Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (115 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 669
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

 

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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 thendear 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

 

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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.* 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
*A fact.

 

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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

 

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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

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