draw," else the rebellious one had received the reward of rebellion.
The warden replaced his pistol, with a curse upon it for not obeying
his effort to draw it. The young convict had ceased hostilities, and
stood submissive by the side of his unknown friend. He had not once
glanced at him, but something in his voice had controlled and subdued
his passion.
"Away with him," cried the officer. "To the pump, and afterward to the
pool. Get the straps ready there. We'll show our _royal_ friend who is
master here."
Again came an idea of resistance, but the same small hand was laid
upon his arm.
"My friend, it isn't any use. I tried it all. Go on and be punished.
It is part of life here. You receive it whether merited or not."
They dragged him off, strapped him, hand and foot, and writhing,
foaming, like the untamed wild beast that he was, they thrust him
under the great prison pump.
"That will cool his royal blood," laughed a guard, as the fearful
force of the cold current beating upon his shaven head knocked him
senseless.
Drenched and beaten, utterly exhausted, he lay like a limp rag, until
three men had spent their strength upon the pump. Then to the pool
they dragged him, and "ducked" him three times into the dark, stagnant
water. Then back to the warden who asked if he "thought he had
enough."
"Not enough to make me take your jaw," was the foolish answer.
"The lash," said the warden, and the miserable, half-drowned creature
was taken away to be beaten "into subjection."
The guard overlooked the punishment. A stout, burly convict was
required to perform it. He would have refused, being in like strait,
only that he knew the uselessness. He had been there a long time,
forty years, and according to his sentence would be there for fifty
more. He had picked up a little scripture at the prison Sunday
school, so that when he lifted the whip above the back they had made
bare for it, he whispered, by way of apology:--
"And one Simon, a Cyrenian, him they compelled to bear the cross."
But Jim didn't understand even if he had heard. All he heard was that
low, patient voice calling him "friend."
In the afternoon he was sent down to the mines, subdued, but not
conquered. Every evil passion of his nature had been aroused, and
would never slumber again.
After that first day's experience he seemed indeed a wild beast. He
fought among the prisoners, rebelled against the rules of the prison,
would have nothing to do with any but the worst of the men, shirked
his work until he had to be strapped and beaten, in short, made a
record that had never been surpassed by any previous man on the prison
record.
Yet, when there was danger of any kind, he was the first there. One
morning there was an explosion in the mine, and more than a score of
prisoners were in danger of being suffocated before help could reach
them. Indeed everybody was afraid to venture in that black hole from
which the hot, sulphurous gases were pouring. Everybody but Jim. Even
the warden had to admit Jim's courage. "He aint afraid of the devil,"
he declared, when he saw the boy jump into an empty coal car, call to
the mule to "git up," and disappear in the gas and smoke with the
empty cars rumbling behind him. It was a long time before he came out,
but he brought ten insensible convicts in his first haul. The lessees
recommended him for that, and promised to make it good sometime if he
kept on at that rate.
Another time there was a fire. The rumbling old rat-hole was
threatened with destruction, and with it three hundred and
seventy-five of the State's charges. The men glared like beasts
through the cracks of the tottering stockade. Liberty, it would come
surely in some form. The fire was confined for a time to the wing
where the hospital was. But when it mounted in a great blood-dappled
sheet of flame to the top of an old rotten tower above the main
building, where the prisoners were huddled, it became evident that all
must go unless the old tower could be torn away. Up the uneven,
rickety wall went Jim, nimble as a squirrel. Crack! crack! fell the
dead boards, then with a clang and clamor, down rolled the old bell
from its perch, carrying with it the last of the burning tower.
Jim climbed down as sullen as ever. He didn't care to save the old
shanty, or to win any praise from anybody. He was simply not afraid,
and his courage would not permit him to do other than what he did.
Nobody cared for him specially, although the soft-voiced man with the
small, womanish hands spoke to him often, and always kindly. Jim never
forgot that he had called him friend. The memory of it stayed with
him, like the kiss of a first love that lingers long after love is
dead. Most of the men were afraid of him, so fierce was his temper,
and so easily aroused. Even the warden had learned that he could not
tame him. The strap, the lash, the pool, the pump, had been applied
times without number. The warden was still "looking around" for the
time to apply the last resource, the shotgun. It was pretty sure to
come, for the boy was entirely "unscrupulous."
Summer set in again. Again June came, and tried to bloom even on the
coal-tracked mountain about the mine. Somewhere up back among the pine
and shadows the wild roses were blooming, and the grapes. Their odors
came down to the men as they tramped across the hot, bare, coal-strewn
way between the stockade and the mines.
With the coming of June came a number of strangers to the mountain.
They always came in the warm season, but they quartered themselves
over in the town, beyond the stockade, and the stench, and filth, and
crime found there.
Only one, a young man, a minister who had been expelled from the
church in the city where he had preached, found his way to the prison.
He went out one Sunday afternoon, and asked permission to preach to
the convicts. It was freely granted. Such wild heresy! Such odd,
eccentric ideas! Such flights of oratory! Such fiery brands tossed
into the old tabernacles of religious belief! Such blows upon the old
batteries of narrowness and impossibility! They had never heard
anything like it. Had he preached thus anywhere else he would have
been promptly silenced. But a lot of convicts was not an audience
likely to be injured by the too free circulating of the doctrine he
advocated. What if he should convince them that eternal punishment was
a myth, and an insult flung in the face of the Creator? A slur upon
His justice, and a lie to His divine goodness? What if he snapped his
finger at a lake of brimstone and of eternal fire? And his wild
ravings about an inconsistent Being, accepted as the head of all
wisdom, and tenderness,--and mercy, and at the same time as the
perfection of all cruelty and injustice, in that He creates only to
destroy,--what if the seed scattered should take root? What if those
old sin-blackened souls should comfort themselves with the new
doctrine, the idea that no good can be lost? God cannot be God and
destroy any good thing. It is wicked, it is devilish to kill that
which is good. God cannot be wicked and be the good God, the kind
All-Father, at the same time. Nor has He created any so vile as to be
without some one virtue. In the dust of the evil He has not failed to
drop one grain of gold to glisten, and to make glad the dull waste of
life. The grain is there, planted by God's hand, in _every_ soul. It
was in _their_ souls, poor, old, sin-covered, forsaken souls, toiling
up to the light through those begrimed walls among the filth, and
dust, and mould. Not one of them but was God's work, and bore His
grain of gold. None would be lost, not one. What matter if the prison
registrar's table of deaths did record so many, Found dead! Drowned!
Killed! Shot! Blank! Blank! Blank! Meaning they disappeared, nobody
knows how or when.
It was a strange, sweet hope to them, that came in that wild sermon of
a bishop-silenced young heretic. They thought about it a good deal,
and began, some of them whose terms were to expire with life, to dig
down into the rust and mire with the spade of conscience for the
hidden grain.
The minister was at the stockade often, cheering, sympathizing, and
always comforting the convicts with the certainty of eternal love, and
the folly of eternal punishment. One day he stumbled upon a man who
was being strapped and prepared for punishment at the pump. His face
was sullen, and there were splotches of blood on his clothes, and he
limped when he attempted to walk. Still there was something in the
old, young face, that neither cruelty nor threats could kill. They
might turn on the icy water, and exhaust themselves with lashing him,
but that stoic determination would not yield. They might _murder_ him,
but from his fixed, dead eyes, _it_ would glare at them, that same
heroic, immovable _something_ that had shone in the staring eyes of
his dead mother.
No visitors were allowed in that part of the prison, so the minister
held back until, fearing the limp figure under the pump would be
beaten to death by the cruel pour of water upon his head, he stepped
forward to interfere.
"In God's name, I beg you stop," he cried, his hand uplifted, his eyes
full of tears. "Your punishment is beastly. What has the fellow done?
Is someone murdered?"
"Someone ought to be," sullenly replied the man at the pump-handle.
"And someone might be if this sneaking rascal was the only hope of
preventing it."
There had been a plot among the convicts to batter down the shaky old
stockade, and break for freedom. They had secured a gun and some
ammunition, where, no one could tell, and the plot had well-nigh
succeeded. The guard on the wall had been killed, three men had
escaped, and the prison bloodhounds were lying in the kennel with
their throats cut.
Already the governor of the State had telegraphed freedom to the
convicts not in the scheme who would give the names of those engaged
in it. Even the leader's name; for _that_ freedom was offered, pardon
unconditional.
Something let fall discovered to the warden that Jim, while not in,
was familiar with the whole history of the insurrection. The offer of
freedom had no further effect upon him than a careless refusal to
comply with the terms set forth. But when force was suggested, he set
his lips in that old way that belonged to his mother, and said
nothing. Three days they gave him to "knock under." But the only
change noticeable during that time was a more decided sullenness, a
look in the cold, gray eyes that meant death rather than yielding.
Once the soft-voiced young man who had put out his hand in his defence
the day of his arrival at the stockade, and had afterward called him
"friend," the only time he had ever heard the word addressed to
himself, once he came over where Jim sat cleaning the warden's boots,
and motioned him.
Jim shook his head, and went on blacking the big boots. But when the
young convict drew nearer, and tried to take his hand, he drew back,
and struck at him viciously with the blacking brush.
"Git out, will you! And don't come a-fooling with this brush, lest you
want your d--n head broke."
He had seen a guard spying upon them at a half open door in the rear
of the young convict. At Jim's outburst of temper the guard entered.
"Come away from him, Solly," he said, "the surly beast is as like as
not to knock your brains out."
The convict turned to obey, but the glance he got of Jim's face
carried a full explanation. The temper was affected to keep down
suspicion. After that came the punishment at the pump, the merciless
beating, and then, all things proving unavailing, he was put in the
dungeon to have the "truth starved out of him."
After three days he was brought out, faint, pale, ready to die at
every step, but with that same immovable _something_ shining in his
eyes, and his lips still set in the old way that he had of his mother.
His hands were manacled, and an iron chain clanked about his feet as
he dragged them wearily one after the other. For three days he had
tasted no food, except a rat that he had caught in the dungeon. He ate
it raw, like a dog, and searched eagerly for another. Just as he had
found it, and skinned it with the help of his teeth, the guard peered
through the grating, and seeing what he was doing, entered, and put
handcuffs upon him, after first removing the raw flesh to a point
where he could see, but not touch it. And there it lay, torturing him
while he starved. And there it lay until it became carrion, and
tortured him again. And then they had dragged him out again, out under
the blue sky, where the trees--the old sweet-smelling pines--were
waving their purple plumes upon the distant mountains, and the wild
grape filled the air with perfume, and the wild roses were pink as
childhood's sweet, young dreams, and over all was bended the blue
heaven. And heaven spread before him, heaven; behind him lay hell,
fifteen years of it less one. And they gave him choice again betwixt
the two. They even crammed a bit of moral in the offer. "It was
right," they said, "to tell on those who had broken the prison
regulations, mere justice to the lessees." Right! too late to talk to
him of right. He glanced once at the pines, going farther away,
whiffed at the pleasant odor of the grape blooms, waved his hand to
the roses, in farewell, perhaps, lifted his face to the blue
heaven--he had never looked heavenward before in all his wretched
years,--then, wearing that same old look of his mother's, he turned,
without a word, and re-entered the prison.
Back to the pump, the lash, and at last to the dungeon.
But he no longer dreaded it. It was the Sabbath, and the shackles had
been removed, but he was too weary to notice the rat that came out and
sat peering at him, nibbling at his wet prison clothes, and his feet
and hands. Even the carrion did not disturb any more. The scent of the
wild grape blooms was still in his nostrils. And when the day wore on,
and the two o'clock bell sounded, calling the men to Sunday school, he
started up with a cry of "Here." He had thought the bell a voice at
the dungeon door, and fancied that it said, "friend!"
He dropped back, with a smile on his lips. Could old Nance have peeped
in at that moment she would have pronounced him very like his mother
with that smile, and that stanch old heroism shining in his wide, dead
eyes.
* * * * *
Down in the office the registrar entered upon the death list:
"James Royal--Natural death."
Natural? then God help the unnatural.
"The worst one ever fell into our hands," the warden told the minster
as he came out of the chapel with the soft-voiced friend of the dead
man's. "Not a spark of good in _him_, parson. Jim Royal knocks your
theory all to pieces."
But the friend had been telling the minister a story. And as he passed
out at the rattling stockade gate, he, too, glanced up at the blue
sky. His doubts were gone, if there had been any, his faith was
planted in God's eternal goodness.
"Can such die?" he mused, "such faithfulness, such magnificent
courage, such glorious fidelity? Is it possible that such can pass
away into eternal torment?"
The soft wind touched his cheek and bore heavenward the prayer he
breathed:--
"Forbid it, Almighty God."
EDITORIAL NOTES.
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE TO-DAY. PERSECUTED FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE.
The decision recently handed down by Judge Hammond, of the United
States District Court, in the celebrated case of R. M. King, is rich
in lessons of vital importance to thoughtful minds at the present time
of unrest, when conservatism is seeking on every hand, even under the
cloak of radical movements, to secure statutes and legal constructions
of laws which may at an early day be used to fetter thought, crush
liberty, and throttle the vanguard of progress. Briefly stated, the
important facts in the case in question are as follows: Mr. King is an
honest, hard-working farmer. He is charged with no breach of morals;
in fact, it appears that he is a remarkably upright man. But he is a
Seventh Day Adventist; that is, he does not hold the same religious
views as the majority in his State. He stands in the same relation to
his countrymen as that occupied by the early disciples of Christ to
Roman society when Nero undertook to punish Christians by kindling
nightly human fires for the delectation of conservative or majority
thought. He is of the minority, even as the Huguenots were in the
minority when the Church tortured, racked, and burned them for the
glory of God and the good of humanity. He is of the minority, as was
Roger Williams when, in 1635, the popular and conventional thought of
Salem banished him. Mr. King is not an infidel or even a doubter. On
the contrary he is ardently religious, being a zealous and
conscientious member of a sect of Christians noted for their piety and
faith. The Adventists, of whom he is an honored member, it must be
remembered, hold somewhat peculiar views about the second advent of
Christ. They believe they find in the Bible commands making it
obligatory upon them to keep holy the seventh day of the week, or the
Hebrew Sabbath, instead of Sunday, the holiday and rest day observed
by most Christian denominations. Now it was shown in the trial that,
conforming to his belief, Mr. King strictly observed the Sabbath on
Saturday, but being a poor farmer he could not afford to rest two days
each week, or over one hundred days in the year, and, therefore, after
having kept the Sabbath he plowed in his field on Sunday. This aroused
the pious indignation of the narrow-minded and bigoted members of the
community who profess to follow that great Leader who taught us to
judge not, to resist not evil, and to do unto others as we would have
others do unto us. These Christians (?) who, unfortunately for the
cause of justice and religious liberty, are in the majority in
Tennessee, had this conscientious, God-fearing man arrested as a
common felon, and convicted of the heinous crime (?) of
Sabbath-breaking by plowing on Sunday. He appealed to the Supreme
Court, and the sentence was affirmed. Then the Adventists and the
National Secular Association took up the case. Hon. Don M. Dickinson
was engaged as counsel, and the case was taken to the Federal Court
last November on a writ of habeas corpus, the contention being that
the conviction was contrary to the bill of rights of Tennessee and the
Constitution of the United States, and that the defendant was held
prisoner by the sheriff without due process of law. The application
was argued several months ago, and Judge Hammond has had it under
advisement until recently, when his decision was given in which the
defendant was remanded back to the custody of the sheriff to pay the
fine or serve the time according to the sentence. This decision holds
that malice, religious or otherwise, may dictate a prosecution, but if
the law has been violated this fact does not shield the law-breaker.
Neither do the courts require that there shall be some moral obloquy
to support a given law before enforcing it, and it is not necessary to
maintain that to violate the Sunday observance customs shall be of
itself immoral to make it criminal in the eyes of the law.
Suggestive, indeed, are the lessons of this great judicial crime
against liberty, justice, and God. In the first place it illustrates
the fact which must long since have become apparent to thinking men
that the guarantee of the Constitution of the United States, which,
more than aught else, has made this Republic the flower of all
preceding nations, is yearly becoming less and less regarded by the
small men and narrow minds who interpret law and who, instead of
showing how unconstitutional any law is which violates the great
charter of right, yield to the present craze for Governmental
Paternalism, paying no more heed to our Constitution than if it was
the ukase of a Czar. In numerous instances during the past decade has
this solemn fact been emphasized, until it is evident that with the
reaction toward Paternalism and centralization has come the old time
spirit of intolerance and moral obloquy on the part of the governing
powers which has been one of the chief curses of the ages, entailing
indescribable misery on the noblest and best, and holding in
subjection the vanguard of progress, which always has been and always
will be the minority, regarded by the majority as dangerous innovators
or disseminators of false theories and doctrines. In my article on
Socialism I noted the case of Mr. King, observing that:--
He in no way deserves the shameful imprisonment he is suffering;
yet the prejudice of the majority sustains the infamous law that
makes criminals of the innocent and takes not into consideration
the rights of the minority. _And what is more, the religious
press is so dominated by bigotry and ancient prejudice that it is
blind alike to the Golden Rule and the inexorable demands of
justice._ If in any State the Adventists, the Hebrews, or any
other people who believed in observing Saturday instead of Sunday
should happen to predominate, and they undertook to throw
Christians into dungeons, and after branding them criminals
should send them to the penitentiary for working on Saturday,
indignation would blaze forth throughout Christendom against the
great injustice, the wrong against the liberty of the rights of
the citizen. The only difference is that poor Mr. King is in the
minority; he is the type of those who always have been and always
will be made to suffer when the government is strong enough to
persecute all who do not accept what is considered truth and
right by the majority.
In replying to my paper Mr. Bellamy thus flippantly dismissed this
case: "Of this it may be remarked that had it happened two centuries
ago it would have been symptomatic; to-day it is a curiosity." It will
be observed that in order to minify the dangers of Paternalism, Mr.
Bellamy entirely ignored the point I had italicized, viz.: the
Christian sentiment of society was not outraged and what was more,
"_the religious press was so dominated by bigotry and ancient
prejudice that it was blind alike to the Golden Rule and the
inexorable demands of justice_." To-day we are told that this great
judicial crime is a curiosity, although the religious bigotry of the
majority has been upheld by the lower, the federal, and supreme
courts, while the religious press has, with rare exceptions,
sanctioned the persecution or ignored the case.
In vain the long-cherished idea that this country was to pass down the
cycle of time known as the land of freedom; that it was to be forever
the asylum for religious liberty and the cradle of progress, unless
the sober thought of our people be at once aroused to stem the rising
tide of Governmentalism and the steady encroachment of religious
organizations and despotic foreign thought.
Comparatively few of the leading secular journals[6] have deemed this
outrage sufficiently important to call for editorial comment,
notwithstanding it marks the establishing of a precedent which must
inevitably work great misery to innocent people at the hands of
religious fanatics, unless there is a sufficient agitation to cause
the repeal of many iniquitous laws which are a menace to the rightful
freedom of citizens as long as they remain on the statute books.
[6] Among the few papers which have denounced this judicial
crime are the New York _Commercial Advertiser_ and the St.
Louis _Republic_. The former journal observes: "It seems
that the glorious clause of the Constitution can give no
protection to men who conscientiously believe they should
literally observe the Fourth Commandment.... It seems that
when a State seeks to enforce religious duty all consciences
must bow before it. That is to say, if, for example, the
Catholics of Louisiana were to pass a law that no man should
taste meat on Friday, the act would be no infringement of
religious liberty.
There can be but one opinion upon this decision among all
liberal-minded men. It is odious sophistry, unworthy of the
age in which we live. And under it an American citizen has
been condemned to spend the rest of his days in a dungeon
unless he shall stoop to deny the dictates of his own
conscience and dishonor his own manhood.