THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH
"O weep, ye friends of freedom weep!
Your harps to mournful measures sweep."
ON the last day of November, 1620, on the confines of the Grand
Bank of Newfoundland, lo! we behold one little solitary
tempest-tost and weather-beaten ship; it is all that can be seen
on the length and breadth of the vast intervening solitudes, from
the melancholy wilds of Labrador and New England's ironbound
shores, to the western coasts of Ireland and the rock defended
Hebrides, but one lonely ship greets the eye of angels or of men,
on this great throughfare of nations in our age. Next in moral
grandeur, was this ship, to the great discoverer's: Columbus
found a continent; the May-flower brought the seedwheat of states
and empire. That is the May-flower, with its servants of the
living God, their wives and little ones, hastening to lay the
foundations of nations in the accidental lands of the
setting-sun. Hear the voice of prayer to God for his protection,
and the glorious music of praise, as it breaks into the wild
tempest of the mighty deep, upon the ear of God. Here in this
ship are great and good men. Justice, mercy, humanity, respect
for the rights of all; each man honoured, as he was useful to
himself and others; labour respected, law-abiding men,
constitution-making and respecting men; men, whom no tyrant could
conquer, or hardship overcome, with the high commission sealed by
a Spirit divine, to establish religious and political liberty for
all. This ship had the embryo elements of all that is useful,
great, and grand in Northern institutions; it was the great type
of goodness and wisdom, illustrated in two and a quarter
centuries gone by; it was the good genius of America.
But look far in the South-east, and you behold on the same day, in
1620, a low rakish ship hastening from the tropics, solitary and
alone, to the New World. What is she? She is freighted with the
elements of unmixed evil. Hark! hear those rattling chains, hear
that cry of despair and wail of anguish, as they die away in the
unpitying distance. Listen to those shocking oaths, the crack of
that flesh-cutting whip. Ah! it is the first cargo of slaves on
their way to Jamestown, Virginia. Behold the May-flower anchored
at Plymouth Rock, the slave-ship in James River. Each a parent,
one of the prosperous, labour-honouring, law-sustaining
institutions of the North; the other the mother of slavery,
idleness, lynch-law, ignorance, unpaid labour, poverty, and
duelling, despotism, the ceaseless swing of the whip, and the
peculiar institutions of the South. These ships are the
representation of good and evil in the New World, even to our day.
When shall one of those parallel lines come to an end?
The origin of American slavery is not lost in the obscurity of
by-gone ages. It is a plain historical fact, that it owes its
birth to the African slave trade, now pronounced by every
civilised community the greatest crime ever perpetrated against
humanity. Of all causes intended to benefit mankind, the
abolition of chattel slavery must necessarily be placed amongst
the first, and the Negro hails with joy every new advocate that
appears in his cause. Commiseration for human suffering and human
sacrifices awakened the capacious mind, and brought into action
the enlarged benevolence, of Georgiana Carlton. With respect to
her philosophy--it was of a noble cast. It was, that all men are
by nature equal; that they are wisely and justly endowed by the
Creator with certain rights, which are irrefragable; and that,
however human pride and human avarice may depress and debase,
still God is the author of good to man--and of evil, man is the
artificer to himself and to his species. Unlike Plato and
Socrates, her mind was free from the gloom that surrounded
theirs; her philosophy was founded in the school of Christianity;
though a devoted member of her father's church, she was not a
sectarian.
We learn from Scripture, and it is a little remarkable that it is
the only exact definition of religion found in the sacred volume,
that "pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep oneself unspotted from the world." "Look not every man on
his own things, but every man also on the things of others."
"Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." "Whatsoever
ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them."
This was her view of Christianity, and to this end she laboured
with all her energies to convince her slaveholding neighbours
that the Negro could not only take care of himself, but that he
also appreciated liberty, and was willing to work and redeem
himself. Her most sanguine wishes were being realized when she
suddenly fell into a decline. Her mother had died of consumption,
and her physician pronounced this to be her disease. She was
prepared for this sad intelligence, and received it with the
utmost composure. Although she had confidence in her husband that
he would carry out her wishes in freeing the Negroes after her
death, Mrs. Carlton resolved upon their immediate liberation.
Consequently the slaves were all summoned before the noble woman,
and informed that they were no longer bondsmen. "From this
hour," said she, "you are free, and all eyes will be fixed upon
you. I dare not predict how far your example may affect the
welfare of your brethren yet in bondage. If you are temperate,
industrious, peaceable, and pious, you will show to the world
that slaves can be emancipated without danger. Remember what a
singular relation you sustain to society. The necessities of the
case require not only that you should behave as well as the
whites, but better than the whites; and for this reason: if you
behave no better than they, your example will lose a great
portion of its influence. Make the Lord Jesus Christ your refuge
and exemplar. His is the only standard around which you can
successfully rally. If ever there was a people who needed the
consolations of religion to sustain them in their grievous
afflictions, you are that people. You had better trust in the
Lord than to put confidence in man. Happy is that people whose
God is the Lord. Get as much education as possible for
yourselves and your children. An ignorant people can never occupy
any other than a degraded station in society; they can never be
truly free until they are intelligent. In a few days you will
start for the state of Ohio, where land will be purchased for
some of you who have families, and where I hope you will all
prosper. We have been urged to send you to Liberia, but we think
it wrong to send you from your native land. We did not wish to
encourage the Colonization Society, for it originated in hatred
of the free coloured people. Its pretences are false, its
doctrines odious, its means contemptible. Now, whatever may be
your situation in life, 'Remember those in bonds as bound with
them.' You must get ready as soon as you can for your journey to
the North."
Seldom was there ever witnessed a more touching scene than this.
There sat the liberator, pale, feeble, emaciated, with death
stamped upon her countenance, surrounded by the sons and
daughters of Africa; some of whom had in former years been
separated from all that they had held near and dear, and the most
of whose backs had been torn and gashed by the Negro whip. Some
were upon their knees at the feet of their benefactress; others
were standing round her weeping. Many begged that they might be
permitted to remain on the farm and work for wages, for some had
wives and some husbands on other plantations in the neighbourhood,
and would rather remain with them.
But the laws of the state forbade any emancipated Negroes
remaining, under penalty of again being sold into slavery. Hence
the necessity of sending them out of the state. Mrs. Carlton was
urged by her friends to send the emancipated Negroes to Africa.
Extracts from the speeches of Henry Clay, and other distinguished
Colonization Society men, were read to her to induce her to adopt
this course. Some thought they should he sent away because the
blacks are vicious; others because they would be missionaries to
their brethren in Africa. "But," said she, "if we send away the
Negroes because they are profligate and vicious, what sort of
missionaries will they make? Why not send away the vicious among
the whites for the same reason, and the same purpose?"
Death is a leveller, and neither age, sex, wealth, nor usefulness
can avert when he is permitted to strike. The most beautiful
flowers soon fade, and droop, and die; this is also the case with
man; his days are uncertain as the passing breeze. This hour he
glows in the blush of health and vigour, but the next he may be
counted with the number no more known on earth.
Although in a low state of health, Mrs. Carlton had the pleasure
of seeing all her slaves, except Sam and three others, start for
a land of freedom. The morning they were to go on board the
steamer, bound for Louisville, they all assembled on the large
grass plot, in front of the drawing-room window, and wept while
they bid their mistress farewell. When they were on the boat,
about leaving the wharf, they were heard giving the charge to
those on shore--"Sam, take care of Misus, take care of Marser, as
you love us, and hope to meet us in de Hio (Ohio), and in heben;
be sure and take good care of Misus and Marser."
In less than a week after her emancipated people had started for
Ohio, Mrs. Carlton was cold in death. Mr. Carlton felt deeply, as
all husbands must who love their wives, the loss of her who had
been a lamp to his feet, and a light to his path. She had
converted him from infidelity to Christianity; from the mere
theory of liberty to practical freedom. He had looked upon the
Negro as an ill-treated distant link of the human family; he now
regarded them as a part of God's children. Oh, what a silence
pervaded the house when the Christian had been removed. His
indeed was a lonesome position.
"'Twas midnight, and he sat alone
The husband of the dead,
That day the dark dust had been thrown
Upon the buried head."
In the midst of the buoyancy of youth, this cherished one had
drooped and died. Deep were the sounds of grief and mourning
heard in that stately dwelling, when the stricken friends, whose
office it had been to nurse and soothe the weary sufferer, beheld
her pale and motionless in the sleep of death.
Oh what a chill creeps through the breaking heart when we look
upon the insensible form, and feel that it no longer contains the
spirit we so dearly loved! How difficult to realise that the eye
which always glowed with affection and intelligence; that the ear
which had so often listened to the sounds of sorrow and gladness;
that the voice whose accents had been to us like sweet music, and
the heart, the habitation of benevolence and truth, are now
powerless and insensate as the bier upon which the form rests.
Though faith be strong enough to penetrate the cloud of gloom
which hovers near, and to behold the freed spirit safe, for ever,
safe in its home in heaven, yet the thoughts will linger sadly
and cheerlessly upon the grave.
Peace to her ashes! she fought the fight, obtained the Christian's
victory, and wears the crown. But if it were that departed
spirits are permitted to note the occurrences of this world, with
what a frown of disapprobation would hers view the effort being
made in the United States to retard the work of emancipation for
which she laboured and so wished to see brought about.
In what light would she consider that hypocritical priesthood who
gave their aid and sanction to the infamous "Fugitive Slave Law."
If true greatness consists in doing good to mankind, then was
Georgiana Carlton an ornament to human nature. Who can think of
the broken hearts made whole, of sad and dejected countenances
now beaming with contentment and joy, of the mother offering her
free-born babe to heaven, and of the father whose cup of joy
seems overflowing in the presence of his family, where none can
molest or make him afraid. Oh, that God may give more such persons
to take the whip-scarred Negro by the hand, and raise
him to a level with our common humanity! May the professed lovers
of freedom in the new world see that true liberty is freedom for
all! and may every American continually hear it sounding in his
ear:--
"Shall every flap of England's flag
Proclaim that all around are free,
From 'farthest Ind' to each blue crag
That beetles o'er the Western Sea?
And shall we scoff at Europe's kings,
When Freedom's fire is dim with us,
And round our country's altar clings
The damning shade of Slavery's curse?"