By this time there were tumultuous responses from the audience of groans, cries, clapping of hands, and mingled shouts of Glory and Amen.
The electric shout of the multitude acted on the preacher again, as he went on, with a yet fiercer energy. “Now is your time, sinners! Now is your time! Come unto the altar, and God’s people will pray for you! Now is the day of grace! Come up! Come up, you that have got pious fathers and mothers in glory! Come up, father! come up, mother! come up, brother! Come, young man! we want you to come! Ah, there’s a hardened sinner, off there! I see his lofty looks! Come up, come up! Come up, you rich sinners! You’ll be poor enough in the day of the Lord, I can tell you! Come up, you young women!
You daughters of Jerusalem, with your tinkling ornaments! Come, saints of the Lord, and labor with me in prayer. Strike up a hymn, brethren, strike up the hymn!” And a thousand voices commenced the hymn, —
“Stop, poor sinner, stop and think,
Before you further go!”
And, meanwhile, ministers and elders moved around the throng, entreating and urging one and another to come and kneel before the stand. Multitudes rushed forward, groans and sobs were heard, as the speaker continued, with redoubled vehemence.
“I don’t care,” said Mr. John Gordon, “who sees me; I’m going up! I am a poor old sinner, and I ought to be prayed for, if anybody.”
Nina shrank back, and clung to Clayton’s arm. So vehement was the surging feeling of the throng around her that she wept with a wild, tremulous excitement.
“Do take me out, — it’s dreadful!” she said.
Clayton passed his arm round her, and opening a way through the crowd, carried her out beyond the limits, where they stood together alone, under the tree.
“I know I am not good as I ought to be,” she said, “but I don’t know how to be any better. Do you think it would do me any good to go up there? Do you believe in these things?”
“I sympathize with every effort that man makes to approach his Maker,” said Clayton; “these ways do not suit me, but I dare not judge them. I cannot despise them. I must not make myself a rule for others.”
“But don’t you think,” said Nina, “that these things do harm sometimes?”
“Alas, child, what form of religion does not? It is our fatality that everything that does good must do harm. It’s the condition of our poor, imperfect life here.”
“I do not like these terrible threats,” said Nina. “Can fear of fire make me love? Besides, I have a kind of courage in me that always rises up against a threat. It isn’t my nature to fear.”
“If we may judge our Father by his voice in nature,” said Clayton, “he deems severity a necessary part of our training. How inflexibly and terribly regular are all his laws! Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind, fulfilling his word — all these have a crashing regularity in their movements, which show that he is to be feared as well as loved.”
“But I want to be religious,” said Nina, “entirely apart from such considerations. Not driven by fear, but drawn by love. You can guide me about these things, for you are religious.”
“I fear I should not be accepted as such in any church,” said Clayton. “It is my misfortune that I cannot receive any common form of faith, though I respect and sympathize with all. Generally speaking, preaching only weakens my faith; and I have to forget the sermon in order to recover my faith. I do not believe — I know that our moral nature needs a thorough regeneration; and I believe this must come through Christ. This is all I am certain of.”
“I wish I were like Milly,” said Nina. “She is a Christian, I know; but she has come to it by dreadful sorrows. Sometimes I’m afraid to ask my heavenly Father to make me good, because I think it will come by dreadful trials, if he does.”
“And I,” said Clayton, speaking with great earnestness, “would be willing to suffer anything conceivable, if I could only overcome all evil, and come up to my highest ideas of good.” And as he spoke, he turned his face up to the moonlight with an earnest fervor of expression, that struck Nina deeply.
“I almost shudder to hear you say so! You don’t know what it may bring on you!”
He looked at her with a beautiful smile, which was a peculiar expression of his face in moments of high excitement.
“I say it again!” he said. “Whatever it involves, let it come!”
The exercises of the evening went on with a succession of addresses, varied by singing of hymns and prayers. In the latter part of the time many declared themselves converts, and were shouting loudly. Father Bonnie came forward.
“Brethren,” he shouted, “we are seeing a day from the Lord! We’ve got a glorious time! Oh, brethren, let us sing glory to the Lord! The Lord is coming among us!”
The excitement now became general. There was a confused sound of exhortation, prayers, and hymns, all mixed together, from different parts of the ground. But all of a sudden, every one was startled by a sound which seemed to come pealing down directly from the thick canopy of pines over the heads of the ministers.
“Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end shall it be for you? The day of the Lord shall be darkness, and not light! Blow ye the trumpet in Zion! Sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble! for the day of the Lord cometh!”
There was deep, sonorous power in the voice that spoke, and the words fell pealing down through the air like the vibrations of some mighty bell. Men looked confusedly on each other; but in the universal license of the hour, the obscurity of the night, and the multitude of the speakers, no one knew exactly whence it came. After a moment’s pause, the singers were recommencing, when again the same deep voice was heard.
“Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and the melody of thy viols; for I will not hear them, saith the Lord. I hate and despise your feast-days! I will not smell in your solemn assemblies; for your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers are greedy for violence! Will ye kill, and steal, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and come and stand before me, saith the Lord? Ye oppress the poor and needy, and hunt the stranger; also in thy skirts is found the blood of poor innocents! and yet ye say, Because I am clean shall his anger pass from me! Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes? The Lord hath sworn, saying, I will never forget their works. I will surely visit you!”
The audience, thus taken, in the obscurity of the evening, by an unknown speaker, whose words seemed to fall apparently from the clouds, in a voice of such strange and singular quality, began to feel a creeping awe stealing over them. The high state of electrical excitement under which they had been going on, predisposed them to a sort of revulsion of terror; and a vague, mysterious panic crept upon them, as the boding, mournful voice continued to peal from the trees.
“Hear, oh ye rebellious people! The Lord is against this nation! The Lord shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness! For thou saidst, I will ascend into the stars; I will be as God! But thou shalt be cast out as an abominable branch, and the wild beasts shall tread thee down! Howl, fir-tree, for thou art spoiled! Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars! for the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the land! The Lord shall utter his voice before his army, for his camp is very great! Multitudes! multitudes! in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision! The sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining; for the Lord shall utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and earth shall shake! In that day I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and darken the whole earth! And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentation! Woe to the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery! The noise of a whip! — the noise of the rattling of wheels! — of the prancing horses, and the jumping
chariot! The horseman lifteth up the sword and glittering spear! and there is a multitude of slain! There is no end of their corpses! — They are stumbling upon the corpses! For, Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord, and I will make thee utterly desolate!”
There was a fierce, wailing earnestness in the sound of these dreadful words, as if they were uttered in a paroxysm of affright and horror, by one who stood face to face with some tremendous form. And when the sound ceased, men drew in their breath, and looked on each other, and the crowd began slowly to disperse, whispering in low voices to each other. So extremely piercing and so wildly earnest had the voice been, that it actually seemed, in the expressive words of Scripture, to make every ear to tingle. And as people of rude and primitive habits are always predisposed to superstition, there crept through the different groups wild legends of prophets strangely commissioned to announce coming misfortunes. Some spoke of the predictions of the judgment-day; some talked of comets, and strange signs that had preceded wars and pestilences. The ministers wondered, and searched around the stand in vain. One auditor alone could, had he desired it, make an explanation. Harry, who stood near the stand, had recognized the voice. But though he searched, also, around, he could find no one.
He who spoke was one whose savage familiarity with nature gave him the agility and stealthy adroitness of a wild animal. And during the stir and commotion of the dispersing audience, he had silently made his way from tree to tree, over the very heads of those who were yet wondering at his strange, boding words, till at last he descended in a distant part of the forest.
After the service, as Father Dickson was preparing to retire to his tent, a man pulled him by the sleeve. It was the Georgia trader.
“We have had an awful time, to-night!” said he, looking actually pale with terror. “Do you think the judgment-day really is coming?”
“My friend,” said Father Dickson, “it surely is! Every step we take in life is leading us directly to the judgment-seat of Christ!”
“Well,” said the trader, “but do you think that was from the Lord, the last one that spoke? Durned if he didn’t say awful things!—’nough to make the hair rise! I tell you what, I’ve often had doubts about my trade. The ministers may prove it’s all right out of the Old Testament; but I’m durned if I think they know all the things that we do! But then, I ain’t so bad as some of ‘em. But now, I’ve got a gal out in my gang that’s dreadful sick, and I partly promised her I’d bring a minister to see her.”
“I’ll go with you, friend,” said Father Dickson; and forthwith he began following the trader to the racks where their horses were tied. Selecting, out of some hundred who were tied there, their own beasts, the two midnight travelers soon found themselves trotting along under the shadow of the forest’s boughs.
“My friend,” said Father Dickson, “I feel bound in conscience to tell you that I think your trade a ruinous one to your soul. I hope you’ll lay to heart the solemn warning you’ve heard to-night. Why, your own sense can show you that a trade can’t be right that you’d be afraid to be found in if the great judgment-day were at hand.”
“Well, I rather spect you speak the truth; but then, what makes Father Bonnie stand up for ‘t?”
“My friend, I must say that I think Father Bonnie upholds a soul-destroying error. I must say that, as conscience-bound. I pray the Lord for him and you both. I put it right to your conscience, my friend, whether you think you could keep to your trade, and live a Christian life.”
“No; the fact is, it’s a d — d bad business, that’s just where ’tis. We ain’t fit to be trusted with such things that come to us — gals and women. Well, I feel pretty bad, I tell you, to-night; ‘cause I know I haven’t done right by this yer gal. I ought fur to have let her alone; but then, the devil or something possessed me. And now she has got a fever, and screeches awfully. I declar, some things she says go right through me!”
Father Dickson groaned in spirit over this account, and felt himself almost guilty for belonging ostensibly and outwardly to a church which tolerated such evils. He rode along by the side of his companion, breaking forth into occasional ejaculations and snatches of hymns. After a ride of about an hour, they arrived at the encampment. A large fire had been made in a cleared spot, and smouldering fragments and brands were lying among the white ashes. One or two horses were tied to a neighboring tree, and wagons were drawn up by them. Around the fire, in different groups, lay about fifteen men and women, with heavy iron shackles on their feet, asleep in the moonlight. At a little distance from the group, and near to one of the wagons, a blanket was spread down on the ground under a tree, on which lay a young girl of seventeen, tossing and moaning in a disturbed stupor. A respectable-looking mulatto woman was sitting beside her, with a gourd full of water, with which from time to time she moistened her forehead. The woman rose as the trader came up.
“Well, Nance, how does she do now?” said the trader. “Mis’able enough!” said Nance. “She done been tossing, a-throwing round, and crying for her mammy, ever since you went away!”
“Well, I’ve brought the minister,” said he. “Try, Nance, to wake her up; she’ll be glad to see him.”
The woman knelt down, and took the hand of the sleeper.
“Emily! Emily!” she said, “wake up!”
The girl threw herself over with a sudden, restless toss. “Oh, how my head burns! — Oh, dear! — Oh, my mother! Mother! — mother! — mother! — why don’t you come to me?”
Father Dickson approached and knelt the other side of her. The mulatto woman made another effort to bring her to consciousness.
“Emily, here’s the minister you was wanting so much! Emily, wake up!”
The girl slowly opened her eyes — large, tremulous, dark eyes. She drew her hand across them, as if to clear her sight, and looked wistfully at the woman.
“Minister! — minister!” she said.
“Yes, minister! You said you wanted to see one.”
“Oh yes, I did!” she said heavily.
“My daughter!” said Father Dickson, “you are very sick!”
“Yes!” she said, “very! And I’m glad of it! I’m going to die! — I’m glad of that, too! That’s all I’ve got left to be glad of! But I wanted to ask you to write to my mother. She is a free woman; she lives in New York. I want you to give my love to her, and tell her not to worry any more. Tell her I tried all I could to get to her; but they took us, and mistress was so angry she sold me! I forgive her, too. I don’t bear her any malice, ‘cause it’s all over, now! She used to say I was a wild girl, and laughed too loud. I sha’n’t trouble any one that way any more! So that’s no matter!”
The girl spoke these sentences at long intervals, occasionally opening her eyes and closing them again in a languid manner. Father Dickson, however, who had some knowledge of medicine, placed his finger on her pulse, which was rapidly sinking. It is the usual instinct, in all such cases, to think of means of prolonging life. Father Dickson rose, and said to the trader: —
“Unless some stimulant be given her, she will be gone very soon!”
The trader produced from his pocket a flask of brandy, which he mixed with a little water in a cup, and placed it in Father Dickson’s hand. He kneeled down again, and calling her by name, tried to make her take some.
“What is it?” said she, opening her wild, glittering eyes.
“It’s something to make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better! I want to die!” she said, throwing herself over. “What should I want to live for?” What should she? The words struck Father Dickson so much that he sat for a while in silence. He meditated in his mind how he could reach, with any words, that dying ear, or enter with her into that land of trance and mist, into whose cloudy circle the soul seemed already to have passed. Guided by a subtle instinct, he seated himself by the dying girl, and began singing, in a subdued, plaintive air, the following well-known hymn: —
“Hark, my soul! it is the Lord,
‘T is thy Saviour, hear his word;
Jesus speaks — he speaks to thee!
Say, poor sinner, lov’st thou me?”
The melody is one often sung among the negroes; and one which, from its tenderness and pathos, is JL favorite among them. As oil will find its way into crevices where water cannot penetrate, so song will find its way where speech can no longer enter. The moon shone full on the face of the dying girl, only interrupted by flickering shadows of leaves; and as Father Dickson sang, he fancied he saw a slight, tremulous movement of the face, as if the soul, so worn and weary, were upborne on the tender pinions of the song. He went on singing: —
“Can a mother’s tender care
Cease toward the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be:
Still will I remember thee.”
By the light of the moon, he saw a tear steal from under the long lashes, and course slowly down her cheek. He continued his song: —
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 93
