roberts. + +"No," said the bailiff, "I've wronged you enough, God forgive me! Those +who lie in wait for you are my Lord Bishop's bailiffs; they are merciless +rogues. Ever, my master, while you live, please a knave, for an honest +man won't hurt you." + +The next morning, having, as he thought, been warned by a dream to do so, +he went to the Bishop's house at Cleave, near Gloucester. Confronting +the Bishop in his own hall, he told him that he had come to know why he +was hunting after him with his bailiffs, and why he was his adversary. +"The King is your adversary," said the Bishop; "you have broken the +King's law." Roberts ventured to deny the justice of the law. "What!" +cried the Bishop, "do such men as you find fault with the laws?" "Yes," +replied the other, stoutly; "and I tell thee plainly to thy face, it is +high time wiser men were chosen, to make better laws." + +The discourse turning upon the Book of Common Prayer, Roberts asked the +Bishop if the sin of idolatry did not consist in worshipping the work of +men's hands. The Bishop admitted it, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar's +image. + +"Then," said Roberts, "whose hands made your Prayer Book? It could not +make itself." + +"Do you compare our Prayer Book to Nebuchadnezzar's image?" cried the +Bishop. + +"Yes," returned Roberts, "that was his image; this is thine. I no more +dare bow to thy Common-Prayer Book than the Three Children to +Nebuchadnezzar's image." + +"Yours is a strange upstart religion," said the Bishop. + +Roberts told him it was older than his by several hundred years. At this +claim of antiquity the prelate was greatly amused, and told Roberts that +if he would make out his case, he should speed the better for it. + +"Let me ask thee," said Roberts, "where thy religion was in Oliver's +days, when thy Common-Prayer Book was as little regarded as an old +almanac, and your priests, with a few honest exceptions, turned with the +tide, and if Oliver had put mass in their mouths would have conformed to +it for the sake of their bellies." + +"What would you have us do?" asked the Bishop. "Would you have had +Oliver cut our throats?" + +"No," said Roberts; "but what sort of religion was that which you were +afraid to venture your throats for?" + +The Bishop interrupted him to say, that in Oliver's days he had never +owned any other religion than his own, although he did not dare to openly +maintain it as he then did. + +"Well," continued Roberts, "if thou didst not think thy religion worth +venturing thy throat for then, I desire thee to consider that it is not +worth the cutting of other men's throats now for not conforming to it." + +"You are right," responded the frank Bishop. "I hope we shall have a +care how we cut men's throats." + +The following colloquy throws some light on the condition and character +of the rural clergy at this period, and goes far to confirm the +statements of Macaulay, which many have supposed exaggerated. Baxter's +early religious teachers were more exceptionable than even the maudlin +mummer whom Roberts speaks of, one of them being "the excellentest stage- +player in all the country, and a good gamester and goodfellow, who, +having received Holy Orders, forged the like for a neighbor's son, who on +the strength of that title officiated at the desk and altar; and after +him came an attorney's clerk, who had tippled himself into so great +poverty that he had no other way to live than to preach." + +J. ROBERTS. I was bred up under a Common-Prayer Priest; and a poor +drunken old Man he was. Sometimes he was so drunk he could not say his +Prayers, and at best he could but say them; though I think he was by far +a better Man than he that is Priest there now. + +BISHOP. Who is your Minister now? + +J. ROBERTS. My Minister is Christ Jesus, the Minister of the everlasting +Covenant; but the present Priest of the Parish is George Bull. + +BISHOP. Do you say that drunken old Man was better than Mr. Bull? I +tell you, I account Mr. Bull as sound, able, and orthodox a Divine as any +we have among us. + +J. ROBERT. I am sorry for that; for if he be one of the best of you, I +believe the Lord will not suffer you long; for he is a proud, ambitious, +ungodly Man: he hath often sued me at Law, and brought his Servants to +swear against me wrongfully. His Servants themselves have confessed to +my Servants, that I might have their Ears; for their Master made them +drunk, and then told them they were set down in the List as Witnesses +against me, and they must swear to it: And so they did, and brought +treble Damages. They likewise owned they took Tithes from my Servants, +threshed them out, and sold them for their Master. They have also +several Times took my Cattle out of my Grounds, drove them to Fairs and +Markets, and sold them, without giving me any Account. + +BISHOP. I do assure you I will inform Mr. Bull of what you say. + +J. ROBERTS. Very well. And if thou pleasest to send for me to face him, +I shall make much more appear to his Face than I'll say behind his Back. + +After much more discourse, Roberts told the Bishop that if it would do +him any good to have him in jail, he would voluntarily go and deliver +himself up to the keeper of Gloucester Castle. The good-natured prelate +relented at this, and said he should not be molested or injured, and +further manifested his good will by ordering refreshments. One of the +Bishop's friends who was present was highly offended by the freedom of +Roberts with his Lordship, and undertook to rebuke him, but was so +readily answered that he flew into a rage. "If all the Quakers in +England," said he, "are not hanged in a month's time, I 'll be hanged for +them." "Prithee, friend," quoth Roberts, "remember and be as good as thy +word!" + +Good old Bishop Nicholson, it would seem, really liked his incorrigible +Quaker neighbor, and could enjoy heartily his wit and humor, even when +exercised at the expense of his own ecclesiastical dignity. He admired +his blunt honesty and courage. Surrounded by flatterers and self- +seekers, he found satisfaction in the company and conversation of one +who, setting aside all conventionalisms, saw only in my Lord Bishop a +poor fellow-probationer, and addressed him on terms of conscious +equality. The indulgence which he extended to him naturally enough +provoked many of the inferior clergy, who had been sorely annoyed by the +sturdy Dissenter's irreverent witticisms and unsparing ridicule. Vicar +Bull, of Siddington, and Priest Careless, of Cirencester, in particular, +urged the Bishop to deal sharply with him. The former accused him of +dealing in the Black Art, and filled the Bishop's ear with certain +marvellous stories of his preternatural sagacity and discernment in +discovering cattle which were lost. The Bishop took occasion to inquire +into these stories; and was told by Roberts that, except in a single +instance, the discoveries were the result of his acquaintance with the +habits of animals and his knowledge of the localities where they were +lost. The circumstance alluded to, as an exception, will be best related +in his own words. + +"I had a poor Neighbor, who had a Wife and six Children, and whom the +chief men about us permitted to keep six or seven Cows upon the Waste, +which were the principal Support of the Family, and preserved them from +becoming chargeable to the Parish. One very stormy night the Cattle were +left in the Yard as usual, but could not be found in the morning. The +Man and his Sons had sought them to no purpose; and, after they had been +lost four days, his Wife came to me, and, in a great deal of grief, +cried, 'O Lord! Master Hayward, we are undone! My Husband and I must go +a begging in our old age! We have lost all our Cows. My Husband and the +Boys have been round the country, and can hear nothing of them. I'll +down on my bare knees, if you'll stand our Friend!' I desired she would +not be in such an agony, and told her she should not down on her knees to +me; but I would gladly help them in what I could. 'I know,' said she, +'you are a good Man, and God will hear your Prayers.' I desire thee, +said I, to be still and quiet in thy mind; perhaps thy Husband or Sons +may hear of them to-day; if not, let thy Husband get a horse, and come to +me to-morrow morning as soon as he will; and I think, if it please God, +to go with him to seek then. The Woman seemed transported with joy, +crying, 'Then we shall have our Cows again.' Her Faith being so strong, +brought the greater Exercise on me, with strong cries to the Lord, that +he would be pleased to make me instrumental in his Hand, for the help of +the poor Family. In the Morning early comes the old Man. In the Name of +God, says he, which way shall we go to seek them? I, being deeply +concerned in my Mind, did not answer him till he had thrice repeated it; +and then I answered, In the Name of God, I would go to seek them; and +said (before I was well aware) we will go to Malmsbury, and at the Horse- +Fair we shall find them. When I had spoken the Words, I was much +troubled lest they should not prove true. It was very early, and the +first Man we saw, I asked him if he had seen any stray Milch Cows +thereabouts. What manner of Cattle are they? said he. And the old Man +describing their Mark and Number, he told us there were some stood +chewing their Cuds in the Horse-Fair; but thinking they belonged to some +in the Neighborhood, he did not take particular Notice of them. When we +came to the Place, the old Man found them to be his; but suffered his +Transports of Joy to rise so high, that I was ashamed of his behavior; +for he fell a hallooing, and threw up his Montier Cap in the Air several +times, till he raised the Neighbors out of their Beds to see what was the +Matter. 'O!' said he, 'I had lost my Cows four or five days ago, and +thought I should never see them again; and this honest Neighbor of mine +told me this Morning, by his own Fire's Side, nine Miles off, that here +I should find them, and here I have them!' Then up goes his Cap again. +I begged of the poor Man to be quiet, and take his Cows home, and be +thankful; as indeed I was, being reverently bowed in my Spirit before the +Lord, in that he was pleased to put the words of Truth into my mouth. +And the Man drove his Cattle home, to the great Joy of his Family." + +Not long after the interview with the Bishop at his own palace, which has +been related, that dignitary, with the Lord Chancellor, in their coaches, +and about twenty clergymen on horseback, made a call at the humble +dwelling of Roberts, on their way to Tedbury, where the Bishop was to +hold a Visitation. "I could not go out of the country without seeing +you," said the prelate, as the farmer came to his coach door and pressed +him to alight. + +"John," asked Priest Evans, the Bishop's kinsman, "is your house free to +entertain such men as we are?" + +"Yes, George," said Roberts; "I entertain honest men, and sometimes +others." + +"My Lord," said Evans, turning to the Bishop, "John's friends are the +honest men, and we are the others." + +The Bishop told Roberts that they could not then alight, but would gladly +drink with him; whereupon the good wife brought out her best beer. +"I commend you, John," quoth the Bishop, as he paused from his hearty +draught; "you keep a cup of good beer in your house. I have not drank +any that has pleased me better since I left home." The cup passed next +to the Chancellor, and finally came to Priest Bull, who thrust it aside, +declaring that it was full of hops and heresy. As to hops, Roberts +replied, he could not say, but as for heresy, he bade the priest take +note that the Lord Bishop had drank of it, and had found no heresy in the +cup. + +The Bishop leaned over his coach door and whispered: "John, I advise you +to take care you don't offend against the higher Powers. I have heard +great complaints against you, that you are the Ringleader of the Quakers +in this Country; and that, if you are not suppressed, all will signify +nothing. Therefore, pray, John, take care, for the future, you don't +offend any more." + +"I like thy Counsel very well," answered Roberts, "and intend to take it. +But thou knowest God is the higher Power; and you mortal Men, however +advanced in this World, are but the lower Power; and it is only because I +endeavor to be obedient to the will of the higher Powers, that the lower +Powers are angry with me. But I hope, with the assistance of God, to +take thy Counsel, and be subject to the higher Powers, let the lower +Powers do with me as it may please God to suffer them." + +The Bishop then said he would like to talk with him further, and +requested him to meet him at Tedbury the next day. At the time +appointed, Roberts went to the inn where the Bishop lodged, and was +invited to dine with him. After dinner was over, the prelate told him +that he must go to church, and leave off holding conventicles at his +house, of which great complaint was made. This he flatly refused to do; +and the Bishop, losing patience, ordered the constable to be sent for. +Roberts told him that if, after coming to his house under the guise of +friendship, he should betray him and send him to prison, he, who had +hitherto commended him for his moderation, would put his name in print, +and cause it to stink before all sober people. It was the priests, he +told him, who set him on; but, instead of hearkening to them, he should +commend them to some honest vocation, and not suffer them to rob their +honest neighbors, and feed on the fruits of other men's toil, like +caterpillars. + +"Whom do you call caterpillars?" cried Priest Rich, of North Surrey. + +"We farmers," said Roberts, "call those so who live on other men's +fields, and by the sweat of other men's brows; and if thou dost so, thou +mayst be one of them." + +This reply so enraged the Bishop's attendants that they could only be +appeased by an order for the constable to take him to jail. In fact, +there was some ground for complaint of a lack of courtesy on the part of +the blunt farmer; and the Christian virtue of forbearance, even in +Bishops, has its limits. + +The constable, obeying the summons, came to the inn, at the door of which +the landlady met him. "What do you here!" cried the good woman, "when +honest John is going to be sent to prison? Here, come along with me." +The constable, nothing loath, followed her into a private room, where she +concealed him. Word was sent to the Bishop, that the constable was not +to be found; and the prelate, telling Roberts he could send him to jail +in the afternoon, dismissed him until evening. At the hour appointed, +the latter waited upon the Bishop, and found with him only one priest and +a lay gentleman. The priest begged the Bishop to be allowed to discourse +with the prisoner; and, leave being granted, he began by telling Roberts +that the knowledge of the Scriptures had made him mad, and that it was a +great pity he had ever seen them. + +"Thou art an unworthy man," said the Quaker, "and I 'll not dispute with +thee. If the knowledge of the Scriptures has made me mad, the knowledge +of the sack-pot hath almost made thee mad; and if we two madmen should +dispute about religion, we should make mad work of it." + +"An 't please you, my Lord," said the scandalized priest, "he says I 'm +drunk." + +The Bishop asked Roberts to repeat his words; and, instead of +reprimanding him, as the priest expected, was so much amused that he held +up his hands and laughed; whereupon the offended inferior took a hasty +leave. The Bishop, who was evidently glad to be rid of him, now turned +to Roberts, and complained that he had dealt hardly with him, in telling +him, before so many gentlemen, that he had sought to betray him by +professions of friendship, in order to send him to prison; and that, +if he had not done as he did, people would have reported him as an +encourager of the Quakers. "But now, John," said the good prelate, "I'll +burn the warrant against you before your face." "You know, Mr. Burnet," +he continued, addressing his attendant, "that a Ring of Bells may be made +of excellent metal, but they may be out of tune; so we may say of John: +he is a man of as good metal as I ever met with, but quite out of tune." + +"Thou mayst well say so," quoth Roberts, "for I can't tune after thy +pipe." + +The inferior clergy were by no means so lenient as the Bishop. They +regarded Roberts as the ringleader of Dissent, an impracticable, +obstinate, contumacious heretic, not only refusing to pay them tithes +himself, but encouraging others to the same course. Hence, they thought +it necessary to visit upon him the full rigor of the law. His crops were +taken from his field, and his cattle from his yard. He was often +committed to the jail, where, on one occasion, he was kept, with many +others, for a long time, through the malice of the jailer, who refused to +put the names of his prisoners in the Calendar, that they might have a +hearing. But the spirit of the old Commonwealth's man remained +steadfast. When Justice George, at the Ram in Cirencester, told him he +must conform, and go to church, or suffer the penalty of the law, he +replied that he had heard indeed that some were formerly whipped out of +the Temple, but he had never heard of any being whipped in. The Justice, +pointing, through the open window of the inn, at the church tower, asked +him what that was. "Thou mayst call it a daw-house," answered the +incorrigible Quaker. "Dost thou not see how the jackdaws flock about +it?" + +Sometimes it happened that the clergyman was also a magistrate, and +united in his own person the authority of the State and the zeal of the +Church. Justice Parsons, of Gloucester, was a functionary of this sort. +He wielded the sword of the Spirit on the Sabbath against Dissenters, and +on week days belabored them with the arm of flesh and the constable's +staff. At one time he had between forty and fifty of them locked up in +Gloucester Castle, among them Roberts and his sons, on the charge of +attending conventicles. But the troublesome prisoners baffled his +vigilance, and turned their prison into a meeting-house, and held their +conventicles in defiance of him. The Reverend Justice pounced upon them +on one occasion, with his attendants. An old, gray-haired man, formerly +a strolling fencing-master, was preaching when he came in. The Justice +laid hold of him by his white locks, and strove to pull him down, but the +tall fencing-raster stood firm and spoke on; he then tried to gag him, +but failed in that also. He demanded the names of the prisoners, but no +one answered him. A voice (we fancy it was that of our old friend +Roberts) called out: "The Devil must be hard put to it to have his +drudgery done, when the Priests must leave their pulpits to turn +informers against poor prisoners." The Justice obtained a list of the +names of the prisoners, made out on their commitment, and, taking it for +granted that all were still present, issued warrants for the collection +of fines by levies upon their estates. Among the names was that of a +poor widow, who had been discharged, and was living, at the time the +clerical magistrate swore she was at the meeting, twenty miles distant +from the prison. + +Soon after this event, our old friend fell sick. He had been discharged +from prison, but his sons were still confined. The eldest had leave, +however, to attend him in his illness, and he bears his testimony that +the Lord was pleased to favor his father with His living presence in his +last moments. In keeping with the sturdy Non-conformist's life, he was +interred at the foot of his own orchard, in Siddington, a spot he had +selected for a burial-ground long before, where neither the foot of a +priest nor the shadow of a steeple-house could rest upon his grave. + +In closing our notice of this pleasant old narrative, we may remark that +the light it sheds upon the antagonistic religious parties of the time is +calculated to dissipate prejudices and correct misapprehensions, common +alike to Churchmen and Dissenters. The genial humor, sound sense, and +sterling virtues of the Quaker farmer should teach the one class that +poor James Nayler, in his craziness and folly, was not a fair +representative of his sect; while the kind nature, the hearty +appreciation of goodness, and the generosity and candor of Bishop +Nicholson should convince the other class that a prelate is not +necessarily, and by virtue of his mitre, a Laud or a Bonner. The +Dissenters of the seventeenth century may well be forgiven for the +asperity of their language; men whose ears had been cropped because they +would not recognize Charles I. as a blessed martyr, and his scandalous +son as the head of the Church, could scarcely be expected to make +discriminations, or suggest palliating circumstances, favorable to any +class of their adversaries. To use the homely but apt simile of +McFingal, + + "The will's confirmed by treatment horrid, + As hides grow harder when they're curried." + +They were wronged, and they told the world of it. Unlike Shakespeare's +cardinal, they did not die without a sign. They branded, by their fierce +epithets, the foreheads of their persecutors more deeply than the +sheriff's hot iron did their own. If they lost their ears, they enjoyed +the satisfaction of making those of their oppressors tingle. Knowing +their persecutors to be in the wrong, they did not always inquire whether +they themselves had been entirely right, and had done no unrequired works +of supererogation by the way of "testimony" against their neighbors' mode +cf worship. And so from pillory and whipping-post, from prison and +scaffold, they sent forth their wail and execration, their miserere and +anathema, and the sound thereof has reached down to our day. May it +never wholly die away until, the world over, the forcing of conscience is +regarded as a crime against humanity and a usurpation of God's +prerogative. But abhorring, as we must, persecution under whatever +pretext it is employed, we are not, therefore, to conclude that all +persecutors were bad and unfeeling men. Many of their severities, upon +which we now look back with horror, were, beyond a question, the result +of an intense anxiety for the well-being of immortal souls, endangered by +the poison which, in their view, heresy was casting into the waters of +life. Coleridge, in one of the moods of a mind which traversed in +imagination the vast circle of human experience, reaches this point in +his Table-Talk. "It would require," says he, "stronger arguments than +any I have seen to convince me that men in authority have not a right, +involved in an imperative duty, to deter those under their control from +teaching or countenancing doctrines which they believe to be damnable, +and even to punish with death those who violate such prohibition." It +would not be very difficult for us to imagine a tender-hearted Inquisitor +of this stamp, stifling his weak compassion for the shrieking wretch +under bodily torment by his strong pity for souls in danger of perdition +from the sufferer's heresy. We all know with what satisfaction the +gentle-spirited Melanethon heard of the burning of Servetus, and with +what zeal he defended it. The truth is, the notion that an intellectual +recognition of certain dogmas is the essential condition of salvation +lies at the bottom of all intolerance in matters of religion. Under this +impression, men are too apt to forget that the great end of Christianity +is love, and that charity is its crowning virtue; they overlook the +beautiful significance of the parable of the heretic Samaritan and the +orthodox Pharisee: and thus, by suffering their speculative opinions of +the next world to make them uncharitable and cruel in this, they are +really the worse for them, even admitting them to be true. + + + + + + + SAMUEL HOPKINS. + +Three quarters of a century ago, the name of Samuel Hopkins was as +familiar as a household word throughout New England. It was a spell +wherewith to raise at once a storm of theological controversy. The +venerable minister who bore it had his thousands of ardent young +disciples, as well as defenders and followers of mature age and +acknowledged talent; a hundred pulpits propagated the dogmas which he had +engrafted on the stock of Calvinism. Nor did he lack numerous and +powerful antagonists. The sledge ecclesiastic, with more or less effect, +was unceasingly plied upon the strong-linked chain of argument which he +slowly and painfully elaborated in the seclusion of his parish. The +press groaned under large volumes of theological, metaphysical, and +psychological disquisition, the very thought of which is now "a weariness +to the flesh;" in rapid succession pamphlet encountered pamphlet, horned, +beaked, and sharp of talon, grappling with each other in mid-air, like +Milton's angels. That loud controversy, the sound whereof went over +Christendom, awakening responses from beyond the Atlantic, has now died +away; its watchwords no longer stir the blood of belligerent sermonizers; +its very terms and definitions have well-nigh become obsolete and +unintelligible. The hands which wrote and the tongues which spoke in +that day are now all cold and silent; even Emmons, the brave old +intellectual athlete of Franklin, now sleeps with his fathers,--the last +of the giants. Their fame is still in all the churches; effeminate +clerical dandyism still affects to do homage to their memories; the +earnest young theologian, exploring with awe the mountainous debris of +their controversial lore, ponders over the colossal thoughts entombed +therein, as he would over the gigantic fossils of an early creation, and +endeavors in vain to recall to the skeleton abstractions before him the +warm and vigorous life wherewith they were once clothed; but +Hopkinsianism, as a distinct and living school of philosophy, theology, +and metaphysics, no longer exists. It has no living oracles left; and +its memory survives only in the doctrinal treatises of the elder and +younger Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, and Emmons. + +It is no part of our present purpose to discuss the merits of the system +in question. Indeed, looking at the great controversy which divided New +England Calvinism in the eighteenth century, from a point of view which +secures our impartiality and freedom from prejudice, we find it +exceedingly difficult to get a precise idea of what was actually at +issue. To our poor comprehension, much of the dispute hinges upon names +rather than things; on the manner of reaching conclusions quite as much +as upon the conclusions themselves. Its origin may be traced to the +great religious awakening of the middle of the past century, when the +dogmas of the Calvinistic faith were subjected to the inquiry of acute +and earnest minds, roused up from the incurious ease and passive +indifference of nominal orthodoxy. Without intending it, it broke down +some of the barriers which separated Arminianism and Calvinism; its +product, Hopkinsianism, while it pushed the doctrine of the Genevan +reformer on the subject of the Divine decrees and agency to that extreme +point where it well-nigh loses itself in Pantheism, held at the same time +that guilt could not be hereditary; that man, being responsible for his +sinful acts, and not for his sinful nature, can only be justified by a +personal holiness, consisting not so much in legal obedience as in that +disinterested benevolence which prefers the glory of God and the welfare +of universal being above the happiness of self. It had the merit, +whatever it may be, of reducing the doctrines of the Reformation to an +ingenious and scholastic form of theology; of bringing them boldly to the +test of reason and philosophy. Its leading advocates were not mere +heartless reasoners and closet speculators. They taught that sin was +selfishness, and holiness self-denying benevolence, and they endeavored +to practise accordingly. Their lives recommended their doctrines. They +were bold and faithful in the discharge of what they regarded as duty. +In the midst of slave-holders, and in an age of comparative darkness on +the subject of human rights, Hopkins and the younger Edwards lifted up +their voices for the slave. And twelve years ago, when Abolitionism was +everywhere spoken against, and the whole land was convulsed with mobs to +suppress it, the venerable Emmons, burdened with the weight of ninety +years, made a journey to New York, to attend a meeting of the Anti- +Slavery Society. Let those who condemn the creed of these men see to +it that they do not fall behind them in practical righteousness and +faithfulness to the convictions of duty. + +Samuel Hopkins, who gave his name to the religious system in question, +was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1721. In his fifteenth year he +was placed under the care of a neighboring clergyman, preparatory for +college, which he entered about a year after. In 1740, the celebrated +Whitefield visited New Haven, and awakened there, as elsewhere, serious +inquiry on religious subjects. He was followed the succeeding spring by +Gilbert Tennent, the New Jersey revivalist, a stirring and powerful +preacher. A great change took place in the college. All the phenomena +which President Edwards has described in his account of the Northampton +awakening were reproduced among the students. The excellent David +Brainard, then a member of the college, visited Hopkins in his apartment, +and, by a few plain and earnest words, convinced him that he was a +stranger to vital Christianity. In his autobiographical sketch, he +describes in simple and affecting language the dark and desolate state of +his mind at this period, and the particular exercise which finally +afforded him some degree of relief, and which he afterwards appears to +have regarded as his conversion from spiritual death to life. When he +first heard Tennent, regarding him as the greatest as well as the best of +men, he made up his mind to study theology with him; but just before the +commencement at which he was to take his degree, the elder Edwards +preached at New Haven. Struck by the power of the great theologian, he +at once resolved to make him his spiritual father. In the winter +following, he left his father's house on horseback, on a journey of +eighty miles to Northampton. Arriving at the house of President Edwards, +he was disappointed by hearing that he was absent on a preaching tour. +But he was kindly received by the gifted and accomplished lady of the +mansion, and encouraged to remain during the winter. Still doubtful in +respect to his own spiritual state, he was, he says, "very gloomy, and +retired most of the time in his chamber." The kind heart of his amiable +hostess was touched by his evident affliction. After some days she came +to his chamber, and, with the gentleness and delicacy of a true woman, +inquired into the cause of his unhappiness. The young student disclosed +to her, without reserve, the state of his feelings and the extent of his +fears. "She told me," says the Doctor, "that she had had peculiar +exercises respecting me since I had been in the family; that she trusted +I should receive light and comfort, and doubted not that God intended yet +to do great things by me." + +After pursuing his studies for some months with the Puritan philosopher, +young Hopkins commenced preaching, and, in 1743, was ordained at +Sheffield, (now Great Barrington') in the western part of Massachusetts. +There were at the time only about thirty families in the town. He says +it was a matter of great regret to him to be obliged to settle so far +from his spiritual guide and tutor but seven years after he was relieved +and gratified by the removal of Edwards to Stockbridge, as the Indian +missionary at that station, seven miles only from his own residence; and +for several years the great metaphysician and his favorite pupil enjoyed +the privilege of familiar intercourse with each other. The removal of +the former in 1758 to Princeton, New Jersey, and his death, which soon +followed, are mentioned in the diary of Hopkins as sore trials and +afflictive dispensations. + +Obtaining a dismissal from his society in Great Barrington in 1769, +he was installed at Newport the next year, as minister of the first +Congregational church in that place. Newport, at this period, was, in +size, wealth, and commercial importance, the second town in New England. +It was the great slave mart of the North. Vessels loaded with stolen men +and women and children, consigned to its merchant princes, lay at its +wharves; immortal beings were sold daily in its market, like cattle at a +fair. The soul of Hopkins was moved by the appalling spectacle. A +strong conviction of the great wrong of slavery, and of its utter +incompatibility with the Christian profession, seized upon his mind. +While at Great Barrington, he had himself owned a slave, whom he had sold +on leaving the place, without compunction or suspicion in regard to the +rightfulness of the transaction. He now saw the origin of the system in +its true light; he heard the seamen engaged in the African trade tell of +the horrible scenes of fire and blood which they had witnessed, and in +which they had been actors; he saw the half-suffocated wretches brought +up from their noisome and narrow prison, their squalid countenances and +skeleton forms bearing fearful evidence of the suffering attendant upon +the transportation from their native homes. The demoralizing effects of +slaveholding everywhere forced themselves upon his attention, for the +evil had struck its roots deeply in the community, and there were few +families into which it had not penetrated. The right to deal in slaves, +and use them as articles of property, was questioned by no one; men of +all professions, clergymen and church-members, consulted only their +interest and convenience as to their purchase or sale. The magnitude of +the evil at first appalled him; he felt it to be his duty to condemn it, +but for a time even his strong spirit faltered and turned pale in +contemplation of the consequences to be apprehended from an attack upon +it. Slavery and slave-trading were at that time the principal source of +wealth to the island; his own church and congregation were personally +interested in the traffic; all were implicated in its guilt. He stood +alone, as it were, in its condemnation; with here and there an exception, +all Christendom maintained the rightfulness of slavery. No movement had +yet been made in England against the slave-trade; the decision of +Granville Sharp's Somerset case had not yet taken place. The Quakers, +even, had not at that time redeemed themselves from the opprobrium. +Under these circumstances, after a thorough examination of the subject, +he resolved, in the strength of the Lord, to take his stand openly and +decidedly on the side of humanity. He prepared a sermon for the purpose, +and for the first time from a pulpit of New England was heard an emphatic +testimony against the sin of slavery. In contrast with the unselfish and +disinterested benevolence which formed in his mind the essential element +of Christian holiness, he held up the act of reducing human beings to the +condition of brutes, to minister to the convenience, the luxury, and +lusts of the owner. He had expected bitter complaint and opposition from +his hearers, but was agreeably surprised to find that in most cases his +sermon only excited astonishment in their minds that they themselves had +never before looked at the subject in the light in which he presented it. +Steadily and faithfully pursuing the matter, he had the satisfaction to +carry with him his church, and obtain from it, in the midst of a +slaveholding and slavetrading community, a resolution every way worthy of +note in this day of cowardly compromise with the evil on the part of our +leading ecclesiastical bodies:-- + +"Resolved, That the slave-trade and the slavery of the Africans, as it +has existed among us, is a gross violation of the righteousness and +benevolence which are so much inculcated in the Gospel, and therefore we +will not tolerate it in this church." + +There are few instances on record of moral heroism superior to that of +Samuel Hopkins, in thus rebuking slavery in the time and place of its +power. Honor to the true man ever, who takes his life in his hands, and, +at all hazards, speaks the word which is given him to utter, whether men +will hear or forbear, whether the end thereof is to be praise or censure, +gratitude or hatred. It well may be doubted whether on that Sabbath day +the angels of God, in their wide survey of His universe, looked upon a +nobler spectacle than that of the minister of Newport, rising up before +his slaveholding congregation, and demanding, in the name of the Highest, +the "deliverance of the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them +that were bound." + +Dr. Hopkins did not confine his attention solely to slaveholding in his +own church and congregation. He entered into correspondence with the +early Abolitionists of Europe as well as his own country. He labored +with his brethren in the ministry to bring then to his own view of the +great wrong of holding men as slaves. In a visit to his early friend, +Dr. Bellamy, at Bethlehem, who was the owner of a slave, he pressed the +subject kindly but earnestly upon his attention. Dr. Eellamy urged the +usual arguments in favor of slavery. Dr. Hopkins refuted them in the +most successful manner, and called upon his friend to do an act of simple +justice, in giving immediate freedom to his slave. Dr. Bellamy, thus +hardly pressed, said that the slave was a most judicious and faithful +fellow; that, in the management of his farm, he could trust everything to +his discretion; that he treated him well, and he was so happy in his +service that he would refuse his freedom if it were offered him. + +"Will you," said Hopkins, "consent to his liberation, if he really +desires it?" + +"Yes, certainly," said Dr. Bellamy. + +"Then let us try him," said his guest. + +The slave was at work in an adjoining field, and at the call of his +master came promptly to receive his commands. + +"Have you a good master?" inquired Hopkins. + +"O yes; massa, he berry good." + +"But are you happy in your present condition?" queried the Doctor. + +"O yes, massa; berry happy." + +Dr. Bellamy here could scarcely suppress his exultation at what he +supposed was a complete triumph over his anti-slavery brother. But the +pertinacious guest continued his queries. + +"Would you not be more happy if you were free?" + +"O yes, massa," exclaimed the negro, his dark face glowing with new life; +"berry much more happy!" + +To the honor of Dr. Bellamy, he did not hesitate. + +"You have your wish," he said to his servant. "From this moment you are +free." + +Dr. Hopkins was a poor man, but one of his first acts, after becoming +convinced of the wrongfulness of slavery, was to appropriate the very sum +which, in the days of his ignorance, he had obtained as the price of his +slave to the benevolent purpose of educating some pious colored men in +the town of Newport, who were desirous of returning to their native +country as missionaries. In one instance he borrowed, on his own +responsibility, the sum requisite to secure the freedom of a slave in +whom be became interested. One of his theological pupils was Newport +Gardner, who, twenty years after the death of his kind patron, left +Boston as a missionary to Africa. He was a native African, and was held +by Captain Gardner, of Newport, who allowed him to labor for his own +benefit, whenever by extra diligence he could gain a little time for that +purpose. The poor fellow was in the habit of laying up his small +earnings on these occasions, in the faint hope of one day obtaining +thereby the freedom of himself and his family. But time passed on, and +the hoard of purchase-money still looked sadly small. He concluded to +try the efficacy of praying. Having gained a day for himself, by severe +labor, and communicating his plan only to Dr. Hopkins and two or three +other Christian friends, he shut himself up in his humble dwelling, and +spent the time in prayer for freedom. Towards the close of the day, his +master sent for him. He was told that this was his gained time, and that +he was engaged for himself. "No matter," returned the master, "I must +see him." Poor Newport reluctantly abandoned his supplications, and came +at his master's bidding, when, to his astonishment, instead of a +reprimand, he received a paper, signed by his master, declaring him and +his family from thenceforth free. He justly attributed this signal +blessing to the all-wise Disposer, who turns the hearts of men as the +rivers of water are turned; but it cannot be doubted that the labors and +arguments of Dr. Hopkins with his master were the human instrumentality +in effecting it. + +In the year 1773, in connection with Dr. Ezra Stiles, he issued an appeal +to the Christian community in behalf of a society which he had been +instrumental in forming, for the purpose of educating missionaries for +Africa. In the desolate and benighted condition of that unhappy +continent he had become painfully interested, by conversing with the +slaves brought into Newport. Another appeal was made on the subject in +1776. + +The war of the Revolution interrupted, for a time, the philanthropic +plans of Dr. Hopkins. The beautiful island on which he lived was at an +early period exposed to the exactions and devastations of the enemy. All +who could do so left it for the mainland. Its wharves were no longer +thronged with merchandise; its principal dwellings stood empty; the very +meeting houses were in a great measure abandoned. Dr. Hopkins, who had +taken the precaution, at the commencement of hostilities, to remove his +family to Great Barrington, remained himself until the year 1776, when +the British took possession of the island. During the period of its +occupation, he was employed in preaching to destitute congregations. +He spent the summer of 1777 at Newburyport, where his memory is still +cherished by the few of his hearers who survive. In the spring of 1780, +he returned to Newport. Everything had undergone a melancholy change. +The garden of New England lay desolate. His once prosperous and wealthy +church and congregation were now poor, dispirited, and, worst of all, +demoralized. His meeting-house had been used as a barrack for soldiers; +pulpit and pews had been destroyed; the very bell had been stolen. +Refusing, with his characteristic denial of self, a call to settle in a +more advantageous position, he sat himself down once more in the midst of +his reduced and impoverished parishioners, and, with no regular salary, +dependent entirely on such free-will offerings as from time to time were +made him, he remained with them until his death. + +In 1776, Dr. Hopkins published his celebrated "Dialogue concerning the +Slavery of the Africans; showing it to be the Duty and Interest of the +American States to Emancipate all their Slaves." This he dedicated to +the Continental Congress, the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. +It was republished in 1785, by the New York Abolition Society, and was +widely circulated. A few years after, on coming unexpectedly into +possession of a few hundred dollars, be devoted immediately one hundred +of it to the society for ameliorating the condition of the Africans. + +He continued to preach until he had reached his eighty-third year. His +last sermon was delivered on the 16th of the tenth month, 1803, and his +death took place in the twelfth month following. He died calmly, in the +steady faith of one who had long trusted all things in the hand of God. +"The language of my heart is," said he, "let God be glorified by all +things, and the best interest of His kingdom promoted, whatever becomes +of me or my interest." To a young friend, who visited him three days +before his death, he said, "I am feeble and cannot say much. I have said +all I can say. With my last words, I tell you, religion is the one thing +needful." "And now," he continued, affectionately pressing the hand of +his friend, "I am going to die, and I am glad of it." Many years before, +an agreement had been made between Dr. Hopkins and his old and tried +friend, Dr. Hart, of Connecticut, that when either was called home, the +survivor should preach the funeral sermon of the deceased. The venerable +Dr. Hart accordingly came, true to his promise, preaching at the funeral +from the words of Elisha, "My father, my father; the chariots of Israel, +and the horsemen thereof." In the burial-ground adjoining his meeting- +house lies all that was mortal of Samuel Hopkins. + +One of Dr. Hopkins's habitual hearers, and who has borne grateful +testimony to the beauty and holiness of his life and conversation, was +William Ellery Channing. Widely as he afterwards diverged from the creed +of his early teacher, it contained at least one doctrine to the influence +of which the philanthropic devotion of his own life to the welfare of man +bears witness. He says, himself, that there always seemed to him +something very noble in the doctrine of disinterested benevolence, the +casting of self aside, and doing good, irrespective of personal +consequences, in this world or another, upon which Dr. Hopkins so +strongly insisted, as the all-essential condition of holiness. + +How widely apart, as mere theologians, stood Hopkins and Channing! Yet +how harmonious their lives and practice! Both could forget the poor +interests of self, in view of eternal right and universal humanity. Both +could appreciate the saving truth, that love to God and His creation is +the fulfilling of the divine law. The idea of unselfish benevolence, +which they held in common, clothed with sweetness and beauty the stern +and repulsive features of the theology of Hopkins, and infused a sublime +spirit of self-sacrifice and a glowing humanity into the indecisive and +less robust faith of Charming. What is the lesson of this but that +Christianity consists rather in the affections than in the intellect; +that it is a life rather than a creed; and that they who diverge the +widest from each other in speculation upon its doctrines may, after all, +be found working side by side on the common ground of its practice. + +We have chosen to speak of Dr. Hopkins as a philanthropist rather than as +a theologian. Let those who prefer to contemplate the narrow sectarian +rather than the universal man dwell upon his controversial works, and +extol the ingenuity and logical acumen with which he defended his own +dogmas and assailed those of others. We honor him, not as the founder of +a new sect, but as the friend of all mankind,--the generous defender of +the poor and oppressed. Great as unquestionably were his powers of +argument, his learning, and skill in the use of the weapons of theologic +warfare, these by no means constitute his highest title to respect and +reverence. As the product of an honest and earnest mind, his doctrinal +dissertations have at least the merit of sincerity. They were put forth +in behalf of what he regarded as truth; and the success which they met +with, while it called into exercise his profoundest gratitude, only +served to deepen the humility and self-abasement of their author. As the +utterance of what a good man believed and felt, as a part of the history +of a life remarkable for its consecration to apprehended duty, these +writings cannot be without interest even to those who dissent from their +arguments and deny their assumptions; but in the time now, we trust, near +at hand, when distracted and divided Christendom shall unite in a new +Evangelical union, in which orthodoxy in life and practice shall be +estimated above orthodoxy in theory, he will be honored as a good man, +rather than as a successful creed-maker; as a friend of the oppressed and +the fearless rebuker of popular sin rather than as the champion of a +protracted sectarian war. Even now his writings, so popular in their +day, are little known. The time may come when no pilgrim of sectarianism +shall visit his grave. But his memory shall live in the hearts of the +good and generous; the emancipated slave shall kneel over his ashes, and +bless God for the gift to humanity of a life so devoted to its welfare. +To him may be applied the language of one who, on the spot where he +labored and lay down to rest, while rejecting the doctrinal views of the +theologian, still cherishes the philanthropic spirit of the man:-- + + "He is not lost,--he hath not passed away + Clouds, earths, may pass, but stars shine calmly on; + And he who doth the will of God, for aye + Abideth, when the earth and heaven are gone. + + "Alas that such a heart is in the grave!' + Thanks for the life that now shall never end! + Weep, and rejoice, thou terror-hunted slave, + That hast both lost and found so great a friend!" + + + + + + + RICHARD BAXTER. + +The picture drawn by a late English historian of the infamous Jeffreys in +his judicial robes, sitting in judgment upon the venerable Richard +Baxter, brought before him to answer to an indictment, setting; forth +that the said "Richardus Baxter, persona seditiosa et factiosa pravae +mentis, impiae, inquietae, turbulent disposition et conversation; falso +illicte, injuste nequit factiose seditiose, et irreligiose, fecit, +composuit, scripsit quendam falsum, seditiosum, libellosum, factiosum et +irreligiosum librum," is so remarkable that the attention of the most +careless reader is at once arrested. Who was that old man, wasted with +disease and ghastly with the pallor of imprisonment, upon whom the foul- +mouthed buffoon in ermine exhausted his vocabulary of abuse and ridicule? +Who was Richardus Baxter? + +The author of works so elaborate and profound as to frighten by their +very titles and ponderous folios the modern ecclesiastical student from +their perusal, his hold upon the present generation is limited to a few +practical treatises, which, from their very nature, can never become +obsolete. The _Call to the Unconverted_ and the _Saints' Everlasting +Rest_ belong to no time or sect. They speak the universal language of +the wants and desires of the human soul. They take hold of the awful +verities of life and death, righteousness and judgment to come. Through +them the suffering and hunted minister of Kidderminster has spoken in +warning, entreaty, and rebuke, or in tones of tenderest love and pity, to +the hearts of the generations which have succeeded him. His +controversial works, his confessions of faith, his learned disputations, +and his profound doctrinal treatises are no longer read. Their author +himself, towards the close of his life, anticipated, in respect to these +favorite productions, the children of his early zeal, labor, and +suffering, the judgment of posterity. "I perceive," he says, "that most +of the doctrinal controversies among Protestants are far more about +equivocal words than matter. Experience since the year 1643 to this year +1675 hath loudly called me to repent of my own prejudices, sidings, and +censurings of causes and persons not understood, and of all the +miscarriages of my ministry and life which have been thereby caused; and +to make it my chief work to call men that are within my bearing to more +peaceable thoughts, affections, and practices." + +Richard Baxter was born at the village of Eton Constantine, in 1615. He +received from officiating curates of the little church such literary +instruction as could be given by men who had left the farmer's flail, the +tailor's thimble, and the service of strolling stage-players, to perform +church drudgery under the parish incumbent, who was old and well-nigh +blind. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a school at Wroxeter, where +he spent three years, to little purpose, so far as a scientific education +was concerned. His teacher left him to himself mainly, and following the +bent of his mind, even at that early period, he abandoned the exact +sciences for the perusal of such controversial and metaphysical writings +of the schoolmen as his master's library afforded. The smattering of +Latin which he acquired only served in after years to deform his +treatises with barbarous, ill-adapted, and erroneous citations. "As to +myself," said he, in his letter written in old age to Anthony Wood, who +had inquired whether he was an Oxonian graduate, "my faults are no +disgrace to a university, for I was of none; I have but little but what I +had out of books and inconsiderable help of country divines. Weakness +and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me a-studying how to +live; and that on studying the doctrine from which I must fetch my +motives and comforts; beginning with necessities, I proceeded by degrees, +and am now going to see that for which I have lived and studied." + +Of the first essays of the young theologian as a preacher of the +Established Church, his early sufferings from that complication of +diseases with which his whole life was tormented, of the still keener +afflictions of a mind whose entire outlook upon life and nature was +discolored and darkened by its disordered bodily medium, and of the +struggles between his Puritan temperament and his reverence for Episcopal +formulas, much might be profitably said, did the limits we have assigned +ourselves admit. Nor can we do more than briefly allude to the religious +doubts and difficulties which darkened and troubled his mind at an early +period. + +He tells us at length in his Life how he struggled with these spiritual +infirmities and temptations. The future life, the immortality of the +soul, and the truth of the Scriptures were by turns questioned. "I +never," says he in a letter to Dr. More, inserted in the _Sadducisimus +Triumphatus_, "had so much ado to overcome a temptation as that to the +opinion of Averroes, that, as extinguished candles go all out in an +illuminated air, so separated souls go all into one common anima mundi, +and lose their individuation." With these and similar "temptations" +Baxter struggled long, earnestly, and in the end triumphantly. His +faith, when once established, remained unshaken to the last; and although +always solemn, reverential, and deeply serious, he was never the subject +of religious melancholy, or of that mournful depression of soul which +arises from despair of an interest in the mercy and paternal love of our +common Father. + +The Great Revolution found him settled as a minister in Kidderminster, +under the sanction of a drunken vicar, who, yielding to the clamor of his +more sober parishioners, and his fear of their appeal to the Long +Parliament, then busy in its task of abating church nuisances, had agreed +to give him sixty pounds per year, in the place of a poor tippling +curate, notorious as a common railer and pothouse encumbrance. + +As might have been expected, the sharp contrast which the earnest, +devotional spirit and painful strictness of Baxter presented to the +irreverent license and careless good humor of his predecessor by no means +commended him to the favor of a large class of his parishioners. Sabbath +merry-makers missed the rubicund face and maudlin jollity of their old +vicar; the ignorant and vicious disliked the new preacher's rigid +morality; the better informed revolted at his harsh doctrines, austere +life, and grave manner. Intense earnestness characterized all his +efforts. Contrasting human nature with the Infinite Purity and Holiness, +he was oppressed with the sense of the loathsomeness and deformity of +sin, and afflicted by the misery of his fellow-creatures separated from +the divine harmony. He tells us that at this period he preached the +terrors of the Law and the necessity of repentance, rather than the joys +and consolations of the Gospel, upon which he so loved to dwell in his +last years. He seems to have felt a necessity laid upon him to startle +men from false hope and security, and to call for holiness of life and +conformity to the divine will as the only ground of safety. Powerful and +impressive as are the appeals and expostulations contained in his written +works, they probably convey but a faint idea of the force and earnestness +of those which he poured forth from his pulpit. As he advanced in years, +these appeals were less frequently addressed to the fears of his +auditors, for he had learned to value a calm and consistent life of +practical goodness beyond any passionate exhibition of terrors, fervors, +and transports. Having witnessed, in an age of remarkable enthusiasm and +spiritual awakening, the ill effects of passional excitements and +religious melancholy, he endeavored to present cheerful views of +Christian life and duty, and made it a special object to repress morbid +imaginations and heal diseased consciences. Thus it came to pass that no +man of his day was more often applied to for counsel and relief by +persons laboring under mental depression than himself. He has left +behind him a very curious and not uninstructive discourse, which he +entitled The Cure of Melancholy, by Faith and Physick, in which he shows +a great degree of skill in his morbid mental anatomy. He had studied +medicine to some extent for the benefit of the poor of his parish, and +knew something of the intimate relations and sympathy of the body and +mind; he therefore did not hesitate to ascribe many of the spiritual +complaints of his applicants to disordered bodily functions, nor to +prescribe pills and powders in the place of Scripture texts. More than +thirty years after the commencement of his labors at Kidderminster he +thus writes: "I was troubled this year with multitudes of melancholy +persons from several places of the land; some of high quality, some of +low, some exquisitely learned, and some unlearned. I know not how it +came to pass, but if men fell melancholy I must hear from them or see +them, more than any physician I knew." He cautions against ascribing +melancholy phantasms and passions to the Holy Spirit, warns the young +against licentious imaginations and excitements, and ends by advising all +to take heed how they make of religion a matter of "fears, tears, and +scruples." "True religion," he remarks, "doth principally consist in +obedience, love, and joy." + +At this early period of his ministry, however, he had all of Whitefield's +intensity and fervor, added to reasoning powers greatly transcending +those of the revivalist of the next century. Young in years, he was even +then old in bodily infirmity and mental experience. Believing himself +the victim of a mortal disease, he lived and preached in the constant +prospect of death. His memento mori was in his bed-chamber, and sat by +him at his frugal meal. The glory of the world was stained to his +vision. He was blind to the beauty of all its "pleasant pictures." No +monk of Mount Athos or silent Chartreuse, no anchorite of Indian +superstition, ever more completely mortified the flesh, or turned his +back more decidedly upon the "good things" of this life. A solemn and +funeral atmosphere surrounded him. He walked in the shadows of the +cypress, and literally "dwelt among the tombs." Tortured by incessant +pain, be wrestled against its attendant languor and debility, as a sinful +wasting of inestimable time; goaded himself to constant toil and +devotional exercise, and, to use his own words, "stirred up his sluggish +soul to speak to sinners with compassion, as a dying man to dying men." + +Such entire consecration could not long be without its effect, even upon +the "vicious rabble," as Baxter calls them. His extraordinary +earnestness, self-forgetting concern for the spiritual welfare of others, +his rigid life of denial and sacrifice, if they failed of bringing men to +his feet as penitents, could not but awaken a feeling of reverence and +awe. In Kidderminster, as in most other parishes of the kingdom, there +were at this period pious, sober, prayerful people, diligent readers of +the Scriptures, who were derided by their neighbors as Puritans, +precisians, and hypocrites. These were naturally drawn towards the new +preacher, and he as naturally recognized them as "honest seekers of the +word and way of God." Intercourse with such men, and the perusal of the +writings of certain eminent Non-conformists, had the effect to abate, in +some degree, his strong attachment to the Episcopal formula and polity. +He began to doubt the rightfulness of making the sign of the cross in +baptism, and to hesitate about administering the sacrament to profane +swearers and tipplers. + +But while Baxter, in the seclusion of his parish, was painfully weighing +the arguments for and against the wearing of surplices, the use of +marriage rings, and the prescribed gestures and genuflections of his +order, tithing with more or less scruple of conscience the mint and anise +and cummin of pulpit ceremonials, the weightier matters of the law, +freedom, justice, and truth were claiming the attention of Pym and +Hampden, Brook and Vane, in the Parliament House. The controversy +between King and Commons had reached the point where it could only be +decided by the dread arbitrament of battle. The somewhat equivocal +position of the Kidderminster preacher exposed him to the suspicion of +the adherents of the King and Bishops. The rabble, at that period +sympathizing with the party of license in morals and strictness in +ceremonials, insulted and mocked him, and finally drove him from his +parish. + +On the memorable 23d of tenth month, 1642, he was invited to occupy a +friend's pulpit at Alcester. + +While preaching, a low, dull, jarring roll, as of continuous thunder, +sounded in his ears. It was the cannon-fire of Edgehill, the prelude to +the stern battle-piece of revolution. On the morrow, Baxter hurried to +the scene of action. "I was desirous," he says, "to see the field. I +found the Earl of Essex keeping the ground, and the King's army facing +them on a hill about a mile off. There were about a thousand dead bodies +in the field between them." Turning from this ghastly survey, the +preacher mingled with the Parliamentary army, when, finding the surgeons +busy with the wounded, he very naturally sought occasion for the exercise +of his own vocation as a spiritual practitioner. He attached himself to +the army. So far as we can gather from his own memoirs and the testimony +of his contemporaries, he was not influenced to this step by any of the +political motives which actuated the Parliamentary leaders. He was no +revolutionist. He was as blind and unquestioning in his reverence for +the King's person and divine right, and as hearty in his hatred of +religious toleration and civil equality, as any of his clerical brethren +who officiated in a similar capacity in the ranks of Goring and Prince +Rupert. He seems only to have looked upon the soldiers as a new set of +parishioners, whom Providence had thrown in his way. The circumstances +of his situation left him little choice in the matter. "I had," he says, +"neither money nor friends. I knew not who would receive me in a place +of safety, nor had I anything to satisfy them for diet and +entertainment." He accepted an offer to live in the Governor's house at +Coventry, and preach to the soldiers of the garrison. Here his skill in +polemics was called into requisition, in an encounter with two New +England Antinomians, and a certain Anabaptist tailor who was making more +rents in the garrison's orthodoxy than he mended in their doublets and +breeches. Coventry seems at this time to have been the rendezvous of a +large body of clergymen, who, as Baxter says, were "for King and +Parliament,"--men who, in their desire for a more spiritual worship, most +unwillingly found themselves classed with the sentries whom they regarded +as troublers and heretics, not to be tolerated; who thought the King had +fallen into the hands of the Papists, and that Essex and Cromwell were +fighting to restore him; and who followed the Parliamentary forces to see +to it that they were kept sound in faith, and free from the heresy of +which the Court News-Book accused them. Of doing anything to overturn +the order of Church and State, or of promoting any radical change in the +social and political condition of the people, they had no intention +whatever. They looked at the events of the time, and upon their duties +in respect to them, not as politicians or reformers, but simply as +ecclesiastics and spiritual teachers, responsible to God for the +religious beliefs and practices of the people, rather than for their +temporal welfare and happiness. They were not the men who struck down +the solemn and imposing prelacy of England, and vindicated the divine +right of men to freedom by tossing the head of an anointed tyrant from +the scaffold at Whitehall. It was the so-called sebismatics, ranters, +and levellers, the disputatious corporals and Anabaptist musketeers, the +dread and abhorrence alike of prelate and presbyter, who, under the lead +of Cromwell, + + "Ruined the great work of time, + And cast the kingdoms old + Into another mould." + +The Commonwealth was the work of the laity, the sturdy yeomanry and God- +fearing commoners of England. + +The news of the fight of Naseby reaching Coventry, Baxter, who had +friends in the Parliamentary forces, wishing, as he says, to be assured +of their safety, passed over to the stricken field, and spent a night +with them. He was afflicted and confounded by the information which they +gave him, that the victorious army was full of hot-headed schemers and +levellers, who were against King and Church, prelacy and ritual, and who +were for a free Commonwealth and freedom of religious belief and worship. +He was appalled to find that the heresies of the Antinomians, Arminians, +and Anabaptists had made sadder breaches in the ranks of Cromwell than +the pikes of Jacob Astley, or the daggers of the roysterers who followed +the mad charge of Rupert. Hastening back to Coventry, he called together +his clerical brethren, and told them "the sad news of the corruption of +the army." After much painful consideration of the matter, it was deemed +best for Baxter to enter Cromwell's army, nominally as its chaplain, but +really as the special representative of orthodoxy in politics and +religion, against the democratic weavers and prophesying tailors who +troubled it. He joined Whalley's regiment, and followed it through many +a hot skirmish and siege. Personal fear was by no means one of Baxter's +characteristics, and he bore himself through all with the coolness of an +old campaigner. Intent upon his single object, he sat unmoved under the +hail of cannon-shot from the walls of Bristol, confronted the well-plied +culverins of Sherburne, charged side by side with Harrison upon Goring's +musketeers at Langford, and heard the exulting thanksgiving of that grim +enthusiast, when "with a loud voice he broke forth in praises of God, as +one in rapture;" and marched, Bible in hand, with Cromwell himself, to +the storming of Basing-House, so desperately defended by the Marquis of +Winchester. In truth, these storms of outward conflict were to him of +small moment. He was engaged in a sterner battle with spiritual +principalities and powers, struggling with Satan himself in the guise of +political levellers and Antinomian sowers of heresy. No antagonist was +too high and none too low for him. Distrusting Cromwell, he sought to +engage him in a discussion of certain points of abstract theology, +wherein his soundness seemed questionable; but the wary chief baffled off +the young disputant by tedious, unanswerable discourses about free grace, +which Baxter admits were not unsavory to others, although the speaker +himself had little understanding of the matter. At other times, he +repelled his sad-visaged chaplain with unwelcome jests and rough, +soldierly merriment; for he had "a vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity as +another man hath when he hath taken a cup too much." Baxter says of him, +complainingly, "he would not dispute with me at all." But, in the midst +of such an army, he could not lack abundant opportunity for the exercise +of his peculiar powers of argumentation. At Amersham, he had a sort of +pitched battle with the contumacious soldiers. "When the public talking +day came," says he, "I took the reading-pew, and Pitchford's cornet and +troopers took the gallery. There did the leader of the Chesham men +begin, and afterwards Pitchford's soldiers set in; and I alone disputed +with them from morning until almost night; for I knew their trick, that +if I had gone out first, they would have prated what boasting words they +listed, and made the people believe that they had baffled me, or got the +best; therefore I stayed it out till they first rose and went away." As +usual in such cases, both parties claimed the victory. Baxter got thanks +only from the King's adherents; "Pitchford's troops and the leader of the +Chesham men" retired from their hard day's work, to enjoy the countenance +and favor of Cromwell, as men after his own heart, faithful to the Houses +and the Word, against kingcraft and prelacy. + +Laughed at and held at arm's length by Cromwell, shunned by Harrison and +Berry and other chief officers, opposed on all points by shrewd, earnest +men, as ready for polemic controversy as for battle with the King's +malignants, and who set off against his theological and metaphysical +distinctions their own personal experiences and spiritual exercises, he +had little to encourage him in his arduous labors. Alone in such a +multitude, flushed with victory and glowing with religious enthusiasm, +he earnestly begged his brother ministers to come to his aid. "If the +army," said he, "had only ministers enough, who could have done such +little as I did, all their plot might have been broken, and King, +Parliament, and Religion might have been preserved." But no one +volunteered to assist him, and the "plot" of revolution went on. + +After Worcester fight he returned to Coventry, to make his report to the +ministers assembled there. He told them of his labors and trials, of the +growth of heresy and levelling principles in the army, and of the evident +design of its leaders to pull down Church, King, and Ministers. He +assured them that the day was at hand when all who were true to the King, +Parliament, and Religion should come forth to oppose these leaders, and +draw away their soldiers from them. For himself, he was willing to go +back to the army, and labor there until the crisis of which he spoke had +arrived. "Whereupon," says he, "they all voted me to go yet longer." + +Fortunately for the cause of civil and religious freedom, the great body +of the ministers, who disapproved of the ultraism of the victorious army, +and sympathized with the defeated King, lacked the courage and +devotedness of Baxter. Had they promptly seconded his efforts, although +the restoration of the King might have been impossible at that late +period, the horrors of civil war must have been greatly protracted. As +it was, they preferred to remain at home, and let Baxter have the benefit +of their prayers and good wishes. He returned to the army with the +settled purpose, of causing its defection from Cromwell; but, by one of +those dispensations which the latter used to call "births of Providence," +he was stricken down with severe sickness. Baxter's own comments upon +this passage in his life are not without interest. He says, God +prevented his purposes in his last and chiefest opposition to the army; +that he intended to take off or seduce from their officers the regiment +with which he was connected, and then to have tried his persuasion upon +the others. He says he afterwards found that his sickness was a mercy to +himself, "for they were so strong and active, and I had been likely to +have had small success in the attempt, and to have lost my life among +them in their fury." He was right in this last conjecture; Oliver +Cromwell would have had no scruples in making an example of a plotting +priest; and "Pitchford's soldiers" might have been called upon to +silence, with their muskets, the tough disputant who was proof against +their tongues. + +After a long and dubious illness, Baxter was so far restored as to be +able to go back to his old parish at Kidderminster. Here, under the +Protectorate of Cromwell, he remained in the full enjoyment of that +religious liberty which he still stoutly condemned in its application to +others. + +He afterwards candidly admits, that, under the "Usurper," as he styles +Cromwell, "he had such liberty and advantage to preach the Gospel with +success, as he could not have under a King, to whom he had sworn and +performed true subjection and obedience." Yet this did not prevent him +from preaching and printing, "seasonably and moderately," against the +Protector. "I declared," said he, "Cromwell and his adherents to be +guilty of treason and rebellion, aggravated by perfidiousness and +hypocrisy. But yet I did not think it my duty to rave against him in the +pulpit, or to do this so unseasonably and imprudently as might irritate +him to mischief. And the rather, because, as he kept up his approbation +of a godly life in general, and of all that was good, except that which +the interest of his sinful cause engaged him to be against. So I +perceived that it was his design to do good in the main, and to promote +the Gospel and the interests of godliness more than any had done before +him." + +Cromwell, if he heard of his diatribes against him, appears to have cared +little for them. Lords Warwick and Broghill, on one occasion, brought +him to preach before the Lord Protector. He seized the occasion to +preach against the sentries, to condemn all who countenanced them, and to +advocate the unity of the Church. Soon after, he was sent for by +Cromwell, who made "a long and tedious speech" in the presence of three +of his chief men, (one of whom, General Lambert, fell asleep the while,) +asserting that God had owned his government in a signal manner. Baxter +boldly replied to him, that he and his friends regarded the ancient +monarchy as a blessing, and not an evil, and begged to know how that +blessing was forfeited to England, and to whom that forfeiture was made. +Cromwell, with some heat, made answer that it was no forfeiture, but that +God had made the change. They afterwards held a long conference with +respect to freedom of conscience, Cromwell defending his liberal policy, +and Baxter opposing it. No one can read Baxter's own account of these +interviews, without being deeply impressed with the generous and +magnanimous spirit of the Lord Protector in tolerating the utmost freedom +of speech on the part of one who openly denounced him as a traitor and +usurper. Real greatness of mind could alone have risen above personal +resentment under such circumstances of peculiar aggravation. + +In the death of the Protector, the treachery of Monk, and the restoration +of the King, Baxter and his Presbyterian friends believed that they saw +the hand of a merciful Providence preparing the way for the best good of +England and the Church. Always royalists, they had acted with the party +opposed to the King from necessity rather than choice. Considering all +that followed, one can scarcely avoid smiling over the extravagant +jubilations of the Presbyterian divines, on the return of the royal +debauchee to Whitehall. They hurried up to London with congratulations +of formidable length and papers of solemn advice and counsel, to all +which the careless monarch listened, with what patience he was master of. +Baxter was one of the first to present himself at Court, and it is +creditable to his heart rather than his judgment and discrimination that +he seized the occasion to offer a long address to the King, expressive of +his expectation that his Majesty would discountenance all sin and promote +godliness, support the true exercise of Church discipline and cherish and +hold up the hands of the faithful ministers of the Church. To all which +Charles II. "made as gracious an answer as we could expect," says Baxter, +"insomuch that old Mr. Ash burst out into tears of joy." Who doubts that +the profligate King avenged himself as soon as the backs of his unwelcome +visitors were fairly turned, by coarse jests and ribaldry, directed +against a class of men whom he despised and hated, but towards whom +reasons of policy dictated a show of civility and kindness? + +There is reason to believe that Charles II., had he been able to effect +his purpose, would have gone beyond Cromwell himself in the matter of +religious toleration; in other words, he would have taken, in the outset +of his reign, the very steps which cost his successor his crown, and +procured the toleration of Catholics by a declaration of universal +freedom in religion. But he was not in a situation to brave the +opposition alike of Prelacy and Presbyterianism, and foiled in a scheme +to which he was prompted by that vague, superstitious predilection for +the Roman Catholic religion which at times struggled with his habitual +scepticism, his next object was to rid himself of the importunities of +sentries and the trouble of religious controversies by reestablishing the +liturgy, and bribing or enforcing conformity to it on the part of the +Presbyterians. The history of the successful execution of this purpose +is familiar to all the readers of the plausible pages of Clarendon on the +one side, or the complaining treatises of Neal and Calamy on the other. + +Charles and his advisers triumphed, not so much through their own art, +dissimulation, and bad faith as through the blind bigotry, divided +counsels, and self-seeking of the Nonconformists. Seduction on one hand +and threats on the other, the bribe of bishoprics, hatred of Independents +and Quakers, and the terror of penal laws, broke the strength of +Presbyterianism. + +Baxter's whole conduct, on this occasion, bears testimony to his honesty +and sincerity, while it shows him to have been too intolerant to secure +his own religious freedom at the price of toleration for Catholics, +Quakers, and Anabaptists; and too blind in his loyalty to perceive that +pure and undefiled Christianity had nothing to hope for from a scandalous +and depraved King, surrounded by scoffing, licentious courtiers and a +haughty, revengeful prelacy. To secure his influence, the Court offered +him the bishopric of Hereford. Superior to personal considerations, he +declined the honor; but somewhat inconsistently, in his zeal for the +interests of his party, he urged the elevation of at least three of his +Presbyterian friends to the Episcopal bench, to enforce that very liturgy +which they condemned. He was the chief speaker for the Presbyterians at +the famous Savoy Conference, summoned to advise and consult upon the Book +of Common Prayer. His antagonist was Dr. Gunning, ready, fluent, and +impassioned. "They spent," as Gilbert Burnet says, "several days in +logical arguing, to the diversion of the town, who looked upon them as a +couple of fencers, engaged in a discussion which could not be brought to +an end." In themselves considered, many of the points at issue seem +altogether too trivial for the zeal with which Baxter contested them,-- +the form of a surplice, the wording of a prayer, kneeling at sacrament, +the sign of the cross, etc. With him, however, they were of momentous +interest and importance, as things unlawful in the worship of God. He +struggled desperately, but unavailingly. Presbyterianism, in its +eagerness for peace and union and a due share of State support, had +already made fatal concessions, and it was too late to stand upon non- +essentials. Baxter retired from the conference baffled and defeated, +amidst murmurs and jests. "If you had only been as fat as Dr. Manton," +said Clarendon to him, "you would have done well." + +The Act of Conformity, in which Charles II. and his counsellors gave the +lie to the liberal declarations of Breda and Whitehall, drove Baxter from +his sorrowing parishioners of Kidderminster, and added the evils of +poverty and persecution to the painful bodily infirmities under which he +was already bowed down. Yet his cup was not one of unalloyed bitterness, +and loving lips were prepared to drink it with him. + +Among Baxter's old parishioners of Kidderminster was a widowed lady of +gentle birth, named Charlton, who, with her daughter Margaret, occupied a +house in his neighborhood. The daughter was a brilliant girl, of +"strangely vivid wit," and "in early youth," he tells us, "pride, and +romances, and company suitable thereunto, did take her up." But erelong, +Baxter, who acted in the double capacity of spiritual and temporal +physician, was sent for to visit her, on an occasion of sickness. He +ministered to her bodily and mental sufferings, and thus secured her +gratitude and confidence. On her recovery, under the influence of his +warnings and admonitions, the gay young girl became thoughtful and +serious, abandoned her light books and companions, and devoted herself to +the duties of a Christian profession. Baxter was her counsellor and +confidant. She disclosed to him all her doubts, trials, and temptations, +and he, in return, wrote her long letters of sympathy, consolation, and +encouragement. He began to feel such an unwonted interest in the moral +and spiritual growth of his young disciple, that, in his daily walks +among his parishioners, he found himself inevitably drawn towards her +mother's dwelling. In her presence, the habitual austerity of his manner +was softened; his cold, close heart warmed and expanded. He began to +repay her confidence with his own, disclosing to her all his plans of +benevolence, soliciting her services, and waiting, with deference, for +her judgment upon them. A change came over his habits of thought and his +literary tastes; the harsh, rude disputant, the tough, dry logician, +found himself addressing to his young friend epistles in verse on +doctrinal points and matters of casuistry; Westminster Catechism in +rhyme; the Solemn League and Covenant set to music. A miracle alone +could have made Baxter a poet; the cold, clear light of reason "paled the +ineffectual fires" of his imagination; all things presented themselves to +his vision "with hard outlines, colorless, and with no surrounding +atmosphere." That he did, nevertheless, write verses, so creditable as +to justify a judicious modern critic in their citation and approval, can +perhaps be accounted for only as one of the phenomena of that subtle and +transforming influence to which even his stern nature was unconsciously +yielding. Baxter was in love. + +Never did the blind god try his archery on a more unpromising subject. +Baxter was nearly fifty years of age, and looked still older. His life +had been one long fast and penance. Even in youth he had never known a +schoolboy's love for cousin or playmate. He had resolutely closed up his +heart against emotions which he regarded as the allurements of time and +sense. He had made a merit of celibacy, and written and published +against the entanglement of godly ministers in matrimonial engagements +and family cares. It is questionable whether he now understood his own +case, or attributed to its right cause the peculiar interest which he +felt in Margaret Charlton. Left to himself, it is more than probable +that he might never have discovered the true nature of that interest, or +conjectured that anything whatever of earthly passion or sublunary +emotion had mingled with his spiritual Platonism. Commissioned and set +apart to preach repentance to dying men, penniless and homeless, worn +with bodily pain and mental toil, and treading, as he believed, on the +very margin of his grave, what had he to do with love? What power had he +to inspire that tender sentiment, the appropriate offspring only of +youth, and health, and beauty? + + "Could any Beatrice see + A lover in such anchorite!" + +But in the mean time a reciprocal feeling was gaining strength in the +heart of Margaret. To her grateful appreciation of the condescension of +a great and good man--grave, learned, and renowned--to her youth and +weakness, and to her enthusiastic admiration of his intellectual powers, +devoted to the highest and holiest objects, succeeded naturally enough +the tenderly suggestive pity of her woman's heart, as she thought of his +lonely home, his unshared sorrows, his lack of those sympathies and +kindnesses which make tolerable the hard journey of life. Did she not +owe to him, under God, the salvation of body and mind? Was he not her +truest and most faithful friend, entering with lively interest into all +her joys and sorrows? Had she not seen the cloud of his habitual sadness +broken by gleams of sunny warmth and cheerfulness, as they conversed +together? Could she do better than devote herself to the pleasing task +of making his life happier, of comforting him in seasons of pain and +weariness, encouraging him in his vast labors, and throwing over the cold +and hard austerities of his nature the warmth and light of domestic +affection? Pity, reverence, gratitude, and womanly tenderness, her +fervid imagination and the sympathies of a deeply religious nature, +combined to influence her decision. Disparity of age and condition +rendered it improbable that Baxter would ever venture to address her in +any other capacity than that of a friend and teacher; and it was left to +herself to give the first intimation of the possibility of a more +intimate relation. + +It is easy to imagine with what mixed feelings of joy, surprise, and +perplexity Baxter must have received the delicate avowal. There was much +in the circumstances of the case to justify doubt, misgiving, and close +searchings of heart. He must have felt the painful contrast which that +fair girl in the bloom of her youth presented to the worn man of middle +years, whose very breath was suffering, and over whom death seemed always +impending. Keenly conscious of his infirmities of temper, he must have +feared for the happiness of a loving, gentle being, daily exposed to +their manifestations. From his well-known habit of consulting what he +regarded as the divine will in every important step of his life, there +can be no doubt that his decision was the result quite as much of a +prayerful and patient consideration of duty as of the promptings of his +heart. Richard Baxter was no impassioned Abelard; his pupil in the +school of his severe and self-denying piety was no Heloise; but what +their union lacked in romantic interest was compensated by its purity and +disinterestedness, and its sanction by all that can hallow human passion, +and harmonize the love of the created with the love and service of the +Creator. + +Although summoned by a power which it would have been folly to resist, +the tough theologian did not surrender at discretion. "From the first +thoughts yet many changes and stoppages intervened, and long delays," he +tells us. The terms upon which he finally capitulated are perfectly in +keeping with his character. "She consented," he says, "to three +conditions of our marriage. 1st. That I should have nothing that before +our marriage was hers; that I, who wanted no earthly supplies, might not +seem to marry her from selfishness. 2d. That she would so alter her +affairs that I might be entangled in no lawsuits. 3d. That she should +expect none of my time which my ministerial work should require." + +As was natural, the wits of the Court had their jokes upon this singular +marriage; and many of his best friends regretted it, when they called to +mind what he had written in favor of ministerial celibacy, at a time +when, as he says, "he thought to live and die a bachelor." But Baxter +had no reason to regret the inconsistency of his precept and example. +How much of the happiness of the next twenty years of his life resulted +from his union with a kind and affectionate woman he has himself +testified, in his simple and touching Breviate of the Life of the late +Mrs. Baxter. Her affections were so ardent that her husband confesses +his fear that he was unable to make an adequate return, and that she must +have been disappointed in him in consequence. He extols her pleasant +conversation, her active benevolence, her disposition to aid him in all +his labors, and her noble forgetfulness of self, in ministering to his +comfort, in sickness and imprisonment. "She was the meetest helper I +could have had in the world," is his language. "If I spoke harshly or +sharply, it offended her. If I carried it (as I am apt) with too much +negligence of ceremony or humble compliment to any, she would modestly +tell me of it. If my looks seemed not pleasant, she would have me amend +them (which my weak, pained state of body indisposed me to do)." He +admits she had her failings, but, taken as a whole, the Breviate is an +exalted eulogy. + +His history from this time is marked by few incidents of a public +character. During that most disgraceful period in the annals of England, +the reign of the second Charles, his peculiar position exposed him to the +persecutions of prelacy and the taunts and abuse of the sentries, +standing as he did between these extremes, and pleading for a moderate +Episcopacy. He was between the upper millstone of High Church and the +nether one of Dissent. To use his own simile, he was like one who seeks +to fill with his hand a cleft in a log, and feels both sides close upon +him with pain. All parties and sects had, as they thought, grounds of +complaint against him. There was in him an almost childish simplicity of +purpose, a headlong earnestness and eagerness, which did not allow him to +consider how far a present act or opinion harmonized with what he had +already done or written. His greatest admirers admit his lack of +judgment, his inaptitude for the management of practical matters. His +utter incapacity to comprehend rightly the public men and measures of his +day is abundantly apparent; and the inconsistencies of his conduct and +his writings are too marked to need comment. He suffered persecution for +not conforming to some trifling matters of Church usage, while he +advocated the doctrine of passive obedience to the King or ruling power, +and the right of that power to enforce conformity. He wrote against +conformity while himself conforming; seceded from the Church, and yet +held stated communion with it; begged for the curacy of Kidderminster, +and declined the bishopric of Hereford. His writings were many of them +directly calculated to make Dissenters from the Establishment, but he was +invariably offended to find others practically influenced by them, and +quarrelled with his own converts to Dissent. The High Churchmen of +Oxford burned his Holy Commonwealth as seditious and revolutionary; while +Harrington and the republican club of Miles's Coffee House condemned it +for its hostility to democracy and its servile doctrine of obedience to +kings. He made noble pleas for liberty of conscience and bitterly +complained of his own suffering from Church courts, yet maintained the +necessity of enforcing conformity, and stoutly opposed the tolerant +doctrines of Penn and Milton. Never did a great and good man so entangle +himself with contradictions and inconsistencies. The witty and wicked +Sir Roger L'Estrange compiled from the irreconcilable portions of his +works a laughable Dialogue between Richard and Baxter. The Antinomians +found him guilty of Socinianism; and one noted controversialist undertook +to show, not without some degree of plausibility, that he was by turns a +Quaker and a Papist! + +Although able to suspend his judgment and carefully weigh evidence, upon +matters which he regarded as proper subjects of debate and scrutiny, he +possessed the power to shut out and banish at will all doubt and +misgiving in respect to whatever tended to prove, illustrate, or enforce +his settled opinions and cherished doctrines. His credulity at times +seems boundless. Hating the Quakers, and prepared to believe all manner +of evil of them, be readily came to the conclusion that their leaders +were disguised Papists. He maintained that Lauderdale was a good and +pious man, in spite of atrocities in Scotland which entitle him to a +place with Claverhouse; and indorsed the character of the infamous +Dangerfield, the inventor of the Meal-tub Plot, as a worthy convert from +popish errors. To prove the existence of devils and spirits, he +collected the most absurd stories and old-wives' fables, of soldiers +scared from their posts at night by headless bears, of a young witch +pulling the hooks out of Mr. Emlen's breeches and swallowing them, of Mr. +Beacham's locomotive tobacco-pipe, and the Rev. Mr. Munn's jumping Bible, +and of a drunken man punished for his intemperance by being lifted off +his legs by an invisible hand! Cotton Mather's marvellous account of his +witch experiments in New England delighted him. He had it republished, +declaring that "he must be an obstinate Sadducee who doubted it." + +The married life of Baxter, as might be inferred from the state of the +times, was an unsettled one. He first took a house at Moorfields, then +removed to Acton, where he enjoyed the conversation of his neighbor, Sir +Matthew Hale; from thence he found refuge in Rickmansworth, and after +that in divers other places. "The women have most of this trouble," he +remarks, "but my wife easily bore it all." When unable to preach, his +rapid pen was always busy. Huge folios of controversial and doctrinal +lore followed each other in quick succession. He assailed Popery and the +Establishment, Anabaptists, ultra Calvinists, Antinomians, Fifth Monarchy +men, and Quakers. His hatred of the latter was only modified by his +contempt. He railed rather than argued against the "miserable +creatures," as he styled them. They in turn answered him in like manner. +"The Quakers," he says, "in their shops, when I go along London streets, +say, 'Alas' poor man, thou art yet in darkness.' They have oft come to +the congregation, when I had liberty to preach Christ's Gospel, and cried +out against me as a deceiver of the people. They have followed me home, +crying out in the streets, 'The day of the Lord is coming, and thou shalt +perish as a deceiver.' They have stood in the market-place, and under my +window, year after year, crying to the people, 'Take heed of your +priests, they deceive your souls;' and if any one wore a lace or neat +clothing, they cried out to me, 'These are the fruits of your ministry.'" + +At Rickmansworth, he found himself a neighbor of William Penn, whom he +calls "the captain of the Quakers." Ever ready for battle, Baxter +encountered him in a public discussion, with such fierceness and +bitterness as to force from that mild and amiable civilian the remark, +that he would rather be Socrates at the final judgment than Richard +Baxter. Both lived to know each other better, and to entertain +sentiments of mutual esteem. Baxter himself admits that the Quakers, by +their perseverance in holding their religious meetings in defiance of +penal laws, took upon themselves the burden of persecution which would +otherwise have fallen upon himself and his friends; and makes special +mention of the noble and successful plea of Penn before the Recorder's +Court in London, based on the fundamental liberties of Englishmen and the +rights of the Great Charter. + +The intolerance of Baxter towards the Separatists was turned against him +whenever he appealed to the King and Parliament against the proscription +of himself and his friends. "They gathered," he complains, "out of mine +and other men's books all that we had said against liberty for Popery and +Quakers railing against ministers in open congregation, and applied it as +against the toleration of ourselves." It was in vain that he explained +that he was only in favor of a gentle coercion of dissent, a moderate +enforcement of conformity. His plan for dealing with sentries reminds +one of old Isaak Walton's direction to his piscatorial readers, to impale +the frog on the hook as gently as if they loved him. + +While at Acton, he was complained of by Dr. Ryves, the rector, one of the +King's chaplains in ordinary, for holding religious services in his +family with more than five strangers present. He was cast into +Clerkenwell jail, whither his faithful wife followed him. On his +discharge, he sought refuge in the hamlet of Totteridge, where he wrote +and published that Paraphrase on the New Testament which was made the +ground of his prosecution and trial before Jeffreys. + +On the 14th of the sixth month, 1681, he was called to endure the +greatest affliction of his life. His wife died on that day, after a +brief illness. She who had been his faithful friend, companion, and +nurse for twenty years was called away from him in the time of his +greatest need of her ministrations. He found consolation in dwelling on +her virtues and excellences in the Breviate of her life; "a paper +monument," he says, "erected by one who is following her even at the door +in some passion indeed of love and grief." In the preface to his +poetical pieces he alludes to her in terms of touching simplicity and +tenderness: "As these pieces were mostly written in various passions, so +passion hath now thrust them out into the world. God having taken away +the dear companion of the last nineteen years of my life, as her sorrows +and sufferings long ago gave being to some of these poems, for reasons, +which the world is not concerned to know; so my grief for her removal, +and the revival of the sense of former things, have prevailed upon me to +be passionate in the sight of all." + +The circumstances of his trial before the judicial monster, Jeffreys, are +too well known to justify their detail in this sketch. He was sentenced +to pay a fine of five hundred marks. Seventy years of age, and reduced +to poverty by former persecutions, he was conveyed to the King's Bench +prison. Here for two years he lay a victim to intense bodily suffering. +When, through the influence of his old antagonist, Penn, he was restored +to freedom, he was already a dying man. But he came forth from prison as +he entered it, unsubdued in spirit. + +Urged to sign a declaration of thanks to James II., his soul put on the +athletic habits of youth, and he stoutly refused to commend an act of +toleration which had given freedom not to himself alone, but to Papists +and sentries. Shaking off the dust of the Court from his feet, he +retired to a dwelling in Charter-House Square, near his friend +Sylvester's, and patiently awaited his deliverance. His death was quiet +and peaceful. "I have pain," he said to his friend Mather; "there is no +arguing against sense; but I have peace. I have peace." On being asked +how he did, he answered, in memorable words, "Almost well!" + +He was buried in Christ Church, where the remains of his wife and her +mother had been placed. An immense concourse attended his funeral, of +all ranks and parties. Conformist and Non-conformist forgot the +bitterness of the controversialist, and remembered only the virtues and +the piety of the man. Looking back on his life of self-denial and +faithfulness to apprehended duty, the men who had persecuted him while +living wept over his grave. During the last few years of his life, the +severity of his controversial tone had been greatly softened; he lamented +his former lack of charity, the circle of his sympathies widened, his +social affections grew stronger with age, and love for his fellow-men +universally, and irrespective of religious differences, increased within +him. In his Narrative, written in the long, cool shadows of the evening +of life, he acknowledges with extraordinary candor this change in his +views and feelings. He confesses his imperfections as a writer and +public teacher. + +"I wish," he says, "all over-sharp passages were expunged from my +writings, and I ask forgiveness of God and man." He tells us that +mankind appear more equal to him; the good are not so good as he once +thought, nor the bad so evil; and that in all there is more for grace to +make advantage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than he once +believed. "I less admire," he continues, "gifts of utterance, and the +bare profession of religion, than I once did, and have now much more +charity for those who, by want of gifts, do make an obscurer profession." + +He laments the effects of his constitutional irritability and impatience +upon his social intercourse and his domestic relations, and that his +bodily infirmities did not allow him a free expression of the tenderness +and love of his heart. Who does not feel the pathos and inconsolable +regret which dictated the following paragraph? + +"When God forgiveth me, I cannot forgive myself, especially for my rash +words and deeds by which I have seemed injurious and less tender and kind +than I should have been to my near and dear relations, whose love +abundantly obliged me. When such are dead, though we never differed in +point of interest or any other matter, every sour or cross or provoking +word which I gave them maketh me almost irreconcilable to myself, and +tells me how repentance brought some of old to pray to the dead whom they +had wronged to forgive them, in the hurry of their passion." + +His pride as a logician and skilful disputant abated in the latter and +better portion of his life he had more deference to the judgment of +others, and more distrust of his own. "You admire," said he to a +correspondent who had lauded his character, "one you do not know; +knowledge will cure your error." In his Narrative he writes: "I am much +more sensible than heretofore of the breadth and length and depth of the +radical, universal, odious sin of selfishness, and therefore have written +so much against it; and of the excellency and necessity of self-denial +and of a public mind, and of loving our neighbors as ourselves." Against +many difficulties and discouragements, both within himself and in his +outward circumstances, he strove to make his life and conversation an +expression of that Christian love whose root, as he has said with equal +truth and beauty, "is set + + In humble self-denial, undertrod, + While flower and fruit are growing up to God." + +Of the great mass of his writings, more voluminous than those of any +author of his time, it would ill become us to speak with confidence. We +are familiar only with some of the best of his practical works, and our +estimate of the vast and appalling series of his doctrinal, metaphysical +and controversial publications would be entitled to small weight, as the +result of very cursory examination. Many of them relate to obsolete +questions and issues, monumental of controversies long dead, and of +disputatious doctors otherwise forgotten. Yet, in respect to even these, +we feel justified in assenting to the opinion of one abundantly capable +of appreciating the character of Baxter as a writer. "What works of Mr. +Baxter shall I read?" asked Boswell of Dr. Johnson. "Read any of them," +was the answer, "for they are all good." He has left upon all the +impress of his genius. Many of them contain sentiments which happily +find favor with few in our time: philosophical and psychological +disquisitions, which look oddly enough in the light of the intellectual +progress of nearly two centuries; dissertations upon evil spirits, +ghosts, and witches, which provoke smiles at the good man's credulity; +but everywhere we find unmistakable evidences of his sincerity and +earnest love of truth. He wrote under a solemn impression of duty, +allowing neither pain, nor weakness, nor the claims of friendship, nor +the social enjoyments of domestic affection, to interfere with his +sleepless intensity of purpose. He stipulated with his wife, before +marriage, that she should not expect him to relax, even for her society, +the severity of his labors. He could ill brook interruption, and +disliked the importunity of visitors. "We are afraid, sir, we break in +upon your time," said some of his callers to him upon one occasion. "To +be sure you do," was his answer. His seriousness seldom forsook him; +there is scarce a gleam of gayety in all his one hundred and sixty-eight +volumes. He seems to have relished, however, the wit of others, +especially when directed against what he looked upon as error. Marvell's +inimitable reply to the High-Church pretensions of Parker fairly overcame +his habitual gravity, and he several times alludes to it with marked +satisfaction; but, for himself, he had no heart for pleasentry. His +writings, like his sermons, were the earnest expostulations of a dying +man with dying men. He tells us of no other amusement or relaxation than +the singing of psalms. "Harmony and melody," said he, "are the pleasure +and elevation of my soul. It was not the least comfort that I had in the +converse of my late dear wife, that our first act in the morning and last +in bed at night was a psalm of praise." + +It has been fashionable to speak of Baxter as a champion of civil and +religious freedom. He has little claim to such a reputation. He was the +stanch advocate of monarchy, and of the right and duty of the State to +enforce conformity to what he regarded as the essentials of religious +belief and practice. No one regards the prelates who went to the Tower, +under James II., on the ground of conscientious scruples against reading +the King's declaration of toleration to Dissenters, as martyrs in the +cause of universal religious freedom. Nor can Baxter, although he wrote +much against the coercion and silencing of godly ministers, and suffered +imprisonment himself for the sake of a good conscience, be looked upon in +the light of an intelligent and consistent confessor of liberty. He did +not deny the abstract right of ecclesiastical coercion, but complained of +its exercise upon himself and his friends as unwarranted and unjust. + +One of the warmest admirers and ablest commentators of Baxter designates +the leading and peculiar trait of his character as unearthliness. In our +view, this was its radical defect. He had too little of humanity, he +felt too little of the attraction of this world, and lived too +exclusively in the spiritual and the unearthly, for a full and healthful +development of his nature as a man, or of the graces, charities, and +loves of the Christian. He undervalued the common blessings and joys of +life, and closed his eyes and ears against the beauty and harmony of +outward nature. Humanity, in itself considered, seemed of small moment +to him; "passing away" was written alike on its wrongs and its rights, +its pleasures and its pains; death would soon level all distinctions; and +the sorrows or the joys, the poverty or the riches, the slavery or the +liberty, of the brief day of its probation seemed of too little +consequence to engage his attention and sympathies. Hence, while he was +always ready to minister to temporal suffering wherever it came to his +notice, he made no efforts to remove its political or social causes. +In this respect he differed widely from some of his illustrious +contemporaries. Penn, while preaching up and down the land, and writing +theological folios and pamphlets, could yet urge the political rights of +Englishmen, mount the hustings for Algernon Sydney, and plead for +unlimited religious liberty; and Vane, while dreaming of a coming +millennium and reign of the saints, and busily occupied in defending his +Antinomian doctrines, could at the same time vindicate, with tongue and +pen, the cause of civil and religious freedom. But Baxter overlooked the +evils and oppressions which were around him, and forgot the necessities +and duties of the world of time and sense in his earnest aspirations +towards the world of spirits. It is by no means an uninstructive fact, +that with the lapse of years his zeal for proselytism, doctrinal +disputations, and the preaching of threats and terrors visibly declined, +while love for his fellow-men and catholic charity greatly increased, and +he was blessed with a clearer perception of the truth that God is best +served through His suffering children, and that love and reverence for +visible humanity is an indispensable condition of the appropriate worship +of the Unseen God. + +But, in taking leave of Richard Baxter, our last words must not be those +of censure. Admiration and reverence become us rather. He was an honest +man. So far as we can judge, his motives were the highest and best which +can influence human action. He had faults and weaknesses, and committed +grave errors, but we are constrained to believe that the prayer with +which he closes his Saints' Rest and which we have chosen as the fitting +termination of our article, was the earnest aspiration of his life:-- + +"O merciful Father of Spirits! suffer not the soul of thy unworthy +servant to be a stranger to the joys which he describes to others, but +keep me while I remain on earth in daily breathing after thee, and in a +believing affectionate walking with thee! Let those who shall read these +pages not merely read the fruits of my studies, but the breathing of my +active hope and love; that if my heart were open to their view, they +might there read thy love most deeply engraven upon it with a beam from +the face of the Son of God; and not find vanity or lust or pride within +where the words of life appear without, that so these lines may not +witness against me, but, proceeding from the heart of the writer, be +effectual through thy grace upon the heart of the reader, and so be the +savor of life to both." + + + + + + + WILLIAM LEGGETT + + "O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream, + A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, + And wavy tresses, gushing from the cap + With which the Roman master crowned his slave, + When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, + Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand + Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, + Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred + With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs + Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched + His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee; + They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven." + BRYANT. + +WHEN the noblest woman in all France stood on the scaffold, just before +her execution, she is said to have turned towards the statue of Liberty, +--which, strangely enough, had been placed near the guillotine, as its +patron saint,--with the exclamation, "O Liberty! what crimes have been +committed in thy name!" It is with a feeling akin to that which prompted +this memorable exclamation of Madame Roland that the sincere lover of +human freedom and progress is often compelled to regard American +democracy. + +For democracy, pure and impartial,--the self-government of the whole; +equal rights and privileges, irrespective of birth or complexion; the +morality of the Gospel of Christ applied to legislation; Christianity +reduced to practice, and showering the blessings of its impartial love +and equal protection upon all, like the rain and dews of heaven,--we have +the sincerest love and reverence. So far as our own government +approaches this standard--and, with all its faults, we believe it does so +more nearly than any other--it has our hearty and steadfast allegiance. +We complain of and protest against it only where, in its original +framework or actual administration, it departs from the democratic +principle. Holding, with Novalis, that the Christian religion is the +root of all democracy and the highest fact in the rights of man, we +regard the New Testament as the true political text-book; and believe +that, just in proportion as mankind receive its doctrines and precepts, +not merely as matters of faith and relating to another state of being, +but as practical rules, designed for the regulation of the present life +as well as the future, their institutions, social arrangements, and forms +of government will approximate to the democratic model. We believe in +the ultimate complete accomplishment of the mission of Him who came "to +preach deliverance to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to +them that are bound." We look forward to the universal dominion of His +benign humanity; and, turning from the strife and blood, the slavery, and +social and political wrongs of the past and present, anticipate the +realization in the distant future of that state when the song of the +angels at His advent shall be no longer a prophecy, but the jubilant +expression of a glorious reality,--"Glory to God in the highest! Peace +on earth, and good will to man!" + +For the party in this country which has assumed the name of Democracy, as +a party, we have had, we confess, for some years past, very little +respect. It has advocated many salutary measures, tending to equalize the +advantages of trade and remove the evils of special legislation. But if +it has occasionally lopped some of the branches of the evil tree of +oppression, so far from striking at its root, it has suffered itself to +be made the instrument of nourishing and protecting it. It has allowed +itself to be called, by its Southern flatterers, "the natural ally of +slavery." It has spurned the petitions of the people in behalf of +freedom under its feet, in Congress and State legislatures. Nominally +the advocate of universal suffrage, it has wrested from the colored +citizens of Pennsylvania that right of citizenship which they had enjoyed +under a Constitution framed by Franklin and Rush. Perhaps the most +shameful exhibition of its spirit was made in the late Rhode Island +struggle, when the free suffrage convention, solemnly calling heaven and +earth to witness its readiness to encounter all the horrors of civil war, +in defence of the holy principle of equal and universal suffrage, +deliberately excluded colored Rhode Islanders from the privilege of +voting. In the Constitutional Conventions of Michigan and Iowa, the same +party declared all men equal, and then provided an exception to this rule +in the case of the colored inhabitants. Its course on the question of +excluding slavery from Texas is a matter of history, known and read of +all. + +After such exhibitions of its practice, its professions have lost their +power. The cant of democracy upon the lips of men who are living down +its principles is, to an earnest mind, well nigh insufferable. Pertinent +were the queries of Eliphaz the Temanite, "Shall a man utter vain +knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Shall he reason with +unprofitable talk, or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?" Enough +of wearisome talk we have had about "progress," the rights of "the +masses," the "dignity of labor," and "extending the area of freedom"! +"Clear your mind of cant, sir," said Johnson to Boswell; and no better +advice could be now given to a class of our democratic politicians. Work +out your democracy; translate your words into deeds; away with your +sentimental generalizations, and come down to the practical details of +your duty as men and Christians. What avail your abstract theories, your +hopeless virginity of democracy, sacred from the violence of meanings? +A democracy which professes to hold, as by divine right, the doctrine of +human equality in its special keeping, and which at the same time gives +its direct countenance and support to the vilest system of oppression on +which the sun of heaven looks, has no better title to the name it +disgraces than the apostate Son of the Morning has to his old place in +heaven. We are using strong language, for we feel strongly on this +subject. Let those whose hypocrisy we condemn, and whose sins against +humanity we expose, remember that they are the publishers of their own +shame, and that they have gloried in their apostasy. There is a cutting +severity in the answer which Sophocles puts in the mouth of Electra, in +justification of her indignant rebuke of her wicked mother:-- + + "'Tis you that say it, not I + You do the unholy deeds which find rue words." + +Yet in that party calling itself democratic we rejoice to recognize true, +generous, and thoroughly sincere men,--lovers of the word of democracy, +and doers of it also, honest and hearty in their worship of liberty, who +are still hoping that the antagonism which slavery presents to democracy +will be perceived by the people, in spite of the sophistry and appeals to +prejudice by which interested partisans have hitherto succeeded in +deceiving them. We believe with such that the mass of the democratic +voters of the free States are in reality friends of freedom, and hate +slavery in all its forms; and that, with a full understanding of the +matter, they could never consent to be sold to presidential aspirants, by +political speculators, in lots to suit purchasers, and warranted to be +useful in putting down free discussion, perpetuating oppression, and +strengthening the hands of modern feudalism. They are beginning already +to see that, under the process whereby men of easy virtue obtain offices +from the general government, as the reward of treachery to free +principles, the strength and vitality of the party are rapidly declining. +To them, at least, democracy means something more than collectorships, +consulates, and governmental contracts. For the sake of securing a +monopoly of these to a few selfish and heartless party managers, they are +not prepared to give up the distinctive principles of democracy, and +substitute in their place the doctrines of the Satanic school of +politics. They will not much longer consent to stand before the world as +the slavery party of the United States, especially when policy and +expediency, as well as principle, unite in recommending a position more +congenial to the purposes of their organization, the principles of the +fathers of their political faith, the spirit of the age, and the +obligations of Christianity. + +The death-blow of slavery in this country will be given by the very power +upon which it has hitherto relied with so much confidence. Abused and +insulted Democracy will, erelong, shake off the loathsome burden under +which it is now staggering. In the language of the late Theodore +Sedgwiek, of Massachusetts, a consistent democrat of the old school: +"Slavery, in all its forms, is anti-democratic,--an old poison left in +the veins, fostering the worst principles of aristocracy, pride, and +aversion to labor; the natural enemy of the poor man, the laboring man, +the oppressed man. The question is, whether absolute dominion over any +creature in the image of man be a wholesome power in a free country; +whether this is a school in which to train the young republican mind; +whether slave blood and free blood can course healthily together in the +same body politic. Whatever may be present appearances, and by whatever +name party may choose to call things, this question must finally be +settled by the democracy of the country." + +This prediction was made eight years ago, at a time when all the facts in +the case seemed against the probability of its truth, and when only here +and there the voice of an indignant freeman protested against the +exulting claims of the slave power upon the democracy as its "natural +ally." The signs of the times now warrant the hope of its fulfilment. +Over the hills of the East, and over the broad territory of the Empire +State, a new spirit is moving. Democracy, like Balaam upon Zophim, has +felt the divine _afflatus_, and is blessing that which it was summoned to +curse. + +The present hopeful state of things is owing, in no slight degree, to the +self-sacrificing exertions of a few faithful and clear-sighted men, +foremost among whom was the late William Leggett; than whom no one has +labored more perseveringly, or, in the end, more successfully, to bring +the practice of American democracy into conformity with its professions. + +William Leggett! Let our right hand forget its cunning, when that name +shall fail to awaken generous emotions and aspirations for a higher and +worthier manhood! True man and true democrat; faithful always to +Liberty, following wherever she led, whether the storm beat in his face +or on his back; unhesitatingly counting her enemies his own, whether in +the guise of Whig monopoly and selfish expediency, or democratic +servility north of Mason and Dixon's line towards democratic slaveholding +south of it; poor, yet incorruptible; dependent upon party favor, as a +party editor, yet risking all in condemnation of that party, when in the +wrong; a man of the people, yet never stooping to flatter the people's +prejudices,--he is the politician, of all others, whom we would hold up +to the admiration and imitation of the young men of our country. What +Fletcher of Saltoun is to Scotland, and the brave spirits of the old +Commonwealth time-- + + "Hands that penned + And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none + The later Sydney, Marvell, Harrington, + Young Vane, and others, who called Milton friend--" + +are to England, should Leggett be to America. His character was formed +on these sturdy democratic models. Had he lived in their day, he would +have scraped with old Andrew Marvell the bare blade-bone of poverty, or +even laid his head on the block with Vane, rather than forego his +independent thought and speech. + +Of the early life of William Leggett we have no very definite knowledge. +Born in moderate circumstances; at first a woodsman in the Western +wilderness, then a midshipman in the navy, then a denizen of New York; +exposed to sore hardships and perilous temptations, he worked his way by +the force of his genius to the honorable position of associate editor of +the Evening Post, the leading democratic journal of our great commercial +metropolis. Here he became early distinguished for his ultraism in +democracy. His whole soul revolted against oppression. He was for +liberty everywhere and in all things, in thought, in speech, in vote, in +religion, in government, and in trade; he was for throwing off all +restraints upon the right of suffrage; regarding all men as brethren, he +looked with disapprobation upon attempts to exclude foreigners from the +rights of citizenship; he was for entire freedom of commerce; he +denounced a national bank; he took the lead in opposition to the monopoly +of incorporated banks; he argued in favor of direct taxation, and +advocated a free post-office, or a system by which letters should be +transported, as goods and passengers now are, by private enterprise. In +all this he was thoroughly in earnest. That he often erred through +passion and prejudice cannot be doubted; but in no instance was he found +turning aside from the path which he believed to be the true one, from +merely selfish considerations. He was honest alike to himself and the +public. Every question which was thrown up before him by the waves of +political or moral agitation he measured by his standard of right and +truth, and condemned or advocated it in utter disregard of prevailing +opinions, of its effect upon his pecuniary interest, or of his standing +with his party. The vehemence of his passions sometimes betrayed him +into violence of language and injustice to his opponents; but he had that +rare and manly trait which enables its possessor, whenever he becomes +convinced of error, to make a prompt acknowledgment of the conviction. + +In the summer of 1834, a series of mobs, directed against the +Abolitionists, who had organized a national society, with the city of New +York as its central point, followed each other in rapid succession. The +houses of the leading men in the society were sacked and pillaged; +meeting-houses broken into and defaced; and the unoffending colored +inhabitants of the city treated with the grossest indignity, and +subjected, in some instances, to shameful personal outrage. It was +emphatically a "Reign of Terror." The press of both political parties +and of the leading religious sects, by appeals to prejudice and passion, +and by studied misrepresentation of the designs and measures of the +Abolitionists, fanned the flame of excitement, until the fury of demons +possessed the misguided populace. To advocate emancipation, or defend +those who did so, in New York, at that period, was like preaching +democracy in Constantinople or religious toleration in Paris on the eve +of St. Bartholomew. Law was prostrated in the dust; to be suspected of +abolitionism was to incur a liability to an indefinite degree of insult +and indignity; and the few and hunted friends of the slave who in those +nights of terror laid their heads upon the pillow did so with the prayer +of the Psalmist on their lips, "Defend me from them that rise up against +me; save me from bloody men." + +At this period the New York Evening Post spoke out strongly in +condemnation of the mob. William Leggett was not then an Abolitionist; +he had known nothing of the proscribed class, save through the cruel +misrepresentations of their enemies; but, true to his democratic faith, +he maintained the right to discuss the question of slavery. The +infection of cowardly fear, which at that time sealed the lips of +multitudes who deplored the excesses of the mob and sympathized with its +victims, never reached him. Boldly, indignantly, he demanded that the +mob should be put down at once by the civil authorities. He declared the +Abolitionists, even if guilty of all that had been charged upon them, +fully entitled to the privileges and immunities of American citizens. He +sternly reprimanded the board of aldermen of the city for rejecting with +contempt the memorial of the Abolitionists to that body, explanatory of +their principles and the measures by which they had sought to disseminate +them. Referring to the determination, expressed by the memorialists in +the rejected document, not to recant or relinquish any principle which +they had adopted, but to live and die by their faith, he said: "In this, +however mistaken, however mad, we may consider their opinions in relation +to the blacks, what honest, independent mind can blame them? Where is +the man so poor of soul, so white-livered, so base, that he would do less +in relation to any important doctrine in which he religiously believed? +Where is the man who would have his tenets drubbed into him by the clubs +of ruffians, or hold his conscience at the dictation of a mob?" + +In the summer of 1835, a mob of excited citizens broke open the post- +office at Charleston, South Carolina, and burnt in the street such papers +and pamphlets as they judged to be "incendiary;" in other words, such as +advocated the application of the democratic principle to the condition of +the slaves of the South. These papers were addressed, not to the slave, +but to the master. They contained nothing which had not been said and +written by Southern men themselves, the Pinkneys, Jeffersons, Henrys, and +Martins, of Maryland and Virginia. The example set at Charleston did not +lack imitators. Every petty postmaster south of Mason and Dixon's line +became ex officio a censor of the press. The Postmaster-General, writing +to his subordinate at Charleston, after stating that the post-office +department had "no legal right to exclude newspapers from the mail, or +prohibit their carriage or delivery, on account of their character or +tendency, real or supposed," declared that he would, nevertheless, give +no aid, directly or indirectly, in circulating publications of an +incendiary or inflammatory character; and assured the perjured +functionary, who had violated his oath of office, that, while he could +not sanction, he would not condemn his conduct. Against this virtual +encouragement of a flagrant infringement of a constitutional right, this +licensing of thousands of petty government officials to sit in their mail +offices--to use the figure of Milton--cross-legged, like so many envious +Junos, in judgment upon the daily offspring of the press, taking counsel +of passion, prejudice, and popular excitement as to what was "incendiary" +or "inflammatory," the Evening Post spoke in tones of manly protest. + +While almost all the editors of his party throughout the country either +openly approved of the conduct of the Postmaster-General or silently +acquiesced in it, William Leggett, who, in the absence of his colleague, +was at that time sole editor of the Post, and who had everything to lose, +in a worldly point of view, by assailing a leading functionary of the +government, who was a favorite of the President and a sharer of his +popularity, did not hesitate as to the course which consistency and duty +required at his hands. He took his stand for unpopular truth, at a time +when a different course on his part could not have failed to secure him +the favor and patronage of his party. In the great struggle with the +Bank of the United States, his services had not been unappreciated by the +President and his friends. Without directly approving the course of the +administration on the question of the rights of the Abolitionists, by +remaining silent in respect to it, he might have avoided all suspicion of +mental and moral independence incompatible with party allegiance. The +impracticable honesty of Leggett, never bending from the erectness of +truth for the sake of that "thrift which follows fawning," dictated a +most severe and scorching review of the letter of the Postmaster-General. +"More monstrous, more detestable doctrines we have never heard +promulgated," he exclaimed in one of his leading editorials. "With what +face, after this, can the Postmaster-General punish a postmaster for any +exercise of the fearfully dangerous power of stopping and destroying any +portion of the mails?" "The Abolitionists do not deserve to be placed on +the same footing with a, foreign enemy, nor their publications as the +secret despatches of a spy. They are American citizens, in the exercise +of their undoubted right of citizenship; and however erroneous their +views, however fanatic their conduct, while they act within the limits of +the law, what official functionary, be he merely a subordinate or the +head of the post-office department, shall dare to abridge them of their +rights as citizens, and deny them those facilities of intercourse which +were instituted for the equal accommodation of all? If the American +people will submit to this, let us expunge all written codes, and resolve +society into its original elements, where the might of the strong is +better than the right of the weak." + +A few days after the publication of this manly rebuke, he wrote an +indignantly sarcastic article upon the mobs which were at this time +everywhere summoned to "put down the Abolitionists." The next day, the +4th of the ninth month, 1835, he received a copy of the Address of the +American Anti-Slavery Society to the public, containing a full and +explicit avowal of all the principles and designs of the association. He +gave it a candid perusal, weighed its arguments, compared its doctrines +with those at the foundation of his own political faith, and rose up from +its examination an Abolitionist. He saw that he himself, misled by the +popular clamor, had done injustice to benevolent and self-sacrificing +men; and he took the earliest occasion, in an article of great power and +eloquence, to make the amplest atonement. He declared his entire +concurrence with the views of the American Anti-Slavery Society, with the +single exception of a doubt which rested, on his mind as to the abolition +of slavery in the District of Columbia. We quote from the concluding +paragraph of this article:-- + +"We assert without hesitation, that, if we possessed the right, we should +not scruple to exercise it for the speedy annihilation of servitude and +chains. The impression made in boyhood by the glorious exclamation of +Cato, + + "'A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty + Is worth a whole eternity of bondage!' + +has been worn deeper, not effaced, by time; and we eagerly and ardently +trust that the day will yet arrive when the clank of the bondman's +fetters will form no part of the multitudinous sounds which our country +sends up to Heaven, mingling, as it were, into a song of praise for our +national prosperity. We yearn with strong desire for the day when +freedom shall no longer wave + + "Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves.'" + +A few days after, in reply to the assaults made upon him from all +quarters, he calmly and firmly reiterated his determination to maintain +the right of free discussion of the subject of slavery. + +"The course we are pursuing," said he, "is one which we entered upon after +mature deliberation, and we are not to be turned from it by a species of +opposition, the inefficacy of which we have seen displayed in so many +former instances. It is Philip Van Artevelde who says:-- + + "'All my life long, + I have beheld with most respect the man + Who knew himself, and knew the ways before him; + And from among them chose considerately, + With a clear foresight, not a blindfold courage; + And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind. + Pursued his purpose.' + +"This is the sort of character we emulate. If to believe slavery a +deplorable evil and curse, in whatever light it is viewed; if to yearn +for the day which shall break the fetters of three millions of human +beings, and restore to them their birthright of equal freedom; if to be +willing, in season and out of season, to do all in our power to promote +so desirable a result, by all means not inconsistent with higher duty: if +these sentiments constitute us Abolitionists, then are we such, and glory +in the name." + +"The senseless cry of 'Abolitionist' shall never deter us, nor the more +senseless attempt of puny prints to read us out of the democratic party. +The often-quoted and beautiful saying of the Latin historian, Homo sum: +humani nihil a me alienum puto, we apply to the poor slave as well as his +master, and shall endeavor to fulfil towards both the obligations of an +equal humanity." + +The generation which, since the period of which we are speaking, have +risen into active life can have but a faint conception of the boldness of +this movement on the part of William Leggett. To be an Abolitionist then +was to abandon all hope of political preferment or party favor; to be +marked and branded as a social outlaw, under good society's interdict of +food and fire; to hold property, liberty, and life itself at the mercy of +lawless mobs. All this William Leggett clearly saw. He knew how rugged +and thorny was the path upon which, impelled by his love of truth and the +obligations of humanity, he was entering. From hunted and proscribed +Abolitionists and oppressed and spirit-broken colored men, the Pariahs of +American democracy, he could alone expect sympathy. The Whig journals, +with a few honorable exceptions, exulted over what they regarded as the +fall of a formidable opponent; and after painting his abolitionism in the +most hideous colors, held him up to their Southern allies as a specimen +of the radical disorganizers and democratic levellers of the North. His +own party, in consequence, made haste to proscribe him. Government +advertising was promptly withdrawn from his paper. The official journals +of Washington and Albany read him out of the pale of democracy. Father +Ritchie scolded and threatened. The democratic committee issued its bull +against him from Tammany Hall. The resolutions of that committee were +laid before him when he was sinking under a severe illness. Rallying his +energies, he dictated from his sick-bed an answer marked by all his +accustomed vigor and boldness. Its tone was calm, manly, self-relying; +the language of one who, having planted his feet hard down on the rock of +principle, stood there like Luther at Worms, because he "could not +otherwise." Exhausted nature sunk under the effort. A weary sickness of +nearly a year's duration followed. In this sore affliction, deserted as +he was by most of his old political friends, we have reason to know that +he was cheered by the gratitude of those in whose behalf he had well-nigh +made a martyr's sacrifice; and that from the humble hearths of his poor +colored fellow-citizens fervent prayers went up for his restoration. + +His work was not yet done. Purified by trial, he was to stand forth once +more in vindication of the truths of freedom. As soon as his health was +sufficiently reestablished, he commenced the publication of an +independent political and literary journal, under the expressive title of +The Plaindealer. In his first number he stated, that, claiming the right +of absolute freedom of discussion, he should exercise it with no other +limitations than those of his own judgment. A poor man, he admitted that +he established the paper in the expectation of deriving from it a +livelihood, but that even for that object he could not trim its sails to +suit the varying breeze of popular prejudice. "If," said he, "a paper +which makes the Right, and not the Expedient, its cardinal object, will +not yield its conductor a support, there are honest vocations that will, +and better the humblest of them than to be seated at the head of an +influential press, if its influence is not exerted to promote the cause +of truth." He was true to his promise. The free soul of a free, strong +man spoke out in his paper. How refreshing was it, after listening to +the inanities, the dull, witless vulgarity, the wearisome commonplace of +journalists, who had no higher aim than to echo, with parrot-like +exactness, current prejudices and falsehoods, to turn to the great and +generous thoughts, the chaste and vigorous diction, of the Plaindealer! +No man ever had a clearer idea of the duties and responsibilities of a +conductor of the public press than William Leggett, and few have ever +combined so many of the qualifications for their perfect discharge: a +nice sense of justice, a warm benevolence, inflexible truth, honesty +defying temptation, a mind stored with learning, and having at command +the treasures of the best thoughts of the best authors. As was said of +Fletcher of Saltoun, he was "a gentleman steady in his principles; of +nice honor, abundance of learning; bold as a lion; a sure friend; a man +who would lose his life to serve his country, and would not do a base +thing to save it." + +He had his faults: his positive convictions sometimes took the shape +of a proud and obstinate dogmatism; he who could so well appeal to the +judgment and the reason of his readers too often only roused their +passions by invective and vehement declamation. Moderate men were +startled and pained by the fierce energy of his language; and he not +unfrequently made implacable enemies of opponents whom he might have +conciliated and won over by mild expostulation and patient explanation. +It must be urged in extenuation, that, as the champion of unpopular +truths, he was assailed unfairly on all sides, and indecently +misrepresented and calumniated to a degree, as his friend Sedgwick justly +remarks, unprecedented even in the annals of the American press; and that +his errors in this respect were, in the main, errors of retaliation. + +In the Plaindealer, in common with the leading moral and political +subjects of the day, that of slavery was freely discussed in all its +bearings. It is difficult, in a single extract, to convey an adequate +idea of the character of the editorial columns of a paper, where terse +and concentrated irony and sarcasm alternate with eloquent appeal and +diffuse commentary and labored argument. We can only offer at random the +following passages from a long review of a speech of John C. Calhoun, in +which that extraordinary man, whose giant intellect has been shut out of +its appropriate field of exercise by the very slavery of which he is the +champion, undertook to maintain, in reply to a Virginia senator, that +chattel slavery was not an evil, but "a great good." + +"We have Mr. Calhoun's own warrant for attacking his position with all +the fervor which a high sense of duty can give, for we do hold, from the +bottom of our soul, that slavery is an evil,--a deep, detestable, +damnable evil; evil in all its aspects to the blacks, and a greater evil +to the whites; an evil moral, social, and political; an evil which shows +itself in the languishing condition of agriculture where it exists, in +paralyzed commerce, and in the prostration of the mechanic arts; an evil +which stares you in the face from uncultivated fields, and howls in your +ears through tangled swamps and morasses. Slavery is such an evil that +it withers what it touches. Where it is once securely established the +land becomes desolate, as the tree inevitably perishes which the sea-hawk +chooses for its nest; while freedom, on the contrary, flourishes like the +tannen, 'on the loftiest and least sheltered rocks,' and clothes with its +refreshing verdure what, without it, would frown in naked and incurable +sterility. + +"If any one desires an illustration of the opposite influences of slavery +and freedom, let him look at the two sister States of Kentucky and Ohio. +Alike in soil and climate, and divided only by a river, whose translucent +waters reveal, through nearly the whole breadth, the sandy bottom over +which they sparkle, how different are they in all the respects over which +man has control! On the one hand the air is vocal with the mingled +tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with +an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click +of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the +multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in every branch +of social occupation. + +"This is the State which, but a few years ago, slept in the unbroken +solitude of nature. The forest spread an interminable canopy of shade +over the dark soil on which the fat and useless vegetation rotted at +ease, and through the dusky vistas of the wood only savage beasts and +more savage men prowled in quest of prey. The whole land now blossoms +like a garden. The tall and interlacing trees have unlocked their hold, +and bowed before the woodman's axe. The soil is disencumbered of the +mossy trunks which had reposed upon it for ages. The rivers flash in the +sunlight, and the fields smile with waving harvests. This is Ohio, and +this is what freedom has done for it. + +"Now, let us turn to Kentucky, and note the opposite influences of +slavery. A narrow and unfrequented path through the close and sultry +canebrake conducts us to a wretched hovel. It stands in the midst of an +unweeded field, whose dilapidated enclosure scarcely protects it from the +lowing and hungry kine. Children half clad and squalid, and destitute of +the buoyancy natural to their age, lounge in the sunshine, while their +parent saunters apart, to watch his languid slaves drive the ill- +appointed team afield. This is not a fancy picture. It is a true copy +of one of the features which make up the aspect 'of the State, and of +every State where the moral leprosy of slavery covers the people with its +noisome scales; a deadening lethargy benumbs the limbs of the body +politic; a stupor settles on the arts of life; agriculture reluctantly +drags the plough and harrow to the field, only when scourged by +necessity; the axe drops from the woodman's nerveless hand the moment his +fire is scantily supplied with fuel; and the fen, undrained, sends up its +noxious exhalations, to rack with cramps and agues the frame already too +much enervated by a moral epidemic to creep beyond the sphere of the +material miasm." + +The Plaindealer was uniformly conducted with eminent ability; but its +editor was too far in advance of his contemporaries to find general +acceptance, or even toleration. In addition to pecuniary embarrassments, +his health once more failed, and in the autumn of 1837 he was compelled +to suspend the publication of his paper. One of the last articles which +he wrote for it shows the extent to which he was sometimes carried by the +intensity and depth of his abhorrence of oppression, and the fervency of +his adoration of liberty. Speaking of the liability of being called upon +to aid the master in the subjection of revolted slaves, and in replacing +their cast-off fetters, he thus expresses himself: "Would we comply with +such a requisition? No! Rather would we see our right arm lopped from +our body, and the mutilated trunk itself gored with mortal wounds, than +raise a finger in opposition to men struggling in the holy cause of +freedom. The obligations of citizenship are strong, but those of +justice, humanity, and religion, stronger. We earnestly trust that the +great contest of opinion which is now going on in this country may +terminate in the enfranchisement of the slaves, without recourse to the +strife of blood; but should the oppressed bondmen, impatient of the tardy +progress of truth, urged only in discussion, attempt to burst their +chains by a more violent and shorter process, they should never encounter +our arm nor hear our voice in the ranks of their opponents. We should +stand a sad spectator of the conflict; and, whatever commiseration we +might feel for the discomfiture of the oppressors, we should pray that +the battle might end in giving freedom to the oppressed." + +With the Plain dealer, his connection with the public, in a great +measure, ceased. His steady and intimate friend, personal as well as +political, Theodore Sedgwick, Jun., a gentleman who has, on many +occasions, proved himself worthy of his liberty-loving ancestry, thus +speaks of him in his private life at this period: "Amid the reverses of +fortune, harassed by pecuniary embarrassments, during the tortures of a +disease which tore away his life piecemeal, hee ever maintained the same +manly and unaltered front, the same cheerfulness of disposition, the same +dignity of conduct. No humiliating solicitation, no weak complaint, +escaped him." At the election in the fall of 1838, the noble-spirited +democrat was not wholly forgotten. A strenuous effort, which was well- +nigh successful, was made to secure his nomination as a candidate for +Congress. It was at this juncture that he wrote to a friend in the city, +from his residence at New Rochelle, one of the noblest letters ever +penned by a candidate for popular favor. The following extracts will +show how a true man can meet the temptations of political life:-- + +"What I am most afraid of is, that some of my friends, in their too +earnest zeal, will place me in a false position on the subject of +slavery. I am an Abolitionist. I hate slavery in all its forms, +degrees, and influences; and I deem myself bound, by the highest moral +and political obligations, not to let that sentiment of hate lie dormant +and smouldering in my own breast, but to give it free vent, and let it +blaze forth, that it may kindle equal ardor through the whole sphere of +my influence. I would not have this fact disguised or mystified for any +office the people have it in their power to give. Rather, a thousand +times rather, would I again meet the denunciations of Tammany Hall, and +be stigmatized with all the foul epithets with which the anti-abolition +vocabulary abounds, than recall or deny one tittle of my creed. +Abolition is, in my sense, a necessary and a glorious part of democracy; +and I hold the right and duty to discuss the subject of slavery, and to +expose its hideous evils in all their bearings,--moral, social, and +political,--as of infinitely higher importance than to carry fifty sub- +treasury bills. That I should discharge this duty temperately; that I +should not let it come in collision with other duties; that I should not +let my hatred of slavery transcend the express obligations of the +Constitution, or violate its clear spirit, I hope and trust you think +sufficiently well of me to believe. But what I fear is, (not from you, +however,) that some of my advocates and champions will seek to recommend +me to popular support by representing me as not an Abolitionist, which is +false. All that I have written gives the lie to it. All I shall write +will give the lie to it. + +"And here, let me add, (apart from any consideration already adverted +to,) that, as a matter of mere policy, I would not, if I could, have my +name disjoined from abolitionism. To be an Abolitionist now is to be an +incendiary; as, three years ago, to be an anti-monopolist was to be a +leveller and a Jack Cade. See what three short years have done in +effecting the anti-monopoly reform; and depend upon it that the next +three years, or, if not three, say three times three, if you please, will +work a greater revolution on the slavery question. The stream of public +opinion now sets against us; but it is about to turn, and the +regurgitation will be tremendous. Proud in that day may well be the man +who can float in triumph on the first refluent wave, swept onward by the +deluge which he himself, in advance of his fellows, has largely shared in +occasioning. Such be my fate; and, living or dead, it will, in some +measure, be mine! I have written my name in ineffaceable letters on the +abolition record; and whether the reward ultimately come in the shape of +honors to the living man, or a tribute to the memory of a departed one, I +would not forfeit my right to it for as many offices as has in his gift, +if each of them was greater than his own." + +After mentioning that he had understood that some of his friends had +endeavored to propitiate popular prejudice by representing him as no +Abolitionist, he says:-- + +"Keep them, for God's sake, from committing any such fooleries for the +sake of getting me into Congress. Let others twist themselves into what +shapes they please, to gratify the present taste of the people; as for +me, I am not formed of such pliant materials, and choose to retain, +undisturbed, the image of my God! I do not wish to cheat the people of +their votes. I would not get their support, any more than their money, +under false pretences. I am what I am; and if that does not suit them, +I am content to stay at home." + +God be praised for affording us, even in these latter days, the sight of +an honest man! Amidst the heartlessness, the double-dealing, the +evasions, the prevarications, the shameful treachery and falsehood, of +political men of both parties, in respect to the question of slavery, how +refreshing is it to listen to words like these! They renew our failing +faith in human nature. They reprove our weak misgivings. We rise up +from their perusal stronger and healthier. With something of the spirit +which dictated them, we renew our vows to freedom, and, with manlier +energy, gird up our souls for the stern struggle before us. + +As might have been expected, and as he himself predicted, the efforts of +his friends to procure his nomination failed; but the same generous +appreciators of his rare worth were soon after more successful in their +exertions in his behalf. He received from President Van Buren the +appointment of the mission to Guatemala,--an appointment which, in +addition to honorable employment in the service of his country, promised +him the advantages of a sea voyage and a change of climate, for the +restoration of his health. The course of Martin Van Buren on the subject +of slavery in the District of Columbia forms, in the estimation of many +of his best friends, by no means the most creditable portion of his +political history; but it certainly argues well for his magnanimity and +freedom from merely personal resentment that he gave this appointment to +the man who had animadverted upon that course with the greatest freedom, +and whose rebuke of the veto pledge, severe in its truth and justice, +formed the only discord in the paean of partisan flattery which greeted +his inaugural. But, however well intended, it came too late. In the +midst of the congratulations of his friends on the brightening prospect +before him, the still hopeful and vigorous spirit of William Leggett was +summoned away by death. Universal regret was awakened. Admiration of +his intellectual power, and that generous and full appreciation of his +high moral worth which had been in too many instances withheld from the +living man by party policy and prejudice, were now freely accorded to the +dead. The presses of both political parties vied with each other in +expressions of sorrow at the loss of a great and true man. The +Democracy, through all its organs, hastened to canonize him as one of the +saints of its calendar. The general committee, in New York, expunged +their resolutions of censure. The Democratic Review, at that period the +most respectable mouthpiece of the democratic party, made him the subject +of exalted eulogy. His early friend and co-editor, William Cullen +Bryant, laid upon his grave the following tribute, alike beautiful and +true:-- + + "The earth may ring, from shore to shore, + With echoes of a glorious name, + But he whose loss our tears deplore + Has left behind him more than fame. + + "For when the death-frost came to lie + On Leggett's warm and mighty heart, + And quenched his bold and friendly eye, + His spirit did not all depart. + + "The words of fire that from his pen + He flung upon the lucid page + Still move, still shake the hearts of men, + Amid a cold and coward age. + + "His love of Truth, too warm, too strong, + For Hope or Fear to chain or chill, + His hate of tyranny and wrong, + Burn in the breasts they kindled still." + +So lived and died William Leggett. What a rebuke of party perfidy, of +political meanness, of the common arts and stratagems of demagogues, +comes up from his grave! How the cheek of mercenary selfishness crimsons +at the thought of his incorruptible integrity! How heartless and hollow +pretenders, who offer lip service to freedom, while they give their hands +to whatever work their slaveholding managers may assign them; who sit in +chains round the crib of governmental patronage, putting on the spaniel, +and putting off the man, and making their whole lives a miserable lie, +shrink back from a contrast with the proud and austere dignity of his +character! What a comment on their own condition is the memory of a man +who could calmly endure the loss of party favor, the reproaches of his +friends, the malignant assaults of his enemies, and the fretting evils of +poverty, in the hope of bequeathing, like the dying testator of Ford, + + "A fame by scandal untouched, + To Memory and Time's old daughter, Truth." + +The praises which such men are now constrained to bestow upon him are +their own condemnation. Every stone which they pile upon his grave is +written over with the record of their hypocrisy. + +We have written rather for the living than the dead. As one of that +proscribed and hunted band of Abolitionists, whose rights were so bravely +defended by William Leggett, we should, indeed, be wanting in ordinary +gratitude not to do honor to his memory; but we have been actuated at the +present time mainly by a hope that the character, the lineaments of which +we have so imperfectly sketched, may awaken a generous emulation in the +hearts of the young democracy of our country. Democracy such as William +Leggett believed and practised, democracy in its full and all- +comprehensive significance, is destined to be the settled political faith +of this republic. Because the despotism of slavery has usurped its name, +and offered the strange incense of human tears and blood on its profaned +altars, shall we, therefore, abandon the only political faith which +coincides with the Gospel of Jesus, and meets the aspirations and wants +of humanity? No. The duty of the present generation in the United +States is to reduce this faith to practice, to make the beautiful ideal a +fact. + +"Every American," says Leggett, "who in any way countenances slavery is +derelict to his duty, as a Christian, a patriot, a man; and every one +does countenance and authorize it who suffers any opportunity of +expressing his deep abhorrence of its manifold abominations to pass +unimproved." The whole world has an interest in this matter. The +influence of our democratic despotism is exerted against the liberties of +Europe. Political reformers in the Old World, who have testified to +their love of freedom by serious sacrifices, hold but one language on +this point. They tell us that American slavery furnishes kings and +aristocracies with their most potent arguments; that it is a perpetual +drag on the wheel of political progress. + +We have before us, at this time, a letter from Seidensticker, one of the +leaders of the patriotic movement in behalf of German liberty in 1831. +It was written from the prison of Celle, where he had been confined for +eight years. The writer expresses his indignant astonishment at the +speeches of John C. Calhoun, and others in Congress, on the slavery +question, and deplores the disastrous influence of our great +inconsistency upon the cause of freedom throughout the world,--an +influence which paralyzes the hands of the patriotic reformer, while it +strengthens those of his oppressor, and deepens around the living martyrs +and confessors of European democracy the cold shadow of their prisons. + +Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Free Suffrage +Union, and whose philanthropy and democracy have been vouched for by the +Democratic Review in this country, has the following passage in an +address to the citizens of the United States: "Although an admirer of the +institutions of your country, and deeply lamenting the evils of my own +government, I find it difficult to reply to those who are opposed to any +extension of the political rights of Englishmen, when they point to +America, and say that where all have a control over the legislation but +those who are guilty of a dark skin, slavery and the slave trade remain, +not only unmitigated, but continue to extend; and that while there is an +onward movement in favor of its extinction, not only in England and +France, but in Cuba and Brazil, American legislators cling to this +enormous evil, without attempting to relax or mitigate its horrors." + +How long shall such appeals, from such sources, be wasted upon us? Shall +our baleful example enslave the world? Shall the tree of democracy, +which our fathers intended for "the healing of the nations," be to them +like the fabled upas, blighting all around it? + +The men of the North, the pioneers of the free West, and the non- +slaveholders of the South must answer these questions. It is for them to +say whether the present wellnigh intolerable evil shall continue to +increase its boundaries, and strengthen its hold upon the government, the +political parties, and the religious sects of our country. Interest and +honor, present possession and future hope, the memory of fathers, the +prospects of children, gratitude, affection, the still call of the dead, +the cry of oppressed nations looking hitherward for the result of all +their hopes, the voice of God in the soul, in revelation, and in His +providence, all appeal to them for a speedy and righteous decision. At +this moment, on the floor of Congress, Democracy and Slavery have met in +a death-grapple. The South stands firm; it allows no party division on +the slave question. One of its members has declared that "the slave +States have no traitors." Can the same be said of the free? Now, as in +the time of the fatal Missouri Compromise, there are, it is to be feared, +political peddlers among our representatives, whose souls are in the +market, and whose consciences are vendible commodities. Through their +means, the slave power may gain a temporary triumph; but may not the very +baseness of the treachery arouse the Northern heart? By driving the free +States to the wall, may it not compel them to turn and take an aggressive +attitude, clasp hands over the altar of their common freedom, and swear +eternal hostility to slavery? + +Be the issue of the present contest what it may, those who are faithful +to freedom should allow no temporary reverse to shake their confidence in +the ultimate triumph of the right. The slave will be free. Democracy in +America will yet be a glorious reality; and when the topstone of that +temple of freedom which our fathers left unfinished shall be brought +forth with shoutings and cries of grace unto it, when our now drooping- +Liberty lifts up her head and prospers, happy will be he who can say, +with John Milton, "Among those who have something more than wished her +welfare, I too have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my +heirs." + + + + + + +NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS. + +"And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, +Has vanished from his kindly hearth." + +So, in one of the sweetest and most pathetic of his poems touching the +loss of his literary friends, sang Wordsworth. We well remember with +what freshness and vividness these simple lines came before us, on +hearing, last autumn, of the death of the warm-hearted and gifted friend +whose name heads this article; for there was much in his character and +genius to remind us of the gentle author of Elia. He had the latter's +genial humor and quaintness; his nice and delicate perception of the +beautiful and poetic; his happy, easy diction, not the result, as in the +case of that of the English essayist, of slow and careful elaboration, +but the natural, spontaneous language in which his conceptions at once +embodied themselves, apparently without any consciousness of effort. As +Mark Antony talked, he wrote, "right on," telling his readers often what +"they themselves did know," yet imparting to the simplest commonplaces of +life interest and significance, and throwing a golden haze of poetry over +the rough and thorny pathways of every-day duty. Like Lamb, he loved his +friends without stint or limit. The "old familiar faces" haunted him. +Lamb loved the streets and lanes of London--the places where he oftenest +came in contact with the warm, genial heart of humanity--better than the +country. Rogers loved the wild and lonely hills and valleys of New +Hampshire none the less that he was fully alive to the enjoyments of +society, and could enter with the heartiest sympathy into all the joys +and sorrows of his friends and neighbors. + +In another point of view, he was not unlike Elia. He had the same love +of home, and home friends, and familiar objects; the same fondness for +common sights and sounds; the same dread of change; the same shrinking +from the unknown and the dark. Like him, he clung with a child's love to +the living present, and recoiled from a contemplation of the great change +which awaits us. Like him, he was content with the goodly green earth +and human countenances, and would fain set up his tabernacle here. He +had less of what might be termed self-indulgence in this feeling than +Lamb. He had higher views; he loved this world not only for its own +sake, but for the opportunities it afforded of doing good. Like the +Persian seer, he beheld the legions of Ormuzd and Ahriman, of Light and +Darkness, contending for mastery over the earth, as the sunshine and +shadow of a gusty, half-cloudy day struggled on the green slopes of his +native mountains; and, mingled with the bright host, he would fain have +fought on until its banners waved in eternal sunshine over the last +hiding-place of darkness. He entered into the work of reform with the +enthusiasm and chivalry of a knight of the crusades. He had faith in +human progress,--in the ultimate triumph of the good; millennial lights +beaconed up all along his horizon. In the philanthropic movements of the +day; in the efforts to remove the evils of slavery, war, intemperance, +and sanguinary laws; in the humane and generous spirit of much of our +modern poetry and literature; in the growing demand of the religious +community, of all sects, for the preaching of the gospel of love and +humanity, he heard the low and tremulous prelude of the great anthem of +universal harmony. "The world," said he, in a notice of the music of the +Hutchinson family, "is out of tune now. But it will be tuned again, and +all will become harmony." In this faith he lived and acted; working, not +always, as it seemed to some of his friends, wisely, but bravely, +truthfully, earnestly, cheering on his fellow-laborers, and imparting to +the dullest and most earthward looking of them something of his own zeal +and loftiness of purpose. + +"Who was he?" does the reader ask? Naturally enough, too, for his name +has never found its way into fashionable reviews; it has never been +associated with tale, or essay, or poem, to our knowledge. Our friend +Griswold, who, like another Noah, has launched some hundreds of American +poets and prose writers on the tide of immortality in his two huge arks +of rhyme and reason, has either overlooked his name, or deemed it +unworthy of preservation. Then, too, he was known mainly as the editor +of a proscribed and everywhere-spoken-against anti-slavery paper. It had +few readers of literary taste and discrimination; plain, earnest men and +women, intent only upon the thought itself, and caring little for the +clothing of it, loved the _Herald of Freedom_ for its honestness and +earnestness, and its bold rebukes of the wrong, its all-surrendering +homage to what its editor believed to be right. But the literary world +of authors and critics saw and heard little or nothing of him or his +writings. "I once had a bit of scholar-craft," he says of himself on one +occasion, "and had I attempted it in some pitiful sectarian or party or +literary sheet, I should have stood a chance to get quoted into the +periodicals. Now, who dares quote from the _Herald of Freedom_?" He +wrote for humanity, as his biographer justly says, not for fame. "He +wrote because he had something to say, and true to nature, for to him +nature was truth; he spoke right on, with the artlessness and simplicity +of a child." + +He was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in the sixth month of 1794,-- +a lineal descendant from John Rogers, of martyr-memory. Educated at +Dartmouth College, he studied law with Hon. Richard Fletcher, of +Salisbury, New Hampshire, now of Boston, and commenced the practice of it +in 1819, in his native village. He was diligent and successful in his +profession, although seldom known as a pleader. About the year 1833, he +became interested in the anti-slavery movement. His was one of the few +voices of encouragement and sympathy which greeted the author of this +sketch on the publication of a pamphlet in favor of immediate +emancipation. He gave us a kind word of approval, and invited us to his +mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset,--an invitation which, +two years afterwards, we accepted. In the early autumn, in company with +George Thompson, (the eloquent reformer, who has since been elected a +member of the British Parliament from the Tower Hamlets,) we drove up the +beautiful valley of the White Mountain tributary of the Merrimac, and, +just as a glorious sunset was steeping river, valley, and mountain in its +hues of heaven, were welcomed to the pleasant home and family circle of +our friend Rogers. We spent two delightful evenings with him. His +cordiality, his warm-hearted sympathy in our object, his keen wit, +inimitable humor, and childlike and simple mirthfulness, his full +appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, impressed us with the +conviction that we were the guests of no ordinary man; that we were +communing with unmistakable genius, such an one as might have added to +the wit and eloquence of Ben Jonson's famous club at the _Mermaid_, or +that which Lamb and Coleridge and Southey frequented at the _Salutation +and Cat_, of Smithfield. "The most brilliant man I have met in America!" +said George Thompson, as we left the hospitable door of our friend. + +In 1838, he gave up his law practice, left his fine outlook at Plymouth +upon the mountains of the North, Moosehillock and the Haystacks, and took +up his residence at Concord, for the purpose of editing the _Herald of +Freedom_, an anti-slavery paper which had been started some three or four +years before. John Pierpont, than whom there could not be a more +competent witness, in his brief and beautiful sketch of the life and +writings of Rogers, does not overestimate the ability with which the +Herald was conducted, when he says of its editor: "As a newspaper writer, +we think him unequalled by any living man; and in the general strength, +clearness, and quickness of his intellect, we think all who knew him well +will agree with us that he was not excelled by any editor in the +country." He was not a profound reasoner: his imagination and brilliant +fancy played the wildest tricks with his logic; yet, considering the way +by which he reached them, it is remarkable that his conclusions were so +often correct. The tendency of his mind was to extremes. A zealous +Calvinistic church-member, he became an equally zealous opponent of +churches and priests; a warm politician, he became an ultra non-resistant +and no-government man. In all this, his sincerity was manifest. If, in +the indulgence of his remarkable powers of sarcasm, in the free antics of +a humorous fancy, upon whose graceful neck he had flung loose the reins, +he sometimes did injustice to individuals, and touched, in irreverent +sport, the hem of sacred garments, it had the excuse, at least, of a +generous and honest motive. If he sometimes exaggerated, those who best, +knew him can testify that he "set down naught in malice." + +We have before us a printed collection of his writings,--hasty +editorials, flung off without care or revision, the offspring of sudden +impulse frequently; always free, artless, unstudied; the language +transparent as air, exactly expressing the thought. He loved the common, +simple dialect of the people,--the "beautiful strong old Saxon,--the talk +words." He had an especial dislike of learned and "dictionary words." +He used to recommend Cobbett's Works to "every young man and woman who +has been hurt in his or her talk and writing by going to school." + +Our limits will not admit of such extracts from the Collection of his +writings as would convey to our readers an adequate idea of his thought +and manner. His descriptions of natural scenery glow with life. One can +almost see the sunset light flooding the Franconia Notch, and glorifying +the peaks of Moosehillock, and hear the murmur of the west wind in the +pines, and the light, liquid voice of Pemigewasset sounding up from its +rocky channel, through its green hem of maples, while reading them. We +give a brief extract from an editorial account of an autumnal trip to +Vermont: + +"We have recently journeyed through a portion of this, free State; and it +is not all imagination in us that sees, in its bold scenery, its +uninfected inland position, its mountainous but fertile and verdant +surface, the secret of the noble predisposition of its people. They are +located for freedom. Liberty's home is on their Green Mountains. Their +farmer republic nowhere touches the ocean, the highway of the world's +crimes, as well as its nations. It has no seaport for the importation of +slavery, or the exportation of its own highland republicanism. Should +slavery ever prevail over this nation, to its utter subjugation, the last +lingering footsteps of retiring Liberty will be seen, not, as Daniel +Webster said, in the proud old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, about +Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall; but she will be found wailing, like +Jephthah's daughter, among the 'hollows' and along the sides of the Green +Mountains. + +"Vermont shows gloriously at this autumn season. Frost has gently laid +hands on her exuberant vegetation, tinging her rock-maple woods without +abating the deep verdure of her herbage. Everywhere along her peopled +hollows and her bold hillslopes and summits the earth is alive with +green, while her endless hard-wood forests are uniformed with all the +hues of early fall, richer than the regimentals of the kings that +glittered in the train of Napoleon on the confines of Poland, when he +lingered there, on the last outposts of summer, before plunging into the +snow-drifts of the North; more gorgeous than the array of Saladin's life- +guard in the wars of the Crusaders, or of 'Solomon in all his glory,' +decked in, all colors and hues, but still the hues of life. Vegetation +touched, but not dead, or, if killed, not bereft yet of 'signs of life.' +'Decay's effacing fingers' had not yet 'swept the hills' 'where beauty +lingers.' All looked fresh as growing foliage. Vermont frosts don't seem +to be 'killing frosts.' They only change aspects of beauty. The mountain +pastures, verdant to the peaks, and over the peaks of the high, steep +hills, were covered with the amplest feed, and clothed with countless +sheep; the hay-fields heavy with second crop, in some partly cut and +abandoned, as if in very weariness and satiety, blooming with +honeysuckle, contrasting strangely with the colors on the woods; the fat +cattle and the long-tailed colts and close-built Morgans wallowing in it +up to the eyes, or the cattle down to rest, with full bellies, by ten in +the morning. Fine but narrow roads wound along among the hills, free +almost entirely of stone, and so smooth as to be safe for the most rapid +driving, made of their rich, dark, powder-looking soil. Beautiful +villages or scattered settlements breaking upon the delighted view, on +the meandering way, making the ride a continued scene of excitement and +admiration. The air fresh, free, and wholesome; the road almost dead +level for miles and miles, among mountains that lay over the land like +the great swells of the sea, and looking in the prospect as though there +could be no passage." + +To this autumnal limning, the following spring picture may be a fitting +accompaniment:-- + +"At last Spring is here in full flush. Winter held on tenaciously and +mercilessly, but it has let go. The great sun is high on his northern +journey, and the vegetation, and the bird-singing, and the loud frog- +chorus, the tree budding and blowing, are all upon us; and the glorious +grass--super-best of earth's garniture--with its ever-satisfying green. +The king-birds have come, and the corn-planter, the scolding bob-o-link. +'Plant your corn, plant your corn,' says he, as he scurries athwart the +ploughed ground, hardly lifting his crank wings to a level with his back, +so self-important is he in his admonitions. The earlier birds have gone +to housekeeping, and have disappeared from the spray. There has been +brief period for them, this spring, for scarcely has the deep snow gone, +but the dark-green grass has come, and first we shall know, the ground +will be yellow with dandelions. + +"I incline to thank Heaven this glorious morning of May 16th for the +pleasant home from which we can greet the Spring. Hitherto we have had +to await it amid a thicket of village houses, low down, close together, +and awfully white. For a prospect, we had the hinder part of an ugly +meeting-house, which an enterprising neighbor relieved us of by planting +a dwelling-house, right before our eyes, (on his own land, and he had a +right to,) which relieved us also of all prospect whatever. And the +revival spirit of habitation which has come over Concord is clapping up a +house between every two in the already crowded town; and the prospect is, +it will be soon all buildings. They are constructing, in quite good +taste though, small, trim, cottage-like. But I had rather be where I can +breathe air, and see beyond my own features, than be smothered among the +prettiest houses ever built. We are on the slope of a hill; it is all +sand, be sure, on all four sides of us, but the air is free, (and the +sand, too, at times,) and our water, there is danger of hard drinking to +live by it. Air and water, the two necessaries of life, and high, free +play-ground for the small ones. There is a sand precipice hard by, high +enough, were it only rock and overlooked the ocean, to be as sublime as +any of the Nahant cliffs. As it is, it is altogether a safer haunt for +daring childhood, which could hardly break its neck by a descent of some +hundreds of feet. + +"A low flat lies between us and the town, with its State-house, and body- +guard of well-proportioned steeples standing round. It was marshy and +wet, but is almost all redeemed by the translation into it of the high +hills of sand. It must have been a terrible place for frogs, judging +from what remains of it. Bits of water from the springs hard by lay here +and there about the low ground, which are peopled as full of singers as +ever the gallery of the old North Meeting-house was, and quite as +melodious ones. Such performers I never heard, in marsh or pool. They +are not the great, stagnant, bull-paddocks, fat and coarse-noted like +Parson, but clear-water frogs, green, lively, and sweet-voiced. I +passed their orchestra going home the other evening, with a small lad, +and they were at it, all parts, ten thousand peeps, shrill, ear-piercing, +and incessant, coining up from every quarter, accompanied by a second, +from some larger swimmer with his trombone, and broken in upon, every now +and then, but not discordantly, with the loud, quick hallo, that +resembles the cry of the tree-toad. 'There are the Hutchinsons,' cried +the lad. 'The Rainers,' responded I, glad to remember enough of my +ancient Latin to know that Rana, or some such sounding word, stood for +frog. But it was a 'band of music,' as the Miller friends say. Like +other singers, (all but the Hutchinsons,) these are apt to sing too much, +all the time they are awake, constituting really too much of a good +thing. I have wondered if the little reptiles were singing in concert, +or whether every one peeped on his own hook, their neighbor hood only +making it a chorus. I incline to the opinion that they are performing +together, that they know the tune, and each carries his part, self- +selected, in free meeting, and therefore never discordant. The hour rule +of Congress might be useful, though far less needed among the frogs than +among the profane croakers of the fens at Washington." + +Here is a sketch of the mountain scenery of New Hampshire, as seen from +the Holderness Mountain, or North Hill, during a visit which he made to +his native valley in the autumn of 1841:-- + +"The earth sphered up all around us, in every quarter of the horizon, +like the crater of a vast volcano, and the great hollow within the +mountain circle was as smoky as Vesuvius or Etna in their recess of +eruption. The little village of Plymouth lay right at our feet, with its +beautiful expanse of intervale opening on the eye like a lake among the +woods and hills, and the Pemigewasset, bordered along its crooked way +with rows of maples, meandering from upland to upland through the +meadows. Our young footsteps had wandered over these localities. Time +had cast it all far back that Pemigewasset, with its meadows and border +trees; that little village whitening in the margin of its inter vale; and +that one house which we could distinguish, where the mother that watched +over and endured our wayward childhood totters at fourscore! + +"To the south stretched a broken, swelling upland country, but champaign +from the top of North Hill, patched all over with grain-fields and green +wood-lots, the roofs of the farm-houses shining in the sun. Southwest, +the Cardigan Mountain showed its bald forehead among the smokes of a +thousand fires, kindled in the woods in the long drought. Westward, +Moosehillock heaved up its long back, black as a whale; and turning the +eye on northward, glancing down the while on the Baker's River valley, +dotted over with human dwellings like shingle-bunches for size, you +behold the great Franconia Range, its Notch and its Haystacks, the +Elephant Mountain on the left, and Lafayette (Great Haystack) on the +right, shooting its peak in solemn loneliness high up into the desert +sky, and overtopping all the neighboring Alps but Mount Washington +itself. The prospect of these is most impressive and satisfactory. We +don't believe the earth presents a finer mountain display. The Haystacks +stand there like the Pyramids on the wall of mountains. One of them +eminently has this Egyptian shape. It is as accurate a pyramid to the +eye as any in the old valley of the Nile, and a good deal bigger than any +of those hoary monuments of human presumption, of the impious tyranny of +monarchs and priests, and of the appalling servility of the erecting +multitude. Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh does not more finely resemble a +sleeping lion than the huge mountain on the left of the Notch does an +elephant, with his great, overgrown rump turned uncivilly toward the gap +where the people have to pass. Following round the panorama, you come to +the Ossipees and the Sandwich Mountains, peaks innumerable and nameless, +and of every variety of fantastic shape. Down their vast sides are +displayed the melancholy-looking slides, contrasting with the fathomless +woods. + +"But the lakes,--you see lakes, as well as woods and mountains, from the +top of North Hill. Newfound Lake in Hebron, only eight miles distant, +you can't see; it lies too deep among the hills. Ponds show their small +blue mirrors from various quarters of the great picture. Worthen's Mill- +Pond and the Hardhack, where we used to fish for trout in truant, +barefooted days, Blair's Mill-Pond, White Oak Pond, and Long Pond, and +the Little Squam, a beautiful dark sheet of deep, blue water, about two +miles long, stretched an id the green hills and woods, with a charming +little beach at its eastern end, and without an island. And then the +Great Squam, connected with it on the east by a short, narrow stream, the +very queen of ponds, with its fleet of islands, surpassing in beauty all +the foreign waters we have seen, in Scotland or elsewhere,--the islands +covered with evergreens, which impart their hue to the mass of the lake, +as it stretches seven miles on east from its smaller sister, towards the +peerless Winnipesaukee. Great Squam is as beautiful as water and island +can be. But Winnipesaukee, it is the very 'Smile of the Great Spirit.' +It looks as if it had a thousand islands; some of them large enough for +little towns, and others not bigger than a swan or a wild duck swimming +on its surface of glass." + +His wit and sarcasm were generally too good-natured to provoke even their +unfortunate objects, playing all over his editorials like the thunderless +lightnings which quiver along the horizon of a night of summer calmness; +but at times his indignation launched them like bolts from heaven. Take +the following as a specimen. He is speaking of the gag rule of Congress, +and commending Southern representatives for their skilful selection of a +proper person to do their work:-- + +"They have a quick eye at the South to the character, or, as they would +say, the points of a slave. They look into him shrewdly, as an old +jockey does into a horse. They will pick him out, at rifle-shot +distance, among a thousand freemen. They have a nice eye to detect +shades of vassalage. They saw in the aristocratic popinjay strut of a +counterfeit Democrat an itching aspiration to play the slaveholder. They +beheld it in 'the cut of his jib,' and his extreme Northern position made +him the very tool for their purpose. The little creature has struck at +the right of petition. A paltrier hand never struck at a noble right. +The Eagle Right of Petition, so loftily sacred in the eyes of the +Constitution that Congress can't begin to 'abridge' it, in its pride of +place, is hawked at by this crested jay-bird. A 'mousing owl' would have +seen better at midnoon than to have done it. It is an idiot blue-jay, +such as you see fooling about among the shrub oaks and dwarf pitch pines +in the winter. What an ignominious death to the lofty right, were it to +die by such a hand; but it does not die. It is impalpable to the +'malicious mockery' of such vain blows.' We are glad it is done--done by +the South--done proudly, and in slaveholding style, by the hand of a +vassal. What a man does by another he does by himself, says the maxim. +But they will disown the honor of it, and cast it on the despised 'free +nigger' North." + +Or this description--not very flattering to the "Old Commonwealth"--of +the treatment of the agent of Massachusetts in South Carolina:-- + +"Slavery may perpetrate anything, and New England can't see it. It can +horsewhip the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and spit in her +governmental face, and she will not recognize it as an offence. She sent +her agent to Charleston on a State embassy. Slavery caught him, and sent +him ignominiously home. The solemn great man came back in a hurry. He +returned in a most undignified trot. He ran; he scampered,--the stately +official. The Old Bay State actually pulled foot, cleared, dug, as they +say, like any scamp with a hue and cry after him. Her grave old Senator, +who no more thought of having to break his stately walk than he had of +being flogged at school for stealing apples, came back from Carolina upon +the full run, out of breath and out of dignity. Well, what's the result? +Why, nothing. She no more thinks of showing resentment about it than she +would if lightning had struck him. He was sent back 'by the visitation +of God;' and if they had lynched him to death, and stained the streets of +Charleston with his blood, a Boston jury, if they could have held inquest +over him, would have found that he 'died by the visitation of God.' And +it would have been crowner's quest law, Slavery's crowners." + +Here is a specimen of his graceful blending of irony and humor. He is +expostulating with his neighbor of the New Hampshire Patriot, assuring +him that he cannot endure the ponderous weight of his arguments, begging +for a little respite, and, as a means of obtaining it, urging the editor +to travel. He advises him to go South, to the White Sulphur Springs, and +thinks that, despite of his dark complexion, he would be safe there from +being sold for jail fees, as his pro-slavery merits would more than +counterbalance his colored liabilities, which, after all, were only prima +facie evidence against him. He suggests Texas, also, as a place where +"patriots" of a certain class "most do congregate," and continues as +follows:-- + +"There is Arkansas, too, all glorious in new-born liberty, fresh and +unsullied, like Venus out of the ocean,--that newly discovered star, in +the firmament banner of this Republic. Sister Arkansas, with her bowie- +knife graceful at her side, like the huntress Diana with her silver bow, +--oh it would be refreshing and recruiting to an exhausted patriot to go +and replenish his soul at her fountains. The newly evacuated lands of +the Cherokee, too, a sweet place now for a lover of his country to visit, +to renew his self-complacency by wandering among the quenched hearths of +the expatriated Indians; a land all smoking with the red man's departing +curse,--a malediction that went to the centre. Yes, and Florida,-- +blossoming and leafy Florida, yet warm with the life-blood of Osceola and +his warriors, shed gloriously under flag of truce. Why should a patriot +of such a fancy for nature immure himself in the cells of the city, and +forego such an inviting and so broad a landscape? Ite viator. Go forth, +traveller, and leave this mouldy editing to less elastic fancies. We +would respectfully invite our Colonel to travel. What signifies? +Journey--wander--go forth--itinerate--exercise--perambulate--roam." + +He gives the following ludicrous definition of Congress:-- + +"But what is Congress? It is the echo of the country at home,--the +weathercock, that denotes and answers the shifting wind,--a thing of +tail, nearly all tail, moved by the tail and by the wind, with small +heading, and that corresponding implicitly in movement with the broad +sail-like stern, which widens out behind to catch the rum-fraught breath +of 'the Brotherhood.' As that turns, it turns; when that stops, it stops; +and in calmish weather looks as steadfast and firm as though it was +riveted to the centre. The wind blows, and the little popularity-hunting +head dodges this way and that, in endless fluctuation. Such is Congress, +or a great portion of it. It will point to the northwest heavens of +Liberty, whenever the breezes bear down irresistibly upon it, from the +regions of political fair weather. It will abolish slavery at the +Capitol, when it has already been doomed to abolition and death +everywhere else in the country. 'It will be in at the death.'" + +Replying to the charge that the Abolitionists of the North were "secret" +in their movements and designs, he says:-- + +"'In secret!' Why, our movements have been as prominent and open as the +house-tops from the beginning. We have striven from the outset to write +the whole matter cloud-high in the heavens, that the utmost South might +read it. We have cast an arc upon the horizon, like the semicircle of +the polar lights, and upon it have bent our motto, 'Immediate +Emancipation,' glorious as the rainbow. We have engraven it there, on +the blue table of the cold vault, in letters tall enough for the reading +of the nations. And why has the far South not read and believed before +this? Because a steam has gone up--a fog--from New England's pulpit and +her degenerate press, and hidden the beaming revelation from its vision. +The Northern hierarchy and aristocracy have cheated the South." + +He spoke at times with severity of slaveholders, but far oftener of those +who, without the excuse of education and habit, and prompted only by a +selfish consideration of political or sectarian advantage, apologized for +the wrong, and discountenanced the anti-slavery movement. "We have +nothing to say," said he, "to the slave. He is no party to his own +enslavement,--he is none to his disenthralment. We have nothing to say +to the South. The real holder of slaves is not there. He is in the +North, the free North. The South alone has not the power to hold the +slave. It is the character of the nation that binds and holds him. It +is the Republic that does it, the efficient force of which is north of +Mason and Dixon's line. By virtue of the majority of Northern hearts and +voices, slavery lives in the South!" + +In 1840, he spent a few weeks in England, Ireland, and Scotland. He has +left behind a few beautiful memorials of his tour. His Ride over the +Border, Ride into Edinburgh, Wincobank hall, Ailsa Craig, gave his paper +an interest in the eyes of many who had no sympathy with his political +and religious views. + +Scattered all over his editorials, like gems, are to be found beautiful +images, sweet touches of heartfelt pathos,--thoughts which the reader +pauses over with surprise and delight. We subjoin a few specimens, taken +almost at random from the book before us:-- + +"A thunder-storm,--what can match it for eloquence and poetry? That rush +from heaven of the big drops, in what multitude and succession, and how +they sound as they strike! How they play on the old home roof and the +thick tree-tops! What music to go to sleep by, to the tired boy, as he +lies under the naked roof! And the great, low bass thunder, as it rolls +off over the hills, and settles down behind them to the very centre, and +you can feel the old earth jar under your feet!" + +"There was no oratory in the speech of the _Learned Blacksmith_, in the +ordinary sense of that word, no grace of elocution, but mighty thoughts +radiating off from his heated mind, like sparks from the glowing steel of +his own anvil." + +"The hard hands of Irish labor, with nothing in them,--they ring like +slabs of marble together, in response to the wild appeals of O'Connell, +and the British stand conquered before them, with shouldered arms. +Ireland is on her feet, with nothing in her hands, impregnable, +unassailable, in utter defencelessness,--the first time that ever a +nation sprung to its feet unarmed. The veterans of England behold them, +and forbear to fire. They see no mark. It will not do to fire upon men; +it will do only to fire upon soldiers. They are the proper mark of the +murderous gun, but men cannot be shot." + +"It is coming to that [abolition of war] the world over; and when it does +come to it, oh what a long breath of relief the tired world will draw, as +it stretches itself for the first time out upon earth's greensward, and +learns the meaning of repose and peaceful sleep!" + +"He who vests his labor in the faithful ground is dealing directly with +God; human fraud or weakness do not intervene between him and his +requital. No mechanic has a set of customers so trustworthy as God and +the elements. No savings bank is so sure as the old earth." + +"Literature is the luxury of words. It originates nothing, it does +nothing. It talks hard words about the labor of others, and is reckoned +more meritorious for it than genius and labor for doing what learning can +only descant upon. It trades on the capital of unlettered minds. It +struts in stolen plumage, and it is mere plumage. A learned man +resembles an owl in more respects than the matter of wisdom. Like that +solemn bird, he is about all feathers." + +"Our Second Advent friends contemplate a grand conflagration about the +first of April next. I should be willing there should be one, if it +could be confined to the productions of the press, with which the earth +is absolutely smothered. Humanity wants precious few books to read, but +the great living, breathing, immortal volume of Providence. Life,--real +life,--how to live, how to treat one another, and how to trust God in +matters beyond our ken and occasion,--these are the lessons to learn, and +you find little of them in libraries." + +"That accursed drum and fife! How they have maddened mankind! And the +deep bass boom of the cannon, chiming in in the chorus of battle, that +trumpet and wild charging bugle,--how they set the military devil in a +man, and make him into a soldier! Think of the human family falling upon +one another at the inspiration of music! How must God feel at it, to see +those harp-strings he meant should be waked to a love bordering on +divine, strung and swept to mortal hate and butchery!" + +"Leave off being Jews," (he is addressing Major Noah with regard to his +appeal to his brethren to return to Judaea,) "and turn mankind. The +rocks and sands of Palestine have been worshipped long enough. +Connecticut River or the Merrimac are as good rivers as any Jordan that +ever run into a dead or live sea, and as holy, for that matter. In +Humanity, as in Christ Jesus, as Paul says, 'there is neither Jew nor +Greek.' And there ought to be none. Let Humanity be reverenced with the +tenderest devotion; suffering, discouraged, down-trodden, hard-handed, +haggard-eyed, care-worn mankind! Let these be regarded a little. Would +to God I could alleviate all their sorrows, and leave them a chance to +laugh! They are, miserable now. They might be as happy as the blackbird +on the spray, and as full of melody." + +"I am sick as death at this miserable struggle among mankind for a +living. Poor devils! were they born to run such a gauntlet after the +means of life? Look about you, and see your squirming neighbors, +writhing and twisting like so many angleworms in a fisher's bait-box, or +the wriggling animalculae seen in the vinegar drop held to the sun. How +they look, how they feel, how base it makes them all!" + +"Every human being is entitled to the means of life, as the trout is to +his brook or the lark to the blue sky. Is it well to put a human 'young +one' here to die of hunger, thirst, and nakedness, or else be preserved +as a pauper? Is this fair earth but a poor-house by creation and intent? +Was it made for that?--and these other round things we see dancing in +the firmament to the music of the spheres, are they all great shining +poor-houses?" + +"The divines always admit things after the age has adopted them. They +are as careful of the age as the weathercock is of the wind. You might +as well catch an old experienced weathercock, on some ancient Orthodox +steeple, standing all day with its tail east in a strong out wind, as the +divines at odds with the age." + +But we must cease quoting. The admirers of Jean Paul Richter might find +much of the charm and variety of the "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces" in +this newspaper collection. They may see, perhaps, as we do, some things +which they cannot approve of, the tendency of which, however intended, is +very questionable. But, with us, they will pardon something to the +spirit of liberty, much to that of love and humanity which breathes +through all. + +Disgusted and heart-sick at the general indifference of Church and clergy +to the temporal condition of the people,--at their apologies for and +defences of slavery, war, and capital punishment,--Rogers turned +Protestant, in the full sense of the term. He spoke of priests and +"pulpit wizards" as freely as John Milton did two centuries ago, +although with far less bitterness and rasping satire. He could not +endure to see Christianity and Humanity divorced. He longed to see the +beautiful life of Jesus--his sweet humanities, his brotherly love, his +abounding sympathies--made the example of all men. Thoroughly +democratic, in his view all men were equal. Priests, stripped of their +sacerdotal tailoring, were in his view but men, after all. He pitied +them, he said, for they were in a wrong position,--above life's comforts +and sympathies,--"up in the unnatural cold, they had better come down +among men, and endure and enjoy with them." "Mankind," said he, "want +the healing influences of humanity. They must love one another more. +Disinterested good will make the world as it should be." + +His last visit to his native valley was in the autumn of 1845. In a +familiar letter to a friend, he thus describes his farewell view of the +mountain glories of his childhood's home:-- + +"I went a jaunt, Thursday last, about twenty miles north of this valley, +into the mountain region, where what I beheld, if I could tell it as I +saw it, would make your outlawed sheet sought after wherever our Anglo- +Saxon tongue is spoken in the wide world. I have been many a time among +those Alps, and never without a kindling of wildest enthusiasm in my +woodland blood. But I never saw them till last Thursday. They never +loomed distinctly to my eye before, and the sun never shone on them from +heaven till then. They were so near me, I could seem to hear the voice +of their cataracts, as I could count their great slides, streaming adown +their lone and desolate sides,--old slides, some of them overgrown with +young woods, like half-healed scars on the breast of a giant. The great +rains had clothed the valleys of the upper Pemigewasset in the darkest +and deepest green. The meadows were richer and more glorious in their +thick 'fall feed' than Queen Anne's Garden, as I saw it from the windows +of Windsor Castle. And the dark hemlock and hackmatack woods were yet +darker after the wet season, as they lay, in a hundred wildernesses, in +the mighty recesses of the mountains. But the peaks,--the eternal, the +solitary, the beautiful, the glorious and dear mountain peaks, my own +Moosehillock and my native Haystacks,--these were the things on which eye +and heart gazed and lingered, and I seemed to see them for the last time. +It was on my way back that I halted and turned to look at them from a +high point on the Thornton road. It was about four in the afternoon. It +had rained among the hills about the Notch, and cleared off. The sun, +there sombred at that early hour, as towards his setting, was pouring his +most glorious light upon the naked peaks, and they casting their mighty +shadows far down among the inaccessible woods that darken the hollows +that stretch between their bases. A cloud was creeping up to perch and +rest awhile on the highest top of Great Haystack. Vulgar folks have +called it Mount Lafayette, since the visit of that brave old Frenchman in +1825 or 1826. If they had asked his opinion, he would have told them the +names of mountains couldn't be altered, and especially names like that, +so appropriate, so descriptive, and so picturesque. A little hard white +cloud, that looked like a hundred fleeces of wool rolled into one, was +climbing rapidly along up the northwestern ridge, that ascended to the +lonely top of Great Haystack. All the others were bare. Four or five of +them,--as distinct and shapely as so many pyramids; some topped out with +naked cliff, on which the sun lay in melancholy glory; others clothed +thick all the way up with the old New Hampshire hemlock or the daring +hackmatack,--Pierpont's hackmatack. You could see their shadows +stretching many and many a mile, over Grant and Location, away beyond the +invading foot of Incorporation,--where the timber-hunter has scarcely +explored, and where the moose browses now, I suppose, as undisturbed as +he did before the settlement of the State. I wish our young friend and +genius, Harrison Eastman, had been with me, to see the sunlight as it +glared on the tops of those woods, and to see the purple of the +mountains. I looked at it myself almost with the eye of a painter. If a +painter looked with mine, though, he never could look off upon his canvas +long enough to make a picture; he would gaze forever at the original. + +"But I had to leave it, and to say in my heart, Farewell! And as I +travelled on down, and the sun sunk lower and lower towards the summit of +the western ridge, the clouds came up and formed an Alpine range in the +evening heavens above it,--like other Haystacks and Moosehillocks,--so +dark and dense that fancy could easily mistake them for a higher Alps. +There were the peaks and the great passes; the Franconia Notches among +the cloudy cliffs, and the great White Mountain Gap." + +His health, never robust, had been gradually failing for some time +previous to his death. He needed more repose and quiet than his duties +as an editor left him; and to this end he purchased a small and pleasant +farm in his loved Pennigewasset valley, in the hope that he might there +recruit his wasted energies. In the sixth month of the year of his +death, in a letter to us, he spoke of his prospects in language which +even then brought moisture to our eyes:-- + +"I am striving to get me an asylum of a farm. I have a wife and seven +children, every one of them with a whole spirit. I don't want to be +separated from any of them, only with a view to come together again. I +have a beautiful little retreat in prospect, forty odd miles north, where +I imagine I can get potatoes and repose,--a sort of haven or port. I am +among the breakers, and 'mad for land.' If I get this home,--it is a mile +or two in among the hills from the pretty domicil once visited by +yourself and glorious Thompson,--I am this moment indulging the fancy +that I may see you at it before we die. Why can't I have you come and +see me? You see, dear W., I don't want to send you anything short of a +full epistle. Let me end as I begun, with the proffer of my hand in +grasp of yours extended. My heart I do not proffer,--it was yours +before,--it shall be yours while I am N. P. ROGERS." + +Alas! the haven of a deeper repose than he had dreamed of was close at +hand. He lingered until the middle of the tenth month, suffering much, +yet calm and sensible to the last. Just before his death, he desired his +children to sing at his bedside that touching song of Lover's, _The +Angel's Whisper_. Turning his eyes towards the open window, through +which the leafy glory of the season he most loved was visible, he +listened to the sweet melody. In the words of his friend Pierpont,-- + + "The angel's whisper stole in song upon his closing ear; + From his own daughter's lips it came, so musical and clear, + That scarcely knew the dying man what melody was there-- + The last of earth's or first of heaven's pervading all the air." + +He sleeps in the Concord burial-ground, under the shadow of oaks; the +very spot he would have chosen, for he looked upon trees with something +akin to human affection. "They are," he said, "the beautiful handiwork +and architecture of God, on which the eye never tires. Every one is +a feather in the earth's cap, a plume in her bonnet, a tress on her +forehead,--a comfort, a refreshing, and an ornament to her." Spring has +hung over him her buds, and opened beside him her violets. Summer has +laid her green oaken garland on his grave, and now the frost-blooms of +autumn drop upon it. Shall man cast a nettle on that mound? He loved +humanity,--shall it be less kind to him than Nature? Shall the bigotry +of sect, and creed, and profession, drive its condemnatory stake into his +grave? God forbid. The doubts which he sometimes unguardedly expressed +had relation, we are constrained to believe, to the glosses of +commentators and creed-makers and the inconsistency of professors, rather +than to those facts and precepts of Christianity to which he gave the +constant assent of his practice. He sought not his own. His heart +yearned with pity and brotherly affection for all the poor and suffering +in the universe. Of him, the angel of Leigh Hunt's beautiful allegory +might have written, in the golden book of remembrance, as he did of the +good Abou Ben Adhem, "He loved his fellow-men." + + + + + + +ROBERT DINSMORE. + +The great charm of Scottish poetry consists in its simplicity, and +genuine, unaffected sympathy with the common joys and sorrows of daily +life. It is a home-taught, household melody. It calls to mind the +pastoral bleat on the hillsides, the kirkbells of a summer Sabbath, the +song of the lark in the sunrise, the cry of the quail in the corn-land, +the low of cattle, and the blithe carol of milkmaids "when the kye come +hame" at gloaming. Meetings at fair and market, blushing betrothments, +merry weddings, the joy of young maternity, the lights and shades of +domestic life, its bereavements and partings, its chances and changes, +its holy death-beds, and funerals solemnly beautiful in quiet kirkyards, +--these furnish the hints of the immortal melodies of Burns, the sweet +ballads of the Ettrick Shepherd and Allan Cunningham, and the rustic +drama of Ramsay. It is the poetry of home, of nature, and the +affections. + +All this is sadly wanting in our young literature. We have no songs; +American domestic life has never been hallowed and beautified by the +sweet and graceful and tender associations of poetry. We have no Yankee +pastorals. Our rivers and streams turn mills and float rafts, and are +otherwise as commendably useful as those of Scotland; but no quaint +ballad or simple song reminds us that men and women have loved, met, and +parted on their banks, or that beneath each roof within their valleys the +tragedy and comedy of life have been enacted. Our poetry is cold and +imitative; it seems more the product of over-strained intellects than the +spontaneous outgushing of hearts warm with love, and strongly +sympathizing with human nature as it actually exists about us, with the +joys and griefs of the men and women whom we meet daily. Unhappily, the +opinion prevails that a poet must be also a philosopher, and hence it is +that much of our poetry is as indefinable in its mysticism as an Indian +Brahmin's commentary on his sacred books, or German metaphysics subjected +to homeopathic dilution. It assumes to be prophetical, and its +utterances are oracular. It tells of strange, vague emotions and +yearnings, painfully suggestive of spiritual "groanings which cannot be +uttered." If it "babbles o' green fields" and the common sights and +sounds of nature, it is only for the purpose of finding some vague +analogy between them and its internal experiences and longings. It +leaves the warm and comfortable fireside of actual knowledge and human +comprehension, and goes wailing and gibbering like a ghost about the +impassable doors of mystery:-- + + "It fain would be resolved + How things are done, + And who the tailor is + That works for the man I' the sun." + +How shall we account for this marked tendency in the literature of a +shrewd, practical people? Is it that real life in New England lacks +those conditions of poetry and romance which age, reverence, and +superstition have gathered about it in the Old World? Is it that + + "Ours are not Tempe's nor Arcadia's vales," + +but are more famous for growing Indian corn and potatoes, and the +manufacture of wooden ware and pedler notions, than for romantic +associations and legendary interest? That our huge, unshapely shingle +structures, blistering in the sun and glaring with windows, were +evidently never reared by the spell of pastoral harmonies, as the walls +of Thebes rose at the sound of the lyre of Amphion? That the habits of +our people are too cool, cautious, undemonstrative, to furnish the warp +and woof of song and pastoral, and that their dialect and figures of +speech, however richly significant and expressive in the autobiography of +Sam Slick, or the satire of Hosea Biglow and Ethan Spike, form a very +awkward medium of sentiment and pathos? All this may be true. But the +Yankee, after all, is a man, and as such his history, could it be got at, +must have more or less of poetic material in it; moreover, whether +conscious of it or not, he also stands relieved against the background of +Nature's beauty or sublimity. There is a poetical side to the +commonplace of his incomings and outgoings; study him well, and you may +frame an idyl of some sort from his apparently prosaic existence. Our +poets, we must needs think, are deficient in that shiftiness, ready +adaptation to circumstances, and ability of making the most of things, +for which, as a people, we are proverbial. Can they make nothing of our +Thanksgiving, that annual gathering of long-severed friends? Do they +find nothing to their purpose in our apple-bees, buskings, berry- +pickings, summer picnics, and winter sleigh-rides? Is there nothing +available in our peculiarities of climate, scenery, customs, and +political institutions? Does the Yankee leap into life, shrewd, hard, +and speculating, armed, like Pallas, for a struggle with fortune? Are +there not boys and girls, school loves and friendship, courtings and +match-makings, hope and fear, and all the varied play of human passions, +--the keen struggles of gain, the mad grasping of ambition,--sin and +remorse, tearful repentance and holy aspirations? Who shall say that we +have not all the essentials of the poetry of human life and simple +nature, of the hearth and the farm-field? Here, then, is a mine +unworked, a harvest ungathered. Who shall sink the shaft and thrust in +the sickle? + +And here let us say that the mere dilettante and the amateur ruralist may +as well keep their hands off. The prize is not for them. He who would +successfully strive for it must be himself what he sings,--part and +parcel of the rural life of New England,--one who has grown strong amidst +its healthful influences, familiar with all its details, and capable of +detecting whatever of beauty, humor, or pathos pertain to it,--one who +has added to his book-lore the large experience of an active +participation in the rugged toil, the hearty amusements, the trials, and +the pleasures he describes. + +We have been led to these reflections by an incident which has called up +before us the homespun figure of an old friend of our boyhood, who had +the good sense to discover that the poetic element existed in the simple +home life of a country farmer, although himself unable to give a very +creditable expression of it. He had the "vision," indeed, but the +"faculty divine" was wanting; or, if he possessed it in any degree, as +Thersites says of the wit of Ajax, "it would not out, but lay coldly in +him like fire in the flint." + +While engaged this morning in looking over a large exchange list of +newspapers, a few stanzas of poetry in the Scottish dialect attracted our +attention. As we read them, like a wizard's rhyme they seemed to have +the power of bearing us back to the past. They had long ago graced the +columns of that solitary sheet which once a week diffused happiness over +our fireside circle, making us acquainted, in our lonely nook, with the +goings-on of the great world. The verses, we are now constrained to +admit, are not remarkable in themselves, truth and simple nature only; +yet how our young hearts responded to them! Twenty years ago there were +fewer verse-makers than at present; and as our whole stock of light +literature consisted of Ellwood's _Davideis_ and the selections of +_Lindley Murray's English Reader_, it is not improbable that we were in a +condition to overestimate the contributions to the poet's corner of our +village newspaper. Be that as it may, we welcome them as we would the +face of an old friend, for they somehow remind us of the scent of +haymows, the breath of cattle, the fresh greenery by the brookside, the +moist earth broken by the coulter and turned up to the sun and winds of +May. This particular piece, which follows, is entitled _The Sparrow_, +and was occasioned by the crushing of a bird's-nest by the author while +ploughing among his corn. It has something of the simple tenderness of +Burns. + + "Poor innocent and hapless Sparrow + Why should my mould-board gie thee sorrow! + This day thou'll chirp and mourn the morrow + Wi' anxious breast; + The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow + Deep o'er thy nest! + + "Just I' the middle o' the hill + Thy nest was placed wi' curious skill; + There I espied thy little bill + Beneath the shade. + In that sweet bower, secure frae ill, + Thine eggs were laid. + + "Five corns o' maize had there been drappit, + An' through the stalks thy head was pappit, + The drawing nowt could na be stappit + I quickly foun'; + Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit, + Wild fluttering roun'. + + "The sklentin stane beguiled the sheer, + In vain I tried the plough to steer; + A wee bit stumpie I' the rear + Cam' 'tween my legs, + An' to the jee-side gart me veer + An' crush thine eggs. + + "Alas! alas! my bonnie birdie! + Thy faithful mate flits round to guard thee. + Connubial love!--a pattern worthy + The pious priest! + What savage heart could be sae hardy + As wound thy breast? + + "Ah me! it was nae fau't o' mine; + It gars me greet to see thee pine. + It may be serves His great design + Who governs all; + Omniscience tents wi' eyes divine + The Sparrow's fall! + + "How much like thine are human dools, + Their sweet wee bairns laid I' the mools? + The Sovereign Power who nature rules + Hath said so be it + But poor blip' mortals are sic fools + They canna see it. + + "Nae doubt that He who first did mate us + Has fixed our lot as sure as fate is, + An' when He wounds He disna hate us, + But anely this, + He'll gar the ills which here await us + Yield lastin' bliss." + +In the early part of the eighteenth century a considerable number of +Presbyterians of Scotch descent, from the north of Ireland, emigrated to +the New World. In the spring of 1719, the inhabitants of Haverhill, on +the Merrimac, saw them passing up the river in several canoes, one of +which unfortunately upset in the rapids above the village. The following +fragment of a ballad celebrating this event has been handed down to the +present time, and may serve to show the feelings even then of the old +English settlers towards the Irish emigrants:-- + + "They began to scream and bawl, + As out they tumbled one and all, + And, if the Devil had spread his net, + He could have made a glorious haul!" + +The new-comers proceeded up the river, and, landing opposite to the +Uncanoonuc Hills, on the present site of Manchester, proceeded inland to +Beaver Pond. Charmed with the appearance of the country, they resolved +here to terminate their wanderings. Under a venerable oak on the margin +of the little lake, they knelt down with their minister, Jamie McGregore, +and laid, in prayer and thanksgiving, the foundation of their settlement. +In a few years they had cleared large fields, built substantial stone and +frame dwellings and a large and commodious meeting-house; wealth had +accumulated around them, and they had everywhere the reputation of a +shrewd and thriving community. They were the first in New England to +cultivate the potato, which their neighbors for a long time regarded as a +pernicious root, altogether unfit for a Christian stomach. Every lover +of that invaluable esculent has reason to remember with gratitude the +settlers of Londonderry. + +Their moral acclimation in Ireland had not been without its effect upon +their character. Side by side with a Presbyterianism as austere as that +of John Knox had grown up something of the wild Milesian humor, love of +convivial excitement and merry-making. Their long prayers and fierce +zeal in behalf of orthodox tenets only served, in the eyes of their +Puritan neighbors, to make more glaring still the scandal of their marked +social irregularities. It became a common saying in the region round +about that "the Derry Presbyterians would never give up a pint of +doctrine or a pint of rum." Their second minister was an old scarred +fighter, who had signalized himself in the stout defence of Londonderry, +when James II. and his Papists were thundering at its gates. Agreeably +to his death-bed directions, his old fellow-soldiers, in their leathern +doublets and battered steel caps, bore him to his grave, firing over him +the same rusty muskets which had swept down rank after rank of the men of +Amalek at the Derry siege. + +Erelong the celebrated Derry fair was established, in imitation of those +with which they had been familiar in Ireland. Thither annually came all +manner of horse-jockeys and pedlers, gentlemen and beggars, fortune- +tellers, wrestlers, dancers and fiddlers, gay young farmers and buxom +maidens. Strong drink abounded. They who had good-naturedly wrestled +and joked together in the morning not unfrequently closed the day with a +fight, until, like the revellers of Donnybrook, + + "Their hearts were soft with whiskey, + And their heads were soft with blows." + +A wild, frolicking, drinking, fiddling, courting, horse-racing, riotous +merry-making,--a sort of Protestant carnival, relaxing the grimness of +Puritanism for leagues around it. + +In the midst of such a community, and partaking of all its influences, +Robert Dinsmore, the author of the poem I have quoted, was born, about +the middle of the last century. His paternal ancestor, John, younger son +of a Laird of Achenmead, who left the banks of the Tweed for the green +fertility of Northern Ireland, had emigrated to New England some forty +years before, and, after a rough experience of Indian captivity in the +wild woods of Maine, had settled down among his old neighbors in +Londonderry. Until nine years of age, Robert never saw a school. He was +a short time under the tuition of an old British soldier, who had strayed +into the settlement after the French war, "at which time," he says in a +letter to a friend, "I learned to repeat the shorter and larger +catechisms. These, with the Scripture proofs annexed to them, confirmed +me in the orthodoxy of my forefathers, and I hope I shall ever remain an +evidence of the truth of what the wise man said, 'Train up a child in the +way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.'" He +afterwards took lessons with one Master McKeen, who used to spend much of +his time in hunting squirrels with his pupils. He learned to read and +write; and the old man always insisted that he should have done well at +ciphering also, had he not fallen in love with Molly Park. At the age of +eighteen he enlisted in the Revolutionary army, and was at the battle of +Saratoga. On his return he married his fair Molly, settled down as a +farmer in Windham, formerly a part of Londonderry, and before he was +thirty years of age became an elder in the church, of the creed and +observances of which he was always a zealous and resolute defender. From +occasional passages in his poems, it is evident that the instructions +which he derived from the pulpit were not unlike those which Burns +suggested as needful for the unlucky lad whom he was commending to his +friend Hamilton:-- + + "Ye 'll catechise him ilka quirk, + An' shore him weel wi' hell." + +In a humorous poem, entitled Spring's Lament, he thus describes the +consternation produced in the meeting-house at sermon time by a dog, who, +in search of his mistress, rattled and scraped at the "west porch +door:"-- + + "The vera priest was scared himsel', + His sermon he could hardly spell; + Auld carlins fancied they could smell + The brimstone matches; + They thought he was some imp o' hell, + In quest o' wretches." + +He lived to a good old age, a home-loving, unpretending farmer, +cultivating his acres with his own horny hands, and cheering the long +rainy days and winter evenings with homely rhyme. Most of his pieces +were written in the dialect of his ancestors, which was well understood +by his neighbors and friends, the only audience upon which he could +venture to calculate. He loved all old things, old language, old +customs, old theology. In a rhyming letter to his cousin Silas, +he says:-- + + "Though Death our ancestors has cleekit, + An' under clods then closely steekit, + We'll mark the place their chimneys reekit, + Their native tongue we yet wad speak it, + Wi' accent glib." + +He wrote sometimes to amuse his neighbors, often to soothe their sorrow +under domestic calamity, or to give expression to his own. With little +of that delicacy of taste which results from the attrition of fastidious +and refined society, and altogether too truthful and matter-of-fact to +call in the aid of imagination, he describes in the simplest and most +direct terms the circumstances in which he found himself, and the +impressions which these circumstances had made on his own mind. He calls +things by their right names; no euphuism or transcendentalism,--the +plainer and commoner the better. He tells us of his farm life, its +joys and sorrows, its mirth and care, with no embellishment, with no +concealment of repulsive and ungraceful features. Never having seen a +nightingale, he makes no attempt to describe the fowl; but he has seen +the night-hawk, at sunset, cutting the air above him, and he tells of it. +Side by side with his waving corn-fields and orchard-blooms we have the +barn-yard and pigsty. Nothing which was necessary to the comfort and +happiness of his home and avocation was to him "common or unclean." +Take, for instance, the following, from a poem written at the close of +autumn, after the death of his wife:-- + + "No more may I the Spring Brook trace, + No more with sorrow view the place + Where Mary's wash-tub stood; + No more may wander there alone, + And lean upon the mossy stone + Where once she piled her wood. + 'T was there she bleached her linen cloth, + By yonder bass-wood tree + From that sweet stream she made her broth, + Her pudding and her tea. + That stream, whose waters running, + O'er mossy root and stone, + Made ringing and singing, + Her voice could match alone." + +We envy not the man who can sneer at this simple picture. It is honest +as Nature herself. An old and lonely man looks back upon the young years +of his wedded life. Can we not look with him? The sunlight of a summer +morning is weaving itself with the leafy shadows of the bass-tree, +beneath which a fair and ruddy-checked young woman, with her full, +rounded arms bared to the elbow, bends not ungracefully to her task, +pausing ever and anon to play with the bright-eyed child beside her, and +mingling her songs with the pleasant murmurings of gliding water! Alas! +as the old man looks, he hears that voice, which perpetually sounds to us +all from the past--no more! + +Let us look at him in his more genial mood. Take the opening lines of +his Thanksgiving Day. What a plain, hearty picture of substantial +comfort! + + "When corn is in the garret stored, + And sauce in cellar well secured; + When good fat beef we can afford, + And things that 're dainty, + With good sweet cider on our board, + And pudding plenty; + + "When stock, well housed, may chew the cud, + And at my door a pile of wood, + A rousing fire to warm my blood, + Blest sight to see! + It puts my rustic muse in mood + To sing for thee." + +If he needs a simile, he takes the nearest at hand. In a letter to his +daughter he says:-- + + "That mine is not a longer letter, + The cause is not the want of matter,-- + Of that there's plenty, worse or better; + But like a mill + Whose stream beats back with surplus water, + The wheel stands still." + +Something of the humor of Burns gleams out occasionally from the sober +decorum of his verses. In an epistle to his friend Betton, high sheriff +of the county, who had sent to him for a peck of seed corn, he says:-- + + "Soon plantin' time will come again, + Syne may the heavens gie us rain, + An' shining heat to bless ilk plain + An' fertile hill, + An' gar the loads o' yellow grain, + Our garrets fill. + + "As long as I has food and clothing, + An' still am hale and fier and breathing, + Ye 's get the corn--and may be aething + Ye'll do for me; + (Though God forbid)--hang me for naething + An' lose your fee." + +And on receiving a copy of some verses written by a lady, he talks in a +sad way for a Presbyterian deacon:-- + + "Were she some Aborigine squaw, + Wha sings so sweet by nature's law, + I'd meet her in a hazle shaw, + Or some green loany, + And make her tawny phiz and 'a + My welcome crony." + +The practical philosophy of the stout, jovial rhymer was but little +affected by the sour-featured asceticism of the elder. He says:-- + + "We'll eat and drink, and cheerful take + Our portions for the Donor's sake, + For thus the Word of Wisdom spake-- + Man can't do better; + Nor can we by our labors make + The Lord our debtor!" + +A quaintly characteristic correspondence in rhyme between the Deacon and +Parson McGregore, evidently "birds o' ane feather," is still in +existence. The minister, in acknowledging the epistle of his old friend, +commences his reply as follows:-- + + "Did e'er a cuif tak' up a quill, + Wha ne'er did aught that he did well, + To gar the muses rant and reel, + An' flaunt and swagger, + Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that daft chiel + Old Dite McGregore!" + +The reply is in the same strain, and may serve to give the reader some +idea of the old gentleman as a religious controversialist:-- + + "My reverend friend and kind McGregore, + Although thou ne'er was ca'd a bragger, + Thy muse I'm sure nave e'er was glegger + Thy Scottish lays + Might gar Socinians fa' or stagger, + E'en in their ways. + + "When Unitarian champions dare thee, + Goliah like, and think to scare thee, + Dear Davie, fear not, they'll ne'er waur thee; + But draw thy sling, + Weel loaded frae the Gospel quarry, + An' gie 't a fling." + +The last time I saw him, he was chaffering in the market-place of my +native village, swapping potatoes and onions and pumpkins for tea, +coffee, molasses, and, if the truth be told, New England rum. Threescore +years and ten, to use his own words, + + "Hung o'er his back, + And bent him like a muckle pack," + +yet he still stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoes of cowhide, +like one accustomed to tread independently the soil of his own acres,-- +his broad, honest face seamed by care and darkened by exposure to "all +the airts that blow," and his white hair flowing in patriarchal glory +beneath his felt hat. A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man, simple as +a child, and betraying, neither in look nor manner, that he was +accustomed to + + "Feed on thoughts which voluntary move + Harmonious numbers." + +Peace to him! A score of modern dandies and sentimentalists could ill +supply the place of this one honest man. In the ancient burial-ground of +Windham, by the side of his "beloved Molly," and in view of the old +meeting-house, there is a mound of earth, where, every spring, green +grasses tremble in the wind and the warm sunshine calls out the flowers. +There, gathered like one of his own ripe sheaves, the farmer poet sleeps +with his fathers. + + + + + + +PLACIDO, THE SLAVE POET. + +[1845.] + +I have been greatly interested in the fate of Juan Placido, the black +revolutionist of Cuba, who was executed in Havana, as the alleged +instigator and leader of an attempted revolt on the part of the slaves in +that city and its neighborhood. + +Juan Placido was born a slave on the estate of Don Terribio de Castro. +His father was an African, his mother a mulatto. His mistress treated +him with great kindness, and taught him to read. When he was twelve +years of age she died, and he fell into other and less compassionate +hands. At the age of eighteen, on seeing his mother struck with a heavy +whip, he for the first time turned upon his tormentors. To use his own +words, "I felt the blow in my heart. To utter a loud cry, and from a +downcast boy, with the timidity of one weak as a lamb, to become all at +office like a raging lion, was a thing of a moment." He was, however, +subdued, and the next morning, together with his mother, a tenderly +nurtured and delicate woman, severely scourged. On seeing his mother +rudely stripped and thrown down upon the ground, he at first with tears +implored the overseer to spare her; but at the sound of the first blow, +as it cut into her naked flesh, he sprang once more upon the ruffian, +who, having superior strength, beat him until he was nearer dead than +alive. + +After suffering all the vicissitudes of slavery,--hunger, nakedness, +stripes; after bravely and nobly bearing up against that slow, dreadful +process which reduces the man to a thing, the image of God to a piece of +merchandise, until he had reached his thirty-eighth year, he was +unexpectedly released from his bonds. Some literary gentlemen in Havana, +into whose hands two or three pieces of his composition had fallen, +struck with the vigor, spirit, and natural grace which they manifested, +sought out the author, and raised a subscription to purchase his freedom. +He came to Havana, and maintained himself by house-painting, and such +other employments as his ingenuity and talents placed within his reach. +He wrote several poems, which have been published in Spanish at Havana, +and translated by Dr. Madden, under the title of _Poems by a Slave_. + +It is not too much to say of these poems that they will bear a comparison +with most of the productions of modern Spanish literature. The style is +bold, free, energetic. Some of the pieces are sportive and graceful; +such is the address to _The Cucuya_, or Cuban firefly. This beautiful +insect is sometimes fastened in tiny nets to the light dresses of the +Cuban ladies, a custom to which the writer gallantly alludes in the +following lines:-- + + "Ah!--still as one looks on such brightness and bloom, + On such beauty as hers, one might envy the doom + Of a captive Cucuya that's destined, like this, + To be touched by her hand and revived by her kiss! + In the cage which her delicate hand has prepared, + The beautiful prisoner nestles unscared, + O'er her fair forehead shining serenely and bright, + In beauty's own bondage revealing its light! + And when the light dance and the revel are done, + She bears it away to her alcove alone, + Where, fed by her hand from the cane that's most choice, + In secret it gleans at the sound of her voice! + O beautiful maiden! may Heaven accord + Thy care of the captive a fitting reward, + And never may fortune the fetters remove + Of a heart that is thine in the bondage of love!" + +In his Dream, a fragment of some length, Placido dwells in a touching +manner upon the scenes of his early years. It is addressed to his +brother Florence, who was a slave near Matanzas, while the author was in +the same condition at Havana. There is a plaintive and melancholy +sweetness in these lines, a natural pathos, which finds its way to the +heart:-- + + "Thou knowest, dear Florence, my sufferings of old, + The struggles maintained with oppression for years; + We shared them together, and each was consoled + With the love which was nurtured by sorrow and tears. + + "But now far apart, the sad pleasure is gone, + We mingle our sighs and our sorrows no more; + The course is a new one which each has to run, + And dreary for each is the pathway before. + + "But in slumber our spirits at least shall commune, + We will meet as of old in the visions of sleep, + In dreams which call back early days, when at noon + We stole to the shade of the palm-tree to weep! + + "For solitude pining, in anguish of late + The heights of Quintana I sought for repose; + And there, in the cool and the silence, the weight + Of my cares was forgotten, I felt not any woes. + + "Exhausted and weary, the spell of the place + Sank down on my eyelids, and soft slumber stole + So sweetly upon me, it left not a trace + Of sorrow o'ercasting the light of the soul." + + +The writer then imagines himself borne lightly through the air to the +place of his birth. The valley of Matanzas lies beneath him, hallowed by +the graves of his parents. He proceeds:-- + + "I gazed on that spot where together we played, + Our innocent pastimes came fresh to my mind, + Our mother's caress, and the fondness displayed + In each word and each look of a parent so kind. + + "I looked on the mountain, whose fastnesses wild + The fugitives seek from the rifle and hound; + Below were the fields where they suffered and toiled, + And there the low graves of their comrades are found. + + "The mill-house was there, and the turmoil of old; + But sick of these scenes, for too well were they known, + I looked for the stream where in childhood I strolled + When a moment of quiet and peace was my own. + + "With mingled emotions of pleasure and pain, + Dear Florence, I sighed to behold thee once more; + I sought thee, my brother, embraced thee again, + But I found thee a slave as I left thee before!" + +Some of his devotional pieces evince the fervor and true feeling of the +Christian poet. His _Ode to Religion_ contains many admirable lines. +Speaking of the martyrs of the early days of Christianity, he says +finely:-- + + "Still in that cradle, purpled with their blood, + The infant Faith waxed stronger day by day." + +I cannot forbear quoting the last stanza of this poem:-- + + "O God of mercy, throned in glory high, + On earth and all its misery look down: + Behold the wretched, hear the captive's cry, + And call Thy exiled children round Thy throne! + There would I fain in contemplation gaze + On Thy eternal beauty, and would make + Of love one lasting canticle of praise, + And every theme but Thee henceforth forsake!" + +His best and noblest production is an ode _To Cuba_, written on the +occasion of Dr. Madden's departure from the island, and presented to that +gentleman. It was never published in Cuba, as its sentiments would have +subjected the author to persecution. It breathes a lofty spirit of +patriotism, and an indignant sense of the wrongs inflicted upon his race. +Withal, it has something of the grandeur and stateliness of the old +Spanish muse. + + "Cuba!--of what avail that thou art fair, + Pearl of the Seas, the pride of the Antilles, + If thy poor sons have still to see thee share + The pangs of bondage and its thousand ills? + Of what avail the verdure of thy hills, + The purple bloom thy coffee-plain displays; + The cane's luxuriant growth, whose culture fills + More graves than famine, or the sword finds ways + To glut with victims calmly as it slays? + + "Of what avail that thy clear streams abound + With precious ore, if wealth there's, none to buy + Thy children's rights, and not one grain is found + For Learning's shrine, or for the altar nigh + Of poor, forsaken, downcast Liberty? + Of what avail the riches of thy port, + Forests of masts and ships from every sea, + If Trade alone is free, and man, the sport + And spoil of Trade, bears wrongs of every sort? + + "Cuba! O Cuba!---when men call thee fair, + And rich, and beautiful, the Queen of Isles, + Star of the West, and Ocean's gem most rare, + Oh, say to those who mock thee with such wiles: + Take off these flowers; and view the lifeless spoils + Which wait the worm; behold their hues beneath + The pale, cold cheek; and seek for living smiles + Where Beauty lies not in the arms of Death, + And Bondage taints not with its poison breath!" + +The disastrous result of the last rising of the slaves--in Cuba is well +known. Betrayed, and driven into premature collision with their +oppressors, the insurrectionists were speedily crushed into subjection. +Placido was arrested, and after a long hearing was condemned to be +executed, and consigned to the Chapel of the Condemned. + +How far he was implicated in the insurrectionary movement it is now +perhaps impossible to ascertain. The popular voice at Havana pronounced +him its leader and projector, and as such he was condemned. His own +bitter wrongs; the terrible recollections of his life of servitude; the +sad condition of his relatives and race, exposed to scorn, contumely, and +the heavy hand of violence; the impunity with which the most dreadful +outrages upon the persons of slaves were inflicted,--acting upon a mind +fully capable of appreciating the beauty and dignity of freedom,-- +furnished abundant incentives to an effort for the redemption of his race +and the humiliation of his oppressors. The Heraldo, of Madrid speaks of +him as "the celebrated poet, a man of great natural genius, and beloved +and appreciated by the most respectable young men of Havana." It accuses +him of wild and ambitious projects, and states that he was intended to be +the chief of the black race after they had thrown off the yoke of +bondage. + +He was executed at Havana in the seventh month, 1844. According to the +custom in Cuba with condemned criminals, he was conducted from prison to +the Chapel of the Doomed. He passed thither with singular composure, +amidst a great concourse of people, gracefully saluting his numerous +acquaintances. The chapel was hung with black cloth, and dimly lighted. +He was seated beside his coffin. Priests in long black robes stood +around him, chanting in sepulchral voices the service of the dead. It is +an ordeal under which the stoutest-hearted and most resolute have been +found to sink. After enduring it for twenty-four hours he was led out to +execution. He came forth calm and undismayed; holding a crucifix in his +hand, he recited in a loud, clear voice a solemn prayer in verse, which +he had composed amidst the horrors of the Chapel. The following is an +imperfect rendering of a poem which thrilled the hearts of all who heard +it:-- + + "God of unbounded love and power eternal, + To Thee I turn in darkness and despair! + Stretch forth Thine arm, and from the brow infernal + Of Calumny the veil of Justice tear; + And from the forehead of my honest fame + Pluck the world's brand of infamy and shame! + + "O King of kings!--my fathers' God!--who only + Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled, + Who givest the sea its waves, the dark and lonely + Abyss of heaven its light, the North its cold, + The air its currents, the warm sun its beams, + Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams! + + "All things obey Thee, dying or reviving + As thou commandest; all, apart from Thee, + From Thee alone their life and power deriving, + Sink and are lost in vast eternity! + Yet doth the void obey Thee; since from naught + This marvellous being by Thy hand was wrought. + + "O merciful God! I cannot shun Thy presence, + For through its veil of flesh Thy piercing eye + Looketh upon my spirit's unsoiled essence, + As through the pure transparence of the sky; + Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands, + As o'er my prostrate innocence he stands! + + "But if, alas, it seemeth good to Thee + That I should perish as the guilty dies, + And that in death my foes should gaze on me + With hateful malice and exulting eyes, + Speak Thou the word, and bid them shed my blood, + Fully in me Thy will be done, O God!" + +On arriving at the fatal spot, he sat down as ordered, on a bench, with +his back to the soldiers. The multitude recollected that in some +affecting lines, written by the conspirator in prison, he had said that +it would be useless to seek to kill him by shooting his body,--that his +heart must be pierced ere it would cease its throbbings. At the last +moment, just as the soldiers were about to fire, he rose up and gazed for +an instant around and above him on the beautiful capital of his native +land and its sail-flecked bay, on the dense crowds about him, the blue +mountains in the distance, and the sky glorious with summer sunshine. +"Adios, mundo!" (Farewell, world!) he said calmly, and sat down. The +word was given, and five balls entered his body. Then it was that, +amidst the groans and murmurs of the horror-stricken spectators, he rose +up once more, and turned his head to the shuddering soldiers, his face +wearing an expression of superhuman courage. "Will no one pity me?" he +said, laying his hand over his heart. "Here, fire here!" While he yet +spake, two balls entered his heart, and he fell dead. + +Thus perished the hero poet of Cuba. He has not fallen in vain. His +genius and his heroic death will doubtless be regarded by his race as +precious legacies. To the great names of L'Ouverture and Petion the +colored man can now add that of Juan Placido. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD PORTRAITS *** +By John Greenleaf Whittier + +** This file should be named 9591.txt or 9591.zip ** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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