 | Twice-told tales |  |
THE SHAKER BRIDAL.
One day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim,
who had been forty years the presiding elder over the
Shaker settlement at Goshen, there was an assemblage
of several of the chief men of the sect. Individuals
had come from the rich establishment at
Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard, and Alfred, and
from all the other localities, where this strange people
have fertilized the rugged hills of New England by
their systematic industry. An elder was likewise
there, who had made a pilgrimage of a thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to
visit his spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted
Mother Ann. He had partaken of the homely abundance
of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed
Shaker cider, and had joined in the sacred dance,
every step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast
from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly
purity and bliss. His brethren of the north had now
when the concurrence of every eminent member of
their community was peculiarly desirable.
The venerable Father Ephraim sat in his easy-chair,
not only hoary-headed and infirm with age,
but worn down by a lingering disease, which, it was
evident, would very soon transfer his patriarchal staff
to other hands. At his footstool stood a man and woman,
both clad in the Shaker garb.
`My brethren,' said Father Ephraim to the surrounding
elders, feebly exerting himself to utter these
few words, `here are the son and daughter to whom
I would commit the trust, of which Providence is
about to lighten my weary shoulders. Read their
faces, I pray you, and say whether the inward movement
of the spirit hath guided my choice aright.'
Accordingly, each elder looked at the two candidates
with a most scrutinizing gaze. The man,
whose name was Adam Colburn, had a face sunburnt
with labor in the fields, yet intelligent, thoughtful,
and traced with cares enough for a whole lifetime,
though he had barely reached middle age. There
was something severe in his aspect, and a rigidity
throughout his person, characteristics that caused him
generally to be taken for a schoolmaster; which vocation,
in fact, he had formerly exercised for several
years. The woman, Martha Pierson, was somewhat
above thirty, thin and pale, as a Shaker sister almost
invariably is, and not entirely free from that corpse-like
appearance, which the garb of the sisterhood is
so well calculated to impart.
`This pair are still in the summer of their years,'
observed the elder from Harvard, a shrewd old man.
`I would like better to see the hoar frost of autumn
on their heads. Methinks, also, they will be exposed
to peculiar temptations, on account of the carnal desires
which have heretofore subsisted between them.
`Nay, brother,' said the elder from Canterbury,
`the hoar frost, and the black frost, hath done its
work on Brother Adam and Sister Martha, even as
we sometimes discern its traces in our cornfields,
while they are yet green. And why should we question
the wisdom of our venerable Father's purpose,
although this pair, in their early youth, have loved
one another as the world's people love? Are there
not many brethren and sisters among us, who have
lived long together in wedlock, yet, adopting our
faith, find their hearts purified from all but spiritual
affection?'
Whether or no the early loves of Adam and Martha
had rendered it inexpedient that they should now
preside together over a Shaker village, it was certainly
most singular that such should be the final result
of many warm and tender hopes. Children of
neighboring families, their affection was older even
than their school-days; it seemed an innate principle,
interfused among all their sentiments and feelings,
and not so much a distinct remembrance, as connected
with their whole volume of remembrances. But,
just as they reached a proper age for their union,
misfortunes had fallen heavily on both, and made it
necessary that they should resort to personal labor for
Martha Pierson would probably have consented to
unite her fate with Adam Colburn's, and, secure of
the bliss of mutual love, would patiently have awaited
the less important gifts of fortune. But Adam, being
of a calm and cautious character, was loath to relinquish
the advantages which a single man possesses
for raising himself in the world. Year after year,
therefore, their marriage had been deferred. Adam
Colburn had followed many vocations, had travelled
far, and seen much of the world and of life. Martha
had earned her bread sometimes as a sempstress,
sometimes as help to a farmer's wife, sometimes
as schoolmistress of the village children, sometimes
as a nurse or watcher of the sick, thus acquiring
a varied experience, the ultimate use of which she
little anticipated. But nothing had gone prosperously
with either of the lovers; at no subsequent moment
would matrimony have been so prudent a measure,
as when they had first parted, in the opening bloom
of life, to seek a better fortune. Still they had held
fast their mutual faith. Martha might have been the
wife of a man, who sat among the senators of his native
state, and Adam could have won the hand, as he
had unintentionally won the heart, of a rich and
comely widow. But neither of them desired good fortune,
save to share it with the other.
At length that calm despair which occurs only in
a strong and somewhat stubborn character, and yields
to no second spring of hope, settled down on the
spirit of Adam Colburn. He sought an interview
with Martha, and proposed that they should join the
oftener driven within its hospitable gates by worldly
misfortune, than drawn thither by fanaticism, and are
received without inquisition as to their motives. Martha,
faithful still, had placed her hand in that of her
lover and accompanied him to the Shaker village.
Here the natural capacity of each, cultivated and
strengthened by the difficulties of their previous lives,
had soon gained them an important rank in the Society,
whose members are generally below the ordinary
standard of intelligence. Their faith and feelings
had, in some degree, become assimilated to those
of their fellow-worshipers. Adam Colburn gradually
acquired reputation, not only in the management of
the temporal affairs of the Society, but as a clear and
efficient preacher of their doctrines. Martha was not
less distinguished in the duties proper to her sex.
Finally, when the infirmities of Father Ephraim had
admonished him to seek a successor in his patriarchal
office, he thought of Adam and Martha, and proposed
to renew, in their persons, the primitive form
of Shaker government, as established by Mother Ann.
They were to be the Father and Mother of the village.
The simple ceremony, which would constitute
them such, was now to be performed.
`Son Adam, and daughter Martha,' said the venerable
Father Ephraim, fixing his aged eyes piercingly
upon them, `if ye can conscientiously undertake this
charge, speak, that the brethren may not doubt of
your fitness.'
`Father,' replied Adam, speaking with the calmness
man, weary of the world, worn out with
continual trouble, seeking only a security against evil
fortune, as I had no hope of good. Even my wishes
of worldly success were almost dead within me. I
came hither as a man might come to a tomb, willing
to lie down in its gloom and coldness, for the sake of
its peace and quiet. There was but one earthly
affection in my breast, and it had grown calmer since
my youth; so that I was satisfied to bring Martha to
be my sister, in our new abode. We are brother and
sister; nor would I have it otherwise. And in this
peaceful village I have found all that I hope for, — all
that I desire. I will strive, with my best strength, for
the spiritual and temporal good of our community.
My conscience is not doubtful in this matter. I am
ready to receive the trust.'
`Thou hast spoken well, son Adam,' said the Father.
`God will bless thee in the office which I am
about to resign.'
`But our sister!' observed the elder from Harvard;
`hath she not likewise a gift to declare her
sentiments!'
Martha started, and moved her lips, as if she would
have made a formal reply to this appeal. But, had
she attempted it, perhaps the old recollections, the
long-repressed feelings of childhood, youth, and womanhood,
might have gushed from her heart, in words
that it would have been profanation to utter there.
`Adam has spoken,' said she, hurriedly; `his sentiments
are likewise mine.'
But while speaking these few words, Martha grew
so pale that she looked fitter to be laid in her coffin,
than to stand in the presence of Father Ephraim and
the elders; she shuddered, also, as if there were
something awful or horrible in her situation and destiny.
It required, indeed, a more than feminine
strength of nerve, to sustain the fixed observance of
men so exalted and famous throughout the sect, as
these were. They had overcome their natural sympathy
with human frailties and affections. One,
when he joined the Society, had brought with him his
wife and children, but never, from that hour, had
spoken a fond word to the former, or taken his best-loved
child upon his knee. Another, whose family
refused to follow him, had been enabled, — such was
his gift of holy fortitude, — to leave them to the
mercy of the world. The youngest of the elders, a
man of about fifty, had been bred from infancy in a
Shaker village, and was said never to have clasped a
woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception
of a closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect.
Old Father Ephraim was the most awful character of
all. In his youth, he had been a dissolute libertine,
but was converted by Mother Ann herself, and had
partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early Shakers.
Tradition whispered, at the firesides of the village,
that Mother Ann had been compelled to sear his heart
of flesh with a red-hot iron, before it could be purified
from earthly passions.
However that might be, poor Martha had a woman's
heart, and a tender one, and it quailed within
from them to the calm features of Adam Colburn.
But perceiving that the elders eyed her doubtfully,
she gasped for breath, and again spoke.
`With what strength is left me by my many troubles,'
said she, `I am ready to undertake this charge,
and to do my best in it.'
`My children, join your hands,' said Father
Ephraim.
They did so. The elders stood up around, and the
Father feebly raised himself to a more erect position,
but continued sitting in his great chair.
`I have bidden you to join your hands,' said he,
`not in earthly affection, for ye have cast off its
chains for ever; but as brother and sister in spiritual
love, and helpers of one another in your allotted
task. Teach unto others the faith which ye have received.
Open wide your gates, — I deliver you the
keys thereof, — open them wide to all who will give
up the iniquities of the world, and come hither to
lead lives of purity and peace. Receive the weary
ones, who have known the vanity of earth, — receive
the little children, that they may never learn that miserable
lesson. And a blessing be upon your labors;
so that the time may hasten on, when the mission of
Mother Ann shall have wrought its full effect, —
when children shall no more be born and die, and
the last survivor of mortal race, some old and weary
man like me, shall see the sun go down, never more
to rise on a world of sin and sorrow!'
The aged Father sank back exhausted and the surrounding
hour was come, when the new heads of the village
must enter on their patriarchal duties. In their attention
to Father Ephraim, their eyes were turned from
Martha Pierson, who grew paler and paler, unnoticed
even by Adam Colburn. He, indeed, had withdrawn
his hand from hers, and folded his arms with a sense
of satisfied ambition. But paler and paler grew Martha
by his side, till, like a corpse in its burial clothes,
she sank down at the feet of her early lover; for,
after many trials firmly borne, her heart could endure
the weight of its desolate agony no longer.
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