that indeed, out of their peculiar province, and apart from the routine

of their vocation, they have become the most thorough sceptics and

unbelievers among us. Yet it must be owned that, if they have not the

marvellous themselves, they are the cause of it in others. In certain

states of mind, the very sight of a clergyman in his sombre professional

garb is sufficient to awaken all the wonderful within us. Imagination

goes wandering back to the subtle priesthood of mysterious Egypt. We

think of Jannes and Jambres; of the Persian magi; dim oak groves, with

Druid altars, and priests, and victims, rise before us. For what is the

priest even of our New England but a living testimony to the truth of the

supernatural and the reality of the unseen,--a man of mystery, walking in

the shadow of the ideal world,--by profession an expounder of spiritual

wonders? Laugh he may at the old tales of astrology and witchcraft and

demoniacal possession; but does he not believe and bear testimony to his

faith in the reality of that dark essence which Scripture more than hints

at, which has modified more or less all the religious systems and

speculations of the heathen world,--the Ahriman of the Parsee, the Typhon

of the Egyptian, the Pluto of the Roman mythology, the Devil of Jew,

Christian, and Mussulman, the Machinito of the Indian,--evil in the

universe of goodness, darkness in the light of divine intelligence,--in

itself the great and crowning mystery from which by no unnatural process

of imagination may be deduced everything which our forefathers believed

of the spiritual world and supernatural agency? That fearful being with

his tributaries and agents,--"the Devil and his angels,"--how awfully he

rises before us in the brief outline limning of the sacred writers! How

he glooms, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent," on the immortal canvas

of Milton and Dante! What a note of horror does his name throw into the

sweet Sabbath psalmody of our churches. What strange, dark fancies are

connected with the very language of common-law indictments, when grand

juries find under oath that the offence complained of has been committed

"at the instigation of the Devil"!

How hardly effaced are the impressions of childhood! Even at this day,

at the mention of the evil angel, an image rises before me like that with

which I used especially to horrify myself in an old copy of Pilgrim's

Progress. Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal

extremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him, illustrating the

tremendous encounter of Christian in the valley where "Apollyon straddled

over the whole breadth of the way." There was another print of the enemy

which made no slight impression upon me. It was the frontispiece of an

old, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet, the property of an elderly lady,

(who had a fine collection of similar wonders, wherewith she was kind

enough to edify her young visitors,) containing a solemn account of the

fate of a wicked dancing-party in New Jersey, whose irreverent

declaration, that they would have a fiddler if they had to send to the

lower regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who forthwith

commenced playing, while the company danced to the music incessantly,

without the power to suspend their exercise, until their feet and legs

were worn off to the knees! The rude wood-cut represented the demon

fiddler and his agonized companions literally stumping it up and down in

"cotillons, jigs, strathspeys, and reels." He would have answered very

well to the description of the infernal piper in Tam O'Shanter.

To this popular notion of the impersonation of the principle of evil we

are doubtless indebted for the whole dark legacy of witchcraft and

possession. Failing in our efforts to solve the problem of the origin of

evil, we fall back upon the idea of a malignant being,--the antagonism of

good. Of this mysterious and dreadful personification we find ourselves

constrained to speak with a degree of that awe and reverence which are

always associated with undefined power and the ability to harm. "The

Devil," says an old writer, "is a dignity, though his glory be somewhat

faded and wan, and is to be spoken of accordingly."

The evil principle of Zoroaster was from eternity self-created and

existent, and some of the early Christian sects held the same opinion.

The gospel, however, affords no countenance to this notion of a divided

sovereignty of the universe. The Divine Teacher, it is true, in

discoursing of evil, made use of the language prevalent in His time, and

which was adapted to the gross conceptions of His Jewish bearers; but He

nowhere presents the embodiment of sin as an antagonism to the absolute

power and perfect goodness of God, of whom, and through whom, and to whom

are all things. Pure himself, He can create nothing impure. Evil,

therefore, has no eternity in the past. The fact of its present actual

existence is indeed strongly stated; and it is not given us to understand

the secret of that divine alchemy whereby pain, and sin, and discord

become the means to beneficent ends worthy of the revealed attributes of

the Infinite Parent. Unsolved by human reason or philosophy, the dark

mystery remains to baffle the generations of men; and only to the eye of

humble and childlike faith can it ever be reconciled to the purity,

justice, and mercy of Him who is "light, and in whom is no darkness at

all."

"Do you not believe in the Devil?" some one once asked the Non-conformist

Robinson. "I believe in God," was the reply; "don't you?"

Henry of Nettesheim says "that it is unanimously maintained that devils

do wander up and down in the earth; but what they are, or how they are,

ecclesiasticals have not clearly expounded." Origen, in his Platonic

speculations on this subject, supposed them to be spirits who, by

repentance, might be restored, that in the end all knees might be bowed

to the Father of spirits, and He become all in all. Justin Martyr was of

the opinion that many of them still hoped for their salvation; and the

Cabalists held that this hope of theirs was well founded. One is

irresistibly reminded here of the closing verse of the _Address to the

Deil_, by Burns:--

"But fare ye weel, Auld Nickie ben!

Gin ye wad take a thought and mend,

Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--

Still has a stake

I'm was to think upon yon den

Fen for your sake."

The old schoolmen and fathers seem to agree that the Devil and his

ministers have bodies in some sort material, subject to passions and

liable to injury and pain. Origen has a curious notion that any evil

spirit who, in a contest with a human being, is defeated, loses from

thenceforth all his power of mischief, and may be compared to a wasp who

has lost his sting.

"The Devil," said Samson Occum, the famous Indian preacher, in a

discourse on temperance, "is a gentleman, and never drinks."

Nevertheless it is a remarkable fact, and worthy of the serious

consideration of all who "tarry long at the wine," that, in that state of

the drunkard's malady known as delirium tremens, the adversary, in some

shape or other, is generally visible to the sufferers, or at least, as

Winslow says of the Powahs, "he appeareth more familiarly to them than to

others." I recollect a statement made to me by a gentleman who has had

bitter experience of the evils of intemperance, and who is at this time

devoting his fine talents to the cause of philanthropy and mercy, as the

editor of one of our best temperance journals, which left a most vivid

impression on my mind. He had just returned from a sea-voyage; and, for

the sake of enjoying a debauch, unmolested by his friends, took up his

abode in a rum-selling tavern in a somewhat lonely location on the

seaboard. Here he drank for many days without stint, keeping himself the

whole time in a state of semi-intoxication. One night he stood leaning

against a tree, looking listlessly and vacantly out upon the ocean; the

waves breaking on the beach, and the white sails of passing vessels

vaguely impressing him like the pictures of a dream. He was startled by

a voice whispering hoarsely in his ear, _"You have murdered a man; the

officers of justice are after you; you must fly for your life!"_ Every

syllable was pronounced slowly and separately; and there was something in

the hoarse, gasping sound of the whisper which was indescribably

dreadful. He looked around him, and seeing nothing but the clear

moonlight on the grass, became partially sensible that he was the victim

of illusion, and a sudden fear of insanity thrilled him with a momentary

horror. Rallying himself, he returned to the tavern, drank another glass

of brandy, and retired to his chamber. He had scarcely lain his head on

the pillow when he heard that hoarse, low, but terribly distinct whisper,

repeating the same words. He describes his sensations at this time as

inconceivably fearful. Reason was struggling with insanity; but amidst

the confusion and mad disorder one terrible thought evolved itself. Had

he not, in a moment of mad frenzy of which his memory made no record,

actually murdered some one? And was not this a warning from Heaven?

Leaving his bed and opening his door, he heard the words again repeated,

with the addition, in a tone of intense earnestness, "Follow me!" He

walked forward in the direction of the sound, through a long entry, to

the head of the staircase, where he paused for a moment, when again he

heard the whisper, half-way down the stairs, "Follow me!"

Trembling with terror, he passed down two flights of stairs, and found

himself treading on the cold brick floor of a large room in the basement,

or cellar, where he had never been before. The voice still beckoned him

onward; and, groping after it, his hand touched an upright post, against

which he leaned for a moment. He heard it again, apparently only two or

three yards in front of him "You have murdered a man; the officers are

close behind you; follow me!" Putting one foot forward while his hand

still grasped the post, it fell upon empty air, and he with difficulty

recovered himself. Stooping down and feeling with his hands, he found

himself on the very edge of a large uncovered cistern, or tank, filled

nearly to the top with water. The sudden shock of this discovery broke

the horrible enchantment. The whisperer was silent. He believed, at the

time, that he had been the subject, and well-nigh the victim, of a

diabolical delusion; and he states that, even now, with the recollection

of that strange whisper is always associated a thought of the universal

tempter.

Our worthy ancestors were, in their own view of the matter, the advance

guard and forlorn hope of Christendom in its contest with the bad angel.

The New World, into which they had so valiantly pushed the outposts of

the Church militant, was to them, not God's world, but the Devil's. They

stood there on their little patch of sanctified territory like the

gamekeeper of Der Freischutz in the charmed circle; within were prayer

and fasting, unmelodious psalmody and solemn hewing of heretics, "before

the Lord in Gilgal;" without were "dogs and sorcerers, red children of

perdition, Powah wizards," and "the foul fiend." In their grand old

wilderness, broken by fair, broad rivers and dotted with loveliest lakes,

hanging with festoons of leaf, and vine, and flower, the steep sides of

mountains whose naked tops rose over the surrounding verdure like altars

of a giant world,--with its early summer greenness and the many-colored

wonder of its autumn, all glowing as if the rainbows of a summer shower

had fallen upon it, under the clear, rich light of a sun to which the

misty day of their cold island was as moonlight,--they saw no beauty,

they recognized no holy revelation. It was to them terrible as the

forest which Dante traversed on his way to the world of pain. Every

advance step they made was upon the enemy's territory. And one has only

to read the writings of the two Mathers to perceive that that enemy was

to them no metaphysical abstraction, no scholastic definition, no figment

of a poetical fancy, but a living, active reality, alternating between

the sublimest possibilities of evil and the lowest details of mean

mischief; now a "tricksy spirit," disturbing the good-wife's platters or

soiling her newwashed linen, and anon riding the storm-cloud and pointing

its thunder-bolts; for, as the elder Mather pertinently inquires, "how

else is it that our meeting-houses are burned by the lightning?" What

was it, for instance, but his subtlety which, speaking through the lips

of Madame Hutchinson, confuted the "judges of Israel" and put to their

wits' end the godly ministers of the Puritan Zion? Was not his evil

finger manifested in the contumacious heresy of Roger Williams? Who else

gave the Jesuit missionaries--locusts from the pit as they were--such a

hold on the affections of those very savages who would not have scrupled

to hang the scalp of pious Father Wilson himself from their girdles? To

the vigilant eye of Puritanism was he not alike discernible in the light

wantonness of the May-pole revellers, beating time with the cloven foot

to the vain music of obscene dances, and in the silent, hat-canopied

gatherings of the Quakers, "the most melancholy of the sects," as Dr.

Moore calls them? Perilous and glorious was it, under these

circumstances, for such men as Mather and Stoughton to gird up their

stout loins and do battle with the unmeasured, all-surrounding terror.

Let no man lightly estimate their spiritual knight-errantry. The heroes

of old romance, who went about smiting dragons, lopping giants' heads,

and otherwise pleasantly diverting themselves, scarcely deserve mention

in comparison with our New England champions, who, trusting not to carnal

sword and lance, in a contest with principalities and powers, "spirits

that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man,"--

encountered their enemies with weapons forged by the stern spiritual

armorer of Geneva. The life of Cotton Mather is as full of romance as

the legends of Ariosto or the tales of Beltenebros and Florisando in

Amadis de Gaul. All about him was enchanted ground; devils glared on him

in his "closet wrestlings;" portents blazed in the heavens above him;

while he, commissioned and set apart as the watcher, and warder, and

spiritual champion of "the chosen people," stood ever ready for battle,

with open eye and quick ear for the detection of the subtle approaches of

the enemy. No wonder is it that the spirits of evil combined against

him; that they beset him as they did of old St. Anthony; that they shut

up the bowels of the General Court against his long-cherished hope of the

presidency of Old Harvard; that they even had the audacity to lay hands

on his anti-diabolical manuscripts, or that "ye divil that was in ye girl

flewe at and tore" his grand sermon against witches. How edifying is his

account of the young bewitched maiden whom he kept in his house for the

purpose of making experiments which should satisfy all "obstinate

Sadducees"! How satisfactory to orthodoxy and confounding to heresy is

the nice discrimination of "ye divil in ye girl," who was choked in

attempting to read the Catechism, yet found no trouble with a pestilent

Quaker pamphlet; who was quiet and good-humored when the worthy Doctor

was idle, but went into paroxysms of rage when he sat down to indite his

diatribes against witches and familiar spirits!

(The Quakers appear to have, at a comparatively early period,

emancipated themselves in a great degree from the grosser

superstitions of their times. William Penn, indeed, had a law in

his colony against witchcraft; but the first trial of a person

suspected of this offence seems to have opened his eyes to its

absurdity. George Fox, judging from one or two passages in his

journal, appears to have held the common opinions of the day on the

subject; yet when confined in Doomsdale dungeon, on being told that

the place was haunted and that the spirits of those who had died

there still walked at night in his room, he replied, "that if all

the spirits and devils in hell were there, he was over them in the

power of God, and feared no such thing."

The enemies of the Quakers, in order to account for the power and

influence of their first preachers, accused them of magic and

sorcery. "The Priest of Wakefield," says George Fox (one trusts he

does not allude to our old friend the Vicar), "raised many wicked

slanders upon me, as that I carried bottles with me and made people

drink, and that made them follow me; that I rode upon a great black

horse, and was seen in one county upon my black horse in one hour,

and in the same hour in another county fourscore miles off." In his

account of the mob which beset him at Walney Island, he says: "When

I came to myself I saw James Lancaster's wife throwing stones at my

face, and her husband lying over me to keep off the blows and

stones; for the people had persuaded her that I had bewitched her

husband."

Cotton Mather attributes the plague of witchcraft in New England in

about an equal degree to the Quakers and Indians. The first of the

sect who visited Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher,--the latter a

young girl,--were seized upon by Deputy-Governor Bellingham, in the

absence of Governor Endicott, and shamefully stripped naked for the

purpose of ascertaining whether they were witches with the Devil's

mark on them. In 1662 Elizabeth Horton and Joan Broksop, two

venerable preachers of the sect, were arrested in Boston, charged by

Governor Endicott with being witches, and carried two days' journey

into the woods, and left to the tender mercies of Indians and

wolves.)

All this is pleasant enough now; we can laugh at the Doctor and his

demons; but little matter of laughter was it to the victims on Salem

Hill; to the prisoners in the jails; to poor Giles Corey, tortured with

planks upon his breast, which forced the tongue from his mouth and his

life from his old, palsied body; to bereaved and quaking families; to a

whole community, priest-ridden and spectresmitten, gasping in the sick

dream of a spiritual nightmare and given over to believe a lie. We may

laugh, for the grotesque is blended with the horrible; but we must also

pity and shudder. The clear-sighted men who confronted that delusion in

its own age, disenchanting, with strong good sense and sharp ridicule,

their spell-bound generation,--the German Wierus, the Italian D'Apone,

the English Scot, and the New England Calef,--deserve high honors as the

benefactors of their race. It is true they were branded through life as

infidels and "damnable Sadducees;" but the truth which they uttered

lived after them, and wrought out its appointed work, for it had a Divine

commission and Godspeed.

"The oracles are dumb;

No voice nor hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;

Apollo from his shrine

Can now no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphus leaving."

Dimmer and dimmer, as the generations pass away, this tremendous terror,

this all-pervading espionage of evil, this active incarnation of

motiveless malignity, presents itself to the imagination. The once

imposing and solemn rite of exorcism has become obsolete in the Church.

Men are no longer, in any quarter of the world, racked or pressed under

planks to extort a confession of diabolical alliance. The heretic now

laughs to scorn the solemn farce of the Church which, in the name of the

All-Merciful, formally delivers him over to Satan. And for the sake of

abused and long-cheated humanity let us rejoice that it is so, when we

consider how for long, weary centuries the millions of professed

Christendom stooped, awestricken, under the yoke of spiritual and

temporal despotism, grinding on from generation to generation in a

despair which had passed complaining, because superstition, in alliance

with tyranny, had filled their upward pathway to freedom with shapes of

terror,--the spectres of God's wrath to the uttermost, the fiend, and

that torment the smoke of which rises forever. Through fear of a Satan

of the future,--a sort of ban-dog of priestcraft, held in its leash and

ready to be let loose upon the disputers of its authority,--our toiling

brothers of past ages have permitted their human taskmasters to convert

God's beautiful world, so adorned and fitted for the peace and happiness

of all, into a great prison-house of suffering, filled with the actual

terrors which the imagination of the old poets gave to the realm of

Rhadamanthus. And hence, while I would not weaken in the slightest

degree the influence of that doctrine of future retribution,--the

accountability of the spirit for the deeds done in the body,--the truth

of which reason, revelation, and conscience unite in attesting as the

necessary result of the preservation in another state of existence of the

soul's individuality and identity, I must, nevertheless, rejoice that the

many are no longer willing to permit the few, for their especial benefit,

to convert our common Father's heritage into a present hell, where, in

return for undeserved suffering and toil uncompensated, they can have

gracious and comfortable assurance of release from a future one. Better

is the fear of the Lord than the fear of the Devil; holier and more

acceptable the obedience of love and reverence than the submission of

slavish terror. The heart which has felt the "beauty of holiness," which

has been in some measure attuned to the divine harmony which now, as of

old in the angel-hymn of the Advent, breathes of "glory to God, peace on

earth, and good-will to men," in the serene atmosphere of that "perfect

love which casteth out fear," smiles at the terrors which throng the sick

dreams of the sensual, which draw aside the nightcurtains of guilt, and

startle with whispers of revenge the oppressor of the poor.

There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque's miniature romances,--_Die

Kohlerfamilie_. The fierce spectre, which rose giant-like, in its

bloodred mantle, before the selfish and mercenary merchant, ever

increasing in size and, terror with the growth of evil and impure thought

in the mind of the latter, subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patient

watchfulness over the heart's purity, became a loving and gentle

visitation of soft light and meekest melody; "a beautiful radiance, at

times hovering and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating the

bushes and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely,

such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt its power

in the depths of his being,--felt it like the mystic breathing of the

Spirit of God."

The excellent Baxter and other pious men of his day deprecated in all

sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and

diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan

and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would

diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to

see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting

against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from

profane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtful

Scripture and still more doubtful tradition in behalf of detected and

convicted superstitions tossed on the sharp horns of ridicule, stretched

on the rack of philosophy, or perishing under the exhausted receiver of

science. A clearer knowledge of the aspirations, capacities, and

necessities of the human soul, and of the revelations which the infinite

Spirit makes to it, not only through the senses by the phenomena of

outward nature, but by that inward and direct communion which, under

different names, has been recognized by the devout and thoughtful of

every religious sect and school of philosophy, would have saved them much

anxious labor and a good deal of reproach withal in their hopeless

championship of error. The witches of Baxter and "the black man" of

Mather have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of

sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled in

its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its star worlds

and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty miracle is still

over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and reverence remain to be the

inheritance of humanity; still are there beautiful repentances and holy

deathbeds; and still over the soul's darkness and confusion rises,

starlike, the great idea of duty. By higher and better influences than

the poor spectres of superstition, man must henceforth be taught to

reverence the Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness,

and sin, and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy

of an overruling Providence,--walking by faith through the shadow and

mystery, and cheered by the remembrance that, whatever may be his

apparent allotment,--

"God's greatness flows around our incompleteness;

Round our restlessness His rest."

It is a sad spectacle to find the glad tidings of the Christian faith and

its "reasonable service" of devotion transformed by fanaticism and

credulity into superstitious terror and wild extravagance; but, if

possible, there is one still sadder. It is that of men in our own time

regarding with satisfaction such evidences of human weakness, and

professing to find in them new proofs of their miserable theory of a

godless universe, and new occasion for sneering at sincere devotion as

cant, and humble reverence as fanaticism. Alas! in comparison with

such, the religious enthusiast, who in the midst of his delusion still

feels that he is indeed a living soul and an heir of immortality, to whom

God speaks from the immensities of His universe, is a sane man. Better

is it, in a life like ours, to be even a howling dervis or a dancing

Shaker, confronting imaginary demons with Thalaba's talisman of faith,

than to lose the consciousness of our own spiritual nature, and look upon

ourselves as mere brute masses of animal organization,--barnacles on a

dead universe; looking into the dull grave with no hope beyond it; earth

gazing into earth, and saying to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to

the worm, "Thou art my sister."

HAMLET AMONG THE GRAVES. (1844.)

AN amiable enthusiast, immortal in his beautiful little romance of Paul

and Virginia, has given us in his Miscellanies a chapter on the Pleasures

of Tombs,--a title singular enough, yet not inappropriate; for the meek-

spirited and sentimental author has given, in his own flowing and

eloquent language, its vindication. "There is," says he, "a voluptuous

melancholy arising from the contemplation of tombs; the result, like

every other attractive sensation, of the harmony of two opposite

principles,--from the sentiment of our fleeting life and that of our

immortality, which unite in view of the last habitation of mankind. A

tomb is a monument erected on the confines of two worlds. It first

presents to us the end of the vain disquietudes of life and the image of

everlasting repose; it afterwards awakens in us the confused sentiment of

a blessed immortality, the probabilities of which grow stronger and

stronger in proportion as the person whose memory is recalled was a

virtuous character.

"It is from this intellectual instinct, therefore, in favor of virtue,

that the tombs of great men inspire us with a veneration so affecting.

From the same sentiment, too, it is that those which contain objects that

have been lovely excite so much pleasing regret; for the attractions of

love arise entirely out of the appearances of virtue. Hence it is that

we are moved at the sight of the small hillock which covers the ashes of

an infant, from the recollection of its innocence; hence it is that we

are melted into tenderness on contemplating the tomb in which is laid to

repose a young female, the delight and the hope of her family by reason

of her virtues. In order to give interest to such monuments, there is no

need of bronzes, marbles, and gildings. The more simple they are, the

more energy they communicate to the sentiment of melancholy. They

produce a more powerful effect when poor rather than rich, antique rather

than modern, with details of misfortune rather than titles of honor, with

the attributes of virtue rather than with those of power. It is in the

country principally that their impression makes itself felt in a very

lively manner. A simple, unornamented grave there causes more tears to

flow than the gaudy splendor of a cathedral interment. There it is that

grief assumes sublimity; it ascends with the aged yews in the churchyard;

it extends with the surrounding hills and plains; it allies itself with

all the effects of Nature,--with the dawning of the morning, with the

murmuring of wind, with the setting of the sun, and with the darkness of

the night."

Not long since I took occasion to visit the cemetery near this city. It

is a beautiful location for a "city of the dead,"--a tract of some forty

or fifty acres on the eastern bank of the Concord, gently undulating, and

covered with a heavy growth of forest-trees, among which the white oak is

conspicuous. The ground beneath has been cleared of undergrowth, and is

marked here and there with monuments and railings enclosing "family

lots." It is a quiet, peaceful spot; the city, with its crowded mills,

its busy streets and teeming life, is hidden from view; not even a

solitary farm-house attracts the eye. All is still and solemn, as befits

the place where man and nature lie down together; where leaves of the

great lifetree, shaken down by death, mingle and moulder with the frosted

foliage of the autumnal forest.

Yet the contrast of busy life is not wanting. The Lowell and Boston

Railroad crosses the river within view of the cemetery; and, standing

there in the silence and shadow, one can see the long trains rushing

along their iron pathway, thronged with living, breathing humanity,--the

young, the beautiful, the gay,--busy, wealth-seeking manhood of middle

years, the child at its mother's knee, the old man with whitened hairs,

hurrying on, on,--car after car,--like the generations of man sweeping

over the track of time to their last 'still resting-place.

It is not the aged and the sad of heart who make this a place of favorite

resort. The young, the buoyant, the light-hearted, come and linger among

these flower-sown graves, watching the sunshine falling in broken light

upon these cold, white marbles, and listening to the song of birds in

these leafy recesses. Beautiful and sweet to the young heart is the

gentle shadow of melancholy which here falls upon it, soothing, yet sad,

--a sentiment midway between joy and sorrow. How true is it, that, in the

language of Wordsworth,--

"In youth we love the darkling lawn,

Brushed by the owlet's wing;

Then evening is preferred to dawn,

And autumn to the spring.

Sad fancies do we then affect,

In luxury of disrespect

To our own prodigal excess

Of too familiar happiness."

The Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, have adorned and decorated

their grave-grounds with shrubs and sweet flowers, as places of popular

resort. The Turks have their graveyards planted with trees, through

which the sun looks in upon the turban stones of the faithful, and

beneath which the relatives of the dead sit in cheerful converse through

the long days of summer, in all the luxurious quiet and happy

indifference of the indolent East. Most of the visitors whom I met at

the Lowell cemetery wore cheerful faces; some sauntered laughingly along,

apparently unaffected by the associations of the place; too full,

perhaps, of life, and energy, and high hope to apply to themselves the

stern and solemn lesson which is taught even by these flower-garlanded

mounds. But, for myself, I confess that I am always awed by the presence

of the dead. I cannot jest above the gravestone. My spirit is silenced

and rebuked before the tremendous mystery of which the grave reminds me,

and involuntarily pays:

"The deep reverence taught of old,

The homage of man's heart to death."

Even Nature's cheerful air, and sun, and birdvoices only serve to remind

me that there are those beneath who have looked on the same green leaves

and sunshine, felt the same soft breeze upon their cheeks, and listened

to the same wild music of the woods for the last time. Then, too, comes

the saddening reflection, to which so many have given expression, that

these trees will put forth their leaves, the slant sunshine still fall

upon green meadows and banks of flowers, and the song of the birds and

the ripple of waters still be heard after our eyes and ears have closed

forever. It is hard for us to realize this. We are so accustomed to

look upon these things as a part of our life environment that it seems

strange that they should survive us. Tennyson, in his exquisite

metaphysical poem of the Two Voices, has given utterance to this

sentiment:--

"Alas! though I should die, I know

That all about the thorn will blow

In tufts of rosy-tinted snow.

"Not less the bee will range her cells,

The furzy prickle fire the dells,

The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

"The pleasures of the tombs!" Undoubtedly, in the language of the

Idumean, seer, there are many who "rejoice exceedingly and are glad when

they can find the grave;" who long for it "as the servant earnestly

desireth the shadow." Rest, rest to the sick heart and the weary brain,

to the long afflicted and the hopeless,--rest on the calm bosom of our

common mother. Welcome to the tired ear, stunned and confused with

life's jarring discords, the everlasting silence; grateful to the weary

eyes which "have seen evil, and not good," the everlasting shadow.

Yet over all hangs the curtain of a deep mystery,--a curtain lifted only

on one side by the hands of those who are passing under its solemn

shadow. No voice speaks to us from beyond it, telling of the unknown

state; no hand from within puts aside the dark drapery to reveal the

mysteries towards which we are all moving. "Man giveth up the ghost; and

where is he?"

Thanks to our Heavenly Father, He has not left us altogether without an

answer to this momentous question. Over the blackness of darkness a

light is shining. The valley of the shadow of death is no longer "a land

of darkness and where the light is as darkness." The presence of a

serene and holy life pervades it. Above its pale tombs and crowded

burial-places, above the wail of despairing humanity, the voice of Him

who awakened life and beauty beneath the grave-clothes of the tomb at

Bethany is heard proclaiming, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." We

know not, it is true, the conditions of our future life; we know not what

it is to pass fromm this state of being to another; but before us in that

dark passage has gone the Man of Nazareth, and the light of His footsteps

lingers in the path. Where He, our Brother in His humanity, our Redeemer

in His divine nature, has gone, let us not fear to follow. He who

ordereth all aright will uphold with His own great arm the frail spirit

when its incarnation is ended; and it may be, that, in language which I

have elsewhere used,

--when Time's veil shall fall asunder,

The soul may know

No fearful change nor sudden wonder,

Nor sink the weight of mystery under,

But with the upward rise and with the vastness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem

No new revealing;

Familiar as our childhood's stream,

Or pleasant memory of a dream,

The loved and cherished past upon the new life stealing.

Serene and mild the untried light

May have its dawning;

As meet in summer's northern night

The evening gray and dawning white,

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

SWEDENBORG (1844.)

THERE are times when, looking only on the surface of things, one is

almost ready to regard Lowell as a sort of sacred city of Mammon,--the

Benares of gain: its huge mills, temples; its crowded dwellings, lodging-

places of disciples and "proselytes within the gate;" its warehouses,

stalls for the sale of relics. A very mean idol-worship, too, unrelieved

by awe and reverence,--a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the

"least-erected spirit that fell from paradise." I grow weary of seeing

man and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse,

answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods over

all. I long at times to hear a voice crying through the streets like

that of one of the old prophets proclaiming the great first truth,--that

the Lord alone is God.

Yet is there not another side to the picture? High over sounding

workshops spires glisten in the sun,--silent fingers pointing heavenward.

The workshops themselves are instinct with other and subtler processes

than cotton-spinning or carpet-weaving. Each human being who watches

beside jack or power loom feels more or less intensely that it is a

solemn thing to live. Here are sin and sorrow, yearnings for lost peace,

outgushing gratitude of forgiven spirits, hopes and fears, which stretch

beyond the horizon of time into eternity. Death is here. The graveyard

utters its warning. Over all bends the eternal heaven in its silence and

mystery. Nature, even here, is mightier than Art, and God is above all.

Underneath the din of labor and the sounds of traffic, a voice, felt

rather than beard, reaches the heart, prompting the same fearful

questions which stirred the soul of the world's oldest poet,--"If a man

die, shall he live again?" "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"

Out of the depths of burdened and weary hearts comes up the agonizing

inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" "Who shall deliver me from the

body of this death?"

As a matter of course, in a city like this, composed of all classes of

our many-sided population, a great variety of religious sects have their

representatives in Lowell. The young city is dotted over with "steeple

houses," most of them of the Yankee order of architecture. The

Episcopalians have a house of worship on Merrimac Street,--a pile of dark

stone, with low Gothic doors and arched windows. A plat of grass lies

between it and the dusty street; and near it stands the dwelling-house

intended for the minister, built of the same material as the church and

surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The attention of the stranger is also

attracted by another consecrated building on the hill slope of

Belvidere,--one of Irving's a "shingle palaces," painted in imitation of

stone,--a great wooden sham, "whelked and horned" with pine spires and

turrets, a sort of whittled representation of the many-beaded beast of

the Apocalypse.

In addition to the established sects which have reared their visible

altars in the City of Spindles, there are many who have not yet marked

the boundaries or set up the pillars and stretched out the curtains of

their sectarian tabernacles; who, in halls and "upper chambers" and in

the solitude of their own homes, keep alive the spirit of devotion, and,

wrapping closely around them the mantles of their order, maintain the

integrity of its peculiarities in the midst of an unbelieving generation.

Not long since, in company with a friend who is a regular attendant, I

visited the little meeting of the disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Passing over Chapel Hill and leaving the city behind us, we reached the

stream which winds through the beautiful woodlands at the Powder Mills

and mingles its waters with the Concord. The hall in which the followers

of the Gothland seer meet is small and plain, with unpainted seats, like

those of "the people called Quakers," and looks out upon the still woods

and that "willowy stream which turns a mill." An organ of small size,

yet, as it seemed to me, vastly out of proportion with the room, filled

the place usually occupied by the pulpit, which was here only a plain

desk, placed modestly by the side of it. The congregation have no

regular preacher, but the exercises of reading the Scriptures, prayers,

and selections from the Book of Worship were conducted by one of the lay

members. A manuscript sermon, by a clergyman of the order in Boston, was

read, and apparently listened to with much interest. It was well written

and deeply imbued with the doctrines of the church. I was impressed by

the gravity and serious earnestness of the little audience. There were

here no circumstances calculated to excite enthusiasm, nothing of the

pomp of religious rites and ceremonies; only a settled conviction of the

truth of the doctrines of their faith could have thus brought them

together. I could scarcely make the fact a reality, as I sat among them,

that here, in the midst of our bare and hard utilities, in the very

centre and heart of our mechanical civilization, were devoted and

undoubting believers in the mysterious and wonderful revelations of the

Swedish prophet,--revelations which look through all external and outward

manifestations to inward realities; which regard all objects in the world

of sense only as the types and symbols of the world of spirit; literally

unmasking the universe and laying bare the profoundest mysteries of life.

The character and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg constitute one of the

puzzles and marvels of metaphysics and psychology. A man remarkable for

his practical activities, an ardent scholar of the exact sciences, versed

in all the arcana of physics, a skilful and inventive mechanician, he has

evolved from the hard and gross materialism of his studies a system of

transcendent spiritualism. From his aggregation of cold and apparently

lifeless practical facts beautiful and wonderful abstractions start forth

like blossoms on the rod of the Levite. A politician and a courtier, a

man of the world, a mathematician engaged in the soberest details of the

science, he has given to the world, in the simplest and most natural

language, a series of speculations upon the great mystery of being:

detailed, matter-of-fact narratives of revelations from the spiritual

world, which at once appall us by their boldness, and excite our wonder

at their extraordinary method, logical accuracy, and perfect consistency.

These remarkable speculations--the workings of a mind in which a powerful

imagination allied itself with superior reasoning faculties, the

marvellous current of whose thought ran only in the diked and guarded

channels of mathematical demonstration--he uniformly speaks of as

"facts." His perceptions of abstractions were so intense that they seem

to have reached that point where thought became sensible to sight as well

as feeling. What he thought, that he saw.

He relates his visions of the spiritual world as he would the incidents

of a walk round his own city of Stockholm. One can almost see him in his

"brown coat and velvet breeches," lifting his "cocked hat" to an angel,

or keeping an unsavory spirit at arm's length with that "gold-headed

cane" which his London host describes as his inseparable companion in

walking. His graphic descriptions have always an air of naturalness and

probability; yet there is a minuteness of detail at times almost

bordering on the ludicrous. In his Memorable Relations he manifests

nothing of the imagination of Milton, overlooking the closed gates of

paradise, or following the "pained fiend" in his flight through chaos;

nothing of Dante's terrible imagery appalls us; we are led on from heaven

to heaven very much as Defoe leads us after his shipwrecked Crusoe. We

can scarcely credit the fact that we are not traversing our lower planet;

and the angels seem vastly like our common acquaintances. We seem to

recognize the "John Smiths," and "Mr. Browns," and "the old familiar

faces" of our mundane habitation. The evil principle in Swedenborg's

picture is, not the colossal and massive horror of the Inferno, nor that

stern wrestler with fate who darkens the canvas of Paradise Lost, but an

aggregation of poor, confused spirits, seeking rest and finding none save

in the unsavory atmosphere of the "falses." These small fry of devils

remind us only of certain unfortunate fellows whom we have known, who

seem incapable of living in good and wholesome society, and who are

manifestly given over to believe a lie. Thus it is that the very

"heavens" and "hells" of the Swedish mystic seem to be "of the earth,

earthy." He brings the spiritual world into close analogy with the

material one.

In this hurried paper I have neither space nor leisure to attempt an

analysis of the great doctrines which underlie the "revelations" of

Swedenborg. His remarkably suggestive books are becoming familiar to the

reading and reflecting portion of the community. They are not unworthy

of study; but, in the language of another, I would say, "Emulate

Swedenborg in his exemplary life, his learning, his virtues, his

independent thought, his desire for wisdom, his love of the good and

true; aim to be his equal, his superior, in these things; but call no man

your master."

THE BETTER LAND. (1844.)

"THE shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution,"

said Charles Lamb, in his reply to Southey's attack upon him in the

Quarterly Review.

He who is infinite in love as well as wisdom has revealed to us the fact

of a future life, and the fearfully important relation in which the

present stands to it. The actual nature and conditions of that life He

has hidden from us,--no chart of the ocean of eternity is given us,--no

celestial guidebook or geography defines, localizes, and prepares us for

the wonders of the spiritual world. Hence imagination has a wide field

for its speculations, which, so long as they do not positively contradict

the revelation of the Scriptures, cannot be disproved.

We naturally enough transfer to our idea of heaven whatever we love and

reverence on earth. Thither the Catholic carries in his fancy the

imposing rites and time-honored solemnities of his worship. There the

Methodist sees his love-feasts and camp-meetings in the groves and by the

still waters and green pastures of the blessed abodes. The Quaker, in

the stillness of his self-communing, remembers that there was "silence in

heaven."

The Churchman, listening to the solemn chant of weal music or the deep

tones of the organ, thinks of the song of the elders and the golden harps

of the New Jerusalem.

The heaven of the northern nations of Europe was a gross and sensual

reflection of the earthly life of a barbarous and brutal people.

The Indians of North America had a vague notion of a sunset land, a

beautiful paradise far in the west, mountains and forests filled with

deer and buffalo, lakes and streams swarming with fishes,--the happy

hunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionary

among the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed a

beautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, on

a high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening,"

says the missionary, "having come home with some cattle which I had been

seeking, I heard some one wailing; and, looking in the direction from

whence I proceeded, I found it to be from the grave near our house. In a

moment after a mourner rose up from a kneeling or lying posture, and,

turning to the setting sun, stretched forth his arms in prayer and

supplication with an intensity and earnestness as though he would detain

the splendid luminary from running his course. With his body leaning

forward and his arms stretched towards the sun, he presented a most

striking figure of sorrow and petition. It was solemnly awful. He

seemed to me to be one of the ancients come forth to teach me how to

pray."

A venerable and worthy New England clergyman, on his death-bed, just

before the close of his life, declared that he was only conscious of an

awfully solemn and intense curiosity to know the great secret of death

and eternity.

The excellent Dr. Nelson, of Missouri, was one who, while on earth,

seemed to live another and higher life in the contemplation of infinite

purity and happiness. A friend once related an incident concerning him

which made a deep impression upon my mind. They had been travelling

through a summer's forenoon in the prairie, and had lain down to rest

beneath a solitary tree. The Doctor lay for a long time, silently

looking upwards through the openings of the boughs into the still

heavens, when he repeated the following lines, in a low tone, as if

communing with himself in view of the wonders he described:--

"O the joys that are there mortal eye bath not seen!

O the songs they sing there, with hosannas between!

O the thrice-blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses!

O brightness on brightness! the pearl gate uncloses!

O white wings of angels! O fields white with roses!

O white tents of peace, where the rapt soul reposes

O the waters so still, and the pastures so green!"

The brief hints afforded us by the sacred writings concerning the better

land are inspiring and beautiful. Eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard,

neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive of the good in

store for the righteous. Heaven is described as a quiet habitation,--a

rest remaining for the people of God. Tears shall be wiped away from all

eyes; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither

shall there be any more pain. To how many death-beds have these words

spoken peace! How many failing hearts have gathered strength from them

to pass through the dark valley of shadows!

Yet we should not forget that "the kingdom of heaven is within;" that it

is the state and affections of the soul, the answer of a good conscience,

the sense of harmony with God, a condition of time as well as of

eternity. What is really momentous and all-important with us is the

present, by which the future is shaped and colored. A mere change of

locality cannot alter the actual and intrinsic qualities of the soul.

Guilt and remorse would make the golden streets of Paradise intolerable

as the burning marl of the infernal abodes; while purity and innocence

would transform hell itself into heaven.

DORA GREEN WELL.

First published as an introduction to an American edition of that

author's _The Patience of Hope_.

THERE are men who, irrespective of the names by which they are called in

the Babel confusion of sects, are endeared to the common heart of

Christendom. Our doors open of their own accord to receive them. For in

them we feel that in some faint degree, and with many limitations, the

Divine is again manifested: something of the Infinite Love shines out of

them; their very garments have healing and fragrance borrowed from the

bloom of Paradise. So of books. There are volumes which perhaps contain

many things, in the matter of doctrine and illustration, to which our

reason does not assent, but which nevertheless seem permeated with a

certain sweetness and savor of life. They have the Divine seal and

imprimatur; they are fragrant with heart's-ease and asphodel; tonic with

the leaves which are for the healing of the nations. The meditations of

the devout monk of Kempen are the common heritage of Catholic and

Protestant; our hearts burn within us as we walk with Augustine under

Numidian fig-trees in the gardens of Verecundus; Feuelon from his

bishop's palace and John Woolman from his tailor's shop speak to us in

the same language. The unknown author of that book which Luther loved

next to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home in

this present age, and in the ultra Protestantism of New England, as in

the heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth century. For such

books know no limitations of time or place; they have the perpetual

freshness and fitness of truth; they speak out of profound experience

heart answers to heart as we read them; the spirit that is in man, and

the inspiration that giveth understanding, bear witness to them. The

bent and stress of their testimony are the same, whether written in this

or a past century, by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation,--

reconcilement to the Divine will through simple faith in the Divine

goodness, and the love of it which must needs follow its recognition, the

life of Christ made our own by self-denial and sacrifice, and the

fellowship of His suffering for the good of others, the indwelling

Spirit, leading into all truth, the Divine Word nigh us, even in our

hearts. They have little to do with creeds, or schemes of doctrine, or

the partial and inadequate plans of salvation invented by human

speculation and ascribed to Him who, it is sufficient to know, is able to

save unto the uttermost all who trust in Him. They insist upon simple

faith and holiness of life, rather than rituals or modes of worship; they

leave the merely formal, ceremonial, and temporal part of religion to

take care of itself, and earnestly seek for the substantial, the

necessary, and the permanent.

With these legacies of devout souls, it seems to me, the little volume

herewith presented is not wholly unworthy of a place. It assumes the

life and power of the gospel as a matter of actual experience; it bears

unmistakable evidence of a realization, on the part of its author, of the

truth, that Christianity is not simply historical and traditional, but

present and permanent, with its roots in the infinite past and its

branches in the infinite future, the eternal spring and growth of Divine

love; not the dying echo of words uttered centuries ago, never to be

repeated, but God's good tidings spoken afresh in every soul,--the

perennial fountain and unstinted outflow of wisdom and goodness, forever

old and forever new. It is a lofty plea for patience, trust, hope, and

holy confidence, under the shadow, as well as in the light, of Christian

experience, whether the cloud seems to rest on the tabernacle, or moves

guidingly forward. It is perhaps too exclusively addressed to those who

minister in the inner sanctuary, to be entirely intelligible to the

vaster number who wait in the outer courts; it overlooks, perhaps, too

much the solidarity and oneness of humanity;' but all who read it will

feel its earnestness, and confess to the singular beauty of its style,

the strong, steady march of its argument, and the wide and varied

learning which illustrates it.

("The good are not so good as I once thought, nor the bad so evil,

and in all there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to

testify for God and holiness, than I once believed."--Baxter.)

To use the language of one of its reviewers in the Scottish press:--

"Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness of

nature here and there shine out from its lines,--a charm wanting which

meditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too,

there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by the

way to legend or picture of the religious past; so that, while you read,

you wander by a clear brook of thought, coining far from the beautiful

hills, and winding away from beneath the sunshine of gladness and beauty

into the dense, mysterious forest of human existence, that loves to sing,

amid the shadow of human darkness and anguish, its music of heavenborn

consolation; bringing, too, its pure waters of cleansing and healing, yet

evermore making its praise of holy affection and gladness; while it is

still haunted by the spirits of prophet, saint, and poet, repeating

snatches of their strains, and is led on, as by a spirit from above, to

join the great river of God's truth. . . .

"This is a book for Christian men, for the quiet hour of holy solitude,

when the heart longs and waits for access to the presence of the Master.

The weary heart that thirsts amidst its conflicts and its toils for

refreshing water will drink eagerly of these sweet and refreshing words.

To thoughtful men and women, especially such as have learnt any of the

patience of hope in the experiences of sorrow and trial, we commend this

little volume most heartily and earnestly."

_The Patience of Hope_ fell into my hands soon after its publication in

Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its

extraordinary richness of language and imagery,--its deep and solemn tone

of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,--

philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the

fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to

eliminate from her highly poetical and imaginative language the subtle

metaphysical verity or phase of religious experience which she seeks to

express, or that they are compelled to pass over, without appropriation,

many things which are nevertheless profoundly suggestive as vague

possibilities of the highest life. All may not be able to find in some

of her Scriptural citations the exact weight and significance so apparent

to her own mind. She startles us, at times, by her novel applications of

familiar texts, by meanings reflected upon them from her own spiritual

intuitions, making the barren Baca of the letter a well. If the

rendering be questionable, the beauty and quaint felicity of illustration

and comparison are unmistakable; and we call to mind Augustine's saying,

that two or more widely varying interpretations of Scripture may be alike

true in themselves considered. "When one saith, Moses meant as I do,'

and another saith, 'Nay, but as I do,' I ask, more reverently, 'Why not

rather as both, if both be true?"

Some minds, for instance, will hesitate to assent to the use of certain

Scriptural passages as evidence that He who is the Light of men, the Way

and the Truth, in the mystery of His economy, designedly "delays,

withdraws, and even hides Himself from those who love and follow Him."

They will prefer to impute spiritual dearth and darkness to human

weakness, to the selfishness which seeks a sign for itself, to evil

imaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or to

some disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodily

infirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Father

to perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the less

because one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words of

Augustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone art

near to those even who remove far from thee. Let them turn and seek

thee, for not as they have forsaken their Creator hast thou forsaken thy

creation." It is only by holding fast the thought of Infinite Goodness,

and interpreting doubtful Scripture and inward spiritual experience by

the light of that central idea, that we can altogether escape the

dreadful conclusion of Pascal, that revelation has been given us in

dubious cipher, contradictory and mystical, in order that some, through

miraculous aid, may understand it to their salvation, and others be

mystified by it to their eternal loss.

I might mention other points of probable divergence between reader and

writer, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse and

hesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to make

one to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or a

Scriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses,

I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, rather

than criticise. The utterances of pious souls, in all ages, are to me

often like fountains in a thirsty land, strengthening and refreshing, yet

not without an after-taste of human frailty and inadequateness, a slight

bitterness of disappointment and unsatisfied quest. Who has not felt at

times that the letter killeth, that prophecies fail, and tongues cease to

edify, and been ready to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ:

"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Let not Moses nor the prophets

speak to me, but speak thou rather, who art the Inspirer and Enlightener

of all. I am weary with reading and hearing many things; let all

teachers hold their peace; let all creatures keep silence: speak thou

alone to me."

The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication,

announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtful

Christians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She has

recently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judge

as Dr. Brown, the author of _Horae Subsecivae_ and _Rab and his Friends_,

thus speaks, in the _North British Review_:--

"Such of our readers--a fast increasing number--as have read and enjoyed

_The Patience of Hope_, listening to the gifted nature which, through

such deep and subtile thought, and through affection and godliness still

deeper and more quick, has charmed and soothed them, will not be

surprised to learn that she is not only poetical, but, what is more, a

poet, and one as true as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, or our own

Cowper; for, with all our admiration of the searching, fearless

speculation, the wonderful power of speaking clearly upon dark and all

but unspeakable subjects, the rich outcome of 'thoughts that wander

through eternity,' which increases every time we take up that wonderful

little book, we confess we were surprised at the kind and the amount of

true poetic _vis_ in these poems, from the same fine and strong hand.

There is a personality and immediateness, a sort of sacredness and

privacy, as if they were overheard rather than read, which gives to these

remarkable productions a charm and a flavor all their own. With no

effort, no consciousness of any end but that of uttering the inmost

thoughts and desires of the heart, they flow out as clear, as living, as

gladdening as the wayside well, coming from out the darkness of the

central depths, filtered into purity by time and travel. The waters are

copious, sometimes to overflowing; but they are always limpid and

unforced, singing their own quiet tune, not saddening, though sometimes

sad, and their darkness not that of obscurity, but of depth, like that of

the deep sea.

"This is not a book to criticise or speak about, and we give no extracts

from the longer, and in this case, we think, the better poems. In

reading this Cardiphonia set to music, we have been often reminded, not

only of Herbert and Vaughan, but of Keble,--a likeness of the spirit, not

of the letter; for if there is any one poet who has given a bent to her

mind, it is Wordsworth,--the greatest of all our century's poets, both in

himself and in his power of making poets."

In the belief that whoever peruses the following pages will be

sufficiently interested in their author to be induced to turn back and

read over again, with renewed pleasure, extracts from her metrical

writings, I copy from the volume so warmly commended a few brief pieces

and extracts from the longer poems.

Here are three sonnets, each a sermon in itself:--

ASCENDING.

They who from mountain-peaks have gazed upon

The wide, illimitable heavens have said,

That, still receding as they climbed, outspread,

The blue vault deepens over them, and, one

By one drawn further back, each starry sun

Shoots down a feebler splendor overhead

So, Saviour, as our mounting spirits, led

Along Faith's living way to Thee, have won

A nearer access, up the difficult track

Still pressing, on that rarer atmosphere,

When low beneath us flits the cloudy rack,

We see Thee drawn within a widening sphere

Of glory, from us further, further back,--

Yet is it then because we are more near.

LIFE TAPESTRY.

Top long have I, methought, with tearful eye

Pored o'er this tangled work of mine, and mused

Above each stitch awry and thread confused;

Now will I think on what in years gone by

I heard of them that weave rare tapestry

At royal looms, and hew they constant use

To work on the rough side, and still peruse

The pictured pattern set above them high;

So will I set my copy high above,

And gaze and gaze till on my spirit grows

Its gracious impress; till some line of love,

Transferred upon my canvas, faintly glows;

Nor look too much on warp or woof, provide

He whom I work for sees their fairer side!

HOPE.

When I do think on thee, sweet Hope, and how

Thou followest on our steps, a coaxing child

Oft chidden hence, yet quickly reconciled,

Still turning on us a glad, beaming brow,

And red, ripe lips for kisses: even now

Thou mindest me of him, the Ruler mild,

Who led God's chosen people through the wild,

And bore with wayward murmurers, meek as thou

That bringest waters from the Rock, with bread

Of angels strewing Earth for us! like him

Thy force abates not, nor thine eye grows dim;

But still with milk and honey-droppings fed,

Thou leadest to the Promised Country fair,

Though thou, like Moses, may'st not enter there

There is something very weird and striking in the following lines:--

GONE.

Alone, at midnight as he knelt, his spirit was aware

Of Somewhat falling in between the silence and the prayer;

A bell's dull clangor that hath sped so far, it faints and dies

So soon as it hath reached the ear whereto its errand lies;

And as he rose up from his knees, his spirit was aware

Of Somewhat, forceful and unseen, that sought to hold him there;

As of a Form that stood behind, and on his shoulders prest

Both hands to stay his rising up, and Somewhat in his breast,

In accents clearer far than words, spake, "Pray yet longer, pray,

For one that ever prayed for thee this night hath passed away;

"A soul, that climbing hour by hour the silver-shining stair

That leads to God's great treasure-house, grew covetous; and there

"Was stored no blessing and no boon, for thee she did not claim,

(So lowly, yet importunate!) and ever with thy name

"She link'd--that none in earth or heaven might hinder it or stay--

One Other Name, so strong, that thine hath never missed its way.

"This very night within my arms this gracious soul I bore Within the

Gate, where many a prayer of hers had gone before;

"And where she resteth, evermore one constant song they raise Of 'Holy,

holy,' so that now I know not if she prays;

"But for the voice of praise in Heaven, a voice of Prayer hath gone

From Earth; thy name upriseth now no more; pray on, pray on!"

The following may serve as a specimen of the writer's lighter, half-

playful strain of moralizing:--

SEEKING.

"And where, and among what pleasant places,

Have ye been, that ye come again

With your laps so full of flowers, and your faces

Like buds blown fresh after rain?"

"We have been," said the children, speaking

In their gladness, as the birds chime,

All together,--"we have been seeking

For the Fairies of olden time;

For we thought, they are only hidden,--

They would never surely go

From this green earth all unbidden,

And the children that love them so.

Though they come not around us leaping,

As they did when they and the world

Were young, we shall find them sleeping

Within some broad leaf curled;

For the lily its white doors closes

But only over the bee,

And we looked through the summer roses,

Leaf by leaf, so carefully.

But we thought, rolled up we shall find them

Among mosses old and dry;

From gossamer threads that bind them,

They will start like the butterfly,

All winged: so we went forth seeking,

Yet still they have kept unseen;

Though we think our feet have been keeping

The track where they have been,

For we saw where their dance went flying

O'er the pastures,--snowy white."

Their seats and their tables lying,

O'erthrown in their sudden flight.

And they, too, have had their losses,

For we found the goblets white

And red in the old spiked mosses,

That they drank from over-night;

And in the pale horn of the woodbine

Was some wine left, clear and bright;

"But we found," said the children, speaking

More quickly, "so many things,

That we soon forgot we were seeking,--

Forgot all the Fairy rings,

Forgot all the stories olden

That we hear round the fire at night,

Of their gifts and their favors golden,--

The sunshine was so bright;

And the flowers,--we found so many

That it almost made us grieve

To think there were some, sweet as any,

That we were forced to leave;

As we left, by the brook-side lying,

The balls of drifted foam,

And brought (after all our trying)

These Guelder-roses home."

"Then, oh!" I heard one speaking

Beside me soft and low,

"I have been, like the blessed children, seeking,

Still seeking, to and fro;

Yet not, like them, for the Fairies,--

They might pass unmourned away

For me, that had looked on angels,--

On angels that would not stay;

No! not though in haste before them

I spread all my heart's best cheer,

And made love my banner o'er them,

If it might but keep them here;

They stayed but a while to rest them;

Long, long before its close,

From my feast, though I mourned and prest them

The radiant guests arose;

And their flitting wings struck sadness

And silence; never more

Hath my soul won back the gladness,

That was its own before.

No; I mourned not for the Fairies

When I had seen hopes decay,

That were sweet unto my spirit

So long; I said, 'If they,

That through shade and sunny weather

Have twined about my heart,

Should fade, we must go together,

For we can never part!'

But my care was not availing;

I found their sweetness gone;

I saw their bright tints paling;--

They died; yet I lived on.

"Yet seeking, ever seeking,

Like the children, I have won

A guerdon all undreamt of

When first my quest begun,

And my thoughts come back like wanderers,

Out-wearied, to my breast;

What they sought for long they found not,

Yet was the Unsought best.

For I sought not out for crosses,

I did not seek for pain;

Yet I find the heart's sore losses

Were the spirit's surest gain."

In _A Meditation_, the writer ventures, not without awe and reverence,

upon that dim, unsounded ocean of mystery, the life beyond:--

"But is there prayer

Within your quiet homes, and is there care

For those ye leave behind? I would address

My spirit to this theme in humbleness

No tongue nor pen hath uttered or made known

This mystery, and thus I do but guess

At clearer types through lowlier patterns shown;

Yet when did Love on earth forsake its own?

Ye may not quit your sweetness; in the Vine

More firmly rooted than of old, your wine

Hath freer flow! ye have not changed, but grown

To fuller stature; though the shock was keen

That severed you from us, how oft below

Hath sorest parting smitten but to show

True hearts their hidden wealth that quickly grow

The closer for that anguish,--friend to friend

Revealed more clear,--and what is Death to rend

The ties of life and love, when He must fade

In light of very Life, when He must bend

To love, that, loving, loveth to the end?

"I do not deem ye look

Upon us now, for be it that your eyes

Are sealed or clear, a burden on them lies

Too deep and blissful for their gaze to brook

Our troubled strife; enough that once ye dwelt

Where now we dwell, enough that once ye felt

As now we feel, to bid you recognize

Our claim of kindred cherished though unseen;

And Love that is to you for eye and ear

Hath ways unknown to us to bring you near,--

To keep you near for all that comes between;

As pious souls that move in sleep to prayer,

As distant friends, that see not, and yet share

(I speak of what I know) each other's care,

So may your spirits blend with ours!

Above Ye know not haply of our state, yet

Love Acquaints you with our need, and through a way

More sure than that of knowledge--so ye pray!

"And even thus we meet,

And even thus we commune! spirits freed

And spirits fettered mingle, nor have need

To seek a common atmosphere, the air

Is meet for either in this olden, sweet,

Primeval breathing of Man's spirit,--Prayer!"

I give, in conclusion, a portion of one of her most characteristic poems,

_The Reconciler_:--

"Our dreams are reconciled,

Since Thou didst come to turn them all to Truth;

The World, the Heart, are dreamers in their youth

Of visions beautiful, and strange and wild;

And Thou, our Life's Interpreter, dost still

At once make clear these visions and fulfil;

Each dim sweet Orphic rhyme,

Each mythic tale sublime

Of strength to save, of sweetness to subdue,

Each morning dream the few,

Wisdom's first lovers told, if read in Thee comes true.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Thou, O Friend

From heaven, that madest this our heart Thine own,

Dost pierce the broken language of its moan--

Thou dost not scorn our needs, but satisfy!

Each yearning deep and wide,

Each claim, is justified;

Our young illusions fail not, though they die

Within the brightness of Thy Rising, kissed

To happy death, like early clouds that lie

About the gates of Dawn,--a golden mist

Paling to blissful white, through rose and amethyst.

"The World that puts Thee by,

That opens not to greet Thee with Thy train,

That sendeth after Thee the sullen cry,

'We will not have Thee over us to reign,'

Itself Both testify through searchings vain

Of Thee and of its need, and for the good

It will not, of some base similitude

Takes up a taunting witness, till its mood,

Grown fierce o'er failing hopes, doth rend and tear

Its own illusions grown too thin and bare

To wrap it longer; for within the gate

Where all must pass, a veiled and hooded Fate,

A dark Chimera, coiled and tangled lies,

And he who answers not its questions dies,--

Still changing form and speech, but with the same

Vexed riddles, Gordian-twisted, bringing shame

Upon the nations that with eager cry

Hail each new solver of the mystery;

Yet he, of these the best,

Bold guesser, hath but prest

Most nigh to Thee, our noisy plaudits wrong;

True Champion, that hast wrought

Our help of old, and brought

Meat from this eater, sweetness from this strong.

"O Bearer of the key

That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet

Its turning in the wards is melody,

All things we move among are incomplete

And vain until we fashion them in Thee!

We labor in the fire,

Thick smoke is round about us; through the din

Of words that darken counsel clamors dire

Ring from thought's beaten anvil, where within

Two Giants toil, that even from their birth

With travail-pangs have torn their mother Earth,

And wearied out her children with their keen

Upbraidings of the other, till between

Thou tamest, saying, 'Wherefore do ye wrong

Each other?--ye are Brethren.' Then these twain

Will own their kindred, and in Thee retain

Their claims in peace, because Thy land is wide

As it is goodly! here they pasture free,

This lion and this leopard, side by side,

A little child doth lead them with a song;

Now, Ephraim's envy ceaseth, and no more

Doth Judah anger Ephraim chiding sore,

For one did ask a Brother, one a King,

So dost Thou gather them in one, and bring--

Thou, King forevermore, forever Priest,

Thou, Brother of our own from bonds released

A Law of Liberty,

A Service making free,

A Commonweal where each has all in Thee.

"And not alone these wide,

Deep-planted yearnings, seeking with a cry

Their meat from God, in Thee are satisfied;

But all our instincts waking suddenly

Within the soul, like infants from their sleep

That stretch their arms into the dark and weep,

Thy voice can still. The stricken heart bereft

Of all its brood of singing hopes, and left

'Mid leafless boughs, a cold, forsaken nest

With snow-flakes in it, folded in Thy breast

Doth lose its deadly chill; and grief that creeps

Unto Thy side for shelter, finding there

The wound's deep cleft, forgets its moan, and weeps

Calm, quiet tears, and on Thy forehead Care

Hath looked until its thorns, no longer bare,

Put forth pale roses. Pain on Thee doth press

Its quivering cheek, and all the weariness,

The want that keep their silence, till from Thee

They hear the gracious summons, none beside

Hath spoken to the world-worn, 'Come to me,'

Tell forth their heavy secrets.

"Thou dost hide

These in Thy bosom, and not these alone,

But all our heart's fond treasure that had grown

A burden else: O Saviour, tears were weighed

To Thee in plenteous measure! none hath shown

That Thou didst smile! yet hast Thou surely made

All joy of ours Thine own.

"Thou madest us for Thine;

We seek amiss, we wander to and fro;

Yet are we ever on the track Divine;

The soul confesseth Thee, but sense is slow

To lean on aught but that which it may see;

So hath it crowded up these Courts below

With dark and broken images of Thee;

Lead Thou us forth upon Thy Mount, and show

Thy goodly patterns, whence these things of old

By Thee were fashioned; One though manifold.

Glass Thou Thy perfect likeness in the soul,

Show us Thy countenance, and we are whole!"

No one, I am quite certain, will regret that I have made these liberal

quotations. Apart from their literary merit, they have a special

interest for the readers of The Patience of Hope, as more fully

illustrating the writer's personal experience and aspirations.

It has been suggested by a friend that it is barely possible that an

objection may be urged against the following treatise, as against all

books of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individual

from his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personal

solicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not take

sufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love of

the neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His life

and teachings. This objection, if valid, would be a fatal one. For, of

a truth, there can be no meaner type of human selfishness than that

afforded by him who, unmindful of the world of sin and suffering about

him, occupies himself in the pitiful business of saving his own soul, in

the very spirit of the miser, watching over his private hoard while his

neighbors starve for lack of bread. But surely the benevolent unrest,

the far-reaching sympathies and keen sensitiveness to the suffering of

others, which so nobly distinguish our present age, can have nothing to

fear from a plea for personal holiness, patience, hope, and resignation

to the Divine will. "The more piety, the more compassion," says Isaac

Taylor; and this is true, if we understand by piety, not self-concentred

asceticism, but the pure religion and undefiled which visits the widow

and the fatherless, and yet keeps itself unspotted from the world,--which

deals justly, loves mercy, and yet walks humbly before God. Self-

scrutiny in the light of truth can do no harm to any one, least of all to

the reformer and philanthropist. The spiritual warrior, like the young

candidate for knighthood, may be none the worse for his preparatory

ordeal of watching all night by his armor.

Tauler in mediaeval times and Woolman in the last century are among the

most earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature of

Christianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevolence.

They did not separate the two great commandments. Tauler strove with

equal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfare

of men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untold

horrors of the "Black Plague," he illustrated by deeds of charity and

mercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole life

was a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monastic

piety which bears the name.

How faithful, yet, withal, how full of kindness, were his rebukes of

those who refused labor its just reward, and ground the faces of the

poor? How deep and entire was his sympathy with overtasked and ill-paid

laborers; with wet and illprovided sailors; with poor wretches

blaspheming in the mines, because oppression had made them mad; with the

dyers plying their unhealthful trade to minister to luxury and pride;

with the tenant wearing out his life in the service of a hard landlord;

and with the slave sighing over his unrequited toil! What a significance

there was in his vision of the "dull, gloomy mass" which appeared before

him, darkening half the heavens, and which he was told was "human beings

in as great misery as they could be and live; and he was mixed with them,

and henceforth he might not consider himself a distinct and separate

being"! His saintliness was wholly unconscious; he seems never to have

thought himself any nearer to the tender heart of God than the most

miserable sinner to whom his compassion extended. As he did not

live, so neither did he die to himself. His prayer upon his death-bed

was for others rather than himself; its beautiful humility and simple

trust were marred by no sensual imagery of crowns and harps and golden

streets, and personal beatific exaltations; but tender and touching

concern for suffering humanity, relieved only by the thought of the

paternity of God, and of His love and omnipotence, alone found utterance

in ever-memorable words.

In view of the troubled state of the country and the intense

preoccupation of the public mind, I have had some hesitation in offering

this volume to its publishers. But, on further reflection, it has seemed

to me that it might supply a want felt by many among us; that, in the

chaos of civil strife and the shadow of mourning which rests over the

land, the contemplation of "things unseen which are eternal" might not be

unwelcome; that, when the foundations of human confidence are shaken, and

the trust in man proves vain, there might be glad listeners to a voice

calling from the outward and the temporal to the inward and the

spiritual; from the troubles and perplexities of time, to the eternal

quietness which God giveth. I cannot but believe that, in the heat and

glare through which we are passing, this book will not invite in vain to

the calm, sweet shadows of holy meditation, grateful as the green wings

of the bird to Thalaba in the desert; and thus afford something of

consolation to the bereaved, and of strength to the weary. For surely

never was the Patience of Hope more needed; never was the inner sanctuary

of prayer more desirable; never was a steadfast faith in the Divine

goodness more indispensable, nor lessons of self-sacrifice and

renunciation, and that cheerful acceptance of known duty which shifts not

its proper responsibility upon others, nor asks for "peace in its day" at

the expense of purity and justice, more timely than now, when the solemn

words of ancient prophecy are as applicable to our own country as to that

of the degenerate Jew,--"Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy

backsliding reprove thee; know, therefore, it is an evil thing, and

bitter, that thou bast forsaken the Lord, and that my fear is not in

thee,"--when "His way is in the deep, in clouds, and in thick darkness,"

and the hand heavy upon us which shall "turn and overturn until he whose

right it is shall reign,"--until, not without rending agony, the evil

plant which our Heavenly Father hath not planted, whose roots have wound

themselves about altar and hearth-stone, and whose branches, like the

tree Al-Accoub in Moslem fable, bear the accursed fruit of oppression,

rebellion, and all imaginable crime, shall be torn up and destroyed

forever.

AMESBURY, 1st 6th mo., 1862.

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

The following letters were addressed to the Editor of the Friends' Review

in Philadelphia, in reference to certain changes of principle and

practice in the Society then beginning to be observable, but which have

since more than justified the writer's fears and solicitude.

I.

AMESBURY, 2d mo., 1870.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REVIEW.

ESTEEMED FRIEND,--If I have been hitherto a silent, I have not been an

indifferent, spectator of the movements now going on in our religious

Society. Perhaps from lack of faith, I have been quite too solicitous

concerning them, and too much afraid that in grasping after new things we

may let go of old things too precious to be lost. Hence I have been

pleased to see from time to time in thy paper very timely and fitting

articles upon a _Hired Ministry_ and _Silent Worship_.

The present age is one of sensation and excitement, of extreme measures

and opinions, of impatience of all slow results. The world about us

moves with accelerated impulse, and we move with it: the rest we have

enjoyed, whether true or false, is broken; the title-deeds of our

opinions, the reason of our practices, are demanded. Our very right to

exist as a distinct society is questioned. Our old literature--the

precious journals and biographies of early and later Friends--is

comparatively neglected for sensational and dogmatic publications. We

bear complaints of a want of educated ministers; the utility of silent

meetings is denied, and praying and preaching regarded as matters of will

and option. There is a growing desire for experimenting upon the dogmas

and expedients and practices of other sects. I speak only of admitted

facts, and not for the purpose of censure or complaint. No one has less

right than myself to indulge in heresy-hunting or impatience of minor

differences of opinion. If my dear friends can bear with me, I shall not

find it a hard task to bear with them.

But for myself I prefer the old ways. With the broadest possible

tolerance for all honest seekers after truth! I love the Society of

Friends. My life has been nearly spent in laboring with those of other

sects in behalf of the suffering and enslaved; and I have never felt like

quarrelling with Orthodox or Unitarians, who were willing to pull with

me, side by side, at the rope of Reform. A very large proportion of my

dearest personal friends are outside of our communion; and I have learned

with John Woolman to find "no narrowness respecting sects and opinions."

But after a kindly and candid survey of them all, I turn to my own

Society, thankful to the Divine Providence which placed me where I am;

and with an unshaken faith in the one distinctive doctrine of Quakerism--

the Light within--the immanence of the Divine Spirit in Christianity. I

cheerfully recognize and bear testimony to the good works and lives of

those who widely differ in faith and practice; but I have seen no truer

types of Christianity, no better men and women, than I have known and

still know among those who not blindly, but intelligently, hold the

doctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am not

blind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost by

narrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of external

observances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting as

conscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been active

enough in those simple duties which we owe to our suffering fellow-

creatures, in that abundant labor of love and self-denial which is never

out of place. Perhaps our divisions and dissensions might have been

spared us if we had been less "at ease in Zion." It is in the decline of

practical righteousness that men are most likely to contend with each

other for dogma and ritual, for shadow and letter, instead of substance

and spirit. Hence I rejoice in every sign of increased activity in doing

good among us, in the precious opportunities afforded of working with the

Divine Providence for the Freedmen and Indians; since the more we do, in

the true spirit of the gospel, for others, the more we shall really do

for ourselves. There is no danger of lack of work for those who, with an

eye single to the guidance of Truth, look for a place in God's vineyard;

the great work which the founders of our Society began is not yet done;

the mission of Friends is not accomplished, and will not be until this

world of ours, now full of sin and suffering, shall take up, in jubilant

thanksgiving, the song of the Advent: "Glory to God in the highest!

Peace on earth and good-will to men!"

It is charged that our Society lacks freedom and adaptation to the age in

which we live, that there is a repression of individuality and manliness

among us. I am not prepared to deny it in certain respects. But, if we

look at the matter closely, we shall see that the cause is not in the

central truth of Quakerism, but in a failure to rightly comprehend it; in

an attempt to fetter with forms and hedge about with dogmas that great

law of Christian liberty, which I believe affords ample scope for the

highest spiritual aspirations and the broadest philanthropy. If we did

but realize it, we are "set in a large place."

"We may do all we will save wickedness."

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Quakerism, in the light of its great original truth, is "exceeding

broad." As interpreted by Penn and Barclay it is the most liberal and

catholic of faiths. If we are not free, generous, tolerant, if we are

not up to or above the level of the age in good works, in culture and

love of beauty, order and fitness, if we are not the ready recipients of

the truths of science and philosophy,--in a word, if we are not full-

grown men and Christians, the fault is not in Quakerism, but in

ourselves. We shall gain nothing by aping the customs and trying to

adjust ourselves to the creeds of other sects. By so doing we make at

the best a very awkward combination, and just as far as it is successful,

it is at the expense of much that is vital in our old faith. If, for

instance, I could bring myself to believe a hired ministry and a written

creed essential to my moral and spiritual well-being, I think I should

prefer to sit down at once under such teachers as Bushnell and Beecher,

the like of whom in Biblical knowledge, ecclesiastical learning, and

intellectual power, we are not likely to manufacture by half a century of

theological manipulation in a Quaker "school of the prophets." If I must

go into the market and buy my preaching, I should naturally seek the best

article on sale, without regard to the label attached to it.

I am not insensible of the need of spiritual renovation in our Society.

I feel and confess my own deficiencies as an individual member. And I

bear a willing testimony to the zeal and devotion of some dear friends,

who, lamenting the low condition and worldliness too apparent among us,

seek to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of the

practices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. The great

apparent activity of these sects seems to them to contrast very strongly

with our quietness and reticence; and they do not always pause to inquire

whether the result of this activity is a truer type of practical

Christianity than is found in our select gatherings. I think I

understand these brethren; to some extent I have sympathized with them.

But it seems clear to me, that a remedy for the alleged evil lies not in

going back to the "beggarly elements" from which our worthy ancestors

called the people of their generation; not in will-worship; not in

setting the letter above the spirit; not in substituting type and symbol,

and oriental figure and hyperbole for the simple truths they were

intended to represent; not in schools of theology; not in much speaking

and noise and vehemence, nor in vain attempts to make the "plain

language" of Quakerism utter the Shibboleth of man-made creeds: but in

heeding more closely the Inward Guide and Teacher; in faith in Christ not

merely in His historical manifestation of the Divine Love to humanity,

but in His living presence in the hearts open to receive Him; in love for

Him manifested in denial of self, in charity and love to our neighbor;

and in a deeper realization of the truth of the apostle's declaration:

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit

the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself

unspotted from the world."

In conclusion, let me say that I have given this expression of my

opinions with some degree of hesitation, being very sensible that I have

neither the right nor the qualification to speak for a society whose

doctrines and testimonies commend themselves to my heart and head, whose

history is rich with the precious legacy of holy lives, and of whose

usefulness as a moral and spiritual Force in the world I am fully

assured.

II.

Having received several letters from dear friends in various sections

suggested by a recent communication in thy paper, and not having time or

health to answer them in detail, will thou permit me in this way to

acknowledge them, and to say to the writers that I am deeply sensible of

the Christian love and personal good-will to myself, which, whether in

commendation or dissent, they manifest? I think I may say in truth that

my letter was written in no sectarian or party spirit, but simply to

express a solicitude, which, whether groundless or not, was nevertheless

real. I am, from principle, disinclined to doctrinal disputations and

so-called religious controversies, which only tend to separate and

disunite. We have had too many divisions already. I intended no censure

of dear brethren whose zeal and devotion command my sympathy,

notwithstanding I may not be able to see with them in all respects. The

domain of individual conscience is to me very sacred; and it seems the

part of Christian charity to make a large allowance for varying

experiences; mental characteristics, and temperaments, as well as for

that youthful enthusiasm which, if sometimes misdirected, has often been

instrumental in infusing a fresher life into the body of religious

profession. It is too much to expect that we can maintain an entire

uniformity in the expression of truths in which we substantially agree;

and we should be careful that a rightful concern for "the form of sound

words" does not become what William Penn calls "verbal orthodoxy." We

must consider that the same accepted truth looks somewhat differently

from different points of vision. Knowing our own weaknesses and

limitations, we must bear in mind that human creeds, speculations,

expositions, and interpretations of the Divine plan are but the faint and

feeble glimpses of finite creatures into the infinite mysteries of God.

"They are but broken lights of Thee,

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."

Differing, as we do, more or less as to means and methods, if we indeed

have the "mind of Christ," we shall rejoice in whatever of good is really

accomplished, although by somewhat different instrumentalities than those

which we feel ourselves free to make use of, remembering that our Lord

rebuked the narrowness and partisanship of His disciples by assuring them

that they that were not against Him were for Him.

It would, nevertheless, give me great satisfaction to know, as thy kindly

expressed editorial comments seem to intimate, that I have somewhat

overestimated the tendencies of things in our Society. I have no pride

of opinion which would prevent me from confessing with thankfulness my

error of judgment. In any event, it can, I think, do no harm to repeat

my deep conviction that we may all labor, in the ability given us, for

our own moral and spiritual well-being, and that of our fellow-creatures,

without laying aside the principles and practice of our religious

Society. I believe so much of liberty is our right as well as our

privilege, and that we need not really overstep our bounds for the

performance of any duty which may be required of us. When truly called

to contemplate broader fields of labor, we shall find the walls about us,

like the horizon seen from higher levels, expanding indeed, but nowhere

broken.

I believe that the world needs the Society of Friends as a testimony and

a standard. I know that this is the opinion of some of the best and most

thoughtful members of other Christian sects. I know that any serious

departure from the original foundation of our Society would give pain to

many who, outside of our communion, deeply realize the importance of our

testimonies. They fail to read clearly the signs of the times who do not

see that the hour is coming when, under the searching eye of philosophy

and the terrible analysis of science, the letter and the outward evidence

will not altogether avail us; when the surest dependence must be upon the

Light of Christ within, disclosing the law and the prophets in our own

souls, and confirming the truth of outward Scripture by inward

experience; when smooth stones from the brook of present revelation

shall' prove mightier than the weapons of Saul; when the doctrine of the

Holy Spirit, as proclaimed by George Fox and lived by John Woolman, shall

be recognized as the only efficient solvent of doubts raised by an age of

restless inquiry. In this belief my letter was written. I am sorry it

did not fall to the lot of a more fitting hand; and can only hope that no

consideration of lack of qualification on the part of its writer may

lessen the value of whatever testimony to truth shall be found in it.

AMESBURY, 3d mo., 1870.

P. S. I may mention that I have been somewhat encouraged by a perusal of

the Proceedings of the late First-day School Conference in Philadelphia,

where, with some things which I am compelled to pause over, and regret, I

find much with which I cordially unite, and which seems to indicate a

providential opening for good. I confess to a lively and tender sympathy

with my younger brethren and sisters who, in the name of Him who "went

about doing good," go forth into the highways and byways to gather up the

lost, feed the hungry, instruct the ignorant, and point the sinsick and

suffering to the hopes and consolations of Christian faith, even if, at

times, their zeal goes beyond "reasonable service," and although the

importance of a particular instrumentality may be exaggerated, and love

lose sight of its needful companion humility, and he that putteth on his

armor boast like him who layeth it off. Any movement, however irregular,

which indicates life, is better than the quiet of death. In the

overruling providence of God, the troubling may prepare the way for

healing. Some of us may have erred on one hand and some on the other,

and this shaking of the balance may adjust it.

JOHN WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL.

Originally published as an introduction to a reissue of the work.

To those who judge by the outward appearance, nothing is more difficult

of explanation than the strength of moral influence often exerted by

obscure and uneventful lives. Some great reform which lifts the world to

a higher level, some mighty change for which the ages have waited in

anxious expectancy, takes place before our eyes, and, in seeking to trace

it back to its origin, we are often surprised to find the initial link in

the chain of causes to be some comparatively obscure individual, the

divine commission and significance of whose life were scarcely understood

by his contemporaries, and perhaps not even by himself. The little one

has become a thousand; the handful of corn shakes like Lebanon. "The

kingdom of God cometh not by observation;" and the only solution of the

mystery is in the reflection that through the humble instrumentality

Divine power was manifested, and that the Everlasting Arm was beneath the

human one.

The abolition of human slavery now in process of consummation throughout

the world furnishes one of the most striking illustrations of this truth.

A far-reaching moral, social, and political revolution, undoing the evil

work of centuries, unquestionably owes much of its original impulse to

the life and labors of a poor, unlearned workingman of New Jersey, whose

very existence was scarcely known beyond the narrow circle of his

religious society.

It is only within a comparatively recent period that the journal and

ethical essays of this remarkable man have attracted the attention to

which they are manifestly entitled. In one of my last interviews with

William Ellery Channing, he expressed his very great surprise that they

were so little known. He had himself just read the book for the first

time, and I shall never forget how his countenance lighted up as he

pronounced it beyond comparison the sweetest and purest autobiography in

the language. He wished to see it placed within the reach of all classes

of readers; it was not a light to be hidden under the bushel of a sect.

Charles Lamb, probably from his friends, the Clarksons, or from Bernard

Barton, became acquainted with it, and on more than one occasion, in his

letters and Essays of Elia, refers to it with warm commendation. Edward

Irving pronounced it a godsend. Some idea of the lively interest which

the fine literary circle gathered around the hearth of Lamb felt in the

beautiful simplicity of Woolman's pages may be had from the Diary of

Henry Crabb Robinson, one of their number, himself a man of wide and

varied culture, the intimate friend of Goethe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.

In his notes for First Month, 1824, he says, after a reference to a

sermon of his friend Irving, which he feared would deter rather than

promote belief:

"How different this from John Woolman's Journal I have been reading at

the same time! A perfect gem! His is a _schone Seele_, a beautiful

soul. An illiterate tailor, he writes in a style of the most exquisite

purity and grace. His moral qualities are transferred to his writings.

Had he not been so very humble, he would have written a still better

book; for, fearing to indulge in vanity, he conceals the events in which

he was a great actor. His religion was love. His whole existence and

all his passions were love. If one could venture to impute to his creed,

and not to his personal character, the delightful frame of mind he

exhibited, one could not hesitate to be a convert. His Christianity is

most inviting, it is fascinating! One of the leading British reviews a

few years ago, referring to this Journal, pronounced its author the man

who, in all the centuries since the advent of Christ, lived nearest to

the Divine pattern. The author of The Patience of Hope, whose authority

in devotional literature is unquestioned, says of him: 'John Woolman's

gift was love, a charity of which it does not enter into the natural

heart of man to conceive, and of which the more ordinary experiences,

even of renewed nature, give but a faint shadow. Every now and then, in

the world's history, we meet with such men, the kings and priests of

Humanity, on whose heads this precious ointment has been so poured forth

that it has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and extended over

the whole of the visible creation; men who have entered, like Francis of

Assisi, into the secret of that deep amity with God and with His

creatures which makes man to be in league with the stones of the field,

and the beasts of the field to be at peace with him. In this pure,

universal charity there is nothing fitful or intermittent, nothing that

comes and goes in showers and gleams and sunbursts. Its springs are deep

and constant, its rising is like that of a mighty river, its very

overflow calm and steady, leaving life and fertility behind it.'"

After all, anything like personal eulogy seems out of place in speaking

of one who in the humblest self-abasement sought no place in the world's

estimation, content to be only a passive instrument in the hands of his

Master; and who, as has been remarked, through modesty concealed the

events in which he was an actor. A desire to supply in some sort this

deficiency in his Journal is my especial excuse for this introductory

paper.

It is instructive to study the history of the moral progress of

individuals or communities; to mark the gradual development of truth; to

watch the slow germination of its seed sown in simple obedience to the

command of the Great Husbandman, while yet its green promise, as well as

its golden fruition, was hidden from the eyes of the sower; to go back to

the well-springs and fountain-heads, tracing the small streamlet from its

hidden source, and noting the tributaries which swell its waters, as it

moves onward, until it becomes a broad river, fertilizing and gladdening

our present humanity. To this end it is my purpose, as briefly as

possible, to narrate the circumstances attending the relinquishment of

slave-holding by the Society of Friends, and to hint at the effect of

that act of justice and humanity upon the abolition of slavery throughout

the world.

At an early period after the organization of the Society, members of it

emigrated to the Maryland, Carolina, Virginia, and New England colonies.

The act of banishment enforced against dissenters under Charles II.

consigned others of the sect to the West Indies, where their frugality,

temperance, and thrift transmuted their intended punishment into a

blessing. Andrew Marvell, the inflexible republican statesman, in some

of the sweetest and tenderest lines in the English tongue, has happily

described their condition:--

What shall we do but sing His praise

Who led us through the watery maze,

Unto an isle so long unknown,

And yet far kinder than our own?

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms and prelates' rage;

He gives us this eternal spring,

Which here enamels everything,

And sends the fowls to us in care,

On daily visits through the air.

He hangs in shades the orange bright,

Like golden lamps, in a green night,

And doth in the pomegranate close

Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.

. . . . . . . . .

And in these rocks for us did frame

A temple where to sound His name.

Oh! let our voice His praise exalt,

Till it arrive at heaven's vault,

Which then, perhaps rebounding, may

Echo beyond the Mexic bay.'

"So sang they in the English boat,

A holy and a cheerful note;

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time."

Unhappily, they very early became owners of slaves, in imitation of the

colonists around them. No positive condemnation of the evil system had

then been heard in the British islands. Neither English prelates nor

expounders at dissenting conventicles had aught to say against it. Few

colonists doubted its entire compatibility with Christian profession and

conduct. Saint and sinner, ascetic and worldling, united in its

practice. Even the extreme Dutch saints of Bohemia Manor community, the

pietists of John de Labadie, sitting at meat with hats on, and pausing

ever and anon with suspended mouthfuls to bear a brother's or sister's

exhortation, and sandwiching prayers between the courses, were waited

upon by negro slaves. Everywhere men were contending with each other

upon matters of faith, while, so far as their slaves were concerned,

denying the ethics of Christianity itself.

Such was the state of things when, in 1671, George Fox visited Barbadoes.

He was one of those men to whom it is given to discern through the mists

of custom and prejudice something of the lineaments of absolute truth,

and who, like the Hebrew lawgiver, bear with them, from a higher and

purer atmosphere, the shining evidence of communion with the Divine

Wisdom. He saw slavery in its mildest form among his friends, but his

intuitive sense of right condemned it. He solemnly admonished those who

held slaves to bear in mind that they were brethren, and to train them up

in the fear of God. "I desired, also," he says, "that they would cause

their overseers to deal gently and mildly with their negroes, and not use

cruelty towards them as the manner of some hath been and is; and that,

after certain years of servitude, they should make them free."

In 1675, the companion of George Fox, William Edmundson, revisited

Barbadoes, and once more bore testimony against the unjust treatment of

slaves. He was accused of endeavoring to excite an insurrection among

the blacks, and was brought before the Governor on the charge. It was

probably during this journey that he addressed a remonstrance to friends

in Maryland and Virginia on the subject of holding slaves. It is one of

the first emphatic and decided testimonies on record against negro

slavery as incompatible with Christianity, if we except the Papal bulls

of Urban and Leo the Tenth.

Thirteen years after, in 1688, a meeting of German Quakers, who had

emigrated from Kriesbeim, and settled at Germantown, Pennsylvania,

addressed a memorial against "the buying and keeping of negroes" to the

Yearly Meeting for the Pennsylvania and New Jersey colonies. That

meeting took the subject into consideration, but declined giving judgment

in the case. In 1696, the Yearly Meeting advised against "bringing in

any more negroes." In 1714, in its Epistle to London Friends, it

expresses a wish that Friends would be "less concerned in buying or

selling slaves." The Chester Quarterly Meeting, which had taken a higher

and clearer view of the matter, continued to press the Yearly Meeting to

adopt some decided measure against any traffic in human beings.

The Society gave these memorials a cold reception. The love of gain and

power was too strong, on the part of the wealthy and influential planters

and merchants who had become slaveholders, to allow the scruples of the

Chester meeting to take the shape of discipline. The utmost that could

be obtained of the Yearly Meeting was an expression of opinion adverse to

the importation of negroes, and a desire that "Friends generally do, as

much as may be, avoid buying such negroes as shall hereafter be brought

in, rather than offend any Friends who are against it; yet this is only

caution, and not censure."

In the mean time the New England Yearly Meeting was agitated by the same

question. Slaves were imported into Boston and Newport, and Friends

became purchasers, and in some instances were deeply implicated in the

foreign traffic. In 1716, the monthly meetings of Dartmouth and

Nantucket suggested that it was "not agreeable to truth to purchase

slaves and keep them during their term of life." Nothing was done in the

Yearly Meeting, however, until 1727, when the practice of importing

negroes was censured. That the practice was continued notwithstanding,

for many years afterwards, is certain. In 1758, a rule was adopted

prohibiting Friends within the limits of New England Yearly Meeting from

engaging in or countenancing the foreign slave-trade.

In the year 1742 an event, simple and inconsiderable in itself, was made

the instrumentality of exerting a mighty influence upon slavery in the

Society of Friends. A small storekeeper at Mount Holly, in New Jersey, a

member of the Society, sold a negro woman, and requested the young man in

his employ to make a bill of sale of her.