The Grimke Sisters Part 21

Thus quietly, peacefully, almost joyfully, the life forces of the worn and weary toiler weakened day by day, until, on the 26th of October, 1879, the great Husbandman called her from her labors at last. She lived the life and died the death of a saint.

Who shall dare to say when and where the echoes of her soul died away?

Not in vain such lives as hers and her beloved sister's. They take their place with those of the heroes of the world, great among the greatest.

One last thing I must mention, as strongly ill.u.s.trative of Angelina's modesty, and that shrinking from any praise of man which was such a marked trait in her character. She never voluntarily alluded to any act of hers which would be likely to draw upon her commendatory notice, even from the members of her own family, and in her charities she followed out as far as possible the Bible injunction: "When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."

Her husband relates the following:--

"In November, 1839, in making provision for the _then_ to her not improbable contingency of sudden death, Angelina prepared a communication to her husband, filled with details concerning themselves alone. This was enclosed in a sealed envelope, with directions that it should be opened only after her death. When, a few days after her decease, he broke the seal, he found, among many details, this item: 'I also leave to thee the _liability_ of being called upon eventually to support in part four emanc.i.p.ated slaves in Charleston, S.C., whose freedom I have been instrumental in obtaining.'"

It is plain from the wording of the letter that she had never stated the fact to him. She lived forty years after writing it and putting it under seal; and yet, during all those years, she never gave him the least intimation of her having freed those four slaves and contributed to their support, as she had done. Even Sarah could not have known anything of it. Her brother Henry, to whom the bill of sale was made out, as they could not be legally emanc.i.p.ated, was probably the only person who was aware of her generous act. He became technically their owner, responsible for them to the State, but left them free to live and work for themselves as they pleased.

Angelina's funeral took place on the 29th of October, and to it came many old friends and veteran co-workers in the anti-slavery cause. The services were in keeping with the record of the life they commemorated.

They were opened by that beautiful chant, "Thy will be done," followed by a touching prayer from the Rev. Mr. Morrison, who then briefly sketched the life of her who lay so still and beautiful before them. He was followed by Elizur Wright, who, overcome by the memories with which she was identified, memories of struggles, trials, perils, and triumphs, that he stood for a moment unable to speak. Then, only partially conquering his emotion, he told of what she did and what she was in those times which tried the souls of the stoutest. "There is," said he, "the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. There is the courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's mouth, coolly pressing forward amid engines of destruction on every side. But hers was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced death at the hands of stealthy a.s.sa.s.sins and howling mobs, in her loyalty to truth, duty, and humanity, but she encountered unflinchingly the awful frowns of the mighty consecrated leaders of society, the scoffs and sneers of the mult.i.tude, the outstretched finger of scorn, and the whispered mockery of pity, standing up for the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the very bosom of slavery, by her own observation and thought, of one thing she became certain,--that it was a false, cruel, accursed relation between human beings. And to this conviction, from the very budding of her womanhood, she was true; not the fear of poverty, obloquy, or death could induce her to smother it. Neither wealth, nor fame, nor tyrant fashion, nor all that the high position of her birth had to offer, could bribe her to abate one syllable of her testimony against the seductive system.... Let us hope that South Carolina will yet count this n.o.ble, brave, excellent woman above all her past heroes. She it was, more than all the rest of us put together, who called out what was good and humane in the Christian church to take the part of the slave, and deliver the proud State of her birth from the monster that had preyed on its vitals for a century. I have no fitting words for a life like hers. With a mind high and deep and broad enough to grasp the relations of justice and mercy, and a heart warm enough to sympathize with and cherish all that live, what a home she made! Words cannot paint it. I saw it in that old stone house, surrounded with its beautiful garden, at Belleville, on the banks of the Pa.s.saic. I saw it in that busy, bright, and cheery palace of true education at Eagleswood, New Jersey. I have seen it here, in this Mecca of the wise.

Well done! Oh, well done!"

Mr. Wright was followed by Robert F. Walcutt, Lucy Stone, and Wendell Phillips.

"The women of to-day," said Lucy Stone, "owe more than they will ever know to the high courage, the rare insight, and fidelity to principle of this woman, by whose suffering easy paths have been made for them.

Her example was a bugle-call to all other women. Who can tell how many have been quickened in a great life purpose by the heroism and self-forgetting devotion of her whose voice we shall never hear again, but who, 'being dead, yet speaketh.'"

The remarks of Wendell Phillips were peculiarly affecting, and were spoken with a tenderness which, for once at least, disproved the a.s.sertion that his eloquence was wanting in pathos.

"Friends," he said, "this life carries us back to the first chapter of that great movement with which her name is a.s.sociated,--to 1835, '36, '37, '38, when our cities roared with riot, when William Lloyd Garrison was dragged through the streets, when Dresser was mobbed in Nashville, and Macintosh burned in St. Louis. At that time, the hatred toward abolitionists was so bitter and merciless that the friends of Lovejoy left his grave long time unmarked; and at last ventured to put, with his name, on his tombstone, only this piteous entreaty: _Jam Parce Sepulto_, 'Spare him now in his grave.'

"As Friend Wright has said, we were but a handful, and our words beat against the stony public as powerless as if against the north wind. We got no sympathy from most northern men: their consciences were seared as with a hot iron. At this time a young woman came from the proudest State in the slave-holding section. She came to lay on the altar of this despised cause, this seemingly hopeless crusade, both family and friends, the best social position, a high place in the church, genius, and many gifts. No man at this day can know the grat.i.tude we felt for this help from such an unexpected source. After this[9] came James G.

Birney from the South, and many able and influential men and women joined us. At last John Brown laid his life, the crowning sacrifice, on the altar of the cause. But no man who remembers 1837 and its lowering clouds will deny that there was hardly any contribution to the anti-slavery movement greater or more impressive than the crusade of these Grimke sisters through the New England States.

"When I think of Angelina, there comes to me the picture of the spotless dove in the tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking for some place to rest her foot. She reminds me of innocence personified in Spenser's poem. In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she comforts the slave in his quarters, mentally struggling with the problems his position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the infallible touchstone of that clear, child-like conscience. The two old, lonely Quakers rest her foot awhile. But the eager soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North at last, she makes her own religion one of sacrifice and toil. Breaking away from, rising above, all forms, the dove floats at last in the blue sky where no clouds reach.... This is no place for tears. Graciously, in loving kindness and tenderly, G.o.d broke the shackles and freed her soul. It was not the dust which surrounded her that we loved. It was not the form which encompa.s.sed her that we revere; but it was the soul. We linger a very little while, her old comrades. The hour comes, it is even now at the door, that G.o.d will open our eyes to see her as she is: the white-souled child of twelve years old ministering to want and sorrow; the ripe life, full of great influences; the serene old age, example and inspiration whose light will not soon go out. Farewell for a very little while. G.o.d keep us fit to join thee in that broader service on which thou hast entered."

[9] A mistake. James G. Birney was one of the most widely known and influential leaders in the abolition cause at the time Angelina came into it.

At the close of Mr. Phillips' remarks a hymn was read and sung, followed by a fervent prayer from Mr. Morrison, when the services closed with the reading and singing of "Nearer, my G.o.d to Thee." Then, after the last look had been taken, the coffin-lid was softly closed over the placidly sleeping presence beneath, and the precious form was borne to Mount Hope, and tenderly lowered to its final resting-place.

There the sisters, inseparable in life, lie side by side next the "Evergreen Path," in that "dreamless realm of silence."

A friend, describing the funeral, says:--

"The funeral services throughout wore no air of gloom. That sombre c.r.a.pe shrouded no one with its dismal tokens. The light of a glorious autumn day streamed in through uncurtained windows. It was not a house of mourning,--no sad word said, no look of sorrow worn. The tears that freely fell were not of grief, but tears of yearning love, of sympathy, of solemn joy and grat.i.tude to G.o.d for such a life in its rounded completeness, such an example and testimony, such fidelity to conscience, such recoil from all self-seeking, such unswerving devotion to duty, come what might of peril or loss, even unto death."

Florence Nightingale, writing of a woman whose life, like the lives of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, had been devoted to the service of the poor, the weak, the oppressed, says at the close:--

"This is not an _in memoriam_, it is a war-cry such as she would have bid me write,--a cry for others to fill her place, to fill up the ranks, and fight the good fight against sin and vice and misery and wretchedness as she did,--the call to arms such as she was ever ready to obey."