Part 16 (1/2)
Sarah Grimke thus wrote of Mrs. Chapman's appearance on that occasion: ”She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw; the perfection of sweetness and intelligence being blended in her speaking countenance.
She arose amid the yells and shouts of the infuriated mob, the crash of windows and the hurling of stones. She looked to me like an angelic being descended amid that tempest of pa.s.sion in all the dignity of conscious superiority.”
Then Angelina Weld, the bride of three days, came forward, and so great was the effect of her pure, beautiful presence and quiet, graceful manner, that in a few moments the confusion within the hall had subsided. With deep solemnity, and in words of burning eloquence, she gave her testimony against the awful wickedness of an inst.i.tution which had no secrets from her. She was frequently interrupted by the mob, but their yells and shouts only furnished her with metaphors which she used with unshrinking power. More stones were thrown at the windows, more gla.s.s crashed, but she only paused to ask:--
”What is a mob? What would the breaking of every window be? Any evidence that we are wrong, or that slavery is a good and wholesome inst.i.tution? What if that mob should now burst in upon us, break up our meeting, and commit violence upon our persons--would this be anything compared with what the slaves endure? No, no: and we do not remember them 'as bound with them,' if we shrink in the time of peril, or feel unwilling to sacrifice ourselves, if need be, for their sake.
I thank the Lord that there is yet life enough left to feel the truth, even though it rages at it--that conscience is not so completely seared as to be unmoved by the truth of the living G.o.d.”
Here a shower of stones was thrown through the windows, and there was some disturbance in the audience, but quiet was again restored, and Angelina proceeded, and spoke for over an hour, making no further reference to the noise without, and only showing that she noticed it by raising her own voice so that it could be heard throughout the hall.
Not once was a tremor or a change of color perceptible, and though the missiles continued to fly through the broken sashes, and the hootings and yellings increased outside, so powerfully did her words and tones hold that vast audience, that, imminent as seemed their peril, scarcely a man or woman moved to depart. She sat down amid applause that drowned all the noise outside.
Abby Kelly, then quite a young woman, next arose and said a few words, her first public utterances. She was followed by gentle Lucretia Mott in a short but most earnest speech, and then this memorable meeting, the first of the kind where men and women acted together as moral beings, closed.
There was a dense crowd in the streets around the hall as the immense audience streamed out, but though screams and all sorts of appalling noises were made, no violence was offered, and all reached their homes in safety.
But the mob remained, many of its wretched members staying all night, a.s.saulting every belated colored man who came along. The next morning the dregs of the populace, and some respectable _looking_ men again a.s.sembled around the doomed hall, but the usual meetings were held, and even the convention of women a.s.sembled in the lecture room to finish up their business. The evening was to have been occupied by a public meeting of the Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia, but as the day waned to its close, the indications of approaching disturbance became more and more alarming. The crowd around the building increased, and the secret agents of slavery were busy inflaming the pa.s.sions of the rabble against the abolitionists, and inciting it to outrage. Seeing this, and realizing the danger which threatened, the managers of the hall gave the building over to the protection of the mayor of the city, _at his request_. Of course the proposed meeting was postponed. All the mayor did was to appear in front of the hall, and, in a friendly tone, express to the mob the hope that it would not do anything disorderly, saying that he relied upon the men he saw before him, as his _policemen_, and he wished them ”good evening!” The mob gave ”three cheers for the mayor,” and, as soon as he was out of sight, extinguished the gas lights in front of the building. The rest is soon told. Doors and windows were broken through, and with wild yells the reckless horde dashed in, plundered the Repository, scattering the books in every direction, and, mounting the stairways and entering the beautiful hall, piled combustibles on the Speaker's forum, and applied the torch to them, shrieking like demons,--as they were, for the time. A moment more, and the flames roared and crackled through the building, and though it was estimated that fifteen thousand persons were present, and though the fire companies were early on the scene, not one effort was made to save the structure so recently erected, at such great cost, and consecrated to such Christian uses. In a few hours the smouldering walls alone were left.
Angelina Weld never again appeared in public. An accident soon after her marriage caused an injury of such a nature that her nervous system was permanently impaired, and she was ever after obliged to avoid all excitement or over-exertion. The period of her public labors was short, but how fruitful, how full of blessings to the cause of the slave and to the many who espoused it through her powerful appeals!
Great was her grief; for, knowing now her capabilities, she had looked forward to renewed and still more successful work; but she accepted with sweet submission the cross laid upon her. Not a murmur arose to her lips. She was content to leave all to the Lord. He could find some new work for her to do. She would trust Him, and patiently wait.
The loss of the services of one so richly endowed, so devoted, and so successful, was deeply felt by the friends of emanc.i.p.ation, and especially as at this important epoch efficient speakers were sorely needed, and two of the most efficient, Weld and Burleigh, were already, from overwork, taken from the platform.
But though denied the privilege of again raising her voice in behalf of the oppressed, Angelina continued to plead for them through her pen. She could never forget the cause that could never forget her, and to her writings was transferred much of the force and eloquence of her speaking.
Immediately after the destruction of Pennsylvania Hall, Mr. and Mrs.
Weld, accompanied by Sarah Grimke, paid a visit to Mr. Weld's parents in Manlius, from which place, Sarah, writing to Jane Smith, says:--
”O Jane, it looks like almost too great a blessing for us three to be together in some quiet, humble habitation, living to the glory of G.o.d, and promoting the happiness of those around us; to be spiritually united, and to be pursuing with increasing zeal the great work of the abolition of slavery.”
The ”quiet, humble habitation” was found at Fort Lee, on the Hudson, and there the happy trio settled down for their first housekeeping.
CHAPTER XVI.
They were scarcely settled amid their new surroundings before the sisters received a formal notice of their disownment by the Society of Friends because of Angelina's marriage. The notification, signed by two prominent women elders of the Society, expressed regret that Sarah and Angelina had not more highly prized their right of members.h.i.+p, and added an earnest desire that they might come to a sense of their real state, and manifest a disposition to condemn their deviations from the path of duty.
Angelina replied without delay that they wished the discipline of the Society to have free course with regard to them. ”It is our joy,” she wrote, ”that we have committed no offence for which Christ Jesus will disown us as members of the household of faith. If you regret that we have valued our right of members.h.i.+p so little, we equally regret that our Society should have adopted a discipline which has no foundation in the Bible or in reason; and we earnestly hope the time may come when the simple Gospel rule with regard to marriage, 'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,' will be as conscientiously enforced as that sectarian one which prohibits the union of the Lord's own people if their s.h.i.+bboleth be not exactly the same.
”We are very respectfully, in that love which knows no distinction in color, clime, or creed, your friends,
”A.E.G. WELD.
”SARAH M. GRIMKe.”
It will be noticed that in this reply Angelina avoids the Quaker phraseology, and neither she nor Sarah ever after used it, except occasionally in correspondence with a Quaker friend.
Thus ended their connection with the Society of Friends. From that time they never attached themselves to any religious organization, but rested contentedly in the simple religion of Christ, ill.u.s.trating by every act of their daily lives how near they were to the heart of all true religion.
As I am approaching the limits prescribed for this volume, I can, in the s.p.a.ce remaining to me, only note with any detail the chief incidents of the years which followed Angelina's marriage. I would like to describe at length the beautiful family life the trio created, and which disproved so clearly the current a.s.sertion that interest in public matters disqualifies woman for home duties or make these distasteful to her. In the case of Sarah and Angelina those duties were entered upon with joy and grat.i.tude, and with the same conscientious zeal that had characterized their public labors. The simplicity and frugality, too, which marked all their domestic arrangements, and which neither thought it necessary to apologize for at any time, recall to one's mind the sweet pictures of Arcadian life over which goodness, purity, and innocence presided, creating an atmosphere of perfect inward and outward peace.
Sarah's letters detail their every-day occupations, their division of labor, their culinary experiments, often failures,--for of practical domestic economy they had little knowledge, though they enjoyed the new experience like happy children. She tells of rambles and picnics along the Hudson, climbing rocks to get a fine view, halting under the trees to read together for a while, taking their simple dinner in some shady nook, and returning weary but happy to their ”dear little No.