Part 4 (1/2)
Her withdrawal from the Presbyterian Church caused the most intense excitement in the community, and every effort was made to reclaim her.
The Rev. Mr. McDowell, her pastor, visited her, and remonstrated with her in the most feeling manner, a.s.suring her of his profound pity, as she was evidently under a delusion of the arch-adversary. Members of the congregation made repeated calls upon her, urging every argument they could think of to convince her she was deceived. Some expressed a fear that her mind was a little unbalanced, and shook their heads over the possible result; others declared that she was committing a great impropriety to shut herself up every Sunday with two old men. This, Angelina informed them, was a mistake, as the windows and doors were wide open, and the gate also. Others of her friends a.s.sured her with tears in their eyes that they would pray to the Lord to bring her back to the path of duty she had forsaken.
The superintendent of the Sunday-school came also to plead with her, in the name of the children she was abandoning. Some of the scholars themselves came and implored her not to leave them.
”But,” she writes, ”none of these things turn me a hair's breadth, for I have the witness in myself that I have done as the Master commanded.
Some tell me this is a judgment on me for sin committed; and some say it is a chastis.e.m.e.nt to Mr. McDowell for going away last summer.”
(During the prevalence of an epidemic the summer before, the Presbyterian pastor had been much blamed for deserting his flock and fleeing to the sea-sh.o.r.e until all danger was past.)
By all this it will be seen that Angelina was regarded as too precious a jewel in the crown of the Church to be relinquished without a struggle.
But satisfied as was her conscience, Angelina's natural feelings could not be immediately stifled. Though not so sensitive or so affectionate as Sarah, she was quite as proud, and valued as greatly the good opinion of her family and friends. She could not feel herself an outcast, an object of pity and derision, without being deeply affected by it. Her health gave way under the pressure, and a change of scene and climate was recommended. Sarah at once urged that she join her in Philadelphia; and, this meeting the approbation of her mother, she sailed for the North in July (1828).
In Sarah's diary, about this time, we find the following entry:--
”13th. My beloved Angelina arrived yesterday. Peace has, I believe, been the covering of our minds; and in thinking of her to-day, and trying to feel whether I should advise her not to adopt immediately the garb of a Quaker, the language presented itself, 'Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.' So I dared not meddle with her.”
The summer was a peaceful and delightful one to Angelina. She was the guest of Catherine Morris, and was treated like a daughter by all the kind Quaker circle. The novelty of her surroundings, the fresh scenes and new ideas constantly presented before her, opened up a field of thought whose boundaries only she had until then touched, but which she soon began eagerly and conscientiously to explore. Two extracts from letters written by her at that time will show how strict she was in her Quaker principles, and also that the persuasion that she was to be given some great work to do was becoming even more firmly grounded.
To Sarah, who was absent from her for a short time, she writes:--
”Dear Mother: My mind begins to be much exercised. I scarcely want to converse at all, and believe it best I should be much alone. Sister Anna is very kind in leaving me to myself. She appears to feel much for me, but I do not feel at liberty to ask her what occasions the tears which at times flow as she throws her arms around me. I sometimes think she sees more than I do about myself. I often tremble when I think of the future, and fear that I am not entirely resigned to my Master's will. Read the first chapter of Jeremiah; it rests much on my mind, and distresses me; and though I would wish to put far off the evil day, yet I am urged continually to pray that the Lord would cut short the work of preparation.”
Her sister Anna (Mrs. Frost) was one of those who thought Angelina was under a terrible delusion, and mourned over her wasted energies. But it is certainly singular that the chapter to which she refers, taken in connection with the work with which she afterwards became identified, should have made the impression on her mind which it evidently did, as she repeatedly alludes to it. This letter is the last in which she addresses Sarah as _mother_. Their Quaker friends all objected to the habit, and it was dropped.
In another letter she describes a visit she made to a friend in the country, and says:--
”I have already had reason to feel my great need of watchfulness here.
Yesterday the nurse gave me a cap to tuck and trim for the baby. My hands actually trembled as I worked on it, and yet I had not faithfulness enough to refuse to do it. This text was repeatedly presented to me, 'Happy is he who condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.' While working, my heart was lifted up to the Father of mercies for strength to bear my testimony against such vanities; and when I put the cap into Clara's hands, I begged her not to give me any more such work to do, as I felt it a duty to bear my testimony against dress, and believed it sinful in me to a.s.sist anyone in doing what I was convinced was sinful, and a.s.sured her of my willingness to do any plain work. She laughed at my scruples, but my agitated mind was calmed, and I was satisfied to be thought foolish for Christ's sake.
Thomas (Clara's husband) and I had along talk about Quakers yesterday.
I tried to convince him that they do not reject the Bible, explained the reason of their not calling it the word of G.o.d, and got him to acknowledge that in several texts I repeated the word was the Spirit.
We conversed on the ordinances. He did not argue much for them, but was immovable in his opinions. He thinks if all Quakers were like _me_, he could like them, but believes I have carried all the good of Presbyterianism into the Society, therefore they cannot be judged of by me.”
On the 11th of November Sarah writes: ”Parted with my dearly beloved sister Angelina this afternoon. We have been one another's consolation and strength in the Lord, mingling sweetly in exercise, and bearing one another's burdens.”
The first entry in Angelina's diary after her return to Charleston is as follows: ”Once more in the bosom of my family. My prayer is that our coming together may be for the better, not for the worse.”
Considering the agitation which had been going on at the North for several years concerning slavery, we must suppose that Angelina and Sarah Grimke heard it frequently discussed, and had its features brought before them in a stronger light than that in which they had previously viewed them. In Sarah's mind, absorbed as it was at that time by her own sorrows and by the deeply-rooted conviction of her prospective and dreaded call to the ministry, there appears to have been no room for any other subject, if we except the strife then going on in the Quaker Church, and which called forth all her sympathy for the Orthodox portion, and her strong denunciation of the Hicksites. But upon Angelina every word she heard against the inst.i.tution which she had always abhorred, but accepted as a necessary evil, made an indelible impression, which deepened when she was again face to face with its odious lineaments. This begins to show itself soon after her return home, as will be seen by the following extract:--
”Since my arrival I have enjoyed a continuation of that rest from exercise of mind which began last spring, until to-night. My soul is sorrowful, and my heart bleeds. I am ready to exclaim, When shall I be released from this land of slavery! But if my suffering for these poor creatures can at all ameliorate their condition, surely I ought to be quite willing, and I can now bless the Lord that my labor is not all in vain, though much remains to be done yet.”
The secluded and inactive life she now led confirmed the opinion of her Presbyterian friends that she was a backslider in the divine life.
I must reserve for another chapter the recital of Angelina's efforts to open the eyes of the members of her household to the unchristian life they were leading, and the sins they were multiplying on their heads by their treatments of those they held in bondage.
CHAPTER VI.
Many things about the home life which habit had prevented Angelina from remarking before, now, since her visit among Friends, struck her as sinful, and inconsistent with a Christian profession. Only a few days after her return, she thus writes in her diary:--