One day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been
forty years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at
Goshen, there was an assemblage of several of the chief men of
the sect. Individuals had come from the rich establishment at
Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard, and Alfred, and from all the
other localities where this strange people have fertilized the
rugged hills of New England by their systematic industry. An
elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of the homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the
far-famed Shaker cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every
step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast from earth,
and bear him onward to heavenly purity and bliss. His brethren of
the north had now courteously invited him to be present on an
occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent member of their
community was peculiarly desirable.
The venerable Father Ephraim sat in his easy chair, not only
hoary headed and infirm with age, but worn down by a lingering
disease, which, it was evident, would very soon transfer his
patriarchal staff to other hands. At his footstool stood a man
and woman, both clad in the Shaker garb.
"My brethren," said Father Ephraim to the surrounding elders,
feebly exerting himself to utter these few words, "here are the
son and daughter to whom I would commit the trust of which
Providence is about to lighten my weary shoulders. Read their
faces, I pray you, and say whether the inward movement of the
spirit hath guided my choice aright."
Accordingly, each elder looked at the two candidates with a most
scrutinizing gaze. The man, whose name was Adam Colburn, had a
face sunburnt with labor in the fields, yet intelligent,
thoughtful, and traced with cares enough for a whole lifetime,
though he had barely reached middle age. There was something
severe in his aspect, and a rigidity throughout his person,
characteristics that caused him generally to be taken for a
school-master, which vocation, in fact, he had formerly exercised
for several years. The woman, Martha Pierson, was somewhat above
thirty, thin and pale, as a Shaker sister almost invariably is,
and not entirely free from that corpse-like appearance which the
garb of the sisterhood is so well calculated to impart.
"This pair are still in the summer of their years," observed the
elder from Harvard, a shrewd old man. "I would like better to see
the hoar-frost of autumn on their heads. Methinks, also, they
will
be exposed to peculiar temptations, on account of the carnal
desires which have heretofore subsisted between them."
"Nay, brother," said the elder from Canterbury, "the hoar-frost
and the black-frost hath done its work on Brother Adam and Sister
Martha, even as we sometimes discern its traces in our
cornfields, while they are yet green. And why should we question
the wisdom of our venerable Father's purpose although this pair,
in their early youth, have loved one another as the world's
people love? Are there not many brethren and sisters among us,
who have lived long together in wedlock, yet, adopting our faith,
find their hearts purified from all but spiritual affection?"
Whether or no the early loves of Adam and Martha had rendered it
inexpedient that they should now preside together over a Shaker
village, it was certainly most singular that such should be the
final result of many warm and tender hopes. Children of
neighboring families, their affection was older even than their
school-days; it seemed an innate principle, interfused among all
their sentiments and feelings, and not so much a distinct
remembrance, as connected with their whole volume of
remembrances. But, just as they reached a proper age for their
union, misfortunes had fallen heavily on both, and made it
necessary that they should resort to personal labor for a bare
subsistence. Even under these circumstances, Martha Pierson would
probably have consented to unite her fate with Adam Colburn's,
and, secure of the bliss of mutual love, would patiently have
awaited the less important gifts of fortune. But Adam, being of a
calm and cautious character, was loath to relinquish the
advantages which a single man possesses for raising himself in
the world. Year after year, therefore, their marriage had been
deferred. Adam Colburn had followed many vocations, had travelled
far, and seen much of the world and of life. Martha had earned
her bread sometimes as a seamstress, sometimes as help to a
farmer's wife, sometimes as school-mistress of the village
children, sometimes as a nurse or watcher of the sick, thus
acquiring a varied experience, the ultimate use of which she
little anticipated. But nothing had gone prosperously with either
of the lovers; at no subsequent moment would matrimony have been
so prudent a measure as when they had first parted, in the
opening bloom of life, to seek a better fortune. Still they had
held fast their mutual faith. Martha might have been the wife of
a man who sat among the senators of his native state, and Adam
could have won the hand, as he had unintentionally won the heart,
of a rich and comely widow. But neither of them desired good
fortune save to share it with the other.
At length that calm despair which occurs only in a strong and
somewhat stubborn character, and yields to no second spring of
hope, settled down on the spirit of Adam Colburn. He sought an
interview with Martha, and proposed that they should join the
Society of Shakers. The converts of this sect are oftener driven
within its hospitable gates by worldly misfortune than drawn
thither by fanaticism and are received without inquisition as to
their motives. Martha, faithful still, had placed her hand in
that of her lover, and accompanied him to the Shaker village.
Here the natural capacity of each, cultivated and strengthened by
the difficulties of their previous lives, had soon gained them an
important rank in the Society, whose members are generally below
the ordinary standard of intelligence. Their faith and feelings
had, in some degree, become assimilated to those of their
fellow-worshippers. Adam Colburn gradually acquired reputation,
not only in the management of the temporal affairs of the
Society, but as a clear and efficient preacher of their
doctrines. Martha was not less distinguished in the duties proper
to her sex. Finally, when the infirmities of Father Ephraim had
admonished him to seek a successor in his patriarchal office, he
thought of Adam and Martha, and proposed to renew, in their
persons, the primitive form of Shaker government, as established
by Mother Ann. They were to be the Father and Mother of the
village. The simple ceremony, which would constitute them such,
was now to be performed.
"Son Adam, and daughter Martha," said the venerable Father
Ephraim, fixing his aged eyes piercingly upon them, "if ye can
conscientiously undertake this charge, speak, that the brethren
may not doubt of your fitness."
"Father," replied Adam, speaking with the calmness of his
character, "I came to your village a disappointed man, weary of
the world, worn out with continual trouble, seeking only a
security against evil fortune, as I had no hope of good. Even my
wishes of worldly success were almost dead within me. I came
hither as a man might come to a tomb, willing to lie down in its
gloom and coldness, for the sake of its peace and quiet. There
was but one earthly affection in my breast, and it had grown
calmer since my youth; so that I was satisfied to bring Martha to
be my sister, in our new abode. We are brother and sister; nor
would I have it otherwise. And in this peaceful village I have
found all that I hoped for,--all that I desire. I will strive,
with my best strength, for the spiritual and temporal good of our
community. My conscience is not doubtful in this matter. I am
ready to receive the trust."
"Thou hast spoken well, son Adam," said the Father. "God will
bless thee in the office which I am about to resign."
"But our sister!" observed the elder from Harvard, "hath she not
likewise a gift to declare her sentiments?"
Martha started, and moved her lips, as if she would have made a
formal reply to this appeal. But, had she attempted it, perhaps
the old recollections, the long-repressed feelings of childhood,
youth, and womanhood, might have gushed from her heart, in words
that it would have been profanation to utter there.
"Adam has spoken," said she hurriedly; "his sentiments are
likewise mine."
But while speaking these few words, Martha grew so pale that she
looked fitter to be laid in her coffin than to stand in the
presence of Father Ephraim and the elders; she shuddered, also,
as if there were something awful or horrible in her situation and
destiny. It required, indeed, a more than feminine strength of
nerve, to sustain the fixed observance of men so exalted and
famous throughout the sect as these were. They had overcome their
natural sympathy with human frailties and affections. One, when
he joined the Society, had brought with him his wife and
children, but never, from that hour, had spoken a fond word to
the former, or taken his best-loved child upon his knee. Another,
whose family refused to follow him, had been enabled--such was
his gift of holy fortitude--to leave them to the mercy of the
world. The youngest of the elders, a man of about fifty, had been
bred from infancy in a Shaker village, and was said never to have
clasped a woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception of a
closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect. Old Father
Ephraim was the most awful character of all. In his youth he had
been a dissolute libertine, but was converted by Mother Ann
herself, and had partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early
Shakers. Tradition whispered, at the firesides of the village,
that Mother Ann had been compelled to sear his heart of flesh
with a red-hot iron before it could be purified from earthly
passions.
However that might be, poor Martha had a woman's heart, and a
tender one, and it quailed within her, as she looked round at
those strange old men, and from them to the calm features of Adam
Colburn. But perceiving that the elders eyed her doubtfully, she
gasped for breath, and again spoke.
"With what strength is left me by my many troubles," said she, "I
am ready to undertake this charge, and to do my best in it."
"My children, join your hands," said Father Ephraim.
They did so. The elders stood up around, and the Father feebly
raised himself to a more erect position, but continued sitting in
his great chair.
"I have bidden you to join your hands," said he, "not in earthly
affection, for ye have cast off its chains forever; but as
brother and sister in spiritual love, and helpers of one another
in your allotted task. Teach unto others the faith which ye have
received. Open wide your gates,--I deliver you the keys
thereof,--open them wide to all who will give up the iniquities
of the world, and come hither to lead lives of purity and peace.
Receive the weary ones, who have known the vanity of
earth,--receive the little children, that they may never learn
that miserable lesson. And a blessing be upon your labors; so
that the time may hasten on, when the mission of Mother Ann shall
have wrought its full effect,--when children shall no more be
born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race, some old and
weary man like me, shall see the sun go down, nevermore to rise
on a world of sin and sorrow!"
The aged Father sank back exhausted, and the surrounding elders
deemed, with good reason, that the hour was come when the new
heads of the village must enter on their patriarchal duties. In
their attention to Father Ephraim, their eyes were turned from
Martha Pierson, who grew paler and paler, unnoticed even by Adam
Colburn. He, indeed, had withdrawn his hand from hers, and folded
his arms with a sense of satisfied ambition. But paler and paler
grew Martha by his side, till, like a corpse in its burial
clothes, she sank down at the feet of her early lover; for, after
many trials firmly borne, her heart could endure the weight of
its desolate agony no longer.