University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
THE SERMON.

“And now, Mary,” said Mrs. Scudder, at five
o'clock the next morning, “to-day, you know, is
the Doctor's fast; so we won't get any regular
dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all
our little odd jobs. Miss Prissy promised to come
in for two or three hours this morning, to alter the
waist of that black silk; and I shouldn't be surprised
if we should get it all done and ready to
wear by Sunday.”

We will remark, by way of explanation to a
part of this conversation, that our Doctor, who
was a specimen of life in earnest, made a practice,
through the greater part of his pulpit course,
of spending every Saturday as a day of fasting
and retirement, in preparation for the duties of the
Sabbath.

Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no
sooner disposed of than Miss Prissy's quick footsteps
might have been heard pattering in the
kitchen.

“Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this
morning? and how do you do, Mary? Well, if
you a'n't the beaters! up just as early as ever, and
everything cleared away! I was telling Miss Wilcox
there didn't ever seem to be anything done in
Miss Scudder's kitchen, and I did verily believe
you made your beds before you got up in the
morning.

“Well, well, wasn't that a party last night?”
she said, as she sat down with the black silk and
prepared her ripping-knife. — “I must rip this myself,
Miss Scudder; for there's a great deal in ripping
silk so as not to let anybody know where it
has been sewed. — You didn't know that I was at
the party, did you? Well, I was. You see, I
thought I'd just step round there, to see about
that money to get the Doctor's shirt with, and
there I found Miss Wilcox with so many things
on her mind, and says she, `Miss Prissy, you
don't know how much it would help me, if I had
somebody like you just to look after things a little
here.' And says I, `Miss Wilcox, you just go
right to your room and dress, and don't you give
yourself one minute's thought about anything, and
you see if I don't have everything just right.' And
so, there I was, in for it; and I just staid through,
and it was well I did, — for Dinah, she wouldn't
have put near enough egg into the coffee, if it
hadn't been for me; why, I just went and beat

up four eggs with my own hands and stirred 'em
into the grounds.

“Well, — but, really, wasn't I behind the door,
and didn't I peep into the supper-room? I saw
who was a-waitin' on Miss Mary. Well, they do
say he's the handsomest, most fascinating man.
Why, they say all the ladies in Philadelphia are
in a perfect quarrel about him; and I heard he
said he hadn't seen such a beauty he didn't remember
when.”

“We all know that beauty is of small consequence,”
said Mrs. Scudder. “I hope Mary has
been brought up to feel that.”

“Oh, of course,” said Miss Prissy, “it's just
like a fading flower; all is to be good and useful,
— and that's what she is. I told 'em that her
beauty was the least part of her; though I must
say, that dress did fit like a biscuit, — if 'twas
my own fitting.

“But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard
'em saying about the good Doctor?”

“I'm sure I don't know,” said Mrs. Scudder;
“I only know they couldn't say anything bad.”

“Well, not bad exactly,” said Miss Prissy, —
“but they say he's getting such strange notions
in his head. Why, I heard some of 'em say, he's
going to come out and preach against the slave-trade;
and I'm sure I don't know what Newport
folks will do, if that's wicked. There a'n't hardly

any money here that's made any other way; and
I hope the Doctor a'n't a-going to do anything of
that sort.”

“I believe he is,” said Mrs. Scudder; “he thinks
it's a great sin, that ought to be rebuked; — and
I think so too,” she added, bracing herself resolutely;
“that was Mr. Scudder's opinion when I
first married him, and it's mine.”

“Oh, — ah, — yes, — well, — if it's a sin, of course,”
said Miss Prissy; “but then — dear me! — it don't
seem as if it could be. Why, just think how
many great houses are living on it; — why, there's
General Wilcox himself, and he's a very nice man;
and then there's Major Seaforth; why, I could
count you off a dozen, — all our very first people.
Why, Doctor Stiles doesn't think so, and I'm sure
he's a good Christian. Doctor Stiles thinks it's
a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel
to the Africans. Why, now I'm sure, when I
was a-working at Deacon Stebbins's, I stopped
over Sunday once 'cause Miss Stebbins she was
weakly, — 'twas when she was getting up, after
Samuel was born, — no, on the whole, I believe
it was Nehemiah, — but, any way, I remember I
staid there, and I remember, as plain as if 'twas
yesterday, just after breakfast, how a man went
driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon he went
out and stopped him ('cause you know he was
justice of the peace) for travelling on the Lord's

day, and who should it be but Tom Seaforth? —
he told the Deacon his father had got a ship-load
of negroes just come in, — and the Deacon he
just let him go; 'cause I remember he said that
was a plain work of necessity and mercy.[1] Well,
now who would 'a' thought it? I believe the
Doctor is better than most folks, but then the best
people may be mistaken, you know.”

“The Doctor has made up his mind that it's
his duty,” said Mrs. Scudder. “I'm afraid it will
make him very unpopular; but I, for one, shall
stand by him.”

“Oh, certainly, Miss Scudder, you are doing
just right exactly. Well, there's one comfort, he'll
have a great crowd to hear him preach; 'cause as
I was going round through the entries last night,
I heard 'em talking about it, — and Colonel Burr
said he should be there, and so did the General,
and so did Mr. What's-his-name there, that Senator
from Philadelphia. I tell you, you'll have a
full house.”

It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder's heart
rather sunk than otherwise at this announcement;
and those who have felt what it is to stand
almost alone in the right, in the face of all the
first families of their acquaintance, may perhaps
find some compassion for her, — since, after all,
truth is invisible, but “first families” are very evident.

First families are often very agreeable, undeniably
respectable, fearfully virtuous, and it takes
great faith to resist an evil principle which incarnates
itself in the suavities of their breeding and
amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder
felt her heart heavy within her, and could
with a very good grace have joined in the Doctor's
Saturday fast.

As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in
his study, with his great Bible and his Concordance
open before him, culling, with that patient
assiduity for which he was remarkable, all the terrible
texts which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned
book rains down so unsparingly on the
sin of oppressing the weak.

First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere,
were as invisible to him as they were to Moses
during the forty days that he spent with God on
the mount; he was merely thinking of his message,
— thinking only how he should shape it, so
as not to leave one word of it unsaid, — not even
imagining in the least what the result of it was
to be. He was but a voice, but an instrument. —
the passive instrument through which an almighty
will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism
of his faith made him as dead to all human
considerations as if he had been a portion of the
immutable laws of Nature herself.

So, the next morning, although all his friends

trembled for him when he rose in the pulpit, he
never thought of trembling for himself; he had
come in the covered way of silence from the
secret place of the Most High, and felt himself
still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.
It was alike to him, whether the house was full
or empty, — whoever were decreed to hear the
message would be there; whether they would hear
or forbear was already settled in the counsels of
a mightier will than his, — he had the simple duty
of utterance.

The ruinous old meeting-house was never so
radiant with station and gentility as on that
morning. A June sun shone brightly; the sea
sparkled with a thousand little eyes; the birds
sang all along the way; and all the notables
turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder received
into her pew, with dignified politeness,
Colonel Burr and Colonel and Madame de Frontignac.
General Wilcox and his portly dame,
Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons
and De Wolfs, and other grand old names,
were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese
fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood
revealed in bonnets.

Everybody was looking fresh and amiable, — a
charming and respectable set of sinners, come to
hear what the Doctor would find to tell them
about their transgressions.

Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences; and,
shutting her eyes on the too evident world about
her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for
good. The Doctor prayed that he might have
grace to speak the truth, and the whole truth.
We have yet on record, in his published works,
the great argument of that day, through which he
moved with that calm appeal to the reason which
made his results always so weighty.

“If these things be true,” he said, after a condensed
statement of the facts of the case, “then
the following terrible consequences, which may
well make all shudder and tremble who realize
them, force themselves upon us, namely: that all
who have had any hand in this iniquitous business,
whether directly or indirectly, or have used
their influence to promote it, or have consented to
it, or even connived at it, or have not opposed it
by all proper exertions of which they are capable,
— all these are, in a greater or less degree, chargeable
with the injuries and miseries which millions
have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty of
the blood of millions who have lost their lives by
this traffic in the human species. Not only the
merchants who have been engaged in this trade,
and the captains who have been tempted by the
love of money to engage in this cruel work, and
the slave-holders of every description, are guilty of
shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures

who have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected
to suppress it to the utmost of their power,
and all the individuals in private stations who
have in any way aided in this business, consented
to it, or have not opposed it to the utmost of
their ability, have a share in this guilt.

“This trade in the human species has been the
first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every
other movement in business has chiefly depended;
this town has been built up, and flourished in
times past, at the expense of the blood, the liberty,
and the happiness of the poor Africans;
and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by
it have gotten most of their wealth and riches.
If a bitter woe is pronounced on him `that
buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his
chambers by wrong,' Jer. xxii. 13, —to him `that
buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a
city by iniquity,' Hab. ii. 12, — to `the bloody
city,' Ezek. xxiv. 6, — what a heavy, dreadful woe
hangs over the heads of all those whose hands
are defiled by the blood of the Africans, especially
the inhabitants of this State and this town,
who have had a distinguished share in this unrighteous
and bloody commerce!”

He went over the recent history of the country,
expatiated on the national declaration so lately
made, that all men are born equally free and independent
and have natural and inalienable rights

to liberty, and asked with what face a nation declaring
such things could continue to hold thousands
of their fellow-men in abject slavery. He
pointed out signs of national disaster which foreboded
the wrath of Heaven, — the increase of public
and private debts, the spirit of murmuring and
jealousy of rulers among the people, divisions and
contentions and bitter party alienations, the jealous
irritation of England constantly endeavoring to
hamper our trade, the Indians making war on the
frontiers, the Algerines taking captive our ships
and making slaves of our citizens, — all evident
tokens of the displeasure and impending judgment
of an offended Justice.

The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay
audience, deep and dark as a thunder-cloud, which
in a few moments changes a summer sky into
heaviest gloom. Gradually an expression of intense
interest and deep concern spread over the
listeners; it was the magnetism of a strong mind,
which held them for a time under the shadow of
his own awful sense of God's almighty justice.

It is said that a little child once described his
appearance in the pulpit by saying, “I saw God
there, and I was afraid.”

Something of the same effect was produced on
his audience now; and it was not till after sermon,
prayer, and benediction were all over, that the respectables
of Newport began gradually to unstiffen

themselves from the spell, and to look into each
other's eyes for comfort, and to reassure themselves
that after all they were the first families, and going
on the way the world had always gone, and
that the Doctor, of course, was a radical and a
fanatic.

When the audience streamed out, crowding the
broad aisle, Mary descended from the singers, and
stood with her psalm-book in hand, waiting at the
door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor.
She overheard many hard words from people who,
an evening or two before, had smiled so graciously
upon them. It was therefore with no little
determination of manner that she advanced and
took the Doctor's arm, as if anxious to associate
herself with his well-earned unpopularity, — and
just at this moment she caught the eye and smile
of Colonel Burr, as he bowed gracefully, yet not
without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his
eye.