WHICH TREATS OF THINGS SEEN.
AS, for example, the breakfast. It is six o’clock,—the hired men and
oxen are gone,—the breakfast-table stands before the open kitchen-door,
snowy with its fresh cloth, the old silver coffee-pot steaming up a
refreshing perfume,—and the Doctor sits on one side, sipping his coffee
and looking across the table at Mary, who is innocently pleased at
the kindly beaming in his placid blue eyes,—and Aunt Katy Scudder
discourses of housekeeping, and fancies something must have disturbed
the rising of the cream, as it is not so thick and yellow as wont.
Now the Doctor, it is to be confessed, was apt to fall into a way
of looking at people such as pertains to philosophers and scholars
generally, that is, as if he were looking through them into the
infinite,—in which case, his gaze became so earnest and intent that it
would quite embarrass an uninitiated person; but Mary, being used to
this style of contemplation, was only quietly amused, and waited till
some great thought should loom up before his mental vision,—in which
case, she hoped to hear from him.
The good man swallowed his first cup of coffee and spoke:—
‘In the Millennium, I suppose, there will be such a fulness and plenty
of all the necessaries and conveniences of life, that it will not be
necessary for men and women to spend the greater part of their lives in
labour in order to procure a living. It will not be necessary for each
one to labour more than two or three hours a day,—not more than will
conduce to health of body and vigour of mind; and the rest of their
time they will spend in reading and conversation, and such exercises as
are necessary and proper to improve their minds and make progress in
knowledge.’
New England presents probably the only example of a successful
commonwealth founded on a theory, as a distinct experiment in the
problem of society. It was for this reason that the minds of its great
thinkers dwelt so much on the final solution of that problem in this
world. The fact of a future Millennium was a favourite doctrine of the
great leading theologians of New England, and Dr. H. dwelt upon it
with a peculiar partiality. Indeed, it was the solace and refuge of
his soul, when oppressed with the discouragements which always attend
things actual, to dwell upon and draw out in detail the splendours of
this perfect future which was destined to glorify the world.
Nobody, therefore, at the cottage was in the least surprised when there
dropped into the flow of their daily life these sparkling bits of ore,
which their friend had dug in his explorations of a future Canaan,—in
fact, they served to raise the hackneyed present out of the level of
mere commonplace.
‘But how will it be possible,’ inquired Mrs. Scudder, ‘that so much
less work will suffice in those days to do all that is to be done?’
‘Because of the great advance of arts and sciences which will take
place before those days,’ said the Doctor, ‘whereby everything shall
be performed with so much greater ease,—also the great increase of
disinterested love, whereby the skill and talents of those who have
much shall make up for the weakness of those who have less.
‘Yes,’—he continued, after a pause,—‘all the careful Marthas in those
days will have no excuse for not sitting at the feet of Jesus; there
will be no cumbering with much serving; the church will have only
Maries in those days.’
This remark, made without the slightest personal intention, called
a curious smile into Mrs. Scudder’s face, which was reflected in a
slight blush from Mary’s, when the crack of a whip and the rattling of
waggon-wheels disturbed the conversation and drew all eyes to the door.
There appeared the vision of Mr. Zebedee Marvyn’s farm-waggon, stored
with barrels, boxes, and baskets, over which Candace sat throned
triumphant, her black face and yellow-striped turban glowing in the
fresh morning with a hearty, joyous light, as she pulled up the reins,
and shouted to the horse to stop with a voice that might have done
credit to any man living.
‘Dear me, if there isn’t Candace!’ said Mary.
‘Queen of Ethiopia,’ said the Doctor, who sometimes adventured a very
placid joke.
The Doctor was universally known in all the neighbourhood as a sort of
friend and patron-saint of the negro race; he had devoted himself to
their interests with a zeal unusual in those days. His church numbered
more of them than any in Newport; and his hours of leisure from study
were often spent in lowliest visitations among them, hearing their
stories, consoling their sorrows, advising and directing their plans,
teaching them reading and writing, and he often drew hard on his
slender salary to assist them in their emergencies and distresses.
This unusual condescension on his part was repaid on theirs with all
the warmth of their race; and Candace, in particular, devoted herself
to the Doctor with all the force of her being.
There was a legend current in the neighbourhood, that the first
efforts to catechize Candace were not eminently successful, her modes
of contemplating theological tenets being so peculiarly from her own
individual point of view that it was hard to get her subscription
to a received opinion. On the venerable clause in the Catechism, in
particular, which declares that all men sinned in Adam and fell with
him, Candace made a dead halt:—
‘I didn’t do dat ar’, for one, I knows. I’s got good mem’ry,—allers
knows what I does,—nebber did eat dat ar’ apple,—nebber eat a bit ob
him. Don’t tell me!’
It was of no use, of course, to tell Candace of all the explanations
of this redoubtable passage,—of potential presence, and representative
presence, and representative identity, and federal headship. She met
all with the dogged,—
‘Nebber did it, I knows; should ’ave ’membered, if I had. Don’t tell
me!’
And even in the catechizing class of the Doctor himself, if this answer
came to her, she sat black and frowning in stony silence even in his
reverend presence.
Candace was often reminded that the Doctor believed the Catechism, and
that she was differing from a great and good man; but the argument
made no manner of impression on her, till, one day, a far-off cousin
of hers, whose condition under a hard master had often moved her
compassion, came in overjoyed to recount to her how, owing to Dr. H.’s
exertions, he had gained his freedom. The Doctor himself had in person
gone from house to house, raising the sum for his redemption; and when
more yet was wanting, supplied it by paying half his last quarter’s
limited salary.
‘He do dat ar’?’ said Candace, dropping the fork wherewith she was
spearing doughnuts. ‘Den I’m gwine to b’liebe ebery word _he_ does!’
And accordingly, at the next catechizing, the Doctor’s astonishment was
great when Candace pressed up to him, exclaiming,—
‘De Lord bress you, Doctor, for opening de prison for dem dat is bound!
I b’liebes in you now, Doctor. I’s gwine to b’liebe ebery word you say.
I’ll say de Catechize now,—fix it any way you like. I _did_ eat dat ar’
apple,—I eat de whole tree, an’ swallowed ebery bit ob it, if you say
so.’
And this very thorough profession of faith was followed, on the part of
Candace, by years of the most strenuous orthodoxy. Her general mode of
expressing her mind on the subject was short and definitive.
‘Law me! what’s de use? I’s set out to b’liebe de Catechize, an’ I’m
gwine to b’liebe it,—so!’
While we have been telling you all this about her, she has fastened
her horse, and is swinging leisurely up to the house with a basket on
either arm.
‘Good morning, Candace,’ said Mrs. Scudder. ‘What brings you so early?’
‘Come down ’fore light to sell my chickens an’ eggs,—got a lot o’ money
for ’em, too. Missy Marvyn she sent Miss Scudder some turkey-eggs, an’
I brought down some o’ my doughnuts for de Doctor. Good folks must lib,
you know, as well as wicked ones,’—and Candace gave a hearty, unctuous
laugh. ‘No reason why Doctors shouldn’t hab good tings as well as
sinners, is dere?’—and she shook in great billows, and showed her white
teeth in the _abandon_ of her laugh. ‘Lor’ bress ye, honey, chile!’ she
said, turning to Mary, ‘why, ye looks like a new rose, ebery bit! Don’t
wonder _somebody_ was allers pryin’ an’ spyin’ about here!’
‘How is your mistress, Candace?’ said Mrs. Scudder, by way of changing
the subject.
‘Well, porly,—rader porly. When Massa Jim goes, ’pears like takin’ de
light right out her eyes. Dat ar’ boy trains roun’ arter his mudder
like a cosset, he does. Lor’, de house seems so still widout him!—can’t
a fly scratch his ear but it starts a body. Missy Marvyn she sent
down, an’ says, would you and de Doctor an’ Miss Mary please come to
tea dis arternoon?’
‘Thank your mistress, Candace,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘Mary and I will
come,—and the Doctor, perhaps,’ looking at the good man, who had
relapsed into meditation, and was eating his breakfast without taking
note of anything going on. ‘It will be time enough to tell him of it,’
she said to Mary, ‘when we have to wake him up to dress; so we won’t
disturb him now.’
To Mary the prospect of the visit was a pleasant one, for reasons
which she scarce gave a definite form to. Of course, like a good girl,
she had come to a fixed and settled resolution to think of James as
little as possible; but when the path of duty lay directly along scenes
and among people fitted to recall him, it was more agreeable than if
it had lain in another direction. Added to this, a very tender and
silent friendship subsisted between Mrs. Marvyn and Mary; in which,
besides similarity of mind and intellectual pursuits, there was a deep,
unspoken element of sympathy.
Candace watched the light in Mary’s eyes with the instinctive
shrewdness by which her race seem to divine the thoughts and feelings
of their superiors, and chuckled to herself internally. Without ever
having been made a _confidante_ by any party, or having a word said
to or before her, still the whole position of affairs was as clear to
her as if she had seen it on a map. She had appreciated at once Mrs.
Scudder’s coolness, James’s devotion, and Mary’s perplexity,—and inly
resolved, that, if the little maiden did not think of James in his
absence, it should not be her fault.
‘Laws, Miss Scudder,’ she said, ‘I’s right glad you’s comin’, ’cause
you hasn’t seen how we’s kind o’ splendified since Massa Jim come
home. You wouldn’t know it. Why, he’s got mats from Mogadore on all
de entries, and a great big ’un on de parlour; and ye ought to see de
shawl he brought Missus, an’ all de cur’us kind o’ tings to de Squire.
’Tell ye, dat ar’ boy honours his fader and mudder, ef he don’t do
nuffin else,—an’ dat’s de fus’ commandment wid promise, ma’am; and to
see him a-settin’ up ebery day in prayer-time, so handsome, holdin’
Missus’s han’, an’ lookin’ right into her eyes all de time! Why, dat
ar’ boy is one o’ de ’lect,—it’s jest as clare to me; and de ’lect has
got to come in,—dat’s what I say. My faith’s strong,—real clare, ’tell
ye,’ she added, with the triumphant laugh which usually chorused her
conversation, and turning to the Doctor, who, aroused by her loud and
vigorous strain, was attending with interest to her.
‘Well, Candace,’ he said, ‘we all hope you are right.’
‘_Hope_, Doctor!—I don’t hope,—I _knows_. ’Tell ye, when I pray for
him, don’t I feel enlarged? ’Tell ye, it goes wid a rush. I can feel it
gwine up like a rushin’, mighty wind. I feels strong, I do.’
‘That’s right, Candace,’ said the Doctor, ‘keep on; your prayers stand
as much chance with God as if you were a crowned queen. The Lord is no
respecter of persons.’
‘Dat’s what he a’n’t, Doctor,—an’ dere’s where I ’gree wid him,’ said
Candace, as she gathered her baskets vigorously together, and, after
a sweeping curtsy, went sailing down to her waggon, full laden with
content, shouting a hearty ‘Good mornin’, Missus,’ with the full power
of her cheerful lungs, as she rode off.
As the Doctor looked after her, the simple, pleased expression with
which he had watched her, gradually faded, and there passed over his
broad, good face, a shadow, as of a cloud on a mountain-side.
‘What a shame it is,’ he said; ‘what a scandal and disgrace to the
Protestant religion, that Christians of America should openly practise
and countenance this enslaving of the Africans! I have for a long time
holden my peace—may the Lord forgive me!—but I believe the time is
coming when I must utter my voice. I cannot go down to the wharves, or
among the shipping, without these poor dumb creatures look at me so
that I am ashamed; as if they asked me what I, a Christian minister,
was doing, that I did not come to their help. I must testify.’
Mrs. Scudder looked grave at this earnest announcement; she had
heard many like it before, and they always filled her with alarm,
because——Shall we tell you why?
Well, then, it was not because she was not a thoroughly indoctrinated
anti-slavery woman. Her husband, who did all her thinking for her, had
been a man of ideas beyond his day, and never for a moment countenanced
the right of slavery so far as to buy or own a servant or attendant
of any kind: and Mrs. Scudder had always followed decidedly along the
path of his opinions and practice, and never hesitated to declare the
reasons for the faith that was in her. But if any of us could imagine
an angel dropped down out of heaven, with wings, ideas, notions,
manners, and customs all fresh from that very different country, we
might easily suppose that the most pious and orthodox family might
find the task of presenting him in general society, and piloting him
along the courses of this world, a very delicate and embarrassing one.
However much they might reverence him on their own private account,
their hearts would probably sink within them at the idea of allowing
him to expand himself according to his previous nature and habits in
the great world without. In like manner, men of high, unworldly natures
are often reverenced by those who are somewhat puzzled what to do with
them practically.
Mrs. Scudder considered the Doctor as a superior being, possessed by a
holy helplessness in all things material and temporal, which imposed
on her the necessity of thinking and caring for him, and prevising the
earthly and material aspects of his affairs.
There was not in Newport a more thriving and reputable business at that
time than the slave-trade. Large fortunes were constantly being turned
out in it, and what better Providential witness of its justice could
most people require?
Beside this, in their own little church, she reflected with alarm, that
Simeon Brown, the richest and most liberal supporter of the society,
had been, and was then, drawing all his wealth from this source; and
rapidly there flashed before her mind a picture of one and another,
influential persons, who were holders of slaves. Therefore, when the
Doctor announced, ‘I must testify,’ she rattled her tea-spoon uneasily,
and answered,—
‘In what way, Doctor, do you think of bearing testimony? The subject, I
think, is a very difficult one.’
‘Difficult? I think no subject can be clearer. If we were right in our
war for liberty, we are wrong in making slaves or keeping them.’
‘Oh, I did not mean,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘that it was difficult to
understand the subject; the _right_ of the matter is clear, but what to
_do_ is the thing.’
‘I shall preach about it,’ said the Doctor; ‘my mind has run upon it
some time. I shall show to the house of Judah their sin in this matter.’
‘I fear there will be great offence given,’ said Mrs. Scudder. ‘There’s
Simeon Brown, one of our largest supporters,—he is in the trade.’
‘Ah, yes,—but he will come out of it,—of course he will,—he is all
right, all clear. I was delighted with the clearness of his views
the other night, and thought then of bringing them to bear on this
point,—only, as others were present, I deferred it. But I can show him
that it follows logically from his principles; I am confident of that.’
‘I think you’ll be disappointed in him, Doctor;—I think he’ll be angry,
and get up a commotion, and leave the church.’
‘Madam,’ said the Doctor, ‘do you suppose that a man who would be
willing even to give up his eternal salvation for the greatest good of
the universe could hesitate about a few paltry thousands that perish in
the using?’
‘He may feel willing to give up his soul,’ said Mrs. Scudder, naïvely,
‘but I don’t think he’ll give up his ships,—that’s quite another
matter,—he won’t see it to be his duty.’
‘Then, ma’am, he’ll be a hypocrite, a gross hypocrite, if he won’t,’
said the Doctor. ‘It is not Christian charity to think it of him. I
shall call upon him this morning and tell him my intentions.’
‘But, Doctor,’ exclaimed Mrs. Scudder, with a start, ‘pray, think a
little more of it. You know a great many things depend on him. Why! he
has subscribed for twenty copies of your “System of Theology.” I hope
you’ll remember that.’
‘And why should I remember that?’ said the Doctor,—hastily turning
round, suddenly enkindled, his blue eyes flashing out of their usual
misty calm,—‘what has my “System of Theology” to do with the matter?’
[Illustration: _The Minister is moved._
_Page 90._
Sampson Low, Son & Co. March, 25th, 1859]
‘Why,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘it’s of more importance to get right views
of the gospel before the world than anything else, is it not?—and
if, by any imprudence in treating influential people, this should be
prevented, more harm than good would be done.’
‘Madam,’ said the Doctor, ‘I’d sooner my system should be sunk in the
sea than it should be a millstone round my neck to keep me from my
duty. Let God take care of my theology; I must do my duty.’
And as the Doctor spoke, he straightened himself to the full dignity
of his height, his face kindling with an unconscious majesty, and, as
he turned, his eye fell on Mary, who was standing with her slender
figure dilated, her large blue eye wide and bright, in a sort of
trance of solemn feeling, half-smiles, half-tears,—and the strong,
heroic man started, to see this answer to his higher soul in the
sweet, tremulous mirror of womanhood. One of those lightning glances
passed between his eyes and hers which are the freemasonry of noble
spirits,—and, by a sudden impulse, they approached each other. He took
both her outstretched hands, looked down into her face with a look full
of admiration, and a sort of naïve wonder,—then, as if her inspired
silence had been a voice to him, he laid his hand on her head, and
said,—
‘God bless you, child! “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast
thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest
still the enemy and the avenger.”’
In a moment he was gone.
‘Mary,’ said Mrs. Scudder, laying her hand on her daughter’s arm, ‘the
Doctor loves you!’
‘I know he does, mother,’ said Mary, innocently; ‘and I love
him,—dearly!—he is a noble, grand man!’
Mrs. Scudder looked keenly at her daughter. Mary’s eye was as calm as a
June sky, and she began, composedly, gathering up the teacups.
‘She did not understand me,’ thought the mother.