Half a Century Part 7

The plans for my conversion seemed to be aided by our coming to the farm, as I fitted up the "prophet's chamber" to entertain my husband's friends in his house. There were two preachers in the circuit. The eldest, a plain, blunt man, began on his first visit to pelt me with problems about "man-made ministers" and Calvinism. I replied by citing the election of Abraham, Jacob, and the entire Jewish nation, and by quoting the 8th chapter of Romans, until he seemed to despair and came no more, for they could not accept my hospitality while I refused their religion. The other circuit rider was young, handsome and zealous, and was doing a great work in converting young girls. On his first visit I thought him rude. On his second, he inquired at table:

"Is this the place where they put onions into everything?"

I replied that we used none in tea or coffee. When I joined him and my husband in the parlor, he waved his hand around the room to point out its decorations and said:

"Brother James tells me that this is all your work. It is quite wonderful, and now, sister, what a pity it is that you will not turn your attention to religion. You seem to do everything so well."

He motioned as if to lay his hand on my shoulder. I drew back and said:

"Excuse me, sir, but I am not your sister; and as for your religion you remind me with it of Doctor Jaynes and his hair tonic."

"How so, sister?"

"Again pardon, but I am not your sister. Doctor Jaynes uses a large part of his column to persuade us that it is good to have good hair. No one disputes that, and he should prove that his tonic will bring good hair.

So you talk of the importance of religion. No one disputes this, and it is your business to prove that the nostrum you peddle is religion. I say it is not. It is a system of will wors.h.i.+p. Religion is obedience to G.o.d's law. You teach people that they can, and do, obey this law perfectly, while they do not know it. Your church has no bibles in her pews, few in her families, and these unread. Preachers and all, not one in twenty can repeat the ten commandments. You are blind leaders of the blind, and must all fall into the ditch, destroyed for lack of knowledge!"

That week he proposed to abandon the Swissvale meeting-house, and build one in Wilkinsburg, giving as a reason the impossibility of keeping up a congregation with me on the farm.

Next Conference sent Rev. Henderson as presiding elder, who brought in a new era. He slept in the "prophet's chamber," admired my pretty rooms, and said nothing about my getting religion. The circuit preacher was of the same mind, an earnest, modest, young man, wrestling with English grammar, who on his first visit sought my help about adverbs, while my mother-in-law looked on in evident displeasure.

To her this was the dawn of that new day, in which the Methodist church rivals all others in her inst.i.tutions of learning. The good time of inspiration was slipping away. What wonder that she clutched it as Jacob did his angel? There in that house she had for long years been an oracle to inspired men, and now to see G.o.d's Spirit displaced by Kirkham's grammar was rank infidelity. The Wilkinsburg meeting-house was being built, and that one which had been to her all that the temple ever was to Solomon, would be left to the owls and bats--her Zion desolate. Those walls, made sacred by visions of glory and shouts of triumph, would crumble to ruin in the clinging silence. How could she but think that the influence was evil which could bring such result?

The new building was consecrated with much ceremony. The two Hendersons staid with, us, and on Sabbath morning consulted me as to the best way of taking up subscriptions. Mother-in-law looked on till she could bear it no longer, and said:

"Brother Henderson, if you mean to be in time for love feast, you must not stay fooling there."

Both men sprang to their feet, hurried away and never returned.

General Conference at its session in Baltimore, in 1840, pa.s.sed the "Black Gag" law, which forbade colored members of the church to give testimony in church-trials against white members, in any state where they were forbidden to testily in courts. Four members of the Pittsburg Conference voted for it, and when my husband returned from the dedication, I learned that three of them had figured prominently in the exercises, and he had refused to commune on account of their ministrations.

Everything went smoothly for ten days, when my husband came to our room, where I sat writing, threw himself on the bed and poured out such a torrent of accusations as I had not dreamed possible, and of which I refrain from giving any adequate description. I looked up and saw that he was livid with rage. His words appeared the ravings of a mad man, yet there was method in them, and no crime in the calendar with which they did not charge me. b.u.t.ter money was not accounted for, pickles and preserves missing, things about the house were going to destruction, the country was full of falsehoods and I had told them all. It was all a blur of sound and fury, but in it stood out these words:

"You ruined Samuel, and now you are trying to ruin the boys and those two fool preachers. People know it, too, and I am ashamed to show my face for the talk."

When he seemed to have finished, I asked:

"How long since you learned my real character?"

This spurred him to new wrath, and he exclaimed:

"There now, that's the next of it. You will go and tell that I've abused you. It's not me. I never suspected your honesty, but my mother, yes, my poor old mother. I would not care, if you could only behave yourself before my mother!"

I sat leaning my elbows on my table with my head in my hands, and the words "ruined Samuel" became a refrain. I thought of the danger out of which I had plucked him while in Louisville, of the force with which I had grappled him with hooks of steel, as he hung on the outer edge of that precipice of dissipation, while I clung to the Almighty Arm for help. I thought of the tears and solemnity with which this man had given to me the dying message of that rescued brother. Earth seemed to be pa.s.sing away, and to leave no standing room. I was teaching school in the abandoned meeting-house. It was noon recess and I must hurry or be late. I pa.s.sed into the hall and out of the house, with the thought "I cross his threshold now for the last time;" but I must remain near and finish my school, when I would be present to meet those monstrous charges before the world. My reveries did not interfere with my school duties, and when they were over I sat in the old meeting-house or walked its one aisle, with the quiet dead lying all around me, thinking of that good fight which I should fight, ere I finished my course, and lay down to rest as they did. But the sun went down, the long twilight drew on the coming night, and I was homeless. Where should I go?

I thought of the Burkhammers, whose little son lay among the dead beside me. I had tended him in his last illness and prepared his body for burial. They were German tenants of Judge Wilkins and to reach their house I must pa.s.s through the dark valley over which now lay a new pall.

There were lights in the house as I pa.s.sed, and Tom rattled his chain and gave forth one of those shrieks which pierced the air for a mile. I was glad to know that he was not loose, and that it was only my phantom which crouched in every available place, ready to spring. The bears bellowed a response to his shriek, but I did not hasten. The stream, so loud and angry on that night of my first entrance into this vale of tears, was now low, and sang a lullaby of angelic music as I crossed it on stepping stones. On the hillside it was almost as dark as that night when Father Olever stopped and felt for the bank with his whip.

The Burkhammers asked no questions, and I went to sleep without giving any account of my strange visit, but about midnight I awoke myself and the whole family by my sobs. They gathered around my bed, and I must tell. What I said I do not know, but the old man interrupted me with:

"Oh tamm Jim. You stay here mit us. My old woman und me, we has blenty.

We dakes care of you. Nopody never said nodding bad about you. Everypody likes you, caus you is bleasant mit everypody."

As he talked he drew his sleeve across his eyes, while his wife and daughter comforted me. I would board there and finish my school, then go to Butler and take the seminary, or a place in the common school.

I saw no one as I pa.s.sed my late home next morning. In school the first exercise was bible, reading verse about with the pupils. The xxv (25) chapter of Matthew came in order, and while reading its account of the final judgment, I saw as by a revelation why this trouble had been sent to me, and a great flood of light seemed thrown across my path before me.

Christ's little ones were sick and in prison, and I had not visited them! Old Martha, standing before her judges, rose up to upbraid me! I was to have followed the Lamb, and had been making b.u.t.ter to add to an estate larger now than the owner could use. No wonder she thought I stole the money. I, who had failed to rebuke man-stealing, might steal anything. That meeting-house which I had been helping to build by entertaining its builders and aiding them about subscriptions, it and they were a part of a great man-thieving machine. I had been false to every principle of justice; had been decorating parlors when I should have been tearing down prisons! _I_, helping Black Gagites build a church!

"When thou a thief didst see Thou join'st with him in sin."'

Thinking, reaching out for the path to that bastile which I must attack, I went on with my school duties until my husband walked in and asked why I had not been at home. I was worn with intense strain, and at the word home, burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. I told the pupils to take their books, and leave, there would be no more school, and I could hear them go around on tip-toe and whisper. Twice a pair of little arms were thrown around me, and the sound of the retreating footsteps died away when my husband laid his hand all trembling on my head. I threw it off and begged him to go away, his presence would kill me. He would not go, and I went out into the woods. He followed, and said he had never charged me with an evil thought, much less an action, was the most loving of husbands and the most injured in that I had thought he had found fault with me. He might have spoken a hasty word, but was it right to lay it up against him? I still begged him to leave--that I should die if he did not. He went, and I crossed the fields to the house of Thomas d.i.c.kson, thinking that from it I could get to the city by the river road and fly any where.

Mrs. d.i.c.kson made me go to bed, as I was able to go no where else, and here my husband's brother-in-law found me. He had come as peace-maker, and could not think what it all meant; some angry words of James about his mother, who would now go back to live with him. The d.i.c.ksons joined him with entreaties. If my husband had injured me, he was very, very sorry, was quite overwhelmed with grief for the pain he had cost me.

Then they brought down the lever of scripture and conscience: "If thy brother offend thee seventy times seven," and I yielded.

My husband came and I went home with him that evening, expecting that my mother-in-law was installed in her new home on the hill; but she met and kissed me at the door, and I did not care. Nothing could add to the shudder of going into the house, and she seemed so grieved and frightened that my heart was touched, and I was sorry for her that we had ever met.

CHAPTER XVII.

MY NAME APPEARS IN PRINT.--AGE, 29.

It was the third morning after my return, that my head would not leave the pillow. Dr. Carothers came and blistered me from head to feet, and for three weeks I saw no one but my attendants and my phantom panther.

He never left me. There was one corner of the room in which he stayed most, and sometimes there was not room for his tail to wag, and then he moved forward where I could not see his head. This troubled me, for then I could not hold him with my eyes. At night they were two b.a.l.l.s of green fire; but they had always been, only when I was well I could turn my head away, now I could not move it. I knew most of the time it was a shadow from my brain, but was glad to hear Tom's chain rattle and feel sure it was not his very self.

They nursed me carefully, and I lay thinking of the "little ones sick and in prison." Old Martha came and plead with me. I saw Liza and Maria under the lash for the crime of chast.i.ty, and myself the accomplice of their brutal masters. I pictured one of them a member of the M.E.

Church, appealing to that church for redress and spurned under the "Black Gag," and I? why I had been helping men who voted for it to build a meeting-house! What was Peter's denial compared to mine?

The case arranged itself in my mind. I had writing materials brought, and there, with my head fast on the pillow, I wrote a hexameter rhyme half a column long, arraigning by name those Black Gag preachers, painting the scene, and holding them responsible. I signed my initials, and sent it to Mr. Fleeson, with a note telling him to give my name if it was inquired for.

Our "Spirit" did not come that week; but soon my husband came to my room with a copy of "The Pittsburg Gazette," in which was an editorial and letter full of pious horror and denunciation of that article, and giving my name as the author; so that we knew Mr. Fleeson had published the name in full. This was my first appearance in print over my own signature, and while I was shocked, my husband was delighted, even though he knew a libel suit was threatened. I soon went to Pittsburg, saw William Elder and John A. Wills, the only anti-slavery lawyers in the city. They said the article was actionable, for it had brought those men into contempt. Elder added: "They are badly hurt, or they would not cry out so loud."

Both tendered their gratuitous services for my defense. In a civil suit we could prove the truth of the charge, and they could get nothing, for my husband owned no property--everything belonged to his mother--and my trustees could not be held for my misdeeds. Their action would doubtless be criminal, and I would probably be imprisoned. I went home and wrote a reply to the _Gazette_, which it refused to publish, but it appeared in the _Spirit_. I reiterated, urged and intensified my charges against these false priests, until they were dumb about their injuries and libel suit, but of that original article I never could get a copy. Every one had been sold and resold, and read to rags, before I knew it was in print.

I continued to write for the "Spirit," but still there did not seem to be anything I could do for the slave. As soon as I was able to be about the house, I fell into my old round of drudgery, but with hope and pride shut out of it. Once my burden pressed so that I could not sleep, and rose at early dawn, and sat looking over the meadow, seeing nothing but a dense, white fog. I leaned back, closed my eyes and thought how like it was to my own life. When I looked again, oh, the vision of glory which, met my sight!

The rising sun had sent, through an opening in the woods, a shaft of light, which centred on a hickory tree that stood alone in the meadow, and was then in the perfection of its golden autumn glory. It dripped with moisture, blazed and s.h.i.+mmered. The high lights were diamond tipped, and between them and the deepest shadow was every tint of orange and yellow, mingled and blended in those inimitable lines of natural foliage. Over it, through it, and around it, rolled the white fog, in great ma.s.ses, caressing the earth and hanging from the zenith, like the veil of the temple of the Most High. All around lay the dark woods, framing in the vision like serried ranks encompa.s.sing a throne, to which great clouds rolled, then lifted and scudded away, like couriers coming for orders and hastening to obey them.

John's New Jerusalem never was so grand! No square corners and forbidding walls. The gates were not made of several solid pearls, but of millions of pearletts, strung on threads of love, offering no barriers through which any soul might not pa.s.s. My Patmos had been visited and I could dwell in it, work and wait; but I would live in it, not lie in a tomb, and once more I took hold of life.

I organized a society at which we read, had refreshments and danced--yea, broke church rules and practiced promiscuous dancing minus promiscuous kissing. Of course this was wicked. I roamed the woods, brought wild flowers and planted them, set out berry bushes, and collected a large variety of roses and lilies.

CHAPTER XVIII.