The Minister's Wooing

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman is, often, never so much an angel as just the moment before she falls into an unsounded depth of perdition. And what shall we say of the man who leads her on as an experiment,—who amuses himself with taking woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he certainly must, where they lead?

  We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he was not a man of gross passions or of coarse indulgence, but, in the most consummate and refined sense, a man of gallantry. This, then, is the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who does this thing!

  Of old, it was thought that one who administered poison in the sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious sacrilege; but this crime is white, by the side of his who poisons God’s eternal sacrament of love and destroys a woman’s soul through her noblest and purest affections.

  We have given you the after-view of most of the actors of our little scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep over the Colonel’s shoulder, as he sums up the evening in a letter to a friend.

  “MY DEAR—

  “As to the business, it gets on rather slowly. L—and S—are away, and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road.

  “Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations,—as, for example, a wedding-party to-night, at the Wilcoxes‘, which was really quite an affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on for many a day. I really couldn’t help getting up a flirtation with her, although it was much like flirting with a small copy of the ’Assembly’s Catechism,’—of which last I had enough years ago, Heaven knows.

  “But, really, such a naïve, earnest little saint, who has such real deadly belief, and opens such pitying blue eyes on one, is quite a stimulating novelty. I got myself well scolded by the fair Madame, (as angels scold), and had to plead like a lawyer to make my peace;—after all, that woman really enchains me. Don’t shake your head wisely,—‘What’s going to be the end of it?’ I’m sure I don’t know; we’ll see, when the time comes.

  “Meanwhile, push the business ahead with all your might. I shall not be idle. D—must canvass the Senate thoroughly. I wish I could be in two places at once,—I would do it myself. Au revoir.

  “Ever yours,

  “BURR.”

  CHAPTER XV

  The Sermon

  “AND now, Mary,” said Mrs. Scudder, at five o’clock the next morning, “to-day, you know, is the Doctor’s fast; so we won’t get any regular dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all our little odd jobs. Miss Prissy promised to come in for two or three hours this morning, to alter the waist of that black silk; and I shouldn’t be surprised if we should get it all done and ready to wear by Sunday.”

  We will remark, by way of explanation to a part of this conversation, that our Doctor, who was a specimen of life in earnest, made a practice, through the greater part of his pulpit course, of spending every Saturday as a day of fasting and retirement, in preparation for the duties of the Sabbath.

  Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no sooner disposed of than Miss Prissy’s quick footsteps might have been heard pattering in the kitchen.

  “Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this morning? and how do you do, Mary? Well, if you a’n’t the beaters! up just as early as ever, and everything cleared away! I was telling Miss Wilcox there didn’t ever seem to be anything done in Miss Scudder’s kitchen, and I did verily believe you made your beds before you got up in the morning.

  “Well, well, wasn’t that a party last night?” she said, as she sat down with the black silk and prepared her ripping-knife.—“I must rip this myself, Miss Scudder; for there’s a great deal in ripping silk so as not to let anybody know where it has been sewed.—You didn’t know that I was at the party, did you? Well, I was. You see, I thought I’d just step round there, to see about that money to get the Doctor’s shirt with, and there I found Miss Wilcox with so many things on her mind, and says she, ”Miss Prissy, you don’t know how much it would help me, if I had somebody like you just to look after things a little here.’ And says I, ‘Miss Wilcox, you just go right to your room and dress, and don’t you give yourself one minute’s thought about anything, and you see if I don’t have everything just right.’ And so, there I was, in for it; and I just staid through, and it was well I did,—for Dinah,1 she wouldn’t have put near enough egg into the coffee, if it hadn’t been for me; why, I just went and beat up four eggs with my own hands and stirred ’em into the grounds.

  “Well,—but, really, wasn’t I behind the door, and didn’t I peep into the supper-room? I saw who was a-waitin’ on Miss Mary. Well, they do say he’s the handsomest, most fascinating man. Why, they say all the ladies in Philadelphia are in a perfect quarrel about him; and I heard he said he hadn’t seen such a beauty he didn’t remember when.”

  “We all know that beauty is of small consequence,” said Mrs. Scudder. “I hope Mary has been brought up to feel that.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Miss Prissy, “it’s just like a fading flower; all is to be good and useful,—and that’s what she is. I told ‘em that her beauty was the least part of her; though I must say, that dress did fit like a biscuit,—if ’twas my own fitting.

  “But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard ’em saying about the good Doctor?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Scudder; “I only know they couldn’t say anything bad.”

  “Well, not bad exactly,” said Miss Prissy,—“but they say he’s getting such strange notions in his head. Why, I heard some of ‘em say, he’s going to come out and preach against the slave-trade; and I’m sure I don’t know what Newport folks will do, if that’s wicked. There a’n’t hardly any money here that’s made any other way; and I hope the Doctor a’n’t a-going to do anything of that sort.”

  “I believe he is,” said Mrs. Scudder; “he thinks it’s a great sin, that ought to be rebuked;—and I think so too,” she added, bracing herself resolutely; “that was Mr. Scudder’s opinion when I first married him, and it’s mine.”

  “Oh,—ah,—yes,—well,—if it’s a sin, of course,” said Miss Prissy; “but then—dear me!—It don’t seem as if it could be. Why, just think how many great houses are living on it;—why, there’s General Wilcox himself, and he’s a very nice man; and then there’s Major Seaforth; why, I could count you off a dozen,—all our very first people. Why, Doctor Stiles doesn’t think so, and I’m sure he’s a good Christian. Doctor Stiles thinks it’s a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel to the Africans. Why, now I’m sure, when I was a-working at Deacon Stebbins’s, I stopped over Sunday once ’cause Miss Stebbins she was weakly,—‘twas when she was getting up, after Samuel was born,—no, on the whole, I believe it was Nehemiah, —but, any way, I remember I staid there, and I remember, as plain as if ’twas yesterday, just after breakfast, how a man went driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon he went out and stopped him (‘cause you know he was justice of the peace) for travelling on the Lord’s day, and who should it be but Tom Seaforth?—he told the Deacon his father had got a ship-load of negroes just come in,—and the Deacon he just let him go; ’cause I remember he said that was a plain work of necessity and mercy.a Well, now who would ’a’ thought it? I believe the Doctor is better than most folks, but then the best people may be mistaken, you know.”

  “The Doctor has made up his mind that it’s his duty,” said Mrs. Scudder. “I’m afraid it will make him very unpopular; but I, for one, shall stand by him.”

  “Oh, certainly, Miss Scudder, you are doing just right exactly. Well, there’s one comfort, he’ll have a great crowd to hear him preach; ‘cause as I was going round through the entries last night, I heard ’em talking about it,—and Colonel Burr said he should be there, and so did the General, and so did Mr. What’s-his-name there, that Senator from Philadel
phia. I tell you, you’ll have a full house.”

  It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder’s heart rather sunk than otherwise at this announcement; and those who have felt what it is to stand almost alone in the right, in the face of all the first families of their acquaintance, may perhaps find some compassion for her,—since, after all, truth is invisible, but “first families” are very evident. First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable, fearfully virtuous, and it takes great faith to resist an evil principle which incarnates itself in the suavities of their breeding and amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy within her, and could with a very good grace have joined in the Doctor’s Saturday fast.

  As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in his study, with his great Bible and his Concordance open before him, culling, with that patient assiduity for which he was remarkable, all the terrible texts which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned book rains down so unsparingly on the sin of oppressing the weak.

  First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God on the mount;2 he was merely thinking of his message,—thinking only how he should shape it, so as not to leave one word of it unsaid,—not even imagining in the least what the result of it was to be. He was but a voice, but an instrument.—the passive instrument through which an almighty will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism of his faith made him as dead to all human considerations as if he had been a portion of the immutable laws of Nature herself.

  So, the next morning, although all his friends trembled for him when he rose in the pulpit, he never thought of trembling for himself; he had come in the covered way of silence from the secret place of the Most High, and felt himself still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. It was alike to him, whether the house was full or empty,—whoever were decreed to hear the message would be there; whether they would hear or forbear was already settled in the counsels of a mightier will than his,—he had the simple duty of utterance.

  The ruinous old meeting-house was never so radiant with station and gentility as on that morning. A June sun shone brightly; the sea sparkled with a thousand little eyes; the birds sang all along the way; and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder received into her pew, with dignified politeness, Colonel Burr and Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other grand old names, were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood revealed in bonnets.

  Everybody was looking fresh and amiable,—a charming and respectable set of sinners, come to hear what the Doctor would find to tell them about their transgressions.

  Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences; and, shutting her eyes on the too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for good. The Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm appeal to the reason which made his results always so weighty.

  “If these things be true,” he said, after a condensed statement of the facts of the case, “then the following terrible consequences, which may well make all shudder and tremble who realize them, force themselves upon us, namely: that all who have had any hand in this iniquitous business, whether directly or indirectly, or have used their influence to promote it, or have consented to it, or even connived at it, or have not opposed it by all proper exertions of which they are capable,—all these are, in a greater or less degree, chargeable with the injuries and miseries which millions have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty of the blood of millions who have lost their lives by this traffic in the human species. Not only the merchants who have been engaged in this trade, and the captains who have been tempted by the love of money to engage in this cruel work, and the slave-holders of every description, are guilty of shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures who have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected to suppress it to the utmost of their power, and all the individuals in private stations who have in any way aided in this business, consented to it, or have not opposed it to the utmost of their ability, have a share in this guilt.

  “This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended; this town has been built up, and flourished in times past, at the expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor Africans; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten most of their wealth and riches. If a bitter woe is pronounced on him ‘that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong,’ Jer. xxii. 13,—to him ‘that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity,’ Hab. ii. 12,—to ‘the bloody city,’ Ezek. xxiv. 6,—what a heavy, dreadful woe hangs over the heads of all those whose hands are defiled by the blood of the Africans, especially the inhabitants of this State and this town, who have had a distinguished share in this unrighteous and bloody commerce!”

  He went over the recent history of the country, expatiated on the national declaration so lately made, that all men are born equally free and independent and have natural and inalienable rights to liberty, and asked with what face a nation declaring such things could continue to hold thousands of their fellow-men in abject slavery. He pointed out signs of national disaster which foreboded the wrath of Heaven,—the increase of public and private debts, the spirit of murmuring and jealousy of rulers among the people, divisions and contentions and bitter party alienations, the jealous irritation of England constantly endeavoring to hamper our trade, the Indians making war on the frontiers, the Algerines3 taking captive our ships and making slaves of our citizens,—all evident tokens of the displeasure and impending judgment of an offended Justice.

  The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay audience, deep and dark as a thunder-cloud, which in a few moments changes a summer sky into heaviest gloom. Gradually an expression of intense interest and deep concern spread over the listeners; it was the magnetism of a strong mind, which held them for a time under the shadow of his own awful sense of God’s almighty justice.

  It is said that a little child once described his appearance in the pulpit by saying, “I saw God there, and I was afraid.”

  Something of the same effect was produced on his audience now; and it was not till after sermon, prayer, and benediction were all over, that the respectables of Newport began gradually to unstiffen themselves from the spell, and to look into each other’s eyes for comfort, and to reassure themselves that after all they were the first families, and going on the way the world had always gone, and that the Doctor, of course, was a radical and a fanatic.

  When the audience streamed out, crowding the broad aisle, Mary descended from the singers, and stood with her psalm-book in hand, waiting at the door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor. She overheard many hard words from people who, an evening or two before, had smiled so graciously upon them. It was therefore with no little determination of manner that she advanced and took the Doctor’s arm, as if anxious to associate herself with his well-earned unpopularity,—and just at this moment she caught the eye and smile of Colonel Burr, as he bowed gracefully, yet not without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his eye.

  CHAPTER XVI

  The Garret-Boudoir

  WE suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where, as a French writer has it, “she appears like a lovely picture in its frame.”

  Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know, then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a r
obin’s nest.

  Garrets are delicious places in any case, for people of thoughtful, imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive antiquity,—old worm-eaten chests,—rickety chairs,—boxes and casks full of odd comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands, we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? What peep-holes, and hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves,—where we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague, distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavory every-day task! How deliciously the rain came pattering on the roof over our head, or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly ensconced over the delicious pages of some romance, which careful aunts had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never read it! If you have anything, beloved friends, which you wish your Charley or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of your garret; —in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure that it will not only be read, but remembered to the longest day they have to live.