The Grimke Sisters Part 12

And Sarah, writing to Sarah Dougla.s.s, says: "They think to frighten us from the field of duty; but they do not move us. G.o.d is our shield, and we do not fear what man can do unto us," A little further on she says: "It is really amusing to see how the clergy are arrayed against two women who are telling the story of the slave's wrongs."

This was before the celebrated "Pastoral Letter" appeared. Sarah's answer to that in her letters to the N.E. Spectator shows how far the clergy had gone beyond amusing her.

There were, of course, many church members of every denomination, and many ministers, in the abolition ranks. Indeed, at some of the Anti-Slavery Conventions, it was a most edifying sight to see clergymen of different churches sitting together and working together in harmony, putting behind them, for the time being, all creeds and dogmas, or, rather, sinking them all in the one creed taught by the blessed command to do unto others as they would be done by.

Some of the more conservative of the clergy objected, it is true, to the great freedom of thought and speech allowed generally in the Conventions, but this was slight compared to the feeling excited by the encouragement given to women to take prominent and public part in the work, even to speaking from the platform and the pulpit.

The general prejudice against this was naturally increased by the earnest eloquence with which Angelina Grimke pointed out the inconsistent att.i.tude of ministers and church members towards slavery; by Sarah's strongly expressed views concerning a paid clergy; and the indignant protests of both sisters against the sin of prejudice, then as general in the church as out of it.

The feeling grew very strong against them. They were setting public sentiment at defiance, it was said; they were seeking to destroy veneration for the ministers of the Gospel; they were casting contempt upon the consecrated forms of the Church; and much more of the same kind. Nowhere, however, did the feeling find decided public expression until the General a.s.sociation of Congregational Ministers of Ma.s.sachusetts saw proper to pa.s.s a resolution of censure against Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and issued a pastoral letter, which, in the light and freedom of the present day, must be regarded as a most extraordinary doc.u.ment, to say the least of it. The opening sentences show the degree of authority felt and exercised by the clergy at that time. It maintained that, as ministers were ordained by G.o.d, it was their place and duty to judge what food was best to feed to the flock over which they had been made overseers by the Holy Ghost; and that, if they did not preach on certain topics, as the flock desired, the flock had no right to put strangers in their place to do it; that deference and subordination were necessary to the happiness of every society, and peculiarly so to the relation of a people to their pastor; and that the sacred rights of ministers had been violated by having their pulpits opened without their consent to lecturers on various subjects of reform.

All this might pa.s.s without much criticism: but it was followed by a tirade against woman-preachers, aimed at the Grimke sisters especially, which was as narrow as it was shallow. The dangers which threatened the female character and the permanent injury likely to result to society, if the example of these women should be followed, were vigorously portrayed. Women were reminded that their power was in their dependence; that G.o.d had given them their weakness for their protection; and that when they a.s.sumed the tone and place of man, as public reformers, they made the care and protection of man seem unnecessary. "If the vine," this letter fancifully said, "whose strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work, and half conceal its cl.u.s.ters, thinks to a.s.sume the independence and the overshadowing nature of the elm, it will not only cease to bear fruit, but will fall in shame and dishonor into the dust."

Sarah Grimke had just begun a series of letters on the "Province of Woman" for the _N.E. Spectator_, when this pastoral effusion came out.

Her third letter was devoted to it. She showed in the clearest manner the unsoundness of its a.s.sertions, and the unscriptural and unchristian spirit in which they were made. The delicate irony with which she also exposed the ignorance and the shallowness of its author must have caused him to blush for very shame.

Whittier's muse, too, found the Pastoral Letter a fitting theme for its vigorous, sympathetic utterances. The poem thus inspired is perhaps one of the very best among his many songs of freedom. It will be remembered as beginning thus:--

"So this is all! the utmost reach Of priestly power the mind to fetter, When laymen _think_, when women _preach_, A war of words, a 'Pastoral Letter!'"

Up to this time nothing had been said by either of the sisters in their lectures concerning their views about women. They had carefully confined themselves to the subject of slavery, and the attendant topics of immediate emanc.i.p.ation, abstinence from the use of slave products, the errors of the Colonization Society, and the sin of prejudice on account of color. But now that they found their own rights invaded, they began to feel it was time to look out for the rights of their whole s.e.x.

The Rev. Amos Phelps, a staunch abolitionist, wrote a private letter to the sisters, remonstrating earnestly but kindly against their lecturing to men and women, and requesting permission to publish the fact of his having done so, with a declaration on their part that they preferred having female audiences only. Angelina says to Jane Smith:--

"I wish you could see sister's admirable reply to this. We told him we were entirely willing he should publish anything he felt it right to, but that we could not consent to his saying in our name that we preferred female audiences only, because in so saying we should surrender a fundamental principle, believing, as we did, that as moral beings it was our duty to appeal to all moral beings on this subject, without any distinction of s.e.x. He thinks we are throwing a responsibility on the Anti-Slavery Society which will greatly injure it. To this we replied that we would write to Elizur Wright, and give the Executive Committee an opportunity to throw off all such responsibility by publishing the facts that we had no commission from them, and were not either responsible to or dependent on them. I wrote this letter. H.B. Stanton happened to be here at the time; after reading all the letters, he wrote to Elizur Wright, warning him by no means to publish anything which would in the least appear to disapprove of what we were doing. I do not know what the result will be. My only fear is that some of our anti-slavery brethren will commit themselves, in this excitement, against _women's rights and duties_ before they examine the subject, and will, in a few years, regret the steps they may now take. This will soon be an absorbing topic. It must be discussed whether women are moral and responsible beings, and whether there is such a thing as male and female virtues, male and female duties, etc. My opinion is that there is no difference, and that this false idea has run the ploughshare of ruin over the whole field of morality. My idea is that whatever is morally right for a man to do is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights. I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.... I am persuaded that woman is not to be as she has been, a mere second-hand agent in the regeneration of a fallen world, but the acknowledged equal and co-worker with man in this glorious work.... Hubbard Winslow of Boston has just preached a sermon to set forth the proper sphere of our s.e.x.

I am truly glad that men are not ashamed to come out boldly and tell us just what is in their hearts."

In another letter she mentions that a clergyman gave out a notice of one of their meetings, at the request, he said, of his deacons, but under protest; and he earnestly advised his members, particularly the women, not to go and hear them. At a meeting, also, at Pepperell, where they had to speak in a barn, on account of the feeling against them, she mentions that an Orthodox clergyman opened the meeting with prayer, but went out immediately after finishing, declaring that he would as soon rob a hen-roost as remain there and hear a woman speak in public.

This, however, did not prevent the crowding of the barn "almost to suffocation," and deep attention on the part of those a.s.sembled.

In the face of all this censure and ridicule, the two sisters continued in the discharge of a duty to which they increasingly felt they were called from on high. The difficulties, inconveniences, and discomforts to which they were constantly subjected, and of which the women reformers of the present day know so little, were borne cheerfully, and accepted as means of greater refinement and purification for the Lord's work. They were often obliged to ride six or eight or ten miles through the sun or rain, in stages or wagons over rough roads to a meeting, speak two hours, and return the same distance to their temporary abiding-place. For many weeks they held five and six meetings a week, in a different place every time, were often poorly lodged and poorly fed, especially the latter, as they ate nothing which they did not know to be the product of free labor; taking cold frequently, and speaking when ill enough to be in bed, but sustained through all by faith in the justice of their cause, and by their simple reliance upon the love and guidance of an Almighty Father. The record of their journeyings, as copied by Angelina from her day-book for the benefit of Jane Smith, is very interesting, as showing how, in spite of continued opposition to them, anti-slavery sentiment grew under their eloquent preaching. Wendell Phillips says: "I can never forget the impulse our cause received when those two sisters doubled our hold on New England in 1837 and 1838, and made a name, already ill.u.s.trious in South Carolina by great services, equally historical in Ma.s.sachusetts, in the two grandest movements of our day."

Angelina's eloquence must have been something marvellous. The sweet, persuasive voice, the fluent speech, and occasionally a flash of the old energy, were all we who knew her in later years were granted, to show us what had been; but it was enough to confirm the accounts given by those who had felt the power of her oratory in those early times.

Says Wendell Phillips: "I well remember evening after evening listening to eloquence such as never then had been heard from a woman.

She swept the chords of the human heart with a power that has never been surpa.s.sed and rarely equalled."

Mr. Lincoln, in whose pulpit she lectured in Gardiner, says: "Never before or since have I seen an audience so held and so moved by any public speaker, man or woman; and never before or since have I seen a Christian pulpit so well filled, nor in the pews seen such absorbed hearers."

Robert F. Walcutt testifies in the same manner. "Angelina," he says, "possessed a rare gift of eloquence, a calm power of persuasion, a magnetic influence over those who listened to her, which carried conviction to hearts that nothing before had reached. I shall never forget the wonderful manifestation of this power during six successive evenings, in what was then called the Odeon. It was the old Boston Theatre, which had been converted into a music hall; the four galleries rising above the auditorium all crowded with a silent audience carried away with the calm, simple eloquence which narrated what she and her sister had seen from their earliest days. And yet this Odeon scene, the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed, occurred at the most enflamed period of the anti-slavery contest. The effective agent in this phenomenon was Angelina's serene, commanding eloquence, a wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."

Another, who often heard her, speaks of the gentle, firm, and impressive voice which could ring out in clarion tones when speaking in the name of the Lord to let the oppressed go free.

Many travelled long distances to hear her. Mechanics left their shops, and laborers came in out of the field, and sat almost motionless throughout her meetings, showing impatience only when the lecture was over and they could hear no more. Sarah's speaking, though fully as earnest, was not nearly so effective as Angelina's. She was never very fluent, and cared little for the flowers of rhetoric. She could state a truth in clear and forcible terms, but the language was unvarnished, sometimes harsh, while the manner of speaking was often embarra.s.sed.

She understood and felt her deficiencies, and preferred to serve the cause through her pen rather than through her voice. Writing to Sarah Dougla.s.s, in September, 1837, she says:--

"That the work in which we are engaged is in a peculiar manner dear Angelina's, I have no doubt. G.o.d called and qualified her for it by deep travail of spirit. I do not think my mind ever pa.s.sed through the preparation hers did, and I regard my being with her more as an evidence of our dear Saviour's care for us, than a design that I should perform a conspicuous part in this labor of love. Hence, although at first I was permitted to a.s.sist her, as her strength increased and her ability to do the work a.s.signed her was perfected, I was more and more withdrawn from the service. Nor do I think anyone ought to regret it. My precious sister has a gift in lecturing, in reasoning and elucidating, so far superior to mine, that I know the cause is better pleaded if left entirely in her hands. My spirit has not bowed to this dispensation without prayer for resignation to being thus laid aside, but since I have been enabled to take the above view, I have been contented to be silent, believing that so is the will of G.o.d."

Sarah's religious anxieties seem all to have vanished before the absorbing interest of her new work. She had no longer time to think of herself, or to stand and question the Lord on every going-out and coming-in. She relied upon Him as much as ever, but she understood Him better, and had more faith in His loving-kindness. In a letter to T.

D. Weld, she says:--

"For many years I have been inquiring the way to Zion, and now I know not but I shall have to surrender all or many long-cherished points of religion, and come back to the one simple direction: 'Follow after holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.'"

All her letters show how much happier she was under her new experiences. Angelina thus writes of her:--

"Sister Sarah enjoys more real comfort of mind than I ever saw her enjoy before, and it is delightful to be thus yoked with her in this work."

But with Sarah's wider, fuller sympathies came bitter regrets over the spiritual bondage which had kept her idle and useless so long. And yet, in spite of all, her heart still clung to the Society of Friends, and the struggle to give them up, to resign the long-cherished hope of being permitted to preach among them the unsearchable riches of Christ, was very great. But conscientious and true to her convictions even here, as her own eyes had been mercifully opened to the faults of this system of religion, she must do what she could to help others.

Under a solemn sense of responsibility, she wrote and printed a pamphlet exposing the errors of the Quaker Church, and showing the withering influence it exerted over all moral and religious progress.

For this, she doubted not, she would be at once disowned; but Friends seem to have been very loth to part with the two rebellious subjects, who had certainly given them much trouble, but in whom they could not help feeling a certain pride of ownership. They showed their willingness to be patient yet a little while longer.

All through the summer and early fall, the meetings were continued with slightly decreasing opposition, and continued abuse from press and pulpit and "good society." Sarah still bore her share of the labors, frequently speaking an hour at a time, and taking charge chiefly of the legal side of the question of slavery, while the moral and religious sides were left for Angelina. At Amesbury, Angelina writes:--

"We met the mother, aunt, and sister of brother Whittier. They received us at their sweet little cottage with sincere pleasure, I believe, they being as thoroughgoing as their dear J.G.W., whom they seem to know how to value. He was absent, serving the good cause in New York."

At an evening meeting they held at Amesbury, a letter was handed Angelina, which stated that some gentlemen were present, who had just returned from the South, and had formed very different opinions from those of the lecturers, and would like to state them to the meeting.

Sarah read the letter aloud, and requested the gentlemen to proceed with their remarks. Two arose, and soon showed how little they really knew, and how close an affinity they felt with slave-holders. A discussion ensued, which lasted an hour, when Angelina went on with her lecture on the "Dangers of Slavery." When it was over, the two gentlemen of Southern sympathies requested that another opportunity be granted for a free discussion of the subject. This was agreed to, and the 19th of the month, August, settled upon.

This was another and a great step forward, and when known gave rise to renewed denunciations, the press being particularly severe against such an unheard-of thing, which, it was declared, would not be tolerated if the Misses Grimke were not members of the Society of Friends. The abolitionists, however, rallied to their support, H.B.

Stanton even proposing to arrange some meeting where he and they could speak together. But even Angelina shrank from such an irretrievable committal on his part as this would be, and did not think the time had yet come for such an anomaly. On the 19th they returned to Amesbury, and Angelina writes that great excitement prevailed, and that many had come from neighboring towns to hear two _Ma.s.sachusetts men defend_ slavery against the accusations of two _Southern women_. "May the blessed Master," she adds, "stand at our right hand in this trying and uncommon predicament."

Two evenings were given to the discussion, the hall being packed both evenings, many, even ladies, standing the whole time. Angelina gives no details about it, as, she says, she sends a paper with a full account to Jane Smith; but we may judge of the interest it excited from the fact that the people urged a continuance of the discussion for two more evenings, which, however, the sisters were obliged to decline. Angelina adds:--

"Everyone is talking about it; but we have given great offence on account of our womanhood, which seems to be as objectionable as our abolitionism. The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the brunt of the storm, if we can only be the means of making a breach in the wall of public opinion, which lies right in the way of woman's true dignity, honor, and usefulness. Sister Sarah does preach up woman's rights most n.o.bly and fearlessly, and we find that many of our New England sisters are prepared to receive these strange doctrines, feeling, as they do, that our whole s.e.x needs emanc.i.p.ation from the thraldom of public opinion. What dost thou think of some of _them walking_ two, four, six, and eight miles to attend our meetings?"

This preaching of the much-vexed doctrine was, however, done chiefly in private, indeed altogether so by Angelina. Sarah's nature was so impulsive that she could not always refrain from putting in a stroke for her cherished views when it seemed to fit well into the argument of a lecture. What prominent abolitionists thought of the subject in its relation to the anti-slavery cause, and especially what T.D. Weld and John G. Whittier thought, must be told in another chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.

Among the most prominent opposers of immediate emanc.i.p.ation were Dr.

Lyman Beecher and the members of his remarkable family; and though they ultimately became converts to it, even so far as to allow a branch of the "underground railway" to run through their barn, their conversion was gradual, and only arrived at after various controversies and discussions, and much bitter feeling between them and the advocates of the unpopular cause. Opposed to slavery in the abstract, that is, believing it to be a sin to hold a fellow creature in bondage for the "_mere purposes of gain_," they utterly condemned all agitation of the question. The Church and the Gospel were, with them, as with so many evangelical Christians, the true means through which evils should be reached and reforms effected. All efforts outside were unwise and useless, not to say sinful. And further, as Catherine Beecher expressed it, they considered the matter of Southern slavery as one with which the North was no more called to interfere than in the abolition of the press-gang system in England, or the t.i.the system in Ireland. Some chapters back, the short but pleasant friendship of Catherine Beecher and Angelina Grimke was mentioned.

Very soon after that little episode, the Beechers removed to Cincinnati, where the doctor was called to the Presidency of the Lane Theological Seminary. We can well understand that the withdrawal of nearly all its students after the great discussion was a sore trial to the Beechers, and intensified their already adverse feelings towards abolitionists. The only result of this with which we have to do is the volume published by Catherine Beecher during the summer of 1837, ent.i.tled "Miss Beecher on the Slave Question," and addressed to Angelina Grimke.

Catherine was the true counterpart of her father, and the most intellectual of his children, but she lacked the gentle, feminine graces, and was so wanting in tenderness and sympathy that Angelina charitably implies that her heart was sunk forever with her lover, Professor Fisher of Yale, who perished in a storm at sea. With independence, striking individuality, and entire freedom from timidity of any sort, it would appear perfectly natural that Catherine should espouse the Woman's Rights reform, even though opposing that of abolitionism. But she presented the singular anomaly of a strong-minded woman, already successful in taking care of herself, advocating woman's subordination to man, and prescribing for her efforts at self-help limits so narrow that only the few favored as she was could venture within them.

Her book was received with much favor by slave-holders and their apologists, though it was harshly criticised by a few of the more sensible of the former. These declared that they had more respect for abolitionists who openly denounced the system of slavery, than for those people who, in order to please the South, cloaked their real sentiments under a garb like that of Miss Beecher's book. It was also severely handled by abolitionists, and Lucretia Mott wrote a very able review of it, which Angelina, however, p.r.o.nounced entirely too mild.

She writes to Jane Smith:

"Catherine's arguments are the most insidious things I ever read, and I feel it my duty to answer them; only, I know not how to find language strong enough to express my indignation at the view she takes of woman's character and duty."

The answer was given in a number of sharp, terse, letters, sent to the _Liberator_ from various places where the sisters stopped while lecturing. A few pa.s.sages will convey some idea of the spirit and style of these letters, thirteen in number. In the latter part of the second letter she says:--

"Dost thou ask what I mean by emanc.i.p.ation? I will explain myself in a few words.