AT SEA.—INCIDENTS.—SEA SOCIABILITY.—A YARN.—SEA
LIFE.—CHARACTERS.—ENGLISH RADICALS.—SKEPTICS.—EDUCATION.—FRENCH
INFIDELITY.—PHRENOLOGY.—THEOLOGY.
_At Sea, May 28._
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
We are reckoned to-day to be about one hundred and fifty miles to
the westward of Cape Clear; ship close-hauled, heading north, with a
very dim prospect of the termination of our voyage. It has been thus
far rather dull and uneventful. We three have never been obliged to
own ourselves actually sea-sick, but at any time during the first
week we could hardly have declared that we felt perfectly well, and
our appetites seemed influenced at every meal as if by a gloomy
apprehension of what an hour might bring forth. Most of the other
passengers have been very miserable indeed. I notice they recover
more rapidly in the steerage than in the cabin. This I suppose to be
owing to their situation in the middle of the ship, where there is the
least motion, to their simple diet, and probably to their having less
temptation to eat freely, and greater necessity to “make an effort,”
and move about in fresh air.
We have met one school of small whales. There might have been fifty
of them, tumbling ponderously over the waves, in sight at once.
Occasionally one would rise lazily up so near, that, as he caught sight
of us, we could seem to see an expression of surprise and alarm in his
stolid, black face, and then he would hastily throw himself under
again, with an energetic slap of his flukes.
One dark, foggy night, while we were “on the Banks,” we witnessed a
rather remarkable exhibition of marine pyrotechny. The whole water, as
far as we could see, was lustrous white, while nearer the eye it was
full of spangles, and every disturbance, as that caused by the movement
of the ship, or the ripples from the wind, or the surging of the sea,
was marked by fire flashes. Very singular spots, from the size of one’s
hand to minute sparks, frequently floated by, looking like stars in
the milky-way. We noticed also several schools, numbering hundreds,
of what seemed little fishes (perhaps an inch long), that darted here
and there, comet-like, with great velocity. I tried, without success,
to catch some of these. It was evident that, _besides the ordinary_
phosphorescent animalcula, there were various and distinct varieties of
animated nature around us, such as are not often to be observed.
Some kind of sea-bird we have seen, I think, every day, and when at the
greatest distance from land. Where is their home? is an oft-repeated
question, and, What do they eat? They are mysteries, these feathered
Bedouins. To-day, land and long-legged shore birds are coming on board
of us. They fly tremulously about the ship, sometimes going off out of
sight and back again, then lighting for a few moments on a spar or line
of rigging. Some have fallen asleep so; or suffered themselves, though
panting with apprehension, to be taken. One of these is a swallow, and
another a wheatear. Some kind of a lark, but not recognisable by the
English on board, was taken several days since. It had probably been
lost from the Western Islands.
[Sidenote: _A “BOARDING” ANECDOTE._]
We have seen but very few vessels; but the meeting with one of them
was quite an event in sea life. She was coming from the eastward,
wind north, and running free, when we first saw her, but soon after
took in her studding-sails and hauled up so as to come near us. When
abeam, and about three miles distant, she showed German colours, laid
aback her mainsail and lowered a quarter-boat, which we immediately
squared away to meet, and ran up our bunting, every body on deck, and
great excitement. With a glass we could see her decks loaded with
emigrants; and as her masts and sails appeared entirely uninjured, it
could only be conjectured that she was distressed for provisions or
water. The carpenter was sent to sound the water tanks, and the mate
to make an estimate of what stores might be safely spared, while we
hastened to our rooms to scribble notes to send home. We finished them
soon enough to see a neat boat, rowed by four men, come alongside, and
a gentlemanly young officer mount nimbly up the side-ladder. He was
received on deck by our second mate, and conducted aft by him to the
cabin companion, where the captain, having put on his best dress-coat
and new Broadway stove-pipe hat, stood, like a small king, dignifiedly
waiting. After the ceremony of presentation, the captain inquired,
“Well, sir, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you?” The young
man replied that he came from the ship so and so, Captain ——, who sent
his compliments, and desired “_Vaat is te news?_” This cool motive
for stopping two ships in mid-ocean, with a fresh and favourable wind
blowing for each, took the captain plainly aback; but he directly
recovered, and taking him into the cabin, gave him a glass of wine and
a few minutes’ conversation with a most creditable politeness; a chunk
of ice and a piece of fresh meat were passed into the boat, and the
steerage passengers threw some tobacco to the men in her. The young
officer took our letters, with some cigars and newspapers, and went
over the side again, without probably having perceived that we were any
less gregarious beings than himself. The curbed energy and suppressed
vexation of our officers, however, showed itself before he was well
seated in his boat, by the violent language of command, and the
rapidity with which the yards were sharpened and the ship again brought
to her course.
This occurrence brought to the mind of our “second dickey” that
night, a boarding affair of his own, which he told us of in the
drollest manner possible. I wish you could hear his drawl, and see his
immoveably sober face, but twinkling eye, that made it all seem natural
and just like him, as he spun us the yarn.
He was once, he said, round in the Pacific, in a Sag-Harbour whaler,
“rayther smart, we accounted her,” when they tried to speak an English
frigate, and did not get quite near enough. So, as they had nothing
else to do, they “up’t and chased her,” and kept after her without ever
getting any nearer for nearly three days. Finally, the wind hauled
round ahead and began to blow a little fresh, and they overhauled her
very rapidly, so that along about sunset they found themselves coming
well to windward of her, as they ran upon opposite tacks. They then
hove-to, and he was sent in a boat to board her, and she promptly
came-to also, and waited for him.
Dressed in a dungaree jumper, yellow oil-skin hat, and canvass
trowsers, he climbed on board the frigate and was immediately addressed
by the officer of the deck.
“Now then, sir, what is it?”
“Are you the cap’en of this here frigate, sir?”
“What’s your business?”
“Why, our cap’en sent his compliments to yourn, sir, and—if you are
a going home—he wished you’d report the bark Lucreetshy Ann, of
Sag-Harbour, Cap’en J. Coffin Starbuck, thirty-seven days from Wahoo
(Oahu), seven hundred and fifty barrels of sperm, and two hundred and
fifty of whale; guess we shall go in to Tuckeywarner (Talcahuano).”
“Is that all, sir?”
“Well, no; the old man did say, if you was a mind to, he’d like to have
me see if I could make a trade with yer for some tobacky. We hadn’t had
none now a going on two week, and he’s a most sick. How is’t—yer mind
to?”
“Is that all your business, sir?”
“Well—yes; I guess ’tis about all.”
“I think you had better get into your boat, sir.”
He thought so too, when he saw the main-yard immediately after begin to
swing round. As the officer stepped below, he went over the side. When
he called out to have the painter let go though, he was told to wait
a bit, and directly a small parcel of tobacco was handed down and the
same officer, looking over the rail, asked,
“Did you say the _Lucretia Ann_?”
“Ay, ay, sir; Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag-Harbour.”
“Mr. Starboard, I believe.”
“‘_Buck_,’ sir, ‘_buck_.’ How about this ’backey?”
The lieutenant, raising his head, his cap, striking the main-sheet as
it was being hauled down, was knocked off and fell into the water, when
one of the whalers immediately lanced it and held it up dripping.
“Hallo, mister; I say, what shall we do with this cap? Did you mean ter
throw it in.”
The officer once more looked over the side, with half a dozen grinning
middies, and imperturbably dignified, replied,
“You will do me the favor to present it to Captain Buck, and say to
him, if you please, that when he wishes to communicate with one of Her
Majesty’s ships again, it will be proper for him to do so in person.”
“Oh, certainly—oh, yes; good night to yer. Here, let’s have that cap.
Give way, now, boys,” so saying he clapped it on the top of his old
souwester, and as the frigate forged ahead, the boat dropped astern,
and was pulled back to the Lucretia Ann.
[Sidenote: _A GALE._]
We have had only three days of any thing like bad weather, and those
we enjoyed, I think, quite as much as any. The storm was preceded by
some twenty-four hours of a clear, fresh northwester, driving us along
on our course with foaming, sparkling, and most exhilarating speed.
It gives a fine sensation to be so borne along, like that of riding a
great, powerful, and spirited horse, or of dashing yourself through
the crashing surf, and in your own body breasting away the billows as
they sweep down upon you. Gradually it grew more and more ahead, and
blew harder and harder. When we came on deck early in the morning, the
horizon seemed within a stone’s throw, and there was a grand sight
of dark-marbled swelling waves, rushing on tumultuously, crowding
away and trampling under each other, as if panic-struck by the grey,
lowering, misty clouds that were sweeping down with an appearance of
intense mysterious purpose over them. The expression was of vehement
energy blindly directed. The ship, lying-to under trifling storm-sail,
seemed to have composed herself for a trial, and, neither advancing nor
shrinking back, rose and fell with more than habitual ease and dignity.
Having been previously accustomed only to the fidgety movements of a
smaller class of vessels, I was greatly surprised and impressed by
her deliberate movements; the quietness and simplicity with which she
answered the threats of the turbulent elements.
* * * * *
“If only that northwester had continued”—every body is saying—“we might
have been in Liverpool by this.” It’s not unfashionable yet at sea to
talk about the weather. I am to write about what is most interesting
us! Well, the wind and weather. Bad time when it comes to that? Well,
now,—here I am, sitting on a trunk, bracing myself between two berths,
with my portfolio on my knees—imagine the motion of the vessel, the
flickering, inconstant half-light that comes through a narrow piece of
inch-thick glass, which the people on deck are constantly crossing,
exclamations from them, dash of waves and creaking of timber, and
various noises both distracting and _lullabying_, and if you can’t
understand the difficulty of thinking connectedly, you may begin to
that of writing.
John’s eyes have been bad, and we have read aloud with him a good deal;
but I tell you it is hard work even to read on board ship. We have had
some good talks, have listened to a good deal of music, and to a bad
deal, and had a few staggering hops with the ladies on the quarter
deck. We contrived a set of chess-men, cutting them out of card-board,
fitting them with cork pedestals, and a pin-point to attach them to
the board so they would not slip off or blow away. Charley has had
some capital games, and I believe found his match with Dr. M., one of
the cabin passengers returning home from the East Indies by way of
California, who promises to introduce him at a London chess club.
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
I told you in my letter by the pilot-boat, how we had been humbugged
about the second cabin. While this has reduced the cost of our passage
to a very small sum, we have had almost every comfort that we should
have asked. Our room is considerably more spacious, having been
intended for a family apartment, and has the advantage of much less
motion than those of the first cabin. For a ship’s accommodations it
has, too, a quite luxurious degree of ventilation and light. There is a
large port in it that we can open at pleasure, having only been obliged
to close it during two nights of the gale. Our stores have held out
well, and the cook has served us excellently, giving us, particularly,
nice fresh rolls, soups, omelettes, and puddings. We have hardly tasted
our cured meat, and with this and our hard bread we are now helping out
some of our more unfortunate neighbors. Split peas and portable soup
(_bouillon_), with fresh and dried fruit, have been valuable stores;
even our friends in the cabin have been gladly indebted to us for the
latter. Don’t forget when you come to sea to have plenty of fruit.
As the captain desired us to use the quarter-deck privileges, we have
associated as we pleased with the first-cabin passengers, and found
several valuable acquaintances among them. (Friend, rather, I should
call one now.)
Our room-mate, a young Irish surgeon, is a very good fellow, apparently
of high professional attainments, and possessed of a power of so
concentrating his attention on a book or whatever he is engaged with,
as not to be easily disturbed, and a general politeness in yielding to
the tastes of the majority that we are greatly beholden to. He is a
devoted admirer of Smith O’Brien, and thinks the Irish rising of ’48
would have been successful, if he (O’B.) had not been too strictly
honest and honorable a man to lead a popular revolt. Of what he saw
and knew at that time, he has given us some interesting particulars,
which lead me to think that the revolutionary purpose, insurrection,
or at least the insurrectionary purpose, and preparation was much more
general, respectable, and formidable, than I have hitherto supposed.
[Sidenote: _EMIGRANT PASSENGERS._]
Of his last winter’s passage, in an emigrant ship, across the Atlantic,
he gives us a most thrilling account.
He had been appointed surgeon of a vessel about to sail from a
small port in Ireland. She was nearly ready for sea, the passengers
collecting and stores taken on board, when some discovery was made that
involved the necessity of withdrawing her. Another ship was procured
from Liverpool, and the stores, passengers, doctor, and all, hastily
transferred to her in the night, as soon as she arrived. They got to
sea, and he found there was hardly a particle of any thing in the
medicine chest. He begged the captain to put back, but the captain was
a stubborn, reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and only laughed at him.
That very night the cholera broke out. He went again to the captain,
he beseeched him, he threatened him; he told him that on his head
must be the consequences; the captain didn’t care a rope yarn for the
consequences, he would do any thing else to oblige the doctor, but go
back he would not. The doctor turned the pigs out of the long-boat, and
made a temporary hospital of it. It was a cold place, but any thing
was better than that horrible steerage. Nevertheless, down into the
steerage the doctor would himself go every morning, nor leave it till
every soul had gone or been carried on deck before him. He searched the
ship for something he could make medicine of. The carpenter’s chalk
was the only thing that turned up. This he calcined and saved, to be
used sparingly. He forced those who were the least sea-sick to become
nurses; convalescents and those with less dangerous illness, he placed
beds for on the galley and the hen-coops, and made the captain give
up his fowls and other delicacies to them. Fortunately fair weather
continued, and with sleepless vigilance, and strength, as it seemed
to him, almost miraculously sustained, he continued to examine and
send on deck for some hours each day, every one of the three hundred
passengers. On the first cholera symptoms appearing, he gave the
patient chalk, and continued administering it in small but frequent
doses until the spasmodic crisis commenced; thence he troubled him only
with hot fomentations. The third day out a man died and was buried. The
captain read the funeral service, and after the body had disappeared
beneath the blue water, the doctor took advantage of the solemn moment
again to appeal to him.
“Captain, there are three hundred souls in this ship—”
“Belay that, doctor; I’ll see every soul of ’em in Davy’s locker, sir,
before I’ll put my ship back for your cursed physic.”
The doctor said no more, but turned away with a heavy heart to do his
duty as best he could.
I cannot describe the horrors of that passage as he would.
Nevertheless, as far as simple numbers can give it, you shall have the
result.
Out of those three hundred souls, before the ship reached New York,
there died one, and he, the doctor declared most soberly, was a very
old man, and half dead with a chronic (something) when he came on
board. So much for burnt chalk and—fresh air!
But seriously, this story, which, as I have repeated it, I believe is
essentially true, though not in itself a painful one, not the less
strikingly shows with what villainous barbarity, by disregard or
evasion of the laws of England, and the neglect or connivance of the
port officers, the emigrant traffic is carried on. Some of the accounts
of the three other medical men on board, who are also returning from
passages in emigrant ships, would disgust a slave-trader. They say that
many of the passengers will never go on deck unless they are driven or
carried, and frequently the number of these is so great, that it is
impossible to force them out of their berths, and they sometimes lie
in them in the most filthy manner possible, without ever stepping out
from the first heave of the sickening sea till the American pilot is
received on board. Then their wives, husbands, children, as the case
may be, who have served them with food during their prostration, get
them up, and, if they can afford it, change their garments, throwing
the old ones, with the bed and its accumulations, overboard. So, as
any one may see, from a dozen ships a day often in New York, they come
ashore with no disease but want of energy, but emaciated, enfeebled,
infected, and covered with vermin. When we observe the listlessness,
even cheerfulness, with which they accept the precarious and dog-like
subsistence which, while in this condition, the already crowded city
affords them, we see the misery and degradation to which they must
have been habituated in their native land. When in a year afterwards
we find that the same poor fellows are plainly _growing_ active,
hopeful, enterprising, prudent, and, if they have been favourably
situated, cleanly, tidy, and actually changing to their very bones as
it seems—tight, elastic, well-knit muscles taking the place of flabby
flesh, as ambition and blessed discontent take the place of stupid
indifference,—we appreciate, as the landlords and the government men of
Ireland never can, what are the causes of that degradation and misery.
Dr. M. gives much happier accounts of the English governmental emigrant
ships to Australia, in which he has made two voyages. Some few of their
arrangements are so entirely commendable, and so obviously demanded
by every consideration of decency, humanity, and virtue, that I can
only wonder that the law does not require all emigrant vessels to
adopt them. Among these, that which is most plainly required, is the
division of the steerage into three compartments: married parties with
their children in the central one, and unmarried men and women having
separate sleeping accommodations in the other two.
[Sidenote: _MIDSHIP PASSENGERS._]
The others of our midship passengers are mostly English artisans, or
manufacturing workmen. There are two or three farmers, a number of
Irish servants, male and female, and several nondescript adventurers;
two Scotchmen only, brothers, both returning from Cuba sugar
plantations where they have been employed as engineers. They tell us
the people there are all for annexation to the United States, but as
they cannot speak Spanish, their information on this point cannot be
very extensive. Besides ourselves, there is but one American-born
person among them. She is a young woman of quite superior mind, fair
and engaging, rather ill in health, going to England in hopes to
improve it, and to visit some family friends there. The young men are
all hoping the ship will be wrecked, so they can have the pleasure of
saving her—or dying in the attempt. One goes into the main-chains and
sits there for several hours, all alone, every fine day, for no other
reason that we can conceive, but to drop himself easily into the water
after her, in case she should fall overboard. There are three or four
other women, and as many babies, and little boys and girls. They do not
cry very often, but are generally in high spirits, always in the way,
frolicking or eating, much fondled and scolded, and very dirty.
The most notable character in our part of the ship, is one Dr. T.,
another returning emigrant physician. He appears to have been well
educated, and is of a wealthy Irish family. His diploma is signed by
Sir Astley Cooper, whose autograph we have thus seen. Though a young
man, he is all broken down in spirit and body from hard drinking.
He makes himself a buffoon for the amusement of the passengers, and
some of the young men of the first cabin are so foolish as to reward
him sometimes with liquor, which makes him downright crazy. Even the
pale-faced student, who kept his neighbours awake with his midnight
prayers while he was sea-sick, has participated in this cruel fun. Dr.
T. has been _smutten_, as the second mate says, by a young lady of the
first cabin, who does not altogether discourage his gallant attentions.
He keeps up the habits of a gentleman in the reduction of his
circumstances, eating his dinner at four o’clock, (being thus enabled
to cook it while the first-cabin people are below eating theirs, which
is served at half-past three). He declares it was only to oblige the
owners that he took a berth in the second cabin, and he certainly
should not have done so, if he had suspected the _promiscuous_
character of the company he should be associated with there. The
forenoon he spends in combing his hair and whiskers, cleaning his
threadbare coat, smoothing his crushed hat, and polishing his shoes.
Now, indeed, since he has become conscious of the tender passion, and
can feed on love, he has traded off a part of his stock of bread for a
pair of boots, which enables him to dispense with stockings and straps,
much to his relief in dances and fencing bouts. Towards noon he comes
on deck with his coat buttoned to the neck; he wears a stock and no
collar; his hat is set on rakishly; he has a yellow kid glove for his
right hand, the thumb only is missing—his thumb, therefore, is stuck
under the breast of his coat allowing the rest to be advantageously
displayed; his other hand is carried habitually in the mode of Mr.
Pickwick, under the skirt of his coat. He has in his mouth the stump of
a cigar that he found last night upon the deck, and has saved for the
occasion. After walking until it is smoked out with the gentlemen—to
whom he manages to give the impression that he has just finished his
breakfast—he approaches, with a really elegant air to the ladies, and,
gracefully bowing, inquires after their health. Then, after gazing
upwards at the sun a moment, he takes the attitude, “Napoleon at St.
Helena,” his left hand hidden under his right arm, and, in a deep,
tremulous voice, says, “Ourre nooble barruck still cleaves the breeny
ailiment, and bears us on with velucitay ’twarrd th’ expectant shoorres
of Albeeon’s eel. Ah! what a grrand expanse it is of weeld-washing
waterrers! Deleeghtful waytherr, ’pon my worrud.” He is a good
fencer, boxer, card player, and trickster; a safe waltzer, even in a
rolling ship, and, when half-seas over, dances a jig, hornpipe, or
French _pas seul_, and turns a _pirouette_ on the top of the capstan;
plays a cracked clarionet, and can get something out of every sort
of musical instrument; he spouts theatrically, gives imitations of
living actors, sings every thing, _improvises_, and on Sunday chants
from the prayer-book, so that even then the religiously inclined may
_conscientiously_ enjoy his entertainment. A most rare treasure for a
long passage. Some of our passengers declare they would have died of
dulness if it had not been for him!
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS.—A POET._]
There is another Irishman (from the North), who has written a poem as
long as Paradise Lost, the manuscript of which he keeps under lock
and key, in a small trunk, at the head of his bed, and, as they say,
fastened to a life-preserver. It is never out of his head, however,
and he manages to find something to quote from it appropriate to
every occasion. You might suppose he would be made use of as a butt,
but somehow he is not, and is only regarded as a bore. I incline to
think him a true poet, for he is a strange fellow, often blundering,
stupidly as it seems, upon “good hits,” and, however inconsistently,
always speaking with the confidence of true inspiration. We have a
godless set around us, and he is very impatient of their card-playing
and profanity—particularly if the weather is at all bad—declaring
that he is not superstitious, but that he thinks, if a man is ever
to stand by his faith, it should be when he is in the midst of the
awful ocean, and in an unlucky ship. “Nay,” he asserts again, “he is
_not_ superstitious, and no one must accuse him of it, but if he
were not principled against it, he would lay a large wager that this
ship never does arrive at her destined port.” His poem runs somewhat
upon socialism, whether approvingly or condemnatory I have not yet
been able quite to understand. I rather think he has a scheme of
his own for remodelling society. He uses a good deal of religious
phraseology; he is liberal on doctrinal points, does not enlist under
any particular church banner, and says himself, that he can bear “any
sort of religion (or irreligion) in a man, so he is not a papist.”
Towards all persons of the Roman church he entertains the most orthodox
contempt and undisguised hatred, as becomes, in his opinion, an Irish
_Protestant-born_ man.
There is a good-natured fellow who has been a flat-boatman on the
Mississippi, and more lately a squatter somewhere in the wilds of
the West. His _painter_ and cat-fish stories, with all his reckless
airs and cant river phrases, have much entertained us; of course
he has no baggage, but a “heap of plunder.” He has a rough, rowdy,
blustering, half-barbarous way with him, and you would judge from his
talk sometimes, that he was a perfectly lawless, heartless savage;
yet again there is often evident in his behaviour to individuals a
singularly delicate sense of propriety and fitness, and there is not a
man in the ship with whom I would sooner trust the safety of a woman or
child in a time of peril. The great fault of the man is his terrific
and uncontrollable indignation at any thing which seems to him mean or
unjust, and his judgment or insight of narrow-mindedness is not always
reliable.
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS._]
He has formed a strong friendship, or crony-ship, for an Englishman
on board, who is a man of about the same native intelligence, but
a strange contrast to him in manner, appearance, and opinions,
being short, thick-set, slow of speech, and husky voiced. He is a
stone-cutter by trade, and returns to England because, as he says,
there is no demand for so _fine work_ as he is able to do, in America,
and he will be better paid in London. These two men are always
together, and always quarrelling. Indeed, the Englishman has, with his
slowness and obstinate deafness to reason on any matter that he has
once stated his views of, an endless battery of logic and banterings
to reply to, for he is the only defender of an aristocratic form of
government amongst us, every other man, Irish, Scotch, or English,
being a thorough-going, violent, radical democrat. Most of them,
indeed, claim the name of red republican, and carry their ideas of
“liberty” far beyond any native American I have known. What is more
remarkable and painful, nearly all of them, except the Irish, are
professedly Deists or Atheists, or something of the sort, for all
their ideas are evidently most crude and confused upon the subject,
and amount to nothing but pity, hatred, or contempt for all religious
people, as either fools or hypocrites, impostors or imposed upon.
There is only one of them that seems to have ever thought upon the
matter at all carefully, or to be able to argue upon it, and he is so
self-satisfied (precisely what he says, by the way, of every one that
argues against him), that he never stops arguing. Of him I will speak
again.
A remark of one of the farmers, an Englishman, and a very sensible
fellow, upon these sentiments so generally held among our company,
seemed to me true and well expressed. I think my observation of the
lower class of Englishmen in the United States generally confirms it.
“I have often noticed of my countrymen,” said he, “that when they cease
to honour the king, they no longer fear God.” That is, as I understand
it, when they are led to change the political theory in which they
have been instructed, they must lose confidence in a religious creed
which they owe about equally to the circumstances of their birth,
neither having been adopted from a rational process in their own minds.
Seeing the childish absurdity of many forms which they have been
trained to consider necessary, natural, and ordered of God, they lose
confidence in all their previous ideas that have resulted from a merely
receptive education, and religion and royalty are classed together as
old-fashioned notions, nursery bugbears, and romances. It is partly the
result of the abominable masquerade of words which is still constantly
played off in England on all public occasions, clothing government
with antiquated false forms of sacredness. The simple majesty and
holy authority that depends on the exercise of justice, love, and
good judgment, so far from being made more imposing by this mummery,
is lost sight of; while all the folly, indiscretion, and injustice of
the administration of the law by fallible and unsanctified agents, is
inevitably associated in the minds of the ignorant with all that is
holy and true.
The only idea now, these our shipmates entertain of Christianity,
seemed to be the particular humbug by which the bishops and clergy
make the people think that they must support them in purple and fine
linen, just as royalty is the humbug on which the queen is borne, and
government the humbug by which the aristocracy are carried on their
shoulders, all, of course, in combination. And nothing would convince
them of the sincerity of the clergy short of their martyrdom—even that,
I fear, should the time come for them to act as judges, they would
rather attribute to pride, or, at best, to an exceptional deluded mind.
With these ideas, nothing but thorough contempt for him, or fear of
punishment, would prevent them from putting a bishop to the test of the
stake, if he should fall into their hands.
[Sidenote: _DEMOCRACY.—SKEPTICISM._]
While this explanation, if it is correct, should not hinder the
promulgation of sound republican views, it strongly opposes the fear
that many have, of providing for the lower classes an education that
shall make them capable of free independent thinking. It is long ago
too late in any country in the world, to prevent the masses from
learning that little that is dangerous. Yet, even in England, it is
argued by churchmen that education, unless managed by the church, is
the foe of their religion! Surely, there must be consciousness of evil
in this fear of the light. True religion is not a machinery for fitting
men with beliefs and morals. The free man in Christ cannot be the
subject of ignorance. It is as much slavish and disloyal to God to be
blindly led by a priest, as to be wheedled by a politician; and more
than it is to be ruled over and crushed by a tyrant. Let _us_ remember,
too, that slaves to party or to creed are not confined to monarchies,
but that all churches and governments whose authority is not dependent
on the untrammelled and honest judgment of free intelligent minds, are
alike ungodly and degrading.
If this view of the connection of liberal politics with religious
skepticism is correct, it follows that we may look with less of horror
and more of hope upon the infidelity which has so scandalized the
national character of France. We may conceive it as the unnatural
and convulsive action of a mind which the last thrust of tyranny
has suddenly aroused from a long, false dream. Sitting in judgment
over the wickedness of tyrants and the licentiousness of courts, it
would be strange, unnatural, almost unreasonable, that a people whose
religious teachers had been dependent on those tyrants,—had been the
most active sycophants of those courts,—teachers, who had taught them
that the power there seated was sacred, should hold in reverence for
a moment longer, any of the dogmas of a religion so debased. The
authority, the stability of the throne, which they have ground to
powder and thrown to the free winds, was a part of the very idea of the
being and government of the God in whom they had been instructed to
believe. Would they not be fools still to worship _such_ an idol of the
imagination? And what then? The natural and fearful reaction here also,
from torpidity and stupid delusion, which a _little_ knowledge must
provoke. And which is best—a dead, superstitious morality, or a live,
working-onward infidelity—a slow poison, swallowed in a sugar-coated
bolus, or an active, painful, purging black-draught? Let us yet hope
(for years are but hours with a nation), that repudiation of lying
forms and ignoble use of the name of God, and His Holy Word is but a
symptom which precedes a return of healthy fidelity to the truth of God.
* * * * *
To return to the man that I mentioned as being more thoughtful and fond
of argument than the others, and who for that reason I have reserved to
speak of more particularly, as affording a more tangible illustration
of English popular skepticism and agrarianism of the day.
[Sidenote: _A DEIST._]
He was born near Sheffield, had been a good while in the United
States, and now returned to England, thinking that some particular
art, in smelting, I believe, that he had acquired, would be more
valued there. He had certainly been a serious and constant thinker,
but his information was limited, superficial, and inaccurate, and
he was better at quibbling and picking inconsistencies, than at
sustained and thorough reasoning. He was a man that would have a strong
influence with a certain kind of honest people, not able to think
far originally; and as his activity would infuse itself into them,
and he was generally in earnest after something, his influence might
possibly in the end be more good than bad. No one could sleep easily,
at all events, while he was near them (as, literally, some of us had
uncomfortable experience). He had been brought up to the best of the
cunning of his parents and friends, a strict ——ist; and nothing can be
more characteristic of the blundering progress likely to be made by a
man cramped with an “education,” after the cowardly fashion to which
the stiff-necked people of England so generally condemn their children,
than his account of his coming to Deism.
While quite young, he said that he saw inconsistencies in the religious
doctrines which had been battered into him, and for years labored
painfully and devoutly to reconcile them; yet each dogma, however
contradicted by another, seemed plainly to rest on Bible language
(always understanding that language as interpreted by his teachers),
constantly looking into every thing else that came in his way, he
obtained from itinerant lecturers some knowledge of phrenology, and
reading a few books upon it, and practising among his fellow-workmen,
he soon acquired not only a good deal of theoretical understanding of
the science, and acuteness in discerning character, but considerable
skill as a manipulator. So, as he moved from place to place, sometimes,
I suspect, giving lectures himself also upon it, he had accumulated
experience that to him incontestably proved the foundation in nature
of the science. He was still a church-going man, and still worshipped
under the shadow of his congenital creed, still trying to reconcile
what seemed its discrepancies, when one day he read in the religious
newspapers of his sect an article on phrenology, in which the reverend
editor, in strong terms, declared its devilish origin and untruth.
His argument, what there was of it, for his strength was mostly spent
in ridicule, denunciation, and everlasting condemnation, was based
on the assumption that phrenology was inconsistent with free will
and moral responsibility, therefore irreconcilable with the Bible.
To listen to phrenologists, then, was to close the eye of faith;
“if you accept phrenology as truth, you deny God. If the Bible is
true, phrenology is false; if phrenology is true, the Bible is a lie.
Phrenology is infidelity.”
“Then,” exclaimed he, “_I_ am an infidel, for I _know_ as well as
the nose on my face, that phrenology _is_ true.” He forthwith began
to study infidel books, soon so scandalized his church, that he was
publicly expelled from it, and thenceforth he had looked upon the Bible
only as a block in the road, over which every man must leap before he
can become free to truth. As the great barrier to the progress of his
race, he set himself diligently to searching out every cranny of error
and crevice of inconsistency from which he could proudly poke the dust,
and expose to reasoners equally shallow with himself; unconscious, poor
fellow, that he was merely picking into blind traditions, uninspired
translations, and hard-squeezed interpretations; rubbish of mortal
church-builders and vain-glorious creed-idolaters, accumulating for
nineteen centuries over the real under-laying adamant of divine truth.
He had even yet, while with us, all the zeal and activity in this
purpose that characterizes the young convert to any faith; talked to
every one that would listen to him, and lugged in his “cause” most
pertinaciously with every company he joined, no matter what might be
the subject of conversation before he entered. There was little use
to argue with him, for he would shift his ground as fast as it was
weakened under him, and by changing the question, never knew that
he failed to sustain himself. He would insist on making the Bible
responsible for every ridiculous notion that foolish or designing men
have ever professed to ground upon it, and constantly insisted on
taking part in those quarrels, it was little matter to him on which
side, which, like the fierce little disputes one often hears in a
family, only show the real bond of love, in the common interest, that
can make matters so trivial seem important. On the grand and simple
purpose of the Bible, from which all Christendom is nursed, he would
always avoid to look or argue.
I had myself always managed to avoid discussion with him, till one
night, as he came to me on deck to repeat the good things with which
he had successively sent to bed the Episcopalian, the Unitarian, the
Calvinist, and the poet, fearing that he presumed from my silence
that I sympathized with his opinions, and would enjoy his triumphs,
I thought it not honest to do so longer; but as I really cared very
little for the views one way or the other against which the shafts
of his wit had been directed, I desired, if possible, to get him
to examine the broad, catholic citadel of which these, at best,
were insignificant outworks, in which alone, too, I had sufficient
confidence to be willing to encounter him. I found it almost
impossible, however, to draw his attention from them. They had been
made to appear to him so much the most important part of Christianity,
that he could hardly for an instant raise his eyes above them, or see
through their obstruction. This difficulty, common enough perhaps
anywhere, is peculiarly characteristic of English working-men, and
is, as I imagine, a direct result of the prevalent views of education
among the religious classes of their country. I have seen immense
evil, as I think, arising from it, and have a strong conviction of its
exceeding folly and danger. I cannot, however, presume upon the general
interest of my readers in the subject, and will not pursue it; but as
illustrating what I mean, and also as showing what seems to me the best
way to meet the difficulties I have referred to, I will endeavour to
give, in the Appendix, for those who care to listen to it, a report of
our conversation.[1] It is, of course, impossible to report minutely
a conversation after a considerable lapse of time. I wish to give
the general ideas brought out, with so much of their connection as
shall show the manner in which they were suggested, and the motive of
presenting them, as this must often greatly affect their force and
character. The reader is requested to bear this remark in mind in other
conversations which will be found in this book. It is the idea given,
and the exhibition of character presented in any way, that I endeavour
to recall and dramatize with all the truth of my memory.
[1] See Appendix A.