D
DEAR SISTERS:—You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings withhumiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.
"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural, but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.
Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life, and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch, puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill—some people call it a bluff—but which religious people of several denominations call "Sea Cliff Grove."
Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may, to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.
Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.
Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome, which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge, was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle—not the one built without hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look out on the sea from morning till night.
Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.
Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to stay in till the religious season was over.
We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a tent on the grass, which we went into like Indians just returned from a hunting-party—dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.
We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont. Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest intentions, shook out E. E.'s—full panier—and found it puckered-up with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting "Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her wordliness on her back.
B
BY AND BY the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.
"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."
"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.
"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for himself, and the——"
"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where you are?"
"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."
We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.
Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature. They kept on praying and singing in breaks and snatches clear up to the dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.
Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept away from before me, with Christian fortitude becoming to the place, my carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. snatched a potatoe with its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.
I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn't meet this test of a meek and lowly spirit with the fortitude of a martyr. In fact, I'm afraid he said something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate disappeared.
As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold vegetable.
Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:
"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."
"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."
"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for three of us? Never!" says Dempster.
Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification. E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen rolleddown the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled out—well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth. In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster—but in that out-door sanctuary—no, the secret of what he said shall go with me to my grave.
S
SISTERS:—The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six hundred anxious souls—each with a weak, human body attached. The seats are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs. A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.
A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.
"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.
"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."
"Dear me!" says I.
There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouringa hot storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a discharge of guns on a training day.
By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!" and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats, and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting "Hallelujah."
There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other half clapping hands.
Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in, every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy, and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory," when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.
Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls against each other till they cry out with the shock.
I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with excitement of some kind, for under that man's voice human nature was stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women grew pale, and trembled onthe hard seats; men wilted down into childish softness; children cried and shouted.
Before the stage was an open space, left free for sinners under conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to exhort and pray for them. Into this space those mostly stricken in the crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some praying, some half sullen, as if the man's eloquent pleading for souls had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents." But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place, and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not hear yourself think.
The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.
I looked around for my cousins.
There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.
I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs came through her trembling lips.
"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"
I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity. Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were all crying about I couldn't have told to save my life.
The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip's preaching, which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the earth.
A
AFTER the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers within hearing how wicked they had been—with tears, and sobs, and groans, that made one's heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in, for a thousand years at least.
Everybody told his experience.
Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.
"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his heart.
"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."
I shuddered all over, and I'm afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.
That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the deadly disease, right straight through.
In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine thing, just as he had got it.
Then another little fellow got up and told us that he had been an awful bad boy in his early days, and learned to chew tobacco and drink cider-brandy when he wasn't more than knee-high to a grasshopper. That the cider-brandy and tobacco had stuck in and defiled him through and through, till nothing but saving grace could have washed him clean and made his soul white as a lamb, which it then was, Glory hallelujah.
All the congregation chimed in here and struck up a solemn chorus of Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory, which ended in a rejoicing "Amen," when the young man informed us that religion had reformed all his depraved tastes, and now he both hated and despised cider-brandy, tobacco, and all the abominations he had formerly hankered after.
Before the young man sat down, another was on his feet, brimming over with sympathy.
"I too," says he, "have got an experience which urges me to bear testimony that what our precious brother says is true. I know it. I feel it in my own soul, for I, too, have met with regeneration, whereby all things with me have become new. Why, brethren, before I got religion I couldn't bear the sight of tomatoes, cooked or raw. They were an abomination to my unconverted mind; but now that I have got religion, there isn't a wigitable that grows, which I set store by as I do tomatoeses. So I can testify that old things pass away, and everything becomes new."
After bearing this testimony, the man wiped his mouth with one hand, and sat down, his head meekly bowed.
"Cousin," says I to E. E., "as camp-meetings do not belong to our special persuasion, and as I do not feel the regenerating spirit grow strong in my bosom just at present, supposing you and I go back to the tent? Don't you see it is getting to be after dark now, and we have had an awfully warm day in all respects."
Cousin E. E. arose, looking heavy-eyed and worn out.
"Yes, Phœmie," says she, "I have gone through a good deal, and feel the nothingness of everything but religion. Oh, cousin, if one could always feel as we do here."
I shook my head, but only answered:
"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our tent."
She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting, because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat, from dread of a hotter place.
I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but, being of an honest turn of mind, Imust say it is both steep and noisy. Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy. The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which jump the highest or make the most noise.
Well, I am not a wife—which you know is not my fault; neither am I a mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are—men, women, and children—trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.
Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet, informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting ruin.
I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in them that should carry the souls off; besides, they could be heeled again.
The woman shook her sugar-scoop bonnet at me, mournfully, and said something about a wicked and perverse generation, as if all mankind were standing in my gaiter boots, and she was rebuking it in a lump.
"Oh, sister!" says she, "if I could only make you see with my eyes, and hear with my ears! Why will you be so perverse? Have you no fear of the eternal flame that burneth and burneth forever?"
"Fear!" says I, a-looking up at the hot sun, and wiping my forehead. "I should think so! If all creation has a hotter place than this, I'm too big a coward to hurry that way. If there is an ice-house in the neighborhood, I should prefer that by all manner of means, by way of a punishment, if I deserve any."
"Ice!" says she, solemnly. "Ice! have you never read the Scriptures?"
"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."
She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.
"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and with a white feather in her hat."
Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know how old I am?"
She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then, with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for—"
Sisters, Icannotrepeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of that muslin half-shawl.
"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the years you have mentioned."
The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to— Well, no matter, she smiled, and says she:
"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."
"I should think not," says I.
"Look yonder."
I looked at half a dozen children jumping, kneeling, praying, and singing before the revival tent, which had been so full of worrying noises all night long, that none of us had got a wink of sleep.
"Look," says she; "unless you are born again, and become like one of these, there will be no chance that you will ever enter the kingdom of Heaven."
I looked at the lovely children, and I looked at her.
"Excuse me," says I, "the object don't seem quite equal to the trouble. I have no notion of going backward in my life. In the first place I was too handsome a baby in the beginning to hanker after a change, and since then—I say nothing; but really, I have seen a good many people that claim to have been born again, and, so far as I can judge, they don't look a mite better, or a day younger, after taking all the trouble, which is discouraging."
"Discouraging!" said the woman; "why, you are talking of regeneration! Come—come with me to the anxious-seat—hundreds are flocking there now."
"Excuse me," says I, "if you please. Crabs may change their shells, and snakes creep out of their skins—I rather think they do sometimes—but born-again females look so much like the old pattern, that it don't seem to me worth trying after one is grown up."
"Many an older person than you are has been born again," says she.
"You don't say so," says I, a-fanning myself with a palm-leaf, for every drop of blood in my body grew hot when she talked about my age, and I was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two with my front teeth.
"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there. See those women in Israel—three precious souls, just gathered into the fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before another morning they will be born again."
I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I ever set eyes on—long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples.
"Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be like unto them?"
I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just as St. Paul shook off the viper.
"Like them, madam—like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I should want to be born again once a week, at least."
Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror.
"There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh, sister, how I tremble for yours!"
I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been honored by taking its measure—to say nothing of a glance given it by imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart was not already in the right path?
I asked this very question:
"Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger, of whose life you can know nothing?"
"I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow."
"But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge of a person you have never seen?"
"Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force them to come in?" says she.
"Whether they want to or not?" says I.
"Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the state of wickedness into which they have fallen."
"But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I.
She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to—well, what's its name?
"That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration."
"No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea."
The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact, anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea.
"Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick.
"Where my father did, generally," says I.
She looked at me queerly from under her sugar-scoop.
"Haven't backslid, nor nothing; because, if you have, remember, before it is too late, that the last state of a backsliding sinner is worse than the first."
B
BEFORE I could answer that audacious woman, a man came along with green spectacles on his eyes, and a broad straw hat on his head.
"What, sister, hard at work? got hold of a case, I reckon; but press forward to the mark of the prize."
"Oh, brother," says Sugar-scoop, "can't you stop a moment, and sow a morsel of seed on this barren rock. This is a precious sheep."
"Lamb, if you please," says I, quickly.
"No," says she, as smooth as oil, but no doubt boiling over with inward spite, "I have eyes, and can see. Sheep is the word. She is a precious sheep that, perchance, has once been in the fold, but is wandering far away from the straight and narrow path."
"A backslider," says he, eying my face over his spectacles.
"Hardened," says she.
"Take her to the anxious-seat. Brother Blank is just the man for her case. You've heard of Brother Blank, just from the West, and burning with zeal. Heard of the way he converted a blacksmith out there—a great, stout, burly, unregenerated fellow. Why, compared to him, this poor, sinful creature is just nothing. That was a mighty work. What, you never heard of it? Well, I was there, and heard all about it on the spot.
"You see, Brother Blank, who belongs to the Methodist wing of this camp-meeting, was sent out by the conference to a sparse Western district, where the meeting-houses were a good way apart, and there was any amount of horseback riding to be done. On the cross-roads, near one of the stations, there was a blacksmith shop, where a great, two-fisted, tough old sinner was blowing up red-hot coals into red-hot flames, morning and night, which ought to have reminded him of the eternal fires which threatened him, but only kindled his wicked soul into fierce rebellion against God.
"Now this fellow had an awful spite against the ministers, and never let a new one pass his shop, without going out with his leather apron on, and a hammer in his hand, to scare the pious soul half to death with abuse, if nothing worse. When Brother Blank came on the district, he had to ride by the four corners like the rest; but he was a brave soldier of the Cross, and rode a first-rate horse, besides being a tall, powerful man in body as well as in spirit. I rather think he had heard of the blacksmith, but that made no difference to him, he neitherrode faster nor slower when he came in sight of the shop, but looked straight ahead, and trusted in the Lord.
"The moment Brother Blank came in sight, that miserable heathen brought his hammer down on the anvil with a crash, flung it across the shop, and went out with his fists clinched, his great bony chest bare, and his eyes blazing like sin.
"'Hallo!' says he, standing right in the middle of the road.
"'Hallo!'
"Brother Blank drew up his horse, and says he:
"'What's wanting, my friend?'
"'I want you to just tumble down from that saddle, and pay toll,' says the old sinner. 'No minister passes this corner without stopping to take a thrashing from these.'
"Here the blacksmith held up two clinched fists, hard and black as sledge-hammers.
"'No nonsense; but get off, I say,' he bellowed out.
"Brother Blank had a heavy whip in his hand, with a short plump lash, which he began to play with.
"'Get down, I say!'
"Brother Blank got down and laid the bridle on the neck of his horse.
"'Now step out here and take it like a man,' says the blacksmith. 'The last two ministers were such puny fellers, there was no fun in thrashing them; but you're something worth while. Stand out, I say.'
"While he was talking, the fire-blowing wretch rolled up his red flannel shirt-sleeves to the elbow, and went at Brother Blank with both fists.
"Now, sisters, Brother Blank is a true Christian—meek as a lamb in prayer and persuasion, but the sight of that audacious old sinner riled up the natural man in him awfully. He stepped back. His right arm swung out, and that whip-lash curled round the fellow's bronzed neck like a garter snake. Again and again the lash fell, now across the red face, now across the naked arms, but generally left great red welts, like the bars of a fiery gridiron, across his chest.
"Blind with the blows, and crazy with rage, the fellow struck out fiercely, but the lash stung him at every point, and at last he was glad to yell for quarters. Then it was that Brother Blank remembered that his mission was to convert sinners.
"'Down upon your knees,' says he, pointing to the dusty road with his whip—'down upon your knees, and pray the Lord to forgive your sins.'
"Down the fellow went, plump on his two knees, and down Brother Blank went beside him right in the dust of the street; and the way he wrestled for that blacksmith's soul was a lesson to all faltering Christians.
"'Lift those blood-shot eyes to Heaven and pray,' says he, and his voice was tender with compassion.
"'I won't. Pray for me,' says the sinner.
"He did pray. All the old Adam had left Brother Blank's soul when he laid down that whip. It was flooded now with the milk of human kindness. In a voice, strong as his right arm and clear as his conscience, he poured forth a petition to Heaven, so loud, so powerful, so full of Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves, till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with its mother.
"By and by another voice—hoarse, deep, and earnest—joined with the prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance, and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.
"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men thanked God for the soul that had been saved."
When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat andwiped his own eyes; then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:
"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the blacksmith, and do not despair."
"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.
"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had snatched him as a brand from the burning.
"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform. Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and spoke:
"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'
"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it—a human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so by regeneration to membership with the church."
"But I am a Church member," says I.
"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.
"Certainly," says I.
"In good standing?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.
"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I, with becoming dignity.
The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles, and the man with spectacles looked at thewoman with the sugar-scoop bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.
I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to have it all done over again by a new minister and another church. Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.
True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong, and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching did wherever I happened to take it.
S
SISTERS:—I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is asource of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came here in the ten o'clock boat—that floating mansion-house, which Mr. James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can do when he is active and oriental in his taste.
I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy triumph when I listened. The moment that crowd of musicians saw my white feather, they struck up "Lo, the Conquering Hero comes," with a soft and touchingly subdued sweetness, which threw an exquisite femininity into the air, and plainly marked out its object.
Feeling this, I bowed a graceful recognition to those superior performers, who answered with a prolonged blast from the most curlecued of the long toot-horns as our carriage swept down the curving road that forms a horse-shoe—just a little broad at the heel—in front of Messrs. Leland's hotel.
Feeling that many admiring eyes were upon me, I stepped with dignity from the carriage, and walked with a downcast look, which I did my best to make unconscious, through the gay crowd that had gathered in front of that long portico, only just to get a glimpse of me as I went in.
Sisters, I had compassion on these people, and walked with slow gracefulness through their midst, determined to give even the humblest a chance to see how true genius can deport itself when ovations of music and respectful admiration recognize its greatness.
There was a great publisher present when we got back to the hotel. I have no doubt that he listened to the music of that band when it gave me this harmonious reception, and I hope he indirectly felt the compliment reverberate back on himself. It was an honor he deserved to share with me, or any other high-bred, intellectual person to whom he had opened a golden pathwayto the Temple of Fame through his numerous art journals.
I had an idea of the gentleman in my mind, and tried to single him out from the crowd of persons standing in silent homage on the balcony as I passed into the hotel, but I think he was not there.
Before the day was out, I could give a good guess at the reason why he did not appear to claim the honor of my acquaintance. He was meditating a delicate little surprise for me—one of those poetic fancies that take root only in highly artistic minds. By and by you will hear what it was.
In Washington, and at the Grand Duke's reception at Sandy Hook—why that strip of salt water, which lets ships in and out from New York to the Atlantic Ocean, is called a hook, I cannot make out, for the life of me; and as for its being sandy—well, in my opinion, it is deep, salt water, and nothing else. But, as I was a-saying, in Washington, and at Sandy Hook, the largest guns of the nation did me homage. Here I am received with bursts of music from the middle of a home-lot belonging to the hotel; but this evening the crowning glory of an ovation was given me by the great publisher, who, unseen, and with the most delicate attention, startled me into a wild enthusiasm of gratitude.
By guns on the water, by guns on shore, and by enchanting strains of music, my appearance in society has been heralded. Now the cap-sheaf has been placed on all these honors by a compliment of fire combined with the most exhilarating music. On Saturday nights, every hotel along the beach is crowded from ground-floor to gable, and gay as a spring morning. Then the husbands and brothers and beaux come down from New York, till all the trains run over with masculine humanity. When the cars come in, it really is a sight to behold. Out from a long train of cars rushes a swarm of men, with here and there a feminine sprinkling, carrying carpet-bags, satchels, umbrellas, and little baskets of fruit. Then they cluster in a thick, black cloud around the depot, like bees swarming from their hives.The streets all around are choked up with carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for their men folks to get in and be drove away. I beg pardon—driven away.
On Saturday night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver going it as if he were crazy to leave all the other fellows behind.
Well, this fills the whole Branch with delightful confusion. The ladies put on their most scrumptious dresses, and the masculines blaze in red and blue and green neckties that almost set you on fire.
Everybody dances on Saturday night. Streams of music pour upon you in cataracts if you walk up the beach after dark. All the doors and windows are open, and you feel dizzy with the idea that all creation has got into one grand whirl. This is Saturday night at Long Branch, as a general thing; but the particular Saturday night after we came from the camp-meeting, was the beatinest thing of all. Early in the evening the people seemed to flock in crowds to this hotel. They came afoot; they came in carriages; they came by the omnibuses, load after load. Cousin E. E. was astonished, and couldn't understand it. "Never," says she, "have I seen such a crowd before. What can it mean?"
I said nothing, but kept a deep and satisfied thinking. What did it mean? Hadn'tIjust arrived? Hadn't the news spread? Was not this a popular uprising—a great wave of homage to the worth and genius of a woman whom I did not care to mention? These thoughts were in my mind when a great storm of music broke out from that summer-house in the front home lot. Then whiz went a fiery snake, clear up into the sky, where it bent its head, opened its mouth, and poured a stream of burning stars down over the people.
Mercy, what a great crowd those falling stars lighted up! The street in front of the hotel was black with people. The long, long stoop was swarming with them—the ladies all in scrumptious dresses; the gentlemen with red and blue ribbons on their hats, and the same colors glowing at their throats. This I saw by the light of the gas-globes and of those shooting stars that dropped like great jewels through the still air. The sight of that fiery snake frightened me; I jumped like a pea on a hot shovel, and gave a little scream.
"What does it mean? What temptatious snake is it?" says I, a-trembling all over.
"It's a rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to compliment the ladies with a display of fireworks."
"The ladies!" thought I, in silent irony. There is but one lady to whom so noble a compliment can be paid, and that lady—is—but no matter!
I did not say this in words. Let E. E. have her vanities and her little delusions. She does assume a few airs on account of our relationship, but I seldom notice it—let her make her little mark in society. It pleases her, and does not hurt me. Only, an ovation like this—to think she, or any one else, could share that with me, is asking a little too much.
Out went another snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up, with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one; but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of fire—crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and spoke—began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot, sending out great curving plumes of sparks, and twisting them into ten thousand rainbows, all winding, whirling, and shooting fire like a great wheel of jewels and revolving stars.
Another broke out, and began to whirl close to one of the mammoth flower-vases, raining light down upon it, till the great white vase shone like snow, and all the flowers it held were frosted over with a beautiful light.
Then another wheel—another and another—kindled and burstout, sending torrents of fire every which way, changing, flashing, shooting out gorgeous flames of color, till the grass was all aglow with light, and flashed under the vivid rain of sparks like a meadow full of lightning-bugs.
Now the whole front of the hotel was blazing with wheels, and the air was alive with fiery serpents that spit forth a storm of great jewels before they died. Between the wheels, tall thickets of fire started up, and rose into quivering trees, and shot golden fruit of many colors into the air, lighting up the crowd like ten thousand gorgeous lamps tossed upward and broken as they fell.
All this time the music was swelling through the fiery display, and the crowd clapped hands, as if enough honor could not be done to the occasion. My heart swelled—I felt this homage intended by this display, and the wild sympathy of the crowd filled me with a tumult of grateful feelings.
I arose, and, with one hand on my heart, bowed profoundly every time the crowd clapped its multitudinous hands. It was a glorious moment. I longed to meet the publisher face to face, and tell him how profoundly his generosity had touched my soul; but, with that modesty which ever accompanies true merit, he kept in the background, and hid away from the thanks my soul was panting to give.
Oh, Sisters, I wish you had been here in a body to see how this great white house—a half a mile or so long—was turned into a snow-white palace by the flood of fire in front of it. Then the sea—the great, heaving sea—on the other side of the road, was red as blood, and bright as gold, when the flames shot highest. I tell you, the golden gates of the New Jerusalem could not have been more beautifully luminous.
Earth, sea, and air were kindled with light, and full of shooting-stars for a whole hour. Then, as the fires began to wane, and the jewels to melt, two great, tall balloons, striped red, white, and blue, were illuminated, and sent sailing up and up in the air, each with a trail of shooting-stars dropping along its path. Up and up, higher and higher, the balloons rose, witha slow, graceful movement, and drifted away to sea—away, away, away—till they shone like little stars, and went out in the distance.
Then a great shout went up from the pleased multitude, which increased to frenzy when I once more showed myself.
My white hat was on; the feather floated out in the air like a banner. In my hand I held a fan. In the fervor of my emotion I pressed it against my bosom. The people saw it, and the storm of applause that burst from them fairly took me off my feet. Emotion overcame me; I retired from that long stoop.
Cousin E. E. followed me. She hasn't been herself since the camp-meeting; and when I asked her if it was not a beautiful ovation, she shook her head and answered, that all flesh was grass, which I don't believe any more than I believe that grass is flesh, which I know is not the fact, each being itself independent grass and independent flesh.
"Well," says I, "call it grass, or anything you please, but wasn't the whole thing perfectly gorgeous."
"Yes," says she, "it was a pretty compliment to the ladies of the hotel."
Sisters, that jealous, provoking woman said "ladies of the hotel," not "the lady of the hotel." She is an aggravating creature, sometimes; I do believe she is jealous of the homage which is lavished on your missionary. At any rate speeches like this look like it. Don't you think so?
I said nothing. A tart reply trembled on my tongue, but the atmosphere of that camp-meeting still clung to me, and I forbore to rebuke her.
Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the fireworks—no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss about the compliment paid to them. To them—as if any man who has an appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumptionof some females are just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please, but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.