American Scenes, and Christian Slavery Part 9

LETTER XIX.

A Sabbath at Cincinnati--The Second Presbyterian Church--Mutilation of a Popular Hymn--The Rushing Habit--A wrong "Guess"--A German Sunday-School--Visit to a Church of Coloured People--Engagement at the Welsh "Church"--Monthly Concert--The Medical College of Ohio--Tea at the House of a Coloured Minister.

On the previous Friday, Professor Allen called to request me to preach in his stead at the Second Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning, the 28th of February, as he had to go some twenty miles into the country to "a.s.sist at a revival." I agreed to do so. Sunday morning was excessively cold, with a heavy fall of snow. On arriving at the "church," I found there was no vestry. Indeed, a vestry, as a private room for the minister, is seldom found in America. The places are exceedingly neat and comfortable, but they want _that_ convenience. I had therefore to go with my hat and top-coat, covered with snow, right into the pulpit. This church outside is a n.o.ble-looking building, with ma.s.sive pillars in front, and a bell-tower containing a town-clock; but the interior seemed comparatively small. It had a gallery at one end, which held only the singers and the organ. The seats below were not more than one-third full. Dr. Beecher ministered in this place for about ten years. It was now without a pastor, but was temporarily supplied by Professor Allen. The congregation was far more decorous and attentive than those in New Orleans. After the introductory service, and while the hymn before sermon was being sung, a man came trudging down the aisle, bearing an immense scuttle full of coals to supply the stoves. How easy it would have been before service to place a box of fuel in the vicinity of each stove, and thereby avoid this unseemly bustle! But in the singing of the hymn, I found something to surprise and offend me even more than the coal-scuttle. The hymn was--

"O'er the gloomy hills of darkness," &c.

I had selected it myself; but when I got to the second verse, where I had expected to find

"Let the Indian, let the negro, Let the rude barbarian see," &c.,

lo! "the Indian." and "the negro" had vanished, and

"Let the dark benighted pagan"

was subst.i.tuted. A wretched alteration,--as feeble and tautological in effect as it is suspicious in design. The altered reading, I learned, prevails universally in America, except in the _original_ version used by the Welsh congregations. Slave-holders, and the abettors of that horrid system which makes it a crime to teach a negro to read the Word of G.o.d, felt perhaps that they could not devoutly and consistently sing

"Let the Indian, let the negro," &c.

This church, I heard, was more polluted with a pro-slavery feeling than any other in Cincinnati of the same denomination,--a circ.u.mstance which, I believe, had something to do with Dr. Beecher's resignation of the pastorate.

At the close of the sermon, having p.r.o.nounced the benediction, I engaged, according to our English custom, in a short act of private devotion. When I raised my head and opened my eyes, the very last man of the congregation was actually making his exit through the doorway; and it was quite as much as I could manage to put on my top-coat and gloves and reach the door before the s.e.xton closed it. This rushing habit in the House of G.o.d strikes a stranger as rude and irreverent.

You meet with no indications of private devotion, either preceding or following public worship. A man marches into his pew, or his pulpit, sits down, wipes his nose, and stares at all about him; and at the close, the moment the "Amen" is uttered, he is off with as much speed as if the house were on fire. In this instance, the service had not exceeded an hour and a half; and yet they hurried out as if they thought the beef was all burnt, and the pudding all spoiled. Of course, there were no thanks to the stranger for his services,--to say nothing of the _quiddam honorarium_, which to a man travelling for health, at his own expense, with an invalid wife, might have been supposed not unacceptable.

When, however, I got to the portico outside, a gentleman, with his wife, was waiting to see me before they stepped into their carriage.

Here was some token of politeness and hospitality,--an invitation to dinner, no doubt.--"Thank you, sir, I am very much obliged to you; but I left my wife very ill at our lodgings this morning, and therefore I cannot have the pleasure to dine with you to-day," was the civil excuse I was preparing. Never was expectation more beside the mark. My "guess"

was altogether wrong. "What are you going to do with yourself this afternoon?" was the gentleman's blunt salutation. "What have _you_ to propose, sir?" was my reply. "I am the superintendent," he said, "of a German Sunday-school in the upper part of the city, and I should like you to come and address the children this afternoon." I promised to go, and he to send to my "lodgings" for me. We both kept our appointment.

The number of scholars was about 100. This effort to bring the Germans under a right religious influence is very laudable; for there are about 10,000 of that people in Cincinnati. One quarter of the city is entirely German. You see nothing else on the sign-boards; you hear nothing else in the streets. Of these Germans the greater part are Roman Catholics.

After visiting the school, I found myself in time to attend one of the chapels of the coloured people at 3 P.M. A medical student, whom I had met in the morning, and again at the German school, accompanied me. He was a New Englander, and a thorough anti-slavery man. When we got to the chapel--a Baptist one--they were at prayer. Walking in softly, we entered a pew right in the midst of them. The minister--a mulatto of about thirty years of age, with a fine intelligent eye--was very simple in dress, and unostentatious in manner. His language, too, was appropriate and correct. He was evidently a man of good common sense.

His text was Psalm li. l2, l3. He referred very properly to the occasion on which the Psalm was composed, and drew from the text a large ma.s.s of sound practical instruction. The chapel (capable of containing about 150 people) was only half-full. Before the sermon, I had observed a very old negro, in a large shabby camlet cloak and a black cap, ascending the pulpit-stairs. I supposed that, being dull of hearing, he had taken that position that he might better listen to the service. However, when the sermon was over, this patriarchal-looking black man rose to pray; and he prayed "like a bishop," with astonishing correctness and fluency! He was formerly a slave in Kentucky, and was at this time about eighty years of age. They call him "Father Watkins."

At the close I introduced myself to him and to the minister. They both expressed regret that they had not had me up in the pulpit, to tell them something, as "Father Watkins" said, about their "brothers and sisters on the other side of the water." The minister gave me his card, and invited me and my wife to take tea with him on Tuesday afternoon.

This was the first invitation I received within the city of Cincinnati to take a meal anywhere; and it was the more interesting to me as coming from a coloured man.

In the evening I went, according to appointment, to the Welsh Chapel.

There I met a Mr. Bushnel, an American missionary from the Gaboon River, on the western coast of Africa. He first spoke in English, and I afterwards a little in Welsh; gladly embracing the opportunity to exhort my countrymen in that "Far West" to feel kindly and tenderly towards the coloured race among them; asking them how they would themselves feel if, as Welshmen, they were branded and despised wherever they went! I was grieved to see the excess to which they carried the filthy habit of spitting. The coloured people in _their_ chapel were incomparably cleaner in that respect.

In the morning a notice had been put into my hand at the Presbyterian Church for announcement, to the effect that Mr. Bushnel and myself would address the "monthly concert at the church in Sixth-street" on the morrow evening. Of this arrangement not a syllable had been said to me beforehand. This was American liberty, and I quietly submitted to it. The attendance was not large; and we two missionaries had it all to ourselves. No other ministers were present,--not even the minister of the church in which we were a.s.sembled. The people, however, seemed heartily interested in the subject of missions. At the close, a lady from Manchester, who had seen me there in 1845 at the missionary meeting, came forward full of affection to shake hands. She was a member of Mr. Griffin's church in that city, and had removed to America a few months before, with her husband (who is a member of the "Society of Friends") and children. I was glad to find that they were likely to be comfortable in their adopted country.

Next morning I went with Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, a New Englander, to see the Medical College of Ohio. Dr. Mussey is the Professor of Surgery and Dean of the Faculty, and is highly esteemed for his professional skill and general character. He and his son, who was my guide on the Sunday, very kindly showed and explained to me everything of interest in the inst.i.tution. The cabinet belonging to the anatomical department is supplied with all the materials necessary for acquiring a minute and perfect knowledge of the human frame. These consist of detached bones, of wired natural skeletons, and of dried preparations to exhibit the muscles, bloodvessels, nerves, &c. The cabinet of comparative anatomy is supposed to be more extensively supplied than any other in the United States. Besides perfect skeletons of American and foreign birds and other animals, there is an immense number of detached _crania_, from the elephant and hippopotamus down to the minuter orders. The cabinet in the surgical department has been formed at great expense, chiefly by Dr. Mussey himself, during the labour of more than forty years. It contains a large number of rare specimens,--600 specimens of diseased bones alone. Other departments are equally well furnished. The Faculty is composed of six Professorships,--Surgery, Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, Materia Medica, Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and the Theory and Practice of Medicine. The fees of tuition are only 15 dollars, or 3 guineas, to each professor, making an aggregate of 90 dollars. There were 190 students. It will probably be admitted that this inst.i.tution, formed in a new country, has arrived at an astonishing degree of vigour and maturity. It is only one of many instances in which the Americans are before us in the facilities afforded for professional education.

In the afternoon my wife and myself went to take tea with the coloured minister. His dwelling, though small and humble, was neat and clean.

With his intelligence and general information we were quite delighted.

He spoke with feeling of the gross insults to which the coloured people, even in this free State, are exposed. When they travel by railway, though they pay the same fare as other people, they are generally put in the luggage-van! He had himself, when on board of steam-boats, often been sent to the "pantry" to eat his food. Nor will the white people employ them but in the most menial offices; so that it is nearly impossible for them to rise to affluence and horse-and-gig respectability. The consequence is that they are deeply and justly disaffected towards the American people and the American laws. They clearly understand that England is their friend. For one month all the free coloured people wore c.r.a.pe as mourning for Thomas Clarkson.

LETTER XX.

Stay at Cincinnati (continued)--The New Roman Catholic Cathedral--The Rev. C. B. Boynton and Congregationalism--"The Herald of a New Era"--American Nationality.

A lady, belonging to the Presbyterian Church at which I preached, kindly sent her carriage to take us about to see the city. We visited the new Roman Catholic Cathedral, one of the princ.i.p.al "lions." It was begun in 1841, and, though used for public worship, is not yet finished. The building is a parallelogram of 200 feet long by 80 feet wide, and is 58 feet from the floor to the ceiling. The roof is partly supported by the side walls, and partly by two rows of freestone columns--nine in each row--at a distance of about 11 feet from the wall inside. These columns are of the Corinthian Order, and are 35 feet high, and 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. There is no gallery, except at one end, for the organ, which cost 5,400 dollars, or about 1,100_l._ sterling. The floor of the building is furnished with a centre aisle of 6 feet wide, and two other aisles, each 11 feet wide, along the side walls, for processional purposes. The remainder of the area is formed into 140 pews, 10 feet deep. Each pew will accommodate with comfort only six persons; so that this immense edifice affords sitting room for no more than 840 people! It is a magnificent structure, displaying in all its proportions a remarkable degree of elegance and taste. The tower, when finished, will present an elevation of 200 feet, with a portico of twelve Corinthian columns, six in front and three on either side, on the model of the Tower of the Wind at Athens. The entire building will be Grecian in all its parts. One-fourth of the population of Cincinnati are Roman Catholics. They have lately discontinued the use of public government-schools for their children, and have established some of their own, I am not so much alarmed at the progress of Popery in America as I was before I visited that country. Its proselytes are exceedingly few. Its supporters consist chiefly of the thousands of Europeans, already Roman Catholic, who flock to the New World. The real _progress_ of Popery is greater in Britain than in America.

In the evening I preached for Mr. Boynton in the "Sixth-street Church,"

Mr. Boynton and his Church, heretofore Presbyterians, have recently become Congregationalists. This has given great umbrage to the Presbyterians. Congregationalism is rapidly gaining ground in the Western World, and seems destined there, as in England since Cromwell's time, to swallow up Presbyterianism. I make no invidious comparison between the two systems: I merely look at facts. And it does appear to me that Congregationalism--so simple, so free, so unsectarian, and so catholic--is nevertheless a powerful absorbent. It _has_ absorbed all that was orthodox in the old Presbyterian Churches of England; and it _is_ absorbing the Calvinistic Methodists and the churches named after the Countess of Huntingdon. It has all along exerted a powerful influence on the Presbyterianism of America. The Congregational element diffused among those churches occasioned the division of the Presbyterian Church into Old School and New School.

Mr. Boynton is what a friend of mine called "intensely American." He has lately published, under the t.i.tle of "Our Country the Herald of a New Era," a lecture delivered before the "Young Men's Mercantile Library a.s.sociation." To show the magnificent ideas the Americans entertain of themselves and their country, I will transcribe a few pa.s.sages.

"This nation is an enigma, whose import no man as yet may fully know.

She is a germ of boundless things. The unfolded bud excites the hope of one-half the human race, while it stirs the remainder with both anger and alarm. Who shall now paint the beauty and attraction of the expanded flower? Our Eagle is scarcely fledged; but one wing stretches over Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and the other touches the mouth of the Columbia. Who shall say, then, what lands shall be overshadowed by the full-grown pinion? Who shall point to any spot of the northern continent, and say, with certainty, Here the starry banner shall never be hailed as the symbol of dominion? [The annexation of Canada!] * * *

It cannot be disguised that the idea is gathering strength among us, that the territorial mission of this nation is to obtain and hold at least all that lies north of Panama. * * * Whether the millions that are to dwell on the great Pacific slope of our continent are to acknowledge our banner, or rally to standards of their own; whether Mexico is to become ours by sudden conquest or gradual absorption; whether the British provinces, when they pa.s.s from beneath the sceptre of England, shall be incorporated with us, or retain an independent dominion;--are perhaps questions which a not distant future may decide.

However they may be settled, the great fact will remain essentially the same, that the two continents of this Western Hemisphere shall yet bear up a stupendous social, political, and religious structure, wrought by the American mind, moulded and coloured by the hues of American thought, and animated and united by an American soul. It seems equally certain that, whatever the divisions of territory may be, these United States are the living centre, from which already flows the resistless stream which will ultimately absorb in its own channel, and bear on its own current, the whole thought of the two Americas. * * * If, then, I have not over-rated the moral and intellectual vigour of the people of this nation, and of the policy lately avowed to be acted upon--that the further occupation of American soil by the Governments of Europe is not to be suffered,--then the inference is a direct one, that the stronger elements will control and absorb the lesser, so that the same causes which melted the red races away will send the influence of the United States not only over the territory north of Panama, but across the Isthmus, and southward to Magellan."

The "New Era" of which America is the "Herald" is, he tells us, to be marked by three grand characteristics,--

"First. A new theory and practice in government and in social life, such as the world has never seen, of which we only perceive the germ as yet." Already have you indeed presented before the world your "peculiar inst.i.tution" of slavery in a light new and striking. Already have you a "theory and practice" in the government of slaves such as the world never beheld!

"Second. A literature which shall not only be the proper outgrowth of the American mind, but which shall form a distinctive school, as clearly so as the literature of Greece!" Under this head he says, "Very much would I prefer that our literature should appear even in the guise of the awkward, speculating, guessing, but still original, strong-minded _American_ Yankee, than to see it mincing in the costume of a London dandy. I would rather see it, if need be, showing the wild rough strength, the naturalness and fervour of the extreme West, equally prepared to liquor with a stranger or to fight with him, than to see it clad in the gay but filthy garments of the saloons of Paris.

Nay more, much as every right mind abhors and detests such things, I would sooner behold our literature holding in one hand the murderous Bowie knife, and in the other the pistol of the duellist, than to see her laden with the foul secrets of a London h.e.l.l, or the gaming-houses of Paris. * * * If we must meet with vice in our literature, let it be the growth of our own soil; for I think our own rascality has yet the healthier aspect."

"Third. A new era in the fine arts, from which future ages shall derive their models and their inspirations, as we do from Greece and Italy. *

* * So far as scenery is concerned in the moulding of character, we may safely expect that a country where vastness and beauty are so wonderfully blended will stamp upon the national soul its own magestic and glorious image. It must be so. The mind will expand itself to the measure of things about it. Deep in the wide American soul there shall be Lake Superiors, inland oceans of thought; and the streams of her eloquence shall be like the sweep of the Mississippi in his strength.

The rugged strength of the New England hills, the luxuriance of the sunny South, the measureless expanse of the prairie, the broad flow of our rivers, the dashing of our cataracts, the huge battlements of the everlasting mountains,--these are _American_. On the face of the globe there is nothing like to them. When therefore these various influences have been thoroughly wrought into the national soul, there will be such a correspondence between man and the works of G.o.d about him, that our music, our poetry, our eloquence, our all, shall be our own, individual and peculiar, like the Amazon and the Andes, the Mississippi and Niagara, alone in their strength and glory."

Now, mark you! amidst all these splendid visions of the future, there is no vision of liberty for 3,000,000 of slaves. That idea was too small to find a place among conceptions so vast. The lecture contains not a syllable of reference to them. On the contrary, the empty boast of freedom is heard in the following words of solemn mockery: "_The soul of man_ here no longer sits _bound_ and blind amid the despotic forms of the past; it walks abroad _without a shackle_, and with an uncovered eye." It follows then that there is an essential difference between "the soul of man" and the soul of "n.i.g.g.e.r," or rather that "n.i.g.g.e.rs" have no soul at all. How _can_ men of sense, and especially ministers of the Gospel, sit down to pen such fustian? These extracts show how intensely national the Americans are, and consequently how futile the apology for the existence of slavery so often presented, that one State can no more interfere with the affairs of another State than the people of England can with France and the other countries of the European continent. The Americans are to all intents and purposes _one_ people. In short, the ident.i.ty of feeling among the _States_ of the Union is more complete than among the _counties_ of Great Britain.

On the morning of the 4th of March, Dr. Stowe called to invite me to address the students at Lane Seminary, on the following Sabbath evening, on the subject of missions and the working of freedom in the West Indies. I readily promised to comply, glad of an opportunity to address so many of the future pastors of the American Churches, who will occupy the field when emanc.i.p.ation is sure to be the great question of the day. In fact, it is so already.

LETTER XXI.

Stay at Cincinnati (continued)--The Orphan Asylum--A Coloured Man and a White Fop treated as each deserved--A Trip across to Covington--Mr.

Gilmore and the School for Coloured Children--"The Fugitive Slave to the Christian"--Sabbath--Mr. Boynton--Dr. Beecher--Lane Seminary--Departure from Cincinnati.

In the afternoon we went with Mrs. Judge B---- to see an Orphan Asylum, in which she took a deep interest. Requested to address the children, I took the opportunity of delivering an anti-slavery and anti-colour-hating speech. The building, large and substantial, is capable of accommodating 300 children; but the number of inmates was at that time not more than 70. While the lady was showing us from one apartment to another, and pointing out to us the comforts and conveniences of the inst.i.tution, the following colloquy took place.

_Myself._--"Now, Mrs. B, this place is very beautiful: I admire it exceedingly. Would you refuse a little _coloured_ orphan admission into this asylum?"

_The Lady._ (stretching herself up to her full height, and with a look of horror and indignation),--"Indeed, we would!"