In person he was rather tall, thin, and the lines of his face appeared, every one of them, to be engraved by caution and care. In his boyhood and youth, the man had had a trick of smiling and laughing without considering why; the grace of prudence, however, had corrected all this. He never did either, in these days, without understanding precisely what he was about. His face was a part of his stock in trade, and he understood the management of it remarkably well. He knew precisely all the gradations of smile which were useful for accomplishing different purposes. The solemn smile, the smile of inquiry, the smile affirmative, the smile suggestive, the smile of incredulity, and the smile of innocent credulity, which encouraged the simple-hearted narrator to go on unfolding himself to the brother, who sat quietly behind his face, as a spider does behind his web, waiting till his unsuspecting friend had tangled himself in incautious, impulsive, and, of course, contradictory meshes of statement, which were in some future hour, in the most gentle and Christian spirit, to be tightened around the incautious captive, while as much blood was sucked as the good of the cause demanded.
It is not to be supposed that the Rev. Dr. Packthread, so skillful and adroit as we have represented him, failed in the necessary climax of such skill, — that of deceiving himself. Far from it. Truly and honestly Dr. Packthread thought himself one of the hundred and forty and four thousand, who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, in whose mouth is found no guile. Prudence he considered the chief of Christian graces. He worshiped Christian prudence, and the whole category of accomplishments which we have described he considered as the fruits of it. His prudence, in fact, served him all the purposes that the stock of the tree did to the ancient idolater. “With part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he falleth down unto it, and worshipeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.”
No doubt Dr. Packthread expected to enter heaven by the same judicious arrangement by which he had lived on earth; and so he went on, from year to year, doing deeds which even a political candidate would blush at, violating the most ordinary principles of morality and honor; while he sung hymns, made prayers, and administered sacraments, expecting, no doubt, at last to enter heaven by some neat arrangement of words used in two senses.
Dr. Packthread’s cautious agreeableness of manner formed a striking contrast to the innocent and almost childlike simplicity with which father Dickson, in his threadbare coat, appeared at his side. Almost as poor in this world’s goods as his Master, father Dickson’s dwelling had been a simple one-story cottage, in all, save thrift and neatness, very little better than those of the poorest; and it was a rare year when a hundred dollars passed through his hands. He had seen the time when he had not even wherewithal to take from the office a necessary letter. He had seen his wife suffer for medicine and comforts in sickness. He had himself ridden without overcoat through the chill months of winter; but all those things he had borne as the traveler bears a storm on the way to his home; and it was beautiful to see the unenvying, frank, simple pleasure which he seemed to feel in the elegant and abundant home of his brother, and in the thousand appliances of hospitable comfort by which he was surrounded. The spirit within us that lusteth to envy had been chased from his bosom by the expulsive force of a higher love; and his simple and unstudied acts of constant good will showed that simple Christianity can make the gentleman. Father Dickson was regarded by his ministerial brethren with great affection and veneration, though wholly devoid of any ecclesiastical wisdom. They were fond of using him, much as they did their hymn-books and Testaments, for their better hours of devotion; and equally apt to let slip his admonitions when they came to the hard, matter-of-fact business of ecclesiastical discussion and management; yet they loved well to have him with them, as they felt that, like a psalm or a text, his presence in some sort gave sanction to what they did.
In due time there was added to the number of the circle our joyous, outspoken friend, father Bonnie, fresh from a recent series of camp-meetings in a distant part of the State, and ready at a minute’s notice for either a laugh or a prayer. Very little of the stereotype print of his profession had he; the sort of wild woodland freedom of his life giving to his manners and conversation a tone of sylvan roughness, of which Dr. Packthread evidently stood in considerable doubt. Father Bonnie’s early training had been that of what is called, in common parlance, a “self-made man.” He was unsophisticated by Greek or Latin, and had rather a contempt for the forms of the schools, and a joyous determination to say what he pleased on all occasions. There were also present one or two of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the North. They had, in fact, come for a private and confidential conversation with Dr. Cushing concerning the reunion of the New School Presbyterian Church with the Old.
It may be necessary to apprise some of our readers, not conversant with American ecclesiastical history, that the Presbyterian Church of America is divided into two parties in relation to certain theological points, and that the adherents on either side call themselves Old or New School. Some years since, these two parties divided, and each of them organized its own general assembly.
It so happened that all the slave-holding interest, with some very inconsiderable exceptions, went into the Old School body. The great majority of the New School body were avowedly anti-slavery men, according to a solemn declaration which committed the whole Presbyterian Church to those sentiments in the year 1818. And the breach between the two sections was caused quite as much by the difference of feeling between the Northern and Southern branches on the subject of slavery as by any differences of doctrine. After the first jar of separation was over, thoughts of reunion began to arise on both sides, and to be quietly discussed among leading minds.
There is a power in men of a certain class of making an organization of any kind, whether it be political or ecclesiastical, an object of absorbing and individual devotion. Most men feel empty and insufficient of themselves, and find a need to ballast their own insufficiency by attaching themselves to something of more weight than they are. They put their stock of being out at interest, and invest themselves somewhere and in something; and the love of wife or child is not more absorbing than the love of the bank where the man has invested himself. It is true, this power is a noble one; because thus a man may pass out of self and choose God, the great good of all, for his portion. But human weakness falls below this; and, as the idolater worships the infinite and unseen under a visible symbol till it effaces the memory of what is signified, so men begin by loving institutions for God’s sake, which come at last to stand with them in the place of God.
Such was the Rev. Dr. Calker. He was a man of powerful though narrow mind, of great energy and efficiency, and of that capability of abstract devotion which makes the soldier or the statesman. He was earnestly and sincerely devout, as he understood devotion. He began with loving the church for God’s sake, and ended with loving her better than God. And by the church he meant the organization of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Her cause, in his eyes, was God’s cause; her glory, God’s glory; her success, the indispensable condition of the millennium; her defeat, the defeat of all that was good for the human race. His devotion to her was honest and unselfish.
Of course Dr. Calker estimated all interests by their influence on the Presbyterian Church. He weighed every cause in the balance of her sanctuary. What promised extension and power to her, that he supported. What threatened defeat or impediment, that he was ready to sacrifice. He would, at any day, sacrifice himself and all his interests to that cause, and he felt equally willing to sacrifice others and their interests. The anti-slavery cause he regarded with a simple eye to this question. It was a disturbing force, weakening the harmony among brethren, threatening disruption and disunion. He regarded it, therefore, with distrust and aversion. He would read no facts on that side o
f the question. And when the discussions of zealous brethren would bring frightful and appalling statements into the General Assembly, he was too busy, in seeking what could be said to ward off their force, to allow them to have much influence on his own mind. Gradually he came to view the whole subject with dislike, as a pertinacious intruder in the path of the Presbyterian Church. That the whole train of cars, laden with the interests of the world for all time, should be stopped by a ragged, manacled slave across the track, was to him an impertinence and absurdity. What was he, that the Presbyterian Church should be divided and hindered for him? So thought the exultant thousands who followed Christ, once, when the blind beggar raised his importunate clamor, and they bade him hold his peace. So thought not He who stopped the tide of triumphant success that he might call the neglected one to himself, and lay his hands upon him.
Dr. Calker had from year to year opposed the agitation of the slavery question in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, knowing well that it threatened disunion. When, in spite of all his efforts, disunion came, he bent his energies to the task of reuniting; and he was the most important character in the present caucus.
Of course a layman, and a young man also, would feel some natural hesitancy in joining at once in the conversation of those older than himself. Clayton, therefore, sat at the hospitable breakfast-table of Dr. Cushing rather as an auditor than as a speaker.
“Now, brother Cushing,” said Dr. Calker, “the fact is, there never was any need of this disruption. It has crippled the power of the church, and given the enemy occasion to speak reproachfully. Our divisions are playing right into the hands of the Methodists and Baptists; and ground that we might hold, united, is going into their hands every year.”
“I know it,” said Dr. Cushing, “and we Southern brethren mourn over it, I assure you. The fact is, brother Calker, there’s no such doctrinal division, after all. Why, there are brethren among us that are as New School as Dr. Draper, and we don’t meddle with them.”
“Just so,” replied Dr. Calker; “and we have true-blue Old School men among us.”
“I think,” said Dr. Packthread, “that, with suitable care, a document might be drawn up which will meet the views on both sides. You see, we must get the extreme men on both sides to agree to hold still. Why, now, I am called New School; but I wrote a set of definitions once, which I showed to Dr. Pyke, who is as sharp as anybody on the other side, and he said, ‘He agreed with them entirely.’
Those N — H — men are incautious.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Calker, “and it’s just dividing the resources and the influence of the church for nothing. Now, those discussions as to the time when moral agency begins are, after all, of no great account in practical workings.”
“Well,” said Dr. Cushing, “it’s, after all, nothing but the tone of your abolition fanatics that stands in the way. These slavery discussions in General Assembly have been very disagreeble and painful to our people, particularly those of the Western brethren. They don’t understand us, nor the delicacy of our position. They don’t know that we need to be let alone in order to effect anything. Now, I am for trusting to the softening, meliorating influences of the gospel. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. I trust that, in his mysterious providence, the Lord will see fit, in his own good time, to remove this evil of slavery. Meanwhile, brethren ought to possess their souls in patience.”
“Brother Cushing,” said father Dickson, “since the assembly of 1818, the number of slaves has increased in this country fourfold. New slave States have been added, and a great, regular system of breeding and trading organized, which is filling all our large cities with trading-houses. The ships of our ports go out as slavers, carrying loads of miserable creatures down to New Orleans; and there is a constant increase of this traffic through the country. This very summer I was at the death-bed of a poor girl, only seventeen or eighteen, who had been torn from all her friends and sent off with a coffle; and she died there in the wilderness. It does seem to me, brother Cushing, that this silent plan does not answer. We are not half as near to emancipation, apparently, as we were in 1818.”
“Has there ever been any attempt,” said Clayton, “among the Christians of your denominations, to put a stop to this internal slave-trade?”
“Well,” said Dr. Cushing, “I don’t know that there has, any further than general preaching against injustice.”
“Have you ever made any movement in the church to prevent the separation of families?” said Clayton.
“No, not exactly. We leave that thing to the conscience of individuals. The synods have always enjoined it on professors of religion to treat their servants according to the spirit of the gospel.”
“Has the church ever endeavored to influence the legislature to allow general education?” said Clayton.
“No; that subject is fraught with difficulties,” said Dr.
Cushing. “The fact is, if these rabid Northern abolitionists would let us alone, we might, perhaps, make a movement on some of these subjects. But they excite the minds of our people, and get them into such a state of inflammation that we cannot do anything.”
During all the time that father Dickson and Clayton had been speaking, Dr. Calker had been making minutes with a pencil on a small piece of paper for future use. It was always disagreeable to him to hear of slave-coffles and the internal slave-trade; and therefore, when anything was ever said on these topics, he would generally employ himself in some other way than listening. Father Dickson he had known of old as being remarkably pertinacious on those subjects; and therefore, when he began to speak, he took the opportunity of jotting down a few ideas for a future exigency. He now looked up from his paper, and spoke: —
“Oh, those fellows are without any reason, — perfectly wild and crazy! They are monomaniacs! They cannot see but one subject anywhere. Now, there’s father Ruskin, of Ohio, — there’s nothing can be done with that man! I have had him at my house hours and hours, talking to him, and laying it all down before him, and showing him what great interests he was compromising. But it didn’t do a bit of good. He just harps on one eternal string. Now, it’s all the pushing and driving of these fellows in the General Assembly that made the division, in my opinion.”
“We kept it off a good many years,” said Dr. Packthread; “and it took all our ingenuity to do it, I assure you. Now, ever since 1835, these fellows have been pushing and crowding in every assembly; and we have stood faithfully in our lot, to keep the assembly from doing anything which could give offense to our Southern brethren. We have always been particular to put them forward in our public services, and to show them every imaginable deference. I think our brethren ought to consider how hard we have worked. We had to be instant in season and out of season, I can tell you. I think I may claim some little merit,” continued the doctor, with a cautious smile spreading over his face; “if I have any talent, it is a capacity in the judicious use of language. Now, sometimes brethren will wrangle a whole day, till they all get tired and sick of a subject; and then just let a man who understands the use of terms step in, and sometimes, by omitting a single word, he will alter the whole face of an affair. I remember one year those fellows were driving us up to make some sort of declaration about slavery. And we really had to do it, because it wouldn’t do to have the whole West split off; and there was a three days’ fight, till finally we got the thing pared down to the lowest terms. We thought we would pass a resolution that slavery was a moral evil, if the Southern brethren liked that better than the old way of calling it a sin, and we really were getting on quite harmoniously, when some of the Southern ultras took it up; and they said that moral evil meant the same as sin, and that would imply a censure on the brethren. Well, it got late, and some of the hottest ones were tired and had gone off; and I just quietly drew my pen across the word moral and read the resolution, and it went unanimously. Most ministers, you see, are willing to call slavery an evil, — the trouble lay in that word moral. Well, t
hat capped the crater for that year. But then, they were at it again the very next time they came together, for those fellows never sleep. Well, then we took a new turn. I told the brethren we had better get it on to the ground of the reserved rights of presbyteries and synods, and decline interfering. Well, then, that was going very well, but some of the brethren very injudiciously got up a resolution in the assembly recommending disciplinary measures for dancing. That was passed without much thought, because, you know, there’s no great interest involved in dancing, and of course there’s nobody to oppose such a resolution; but then it was very injudicious, under the circumstances; for the abolitionists made a handle of it immediately, and wanted to know why we couldn’t as well recommend a discipline for slavery; because, you see, dancing isn’t a sin per se, any more than slavery is; and they haven’t done blowing their trumpets over us to this day.”
Here the company rose from breakfast, and, according to the good old devout custom, seated themselves for family worship. Two decent, well-dressed black women were called in, and also a negro man. At father Dickson’s request, all united in singing the following hymn: —
“Am I a soldier of the cross,
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 111
