Sarah Grimké had always enjoyed such good health, and was so
unaccustomed to even small ailments, that when a slight attack came in
the beginning of August, 1873, in the shape of a fainting-fit in the
night, she did not understand what it meant. For two or three years
she had had an occasional attack of the same kind, but was never
before conscious of it, and as she had frequently expressed a desire
to be alone when she died, to have no human presence between her and
her God, she thought, as the faintness came over her, that this desire
was about to be gratified. But not so: she returned to consciousness,
somewhat to her disappointment, and seemed to quite recover her health
in a few days. The weather, however, was extremely warm, and she felt
its prostrating effects. On the 27th of August another fainting-spell
came over her, also in the night, and she felt so unwell on coming out
of it that she was obliged to call assistance. For several weeks she
was very ill, and scarcely a hope of her recovery was entertained; but
again she rallied and tried to mingle with the family as usual, though
feeling very weak. Writing to Sarah Douglass of this illness, she
says:--
"The first two weeks are nearly a blank. I only remember a sense of
intense suffering, and that the second day I thought I was dying, and
felt calm with that sweet peace which our heavenly Father gives to
those who lay their heads on His bosom and breathe out their souls to
Him. Death is so beautiful a transition to another and a higher sphere
of usefulness and happiness, that it no longer looks to me like
passing through a dark valley, but rather like merging into sunlight
and joy. When consciousness returned to me, I was floating in an ocean
of divine love. Oh, dear Sarah, the unspeakable peace that I enjoyed!
Of course I was to come down from the mount, but not into the valley
of despondency. My mind has been calm, my faith steadfast, my
continual prayer that I may fulfil the design of my Father in thus
restoring me to life and finish the work he must have for me to do,
either active or passive. I am lost in wonder, love, and praise at the
vast outlay of affection and means used for my restoration. Stuart was
like a tender daughter, and all have been so loving, so patient."
She continued very feeble, but insisted upon joining the family at
meals, though she frequently had to be carried back to her room. Still
her lively interest in every one about her showed no diminution, and
she still wrote, as strength permitted, short letters to old friends.
A few passages may be quoted from these letters to show how clear her
intellect remained, and with what a holy calm her soul was clothed. To
one nearly her own age, she says:--
"You and I and all who are on the passage to redemption know that
Gethsemane has done more for us than the Mount of Transfiguration. I
am sure I have advanced more in the right way through my sins than
through my righteousness, and for nothing am I more fervently grateful
than for the lessons of humility I have learned in this way."
To another who was mourning the death of a dear child, she writes: "My
whole heart goes out in unspeakable yearnings for you; not, dearest,
that you may be delivered from your present trials; not only that you
may be blessed with returning health, but that you may find something
better, holier, stronger than philosophy to sustain you. Philosophy
may enable us to _endure_; this is its highest mission; it cannot give
the peace of God which passeth all understanding. This is what I covet
for you. And how can you doubt of immortality when you look on your
beloved's face? Can you believe that the soul which looked out of
those eyes can be quenched in endless night? No; never! As soon doubt
existence itself. It is this--these central truths, the existence and
the love of God, and the immortality of the soul, which rob death of
its terrors and shed upon it the blessed light of a hope which
triumphs over death itself. Oh that you could make Christ your friend!
He is so near and dear to me that more than ever does he seem to be my
link to the Father and to the life everlasting."
As she complained only of weakness, Sarah's friends hoped that, when
the cool weather came on, she would regain her strength and be as well
as usual. But though she continued to move about the house, trying to
make herself useful, there was very little perceptible change in her
condition as the autumn passed and winter came on. Thus she continued
until the 12th of December, when she took a violent cold. She was in
the habit of airing her bed every night just before retiring, turning
back the cover, and opening wide her window. On that day it had
rained, and the air was very damp, but she had her bed and window
opened as usual, insisting that Florence Nightingale asserted that
damp air never hurt anyone. That night she coughed a great deal, but
in answer to Angelina's expressions of anxiety, said she felt no worse
than usual. But though she still went down to her meals, it was
evident that she was weaker than she had been. On Sunday, the 14th,
company coming to tea, she preferred to remain in her room. She never
went down again. Her breathing was much oppressed on Monday and her
cough worse, but it was not until Tuesday evening, after having passed
a distressing day, that she would consent to have a physician called.
Everything was done for her that could be thought of, and, as she grew
worse, two other physicians were sent for. But all in vain: it was
evident that the summons to "come up higher" had reached her yearning
soul, and that a bright New Year was dawning for her in that unseen
world which she was so well prepared to enter.
She lingered, suffering at times great agony from suffocation, until
the afternoon of the 23d, when she was seized with the most severe
paroxysm she had yet had. Her family gathered about her bed, relieved
her as far as it was possible, and saw her sink exhausted into an
unconscious state, from which, two hours later, she crossed the
threshold of Eternity. Her "precious Nina" bent over her, caught the
last breath, and exclaimed: "Well done, good and faithful servant,
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"
The gates of heaven swung wide to admit that great soul, and the form
of clay that was left lying there seemed touched with the glory that
streamed forth. All traces of suffering vanished, and the placid face
wore--
"The look of one who bore away
Glad tidings from the hills of day."
Every sorrow brings a peace with it, and Angelina's sorrow was
swallowed up in joy that the beloved sister had escaped from pain and
infirmity, and entered into fuller and closer communion with her
heavenly Father.
She and Sarah had promised each other that no stranger hands should
perform the last offices to their mortal remains. How lovingly this
promise was now kept by Angelina, we must all understand.
The weather was very cold, and in order to give her friends at a
distance opportunity to attend the funeral it did not take place until
the 27th. One of the last requests of this woman, whose life had been
an embodiment of the most tender chanty and the truest humility, was
that she might be laid in a plain pine coffin, and the difference in
price between it and the usual costly one be given as her last gift to
the poor. She knew--divine soul!--that her cold form would sleep just
as quietly, be guarded by the angels just as faithfully, and as
certainly go to its resurrection glory from a pine box as from the
richest rosewood casket. And it was like the sweet simplicity of her
whole life,--nothing for show, all for God and his poor.
Her request was complied with, but loving hands covered every inch of
that plain stained coffin with fragrant flowers, making it rich and
beautiful with those sincere tributes of affection and gratitude to
one whose memory was a benediction.
The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Francis Williams,
pastor of the Unitarian Church of Hyde Park, and eloquent remarks were
made by him and by Wm. Lloyd Garrison.
Mr. Williams could only testify to Sarah's life as he had known it
since she came to live in the village.
"To the last," he said, "while her mind could plan, her pen could
move, and her heart could prompt, she was busy in the service of
humanity,--with her might and beyond her strength, in constant
nameless deeds of kindness to those in need in our own neighborhood,
and far to the south, deeds which were wise and beautiful,--help to
the poor, sympathy with the suffering, consolation to the dying. She
has fought the good fight of right and love; she has finished her
course of duty; she has kept the faith of friendship and sacrifice.
"We will more truly live because she has lived among us. May her hope
and peace be ours."
Mr. Garrison gave a brief summary of her life, and ended by saying:
"In view of such a life as hers, consecrated to suffering humanity in
its manifold needs, embracing all goodness, animated by the broadest
catholicity of spirit, and adorned with every excellent attribute, any
attempt at panegyric here seems as needless as it must be inadequate.
Here there is nothing to depress or deplore, nothing premature or
startling, nothing to be supplemented or finished. It is the
consummation of a long life, well rounded with charitable deeds,
active sympathies, toils, loving ministrations, grand testimonies, and
nobly self-sacrificing endeavors. She lived only to do good, neither
seeking nor desiring to be known, ever unselfish, unobtrusive,
compassionate, and loving, dwelling in God and God in her."
The last look was then taken, the last kiss given, and the coffin,
lifted by those who loved and honored the form it enclosed, was borne
to its resting-place in Mount Hope Cemetery.
"Dear friend," wrote Angelina to me, before yet the last rites had
been performed, "you know what I have lost, not _a sister only_, but a
mother, friend, counsellor,--everything I could lose in a woman."
The longer our loved ones are spared to us, the closer becomes the tie
by which we are bound to them, and the deeper the pain of separation.
It was thus with Angelina. She could rejoice at her sister's blessed
translation, but she keenly felt the bereavement notwithstanding.
Their lives had been so bound together; they had walked so many years
side by side; they had so shared each other's burdens, cares, and
sorrows, that she who was left scarcely knew how to live the daily
life without that dear twin-soul. And so tender, so true and sacred
was the communion which had grown between them, that they could not be
separated long.
Angelina continued, as her feeble health permitted, to do alone the
work Sarah had shared with her. The sick, the poor, the sorrowing,
were looked after and cared for as usual; but as she was already
weighed down by declining years, the burdens she tried to bear were
too heavy. Sarah used to say: "Angelina's creed is, for herself, work
till you drop; for others, spare yourself." Now, with no anxiously
watchful sister to restrain her, she overtaxed every power, and
brought on the result which had been long feared,--the paralysis which
finally ended her life.
Those who have read Mr. Weld's beautiful memorial of his wife, with
the touching account of her last days, will find no fault, I am sure,
if I reproduce a portion of it here, while to those who have not been
so fortunate, it will show her sweet Christian spirit, mighty in its
gentleness, as no words of mine could do. In vain may we look back
through the centuries for a higher example of divine love and patience
and heroic fortitude; and, as a friend observed, her expressions of
gratitude for the long and perfect use of her faculties at the very
moment when she felt the fatal touch which was to deprive her of them,
was the sublimity of sweet and grateful trust.
The early shattering of Angelina's nervous system rendered her always
exceedingly sensitive to outward impressions. She could not look upon
any form of suffering without, in a measure, feeling it herself; nor
could she read or listen to an account of great physical agony without
a sensation of faintness which frequently obliged her, at such times,
to leave the room and seek relief in the open air. The first stroke of
paralysis occurred the summer after Sarah's death, and was brought on
in a singular manner. Mr. Weld's account of the incident and its
consequences is thus given:--
"For weeks she had visited almost daily a distant neighbor, far gone
in consumption, whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated
and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she passed their
house in returning home, too much overdone to call, as she thought to
do, and had gone a quarter of a mile toward home, when it occurred to
her, Mr. W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as she feared,
found him dying. As she sat by his bedside, holding his hand, a
sensation never felt before seized her so strongly that she at once
attempted to withdraw her hand, but saw that she could not without
disturbing the dying man's last moments. She sat thus, in exceeding
discomfort, half an hour, with that strange feeling creeping up her
arm and down her side.
"At last his grasp relaxed, and she left, only able to totter, and
upon getting home, she hardly knew how, declined supper, and went at
once to bed, saying only, 'Tired, tired.' In the morning, when her
husband rose, she said, 'I've something to tell you.' Her tone alarmed
him. 'Don't be alarmed,' she said. To his anxious question, 'Pray,
what is it?' she said again, 'Now you mustn't be troubled, I'm not;
it's all for the best. Something ails my right side, I can't move hand
or foot. It must be paralysis. Well, how thankful I should be that I
have had the perfect use of all my faculties, limbs, and senses for
sixty-eight years! And now, if they are to be taken from me, I shall
have it always to be grateful for that I have had them so long. Why, I
do think I am grateful for _this_, too. Come, let us be grateful
together.' Her half-palsied husband could respond only in weakest
words to the appeal of his unpalsied wife. While exulting in the
sublime triumph of her spirit over the stroke that felled her, well
might he feel abashed, as he did, to find that, in such a strait, he
was so poor a help to her who, in all his straits, had been such a
help to him. After a pause she added: 'Oh, possibly it is only the
effect of my being so tired out last night. Why, it seems to me I was
never half so tired. I wonder if a hard rubbing of your strong hands
mightn't throw it off.' Long and strongly he plied with friction the
parts affected, but no muscle responded. All seemed dead to volition
and motion. Though thus crippled in a moment, she insisted upon
rising, that she might be ready for breakfast at the usual hour. As
the process of dressing went on, she playfully enlivened it thus:
'Well, here I am a baby again; have to be dressed and fed, perhaps
lugged round in arms or trundled in a wheel-chair, taught to walk on
one foot, and sew and darn stockings with my left hand. Plenty of new
lessons to learn that will keep me busy. See what a chance I have to
learn patience! The dear Father knew just what I needed,' etc.
"Soon after breakfast she gave herself a lesson in writing with her
left hand, stopping often, as she slowly scrawled on, to laugh at her
'quail tracks.' After three months of tireless persistence, she
partially recovered the use of her paralyzed muscles, so that she
could write, sew, knit, wipe dishes, and sweep, and do 'very
shabbily,' as she insisted, almost everything that she had done
before.
"During the six years that remained of her life here, she had what
seemed to be two other slight shocks of paralysis,--one about three
years after the first, and the other only three weeks before her
death. This last was manifest in the sudden sinking of her bodily
powers, preeminently those of speech. During all those years she
looked upon herself as 'a soldier hourly awaiting orders,' often
saying with her good-night kiss, 'May be this will be the last
_here_,' or, 'Perhaps I shall send back my next from the other shore;'
or, 'The dear Father may call me from you before morning;' or,
'Perhaps when I wake, it may be in a morning that has no night; then I
can help you more than I can now.'
"Many letters received asked for her latest views and feelings about
death and the life beyond,--as one expressed it, when she was
entering the dark valley.' The 'valley' she saw, but no darkness,
neither night nor shadow; all was light and peace. On the future life
she had pondered much, but ever with a trust absolute and an abounding
cheer. Fear, doubt, anxiety, suspense, she knew nothing of; none of
them had power to mar her peace or jostle her conviction. While she
could speak, she expressed the utmost gratitude that the dear Father
was loosening the cords of life so gently that she had no pain.
"When her speech failed, after a sinking in which she seemed dying,
she strove to let us know that _she knew it_ by trying to speak the
word 'death.' Divining her thought, I said, 'Is it death?' Then in a
kind of convulsive outburst came, 'Death, death!' Thinking that she
was right, that it was indeed to her death _begun_, of what _could_
die, thus _dating_ her life immortal, I said, 'No, oh no! not death,
but life immortal.' She instantly caught my meaning, and cried out,
'Life eternal! E--ter--nal life.' She soon sank into a gentle sleep
for hours. When she awoke, what seemed that fatal sinking had passed.
"One night, while watching with her, after she had been a long time
quietly sleeping, she seemed to be in pain, and began to toss
excitedly. It was soon plain that what seemed bodily pain was mental
anguish. She began to talk earnestly in mingled tones of pathos and
strong remonstrance. She was back again among the scenes of childhood,
talking upon slavery. At first, only words could be caught here and
there, but enough to show that she was living over again the old
horrors, and remonstrating with slave-holders upon the wrongs of
slavery. Then came passages of Scripture, their most telling words
given with strong emphasis, the others indistinctly; some in tones of
solemn rebuke, others in those of heart-broken pathos, but most
distinctly audible in detached fragments. There was one exception,--a
few words uttered brokenly, with a half-explosive force, from James 5:
4: 'The--hire--of--the--laborers,--kept--back--by--fraud,
--crieth:--and--the--cries--are--in--the--ears--of--the--Lord.'...
"As we stood around her, straining to catch again some fragmentary
word, she would turn her eyes upon our faces, one by one, as though
lovingly piercing our inmost; but though all speech failed, the
intense longing of that look outspoke all words....
"Then there was again a vain struggle to speak, but no words came!
Only abortive sounds painfully shattered! How precious those unborn
words! Oh, that we knew them!"
Thus quietly, peacefully, almost joyfully, the life forces of the worn
and weary toiler weakened day by day, until, on the 26th of October,
1879, the great Husbandman called her from her labors at last. She
lived the life and died the death of a saint.
Who shall dare to say when and where the echoes of her soul died away?
Not in vain such lives as hers and her beloved sister's. They take
their place with those of the heroes of the world, great among the
greatest.
One last thing I must mention, as strongly illustrative of Angelina's
modesty, and that shrinking from any praise of man which was such a
marked trait in her character. She never voluntarily alluded to any
act of hers which would be likely to draw upon her commendatory
notice, even from the members of her own family, and in her charities
she followed out as far as possible the Bible injunction: "When thou
doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."
Her husband relates the following:--
"In November, 1839, in making provision for the _then_ to her not
improbable contingency of sudden death, Angelina prepared a
communication to her husband, filled with details concerning
themselves alone. This was enclosed in a sealed envelope, with
directions that it should be opened only after her death. When, a few
days after her decease, he broke the seal, he found, among many
details, this item: 'I also leave to thee the _liability_ of being
called upon eventually to support in part four emancipated slaves in
Charleston, S.C., whose freedom I have been instrumental in obtaining.'"
It is plain from the wording of the letter that she had never stated
the fact to him. She lived forty years after writing it and putting it
under seal; and yet, during all those years, she never gave him the
least intimation of her having freed those four slaves and contributed
to their support, as she had done. Even Sarah could not have known
anything of it. Her brother Henry, to whom the bill of sale was made
out, as they could not be legally emancipated, was probably the only
person who was aware of her generous act. He became technically their
owner, responsible for them to the State, but left them free to live
and work for themselves as they pleased.
Angelina's funeral took place on the 29th of October, and to it came
many old friends and veteran co-workers in the anti-slavery cause. The
services were in keeping with the record of the life they commemorated.
They were opened by that beautiful chant, "Thy will be done," followed
by a touching prayer from the Rev. Mr. Morrison, who then briefly
sketched the life of her who lay so still and beautiful before them. He
was followed by Elizur Wright, who, overcome by the memories with which
she was identified, memories of struggles, trials, perils, and triumphs,
that he stood for a moment unable to speak. Then, only partially
conquering his emotion, he told of what she did and what she was in
those times which tried the souls of the stoutest. "There is," said he,
"the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. There is the
courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's mouth, coolly
pressing forward amid engines of destruction on every side. But hers
was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced death at the
hands of stealthy assassins and howling mobs, in her loyalty to truth,
duty, and humanity, but she encountered unflinchingly the awful frowns
of the mighty consecrated leaders of society, the scoffs and sneers of
the multitude, the outstretched finger of scorn, and the whispered
mockery of pity, standing up for the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the
very bosom of slavery, by her own observation and thought, of one thing
she became certain,--that it was a false, cruel, accursed relation
between human beings. And to this conviction, from the very budding of
her womanhood, she was true; not the fear of poverty, obloquy, or death
could induce her to smother it. Neither wealth, nor fame, nor tyrant
fashion, nor all that the high position of her birth had to offer,
could bribe her to abate one syllable of her testimony against the
seductive system.... Let us hope that South Carolina will yet count
this noble, brave, excellent woman above all her past heroes. She it
was, more than all the rest of us put together, who called out what
was good and humane in the Christian church to take the part of the
slave, and deliver the proud State of her birth from the monster that
had preyed on its vitals for a century. I have no fitting words for a
life like hers. With a mind high and deep and broad enough to grasp
the relations of justice and mercy, and a heart warm enough to
sympathize with and cherish all that live, what a home she made! Words
cannot paint it. I saw it in that old stone house, surrounded with its
beautiful garden, at Belleville, on the banks of the Passaic. I saw
it in that busy, bright, and cheery palace of true education at
Eagleswood, New Jersey. I have seen it here, in this Mecca of the wise.
Well done! Oh, well done!"
Mr. Wright was followed by Robert F. Walcutt, Lucy Stone, and Wendell
Phillips.
"The women of to-day," said Lucy Stone, "owe more than they will ever
know to the high courage, the rare insight, and fidelity to principle
of this woman, by whose suffering easy paths have been made for them.
Her example was a bugle-call to all other women. Who can tell how many
have been quickened in a great life purpose by the heroism and
self-forgetting devotion of her whose voice we shall never hear again,
but who, 'being dead, yet speaketh.'"
The remarks of Wendell Phillips were peculiarly affecting, and were
spoken with a tenderness which, for once at least, disproved the
assertion that his eloquence was wanting in pathos.
"Friends," he said, "this life carries us back to the first chapter of
that great movement with which her name is associated,--to 1835, '36,
'37, '38, when our cities roared with riot, when William Lloyd
Garrison was dragged through the streets, when Dresser was mobbed in
Nashville, and Macintosh burned in St. Louis. At that time, the hatred
toward abolitionists was so bitter and merciless that the friends of
Lovejoy left his grave long time unmarked; and at last ventured to
put, with his name, on his tombstone, only this piteous entreaty: _Jam
Parce Sepulto_, 'Spare him now in his grave.'
"As Friend Wright has said, we were but a handful, and our words beat
against the stony public as powerless as if against the north wind. We
got no sympathy from most northern men: their consciences were seared
as with a hot iron. At this time a young woman came from the proudest
State in the slave-holding section. She came to lay on the altar of
this despised cause, this seemingly hopeless crusade, both family and
friends, the best social position, a high place in the church, genius,
and many gifts. No man at this day can know the gratitude we felt for
this help from such an unexpected source. After this[9] came James G.
Birney from the South, and many able and influential men and women
joined us. At last John Brown laid his life, the crowning sacrifice,
on the altar of the cause. But no man who remembers 1837 and its
lowering clouds will deny that there was hardly any contribution to
the anti-slavery movement greater or more impressive than the crusade
of these Grimké sisters through the New England States.
"When I think of Angelina, there comes to me the picture of the
spotless dove in the tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking
for some place to rest her foot. She reminds me of innocence
personified in Spenser's poem. In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she
comforts the slave in his quarters, mentally struggling with the
problems his position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking
something to lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken
reed. No whit disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying
each by the infallible touchstone of that clear, child-like
conscience. The two old, lonely Quakers rest her foot awhile. But the
eager soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North at last, she
makes her own religion one of sacrifice and toil. Breaking away from,
rising above, all forms, the dove floats at last in the blue sky where
no clouds reach.... This is no place for tears. Graciously, in loving
kindness and tenderly, God broke the shackles and freed her soul. It
was not the dust which surrounded her that we loved. It was not the
form which encompassed her that we revere; but it was the soul. We
linger a very little while, her old comrades. The hour comes, it is
even now at the door, that God will open our eyes to see her as she
is: the white-souled child of twelve years old ministering to want and
sorrow; the ripe life, full of great influences; the serene old age,
example and inspiration whose light will not soon go out. Farewell for
a very little while. God keep us fit to join thee in that broader
service on which thou hast entered."
[9] A mistake. James G. Birney was one of the most widely known and
influential leaders in the abolition cause at the time Angelina came
into it.
At the close of Mr. Phillips' remarks a hymn was read and sung,
followed by a fervent prayer from Mr. Morrison, when the services
closed with the reading and singing of "Nearer, my God to Thee." Then,
after the last look had been taken, the coffin-lid was softly closed
over the placidly sleeping presence beneath, and the precious form was
borne to Mount Hope, and tenderly lowered to its final resting-place.
There the sisters, inseparable in life, lie side by side next the
"Evergreen Path," in that "dreamless realm of silence."
A friend, describing the funeral, says:--
"The funeral services throughout wore no air of gloom. That sombre
crape shrouded no one with its dismal tokens. The light of a glorious
autumn day streamed in through uncurtained windows. It was not a house
of mourning,--no sad word said, no look of sorrow worn. The tears that
freely fell were not of grief, but tears of yearning love, of
sympathy, of solemn joy and gratitude to God for such a life in its
rounded completeness, such an example and testimony, such fidelity to
conscience, such recoil from all self-seeking, such unswerving
devotion to duty, come what might of peril or loss, even unto death."
Florence Nightingale, writing of a woman whose life, like the lives of
Sarah and Angelina Grimké, had been devoted to the service of the
poor, the weak, the oppressed, says at the close:--
"This is not an _in memoriam_, it is a war-cry such as she would have
bid me write,--a cry for others to fill her place, to fill up the
ranks, and fight the good fight against sin and vice and misery and
wretchedness as she did,--the call to arms such as she was ever ready
to obey."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Grimké Sisters, by Catherine H. Birney