Part 7 (1/2)
”The mills of the G.o.ds grind slowly;” and perhaps it was all the better in the end, for the cause their advocated so grandly, that Sarah and Angelina Grimke should have gone through this long period of silence and repression, during which their moral and intellectual forces gathered power for the conflict--the great work which both had so singularly and for so many years seen was before them, though its nature was for a long time hidden.
Angelina's experience in the infant school, interesting as it was to her, was discouraging so far as her success as a teacher went; and she soon gave it up and made inquiries concerning some school in which she could prepare herself to teach. Catherine Beecher's then famous seminary at Hartford was recommended, and a correspondence was opened.
Several letters pa.s.sed between Catherine and her would-be pupil, which so aroused Catherine's interest, that she went on to Philadelphia chiefly to make a personal acquaintance with the very mature young woman who at the age of twenty-seven declared she knew nothing and wanted to go to school again. In one of her letters to Sarah, early in the spring of 1832, Angelina says,--
”Catherine Beecher has actually paid her promised visit. She regretted not seeing thee, and seemed much pleased with me. The day after she arrived she went to meeting with me, and I think was more tired of it than any person I ever saw. It was a long, silent meeting, except a few words from J.L.”
When Catherine Beecher took her leave of Angelina, she cordially invited her to visit Hartford, and examine for herself the system of education there pursued.
Sarah returned to Philadelphia in March, 1832, cutting short her visit at the earnest entreaty of Angelina, who was then looking forward to her first Yearly Meeting, and desired her sister's encouraging presence with her. Writing to Sarah, she says: ”I have much desired that we might at that time mingle in sympathy and love. Truly we have known, might I not say, the agony of separation.”
Soon after Sarah's return, Angelina went to live with Mrs. Frost, in order to give that sister the benefit of her board. This separation was a great trial to both sisters, and only consented to from a sense of duty.
CHAPTER IX.
In July, 1832, Angelina, accompanied by a friend, set out to make her promised visit to Hartford. Her journal, kept day by day, shows her to have been at this time in a most cheerful frame of mind, which fitted her to enjoy not only the beautiful scenery on her journey, but the society of the various people she met. At times she is almost like a young girl just out of school; and we can hardly wonder that she felt so, after the monotonous life she had led so long, and the uniform character of the people with whom she had a.s.sociated. She visited New Haven, with its great college, and then went to Hartford, where a week was pleasantly spent in attendance on Catherine Beecher's cla.s.ses, and in visiting Lydia Sigourney, and others, to whom she had brought letters. After examining Angelina, Catherine gave her the gratifying opinion that she could be prepared to teach in six months, and she at once began to try her hand at drawing maps., and to take part in many of the exercises of the school. She could, however, make no definite arrangement until her return to Philadelphia; but she was full of enthusiasm, and utilized to the very utmost the advantages of conversation with Catherine and Harriet Beecher. She was evidently quite charmed with Harriet's bright intellect and pleasant manner, and refers particularly to a very satisfactory conversation held with her about Quakers. The people of this Society were so little known in New England at that period, that Angelina and her friend, in their peculiar dress, were objects of great curiosity where-ever they went. Catherine Beecher accompanied them back to New Tork, and saw them safely on their way to Philadelphia. But when Angelina mentioned to Friends her desire to return to Hartford and become a teacher, she was answered with the most decided disapprobation. Several unsatisfactory reasons were given--”going among strangers”--”leaving her sisters,”--”abandoning her charities,” &c., the real one probably being the fear to trust their impressionable young member to Presbyterian influence. And so she must content herself to sink down in the old ruts, and plod on in work which was daily becoming more insufficient to her intellectual and spiritual needs. Her chief pleasure was her correspondence with her brother Thomas, with whom she discussed controversial Bible questions, and various moral reforms, including prison discipline; but only once does she seem to have touched the question of slavery, which absorbed the public mind to such a degree that there was scarcely a household throughout the length and breadth of the land, that did not feel its influence in some way.
In 1832 the most intense excitement prevailed throughout the South, especially in South Carolina, where Mr. Calhoun had just thrown down the gauntlet to the Federal government. In this Angelina expresses some interest, though chiefly from a religious point of view, as she regards all the important events then taking place as ”signs of the times,” and congratulates herself and her brother that they live in ”such an important and interesting era, when the laws of Christianity are interwoven with the system, of education, and with even the discipline of prisons and houses of refuge.” In one of her letters we find the following:--
”I may be deceived, but the cloud which has arisen in the South will, I fear, spread over all our heavens, though it looks now so small. It will come down upon us in a storm which will beat our government to pieces; for, beautiful as it may appear, it is, nevertheless, not built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. We may boast of this temple of liberty, but oh, my brother, it is not of G.o.d.”
In this letter she speaks of being much interested in ”Ramsey's Civil and Ecclesiastical Polity of the Jews,” and mentions that they were studying together, in the family, ”Townsend's Old Testament, chronologically arranged, with notes, a work in twenty-eight volumes.”
She adds:--
”Will not the study of the Bible produce a thirst for the purest and most valuable literature, as, to understand it, we must study the history of nations, natural history, philosophy, and geography.”
In another letter she says:--
”I am glad of thy opinions, but I cannot see that Carolina will escape.
Slavery is too great a sin for justice always to sleep over, and this is, I believe, the true cause of the declining state of Carolina; this the root of bitterness which is to trouble our republic. I am not moved by fear to these reflections, but by a calm and deliberate consideration of the state of the Church, and while I believe convulsions and distress are coming upon this country, I am comforted in believing that _my_ kingdom is not of this world, nor thine either, I trust, beloved brother.”
To this letter Sarah adds a postscript, and says: ”My fears respecting you are often prevalent, but I endeavor not to be too anxious. The Lord is omnipotent, and although I fear His sword is unsheathed against America, I believe He will remember His own elect, and s.h.i.+eld them....
Do the planters approve or aid the Colonization Society? There have been some severe pieces published in our papers about it.”
At this time--that is, during the summer of 1832--Sarah lived a more than usually retired life, and her diary only records her increased depression of spirits, and her continued painful experiences in meeting. She would gladly have turned her back upon it all, and sought a home elsewhere at the North, or have returned to Charleston, but she dared not move without divine approbation, and this never seemed sufficiently clear to satisfy her.
”Surely,” she says, ”though I cannot understand why it is so, there must be wisdom in the decree which forbids my seeking another home.
Most gladly would I have remained in Charleston, but my Father's will was not so.”
And again she says,--
”But while the desire to escape present conflict has turned my mind there [to Charleston] with longing towards my precious mother, all the answer I can hear from the sanctuary is, 'Stay here;' and Satan adds, 'to suffer.'” According to Sarah's own views, she had thus far made little or no progress towards the great end and aim of her labors and sacrifices,--the securing of her eternal salvation; and the amount of misery she managed to manufacture for herself out of this thought, and her many fancied transgressions, is sad in the extreme. Years afterwards, in a letter to a young friend, she says,--
”I have suffered the very torments of the fabled h.e.l.l, because my conscience was sore to the touch all over. I would fain have you spared such long, dark years of anguish.”
And to another friend, concerning this portion of her life, she writes,--