Warden, wind the clock again;Mighty years are going on,Through the shadow and the dream,And the happy-hearted dawn.Wind again, wind again,—Fifty hundred years are gone.Through the harvest and the need,Wealthy June and dewy May,Grew the year from the old,Grows to-morrow from to-day.Wind again, wind again,—Who can keep the years at bay?Four-and-twenty conjurersLie in wait on land and sea,Plucking down the startled ship,Bud-embroidering the tree.Wind again, wind again,—We have neither ship nor tree.Four-and-twenty kings to comeUp the never-vacant stair,—Four-and-twenty dead go down;Follow, sacred song and prayer.Wind again, wind again,—Warden, why delaying there?To his interrupted dreamComes the long-entreated day.What are lesser words to him?Sweet pursuing voices say,—"Warden, wind, wind again,Up the ever-golden way."Other hands will wind the clockWhile the frequent years go on,Never noting need or nameNor the rapture of the dawn.Wind again, wind again,Ere the given year be gone.
Warden, wind the clock again;Mighty years are going on,Through the shadow and the dream,And the happy-hearted dawn.Wind again, wind again,—Fifty hundred years are gone.
Through the harvest and the need,Wealthy June and dewy May,Grew the year from the old,Grows to-morrow from to-day.Wind again, wind again,—Who can keep the years at bay?
Four-and-twenty conjurersLie in wait on land and sea,Plucking down the startled ship,Bud-embroidering the tree.Wind again, wind again,—We have neither ship nor tree.
Four-and-twenty kings to comeUp the never-vacant stair,—Four-and-twenty dead go down;Follow, sacred song and prayer.Wind again, wind again,—Warden, why delaying there?
To his interrupted dreamComes the long-entreated day.What are lesser words to him?Sweet pursuing voices say,—"Warden, wind, wind again,Up the ever-golden way."
Other hands will wind the clockWhile the frequent years go on,Never noting need or nameNor the rapture of the dawn.Wind again, wind again,Ere the given year be gone.
If one looks to the individual for proof of the power of Christianity, he will generally look in vain. Creeds differ; but of persons from the same rank in life, one is, on the whole, apparently about as good as another. If we are virtuous where we are not tempted, liberal in matters concerning which we are indifferent, reticent when we have nothing to say,—in one word, pleasant when we are pleased,—it is all that our best friends have any reason to expect of us. What religion does for a man may be great, and even radical, from his near point of view; but from the world's position it is scarcely visible, and is often wholly lost in the more palpable influences of temperament and circumstance. But when we look at society, we can see that some silent agency is at work, slowly, but surely, attuning our life to finer issues than the Golden Ages knew. The hidden leaven of Christianity is working its noiseless way through the whole lump. Christendom is on a higher plane than Pagandom, and is still ascending. In the stress of daily life, we are sometimes tempted to lose heart, and cry, "Who shall show us any good for all this toil and watch and struggle?"—but in calmer moments, looking back over the Difficult Hills, we cannot fail to see that we have gained ground. The sacredness of humanity is gradually overtopping the prerogatives of class. More and more clearly man asserts himself, the end of every good, the standard by which every change is to be judged. With many an ebb, the tide of all healthful and helpful force is flooding our associated life; and the brotherhood of the race attests itself by many infallible signs.
But they are not always nor only found where they are sought. Workmanship does not show to the best advantage in workshops. The din and whirl of machinery confuse us. We need to see the wonderful engine in actual operation, the beautiful ornament fitly placed, before we can decide finally upon its character. The churches have been the workshops of Christianity. There it has been received, fused, hammered, polished, fashioned for all human needs; but nothing less than the whole world is the true theatre of its activity. Not what it has done for the Church, but what it has done, is doing, and purposes to do for humanity, is the measure of its merit. Not upon the mitre of the priest, but upon the bells of the horses, is the millennial day to see inscribed "Holiness unto the Lord!"
Since, then, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation, we need not look for fearful sights and great signs in the heavens. They are but false prophets who cry, "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" when the still, small voice is whispering all the while, "The kingdom of God is within you," Yes, within this framework of society, in the midst of this busy, trivial, daily life, which seems so full of small cares and selfish seeking, the Divine Spirit lives and works, and will yet raise it to the heights of heavenly fellowship. It breathes in the thousand methods devised by ingenuity to lighten the burdens of labor, by benevolence to soothe away the bitterness of sorrow, by taste to beautify the homes of poverty. The little photograph leaves that flutter down into every household in the land are a great cloud of witnesses showing us that science is but the handmaid of God, whose service is to bear to all the blessings once reserved for a class. In the old time it was only the few who could fix for future years the beloved features of a friend. Now every fond mother may transcribe from birthday to birthday the face of her darling, to note its beautiful changes, and every lowliest bride preserve for her children's children the bloom of her budding youth.
The religious world has hardly learnedto look for its millennium in the horsecars. Nevertheless, its signs are there, not to be mistaken. The poor sewing-woman feels their presence, if she does not trace them to their source. The humble invalid knows them, the domestic drudge, the ailing, puny child, the swart and stalwart workman, who ride their one or ten miles as swiftly and smoothly as a millionaire, and are set down at shop or home, or among the freshness and fragrance and song of the beautiful country. The horsecar is the poor man's private carriage, as carefully fashioned for his convenience, as tidy and comfortable and comely, as if it cost him hundreds of dollars, instead of the daily sixpence. With a lifted finger he commands his coachman, who waits promptly on his wish. Without care, he is cared for. Without capital, he controls capital. Free society does more for him than the richest despot does for the enslaved people whom the instinct of self-preservation forces him to cajole, and does it, too, without any infringement upon his manhood. We call it energy, enterprise, modern conveniences. Itisthe millennium.
But these matters are under full headway. Science and self-interest have taken them in hand, and there is no danger that they will not be carried out to their farthest beneficial limits. There is another measure just struggling into uncertain life,—a measure which may be helped by attention, and hindered by neglect,—a measure that appeals less directly to self-advantage, but which is yet so fraught with good or evil, according as it is carefully studied, clearly understood, and wisely managed, or suffered to fail through inattention, or to lead an irregular, riotous life for a few years and then to be abated as a nuisance, that we cannot safely pass it by. I refer to the movement making itself felt in various ways, but aiming always to give more leisure to the working classes. In one phase, it is seeking to reduce the hours of daily labor; in another, it is trying to close the shops on Saturday afternoons. In both, it is a step so radically in the right direction, that we can but give thanks for the opportunity, while we tremble lest it may not be firmly and wisely laid hold of. In planning for human weal, one is met on every side by the want of leisure. Every day and every hour comes so burdened with its material necessities, that the wants of heart and mind and spirit can find no adequate gratification. The work goes on satisfactorily; wealth accumulates; farms are well tilled; mechanism becomes more and more exquisite; but drunkenness, profligacy, stupidity, insanity, and crime undermine the man, for whom all these things are and were created, and to whom they ought to bring wisdom and power and peace. Thus our boasted improvements become our folly. All labor-saving machinery that does not save labor in the sense of giving leisure, that merely increases the quantity or improves the quality of that which is produced, but does not redound to the improvement of the producer, rather contributes to his degradation, has somewhere a fatal flaw. Mind may legitimately fashion matter into a machine; but when it would reduce mind also to the same level, it steps beyond its province. When it fails to continue through the sphere of mind the impulse it communicates to matter,—when its benefit stops with fabric, falling short of the man who stands over it,—it lags behind its mission, and is so far unsuccessful.
The movement for diminishing the number of laboring hours has already been brought before the notice of the Massachusetts Legislature,—has been made the subject of careful and extensive inquiry by a special committee, who have returned a report so able, eloquent, and convincing as to leave little to be said in that direction,—and is now, for closer and more exhaustive investigation, in the hands of a committee whose names are a guaranty that nothing will be left undone to secure a just and righteous decision, for which let all Christian people devoutly pray. In the intelligence and virtue of its workingmen lies the hope of the Republic.If the proposed change shall tend to promote that intelligence and virtue, it will be the part of true patriotism to effect it. Whether this particular means be or be not the wisest for the end in view, the path of the higher life unquestionably lies in this direction. The accomplishment of the greatest results with the least outlay of time and toil is the problem in physical science. With the leisure and strength thus redeemed from lower needs, to build up a royal manhood is the problem of moral science.
The Saturday half-holiday is less an affair of law and legislature, depends more upon private men and women, but is of scarcely less importance. It is not to be disguised that there are difficulties and dangers attending the plan. It is as yet probably regarded only as an experiment, though certain classes of mercantile men have been trying it for years, with what satisfaction their persistence in it indicates. Undoubtedly there are many young men who misspend their holiday, and many more who do not know what to do with it, and who will finally fall into mischief through sheer idleness. The hours drag so heavily, that they half conclude they would about as soon be at work as at liberty with nothing to do. Possibly there are more who abuse their holiday than use it advantageously. But just as far as this trouble extends, so far it shows, not the harm of leisure, but the sore straits we have been brought to for lack of it. There is no sadder result of the disuse of a faculty than the decadence of that faculty. Time is the essential gift of God to man,—essential not merely to providing for his physical wants, but to forming his character, to developing his powers, to cultivating his taste, to elevating his life. Is it, then, that he has devoted so disproportionate a share of that time to one of its uses, and that not the noblest, that he has lost the desire and the ability to devote any of it to its higher uses? Have young men given themselves to buying and selling till they have no interest in books, in Nature, in Art, in manly sport and exercise? Then surely it behooves us at once to change all this. No man can have a well-balanced mind, a good judgment, who is interested in nothing but his business. If, when released from that for a half-day each week, he is listless, aimless, discontented, it is a sure sign that undue devotion to it has corroded his powers, and is making havoc of his finer organization.
It is to be feared that many of our young men do not know what recreation means. They confound it with riot. Fierce driving, hard drinking, violence, and vice they understand; but with quiet, refining, soothing, and strengthening diversions they have small acquaintance. This is very largely the fault of the community in which they live. Do Christian families in our large cities feel the obligations which they are under towards the young men who come among them? I believe that a very large part of the immorality, the irreligion, the skepticism and crime into which young men fall is due to their being so coldly and cruelly let alone by Christian families. A boy comes up from the country, where every one knows him and greets him, into the solitude of the great city. He has left home behind him, and finds no new home to receive him. When he is released from his work in shop or counting-room, nothing more inviting awaits him than the silent room in the dreary boarding-house. He misses suddenly, and at a most sensitive age, the graces and unthinking kindnesses of home, the thousand little teasings and pettings, the common interests, and tendernesses, that he never thought of till he lost them. He is surrounded by men and boys all bent on their several ways. He must have amusement. It is as necessary to him as daily food. What wonder, then, if he accepts the first that offers? And if Satan, as usual, is beforehand with his invitations, what shall hinder him from following Satan? The saloon, warmed and lighted, and enlivened with music or merry talk, is more attractive than the dingy, solitary room; and if hisfeet do slip now and then, who is the worse for it? He will never write it home, and there is nobody in the city who will discover it; provided he is prompt at his business, no one will meddle with his leisure hours. And if full-grown men are found to need the restraining influences of wife and child and neighbor, and to plunge into brutality whenever they form a community by themselves, what can prevent boys, when cast adrift, from drifting into sin? Genius is supreme, but genius is the heritage of but few; while passion and appetite, love of society and amusement, need of watchfulness and susceptibility to temptation, belong to all. "I don't like wine," said a young man,—"I hate the taste of it; but what am I to do? A lot of fellows carousing isn't the best thing in the world; but I can't stay moping in my room alone all the time. There's my violin. Well, I took it out once or twice, but it was no go. When I could go into the parlor after supper, and mother round, and Bess to sing, it was worth while; but there is no fun in fiddling to yourself by wholesale. Besides, I suppose it bores the rest to have a fellow sawing away." And this was a fine, handsome, healthy young man, all ready to be made a warm friend, a patriotic citizen, a pure and happy man, and just as ready to become a reckless, dissipated, sorrow-bringing failure. And, alas! where were the hands that should have helped him? Alas! alas! what are the hands that willnotbe backward to lay hold on him?
If any holiday is to be made useful, if young men are to be saved from ruin, saved to their mothers and sisters and wives, saved to themselves, to their country, and to God, Christian people must bestir themselves. Young Men's Christian Associations may be ever so efficient, but they cannot do everything. The work that is to be done cannot be wrought by associations alone, nor by young men, nor by any men. It needs fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and firesides. The only way to keep boys from the haunts of vice is to open to them the haunts of virtue. Give them access to loving families, to happy homes. Nothing can supply this want. No attendance at any church is to be for a moment compared to attendance at the sacred shrine of an affectionate family. But when, a little while ago, a young man, who had been for years a clerk in Boston, was asked in how many families he was acquainted, he replied quickly, "Not one." Yet he was a member of an Orthodox Congregational Church, which, I take it, is to be as good as anybody can be in this world, and a regular attendant upon religious services in one of the most influential Orthodox churches in Boston. Sunday after Sunday he occupied his seat, yet neither pastor nor people—not one of all that great congregation—ever took him by the hand and constrained him to sit by their hearthstones, ever welcomed him to the warmth and gladness and gentle endearments of their homes. What is the communion of saints? If that young man had brought a letter of introduction from some distinguished person, would they have thus let him go in and out among them unnoticed and uncared for? But to church-members, surely, a certificate of church-membership ought to be as weighty as a letter of introduction. A Christian church should be so managed that it should be impossible for any attendant upon its services to escape observation; and it should be so trained to its social duties that every person who takes shelter in its sanctuary should at least have the opportunity to find shelter in its homes. I think it would be well, even, that those who are present at a single church service should be courteously noticed and encouraged to repeat the visit. If the church is indeed God's house, let the servants of the Master dispense His hospitalities in such a manner as befits His divine character, remembering that the world judges of Him through them. Let fathers and mothers be on the watch to speak kindly words to such homeless wanderers as may roam within the circle of their influence. If a stranger is introducedinto the family pew, let him be no longer a stranger, but a guest. Let him not remain during the service and pass out at its close without some brotherly or fatherly recognition, without some assurance by word or look or little attention that his presence there gave pleasure. This is a beginning of home feeling.
It would be a fit thing, if every country pastor should give to every boy who leaves his parish a letter of introduction to some clergyman in the city whither he is going, so that there should be no interregnum,—no time when the boy should be utterly unfriended, loosed from restraint, and a prey to unclean and hateful things. But this is not done, and we should not wait for it. The Prince of Evil never stands upon etiquette. He is instant in season and out of season; and those who would circumvent him must be equally prompt and vigilant. The Church should weave its meshes of watchful care and love and friendship so close that nobody can slip through unseen.
A duty rests upon all merchants and tradesmen, upon all, indeed, who employ clerks or apprentices, which is not discharged when their quarterly payments are made. A man is in some sense the father of the young men whom he employs, and he should do them fatherly service. It is not possible to enter into relations with any human being without at the same time incurring responsibility concerning him. How much might be done for young men, if merchants would feel a domestic as well as a mercantile interest in them! It may not be advisable to renew the old custom of making clerks and apprentices members of the family; but surely the pleasantly lighted parlor, with its pictures, its piano, its little sheltered window-nooks, its agreeable daughters, its matronly and dignified mother, may be made a Mecca for the homesick young pilgrim, without any sacrifice that shall seem too great to the followers of Him who laid down the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, for nothing but that He might save sinners. Is it a dangerous thing to introduce strangers into a young family? But is the character that is not good enough for the drawing-room quite safe and harmless in the counting-room? If merchants, master mechanics, and employers generally, would set a premium upon integrity and good manners, those qualities would not long be found wanting. Incalculable is the influence which these civilizing surroundings would have upon a susceptible boy. Only let them come in early. Do not wait till sin has thrown out its more brilliant and showy lures, and then attempt to tear him away from them already half polluted; but while his soul is yet unstained, while, lonely, inexperienced, self-distrustful, he is ready to be moulded by the first skilful touch, let it come from the wise hands of honorable and responsible men whose position gives weight to their opinions, from the gentle hands of motherly women, and merry, guileless girls. Provide,—even if it be at the cost of a little pains, a little sacrifice of the quiet and seclusion of home,—provide for his youth its fitting and innocent delights, that sinful pleasures may not seize him and hold him in their destructive clutch. The good which the merchant does to his clerks will redound to the good of his own children. There is probably as much intelligence and virtue and youthful promise among his clerks as among his sons and daughters; and what the former receive of home the latter receive in variety and relish. The influence of man upon woman, also, is just as healthful as that of woman upon man; for both are in the order of Nature. The brothers and sisters will dance to their mother's playing all the more gleefully for a stranger or two in the set; and Mary will enter with fresher zest into the game of cards, because Mr. Gordon is her partner instead of that provoking Harry. And it is not whist nor dancing that harms young people. It is outlawry. Whist does not lead to gambling. Dancing does not lead to dissipation. It is playing cards "on the sly" that leads to gambling. It is havingto get out of the way of ministers, and church-members, and all religious people, when dancing is to be done, that leads to dissipation. It is loneliness, want of interest and amusement, any unjust and unnatural restriction, that leads to all manner of wild and boisterous and vicious amusements, which prey upon the soul. If to a young man, on his first coming to the city, there open only so many as two or three houses, where he can now and then find welcome admittance,—where are two or three excellent women who exercise a gentle jurisdiction over him, who will notice if his eye be heavy or his cheek pale, who will administer, upon occasion, a little sweet motherly chiding, mend a rent in his gloves, advise in the choice of a neck-tie, and call upon him occasionally for trifling service or attendance,—where he can find a few hot-headed, perhaps; but well-fathered and well-mothered boys, who have the same headstrong will, the same fierce likes and dislikes, the same temptations and weaknesses as himself, but who are saved from disaster by gentle, but firm authority, and constant, yet scarcely perceptible influence,—a few bright girls, who will sing and dance and talk with him, and pique and tease and tantalize him,—how infinitely are the chances multiplied against his ever turning aside into the debasing saloon! He naturally likes purity better than impurity. The breath of innocence is sweeter than the fumes of poisoned wine. The interests of a man at whose table he sits, whose children are his companions, whose wife is his friend and confidant, will be far nearer to him than those of one whom he rarely sees and little knows. Something of the atmosphere of home will cling to office-walls, and soften the sharp outlines and sweeten the unfragrant air of perpetual traffic and self-seeking. The society of pure and sprightly girls will be a constant inducement to keep himself sprightly and pure. Reading, studying, riding, singing, driving, boating, with well-bred and high-hearted young friends, will give plentiful outlet to his animal spirits, plentiful gratification to his social wants, plentiful food for his mental hunger; and while he is thus enjoying the pleasures which are but the lawful dues of his spring-time, he will be all the while becoming more and more worthy of love and respect, more and more fitted to bear, in his turn, the burdens of Church and State. And if, in spite of it all, his feet are still swift to do evil, it will be a satisfaction to those who have thus striven for his welfare to know that his blood is not on them nor on their children.
There are other things to be taken into account. The leisure of Saturday afternoon must, it would seem, conduce greatly to quiet Sundays. When young men are confined six long days behind the counter, it is but natural that on the seventh they should give themselves to merry-making. For, let it be remembered, sport is natural, yes, and as necessary, to youth as worship; and in order of human development, it comes first. It is very hard to say to a boy, "You have been writing, and weighing, and measuring all the week. Now the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers blooming, the river sparkling, and boat and horse await your hand, but you must turn away from them all and go to church. You have been boxed up for six days, and now you must be boxed up again. There are no fresh airs, no summer sounds for you; but only noise and dust and pavements all the days of your life." It happens, at any rate, that there is no use in saying this; for young blood overleaps it all, and city suburbs resound on Sunday with the clatter of hoofs and the rattle of wheels; and no one need be surprised, who has any acquaintance with human nature one the one side, or any conception of the irksomeness of continued confinement on the other. It would, indeed, be a very strange, and, I think, a very sad thing, if young peoplewerewilling to let suns rise, and stars set, and all the beautiful changes of Nature go on, without an irresistible, instinctive prompting to fly from the grave monotone of the city, and live and breathe inher freshness and her song. If a young man must choose between play of muscle, swiftness of motion, the free air of the hills, and sitting in church to hear a sermon, he will often choose the former; and if he cannot enjoy these things without going in opposition to the best sense of the community, if they cannot be compassed without a certain consciousness of wrong-doing, they will lead to recklessness and lawlessness; for be compassed, they will.
But let the young men have Saturday afternoon for their boating and bowling and various pastimes, and they will be far more disposed to hear what the minister has to say on Sunday,—far more disposed, let us hope, to join in prayer and praise. One very obvious and practical consideration is, that many of them, probably the larger part, can spend on a single holiday all the holiday money they have to spend. So—there will be nothing for it but to stay at home on Sunday by force of theres angustæ domi. But, also, is it too much to believe, that, the half-day having given them that physical exercise, amusement, and change which they need, Sunday will find them the more ready to absorb and appropriate spiritual nourishment? that bodily and mental recreation will prepare them for religious recreation? I have said that sport is as natural and necessary as worship. But, on the other hand, worship is as natural as sport, Very few, I think, are the persons, young or old, in all of whose thoughts it may be said God is not. And if this natural, spontaneous turning to God were not interfered with by our pernicious modes of training and management, we should not become so fearfully alienated from Him. Play and work and worship would be animated by one spirit. Many surely there are who would bemore likelyto devote a part of their Sunday to the direct worship of God, and to a more intimate knowledge of His works and words, who would be more likely to come under the influence of the Bible and the pulpit, from having had opportunity first to free their lungs from the foul air, and their limbs from the lifelessness, which a long confinement to business had caused. At least let us not tempt any to make Sunday a day of fun and frolic, by giving them no other day for their fun and frolic. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
Women can do much towards bringing about this holiday, and towards keeping it intact when it is once secured. Let every woman make a point of doing no shopping on Saturday afternoons. A very little forethought will prevent any inconvenience from the deprivation. If a tradesman chooses to keep his shop open on Saturdays, when others of the same kind are shut, let every woman take care not only not to enter it on that day, but on any day. And in order that the holiday may begin as promptly as the working-day, women should not put off their purchases till the last minute before closing. If the shops are to be shut at two o'clock, let no one enter them after one, except in case of emergency. If the clerks have to take down goods from their shelves, overhaul box and drawer, and unroll and unfold and derange till the time for closing arrives, an hour or an hour and a half of their holiday must be consumed in the work of putting the store in order. Let this last hour of the working-week be spent in arrangement, not in derangement. Be ashamed to ask a clerk to disturb a shelf which he has just set in Sunday order. Let the young men be ready, so that, when the clock strikes the hour of release, release may come.
Many of the shops are advertised to be closed on Saturday afternoons through the summer. But there are just as many hours to the day and just as many days to the week in winter as in summer; and the ice and snow and sleigh-bells of January are just as fascinating and as exhilarating and invigorating as the rivers and roses of June. Therefore it is to be hoped the half-holiday will not migrate with the birds, but remain and become a permanent national institution.
Our Chimney-Corner, of which we have spoken somewhat, has, besides the wonted domestic circle, itshabituéswho have a frequent seat there. Among these, none is more welcome than Theophilus Thoro.
Friend Theophilus was born on the shady side of Nature, and endowed by his patron saint with every grace and gift which can make a human creature worthy and available, except the gift of seeing the bright side of things. His bead-roll of Christian virtues includes all the graces of the spirit except hope; and so, if one wants to know exactly the flaw, the defect, the doubtful side, and to take into account all the untoward possibilities of any person, place, or thing, he had best apply to friend Theophilus. He can tell you just where and how the best-laid scheme is likely to fail, just the screw that will fall loose in the smoothest-working machinery, just the flaw in the most perfect character, just the defect in the best-written book, just the variety of thorn that must accompany each particular species of rose.
Yet Theophilus is without guile or malice. His want of faith in human nature is not bitter and censorious, but melting and pitiful. "We are all poor trash, miserable dogs together," he seems to say, as he looks out on the world and its ways. There is not much to be expected of or for any of us; but let us love one another, and be patient.
Accordingly, Theophilus is one of the most incessant workers for human good, and perseveringly busy in every scheme of benevolent enterprise, in all which he labors with melancholy steadiness without hope. In religion he has the soul of a martyr,—nothing would suit him better than to be burned alive for his faith; but his belief in the success of Christianity is about on a par with that of the melancholy disciple of old, who, when Christ would go to Judæa, could only say, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." Theophilus is always ready to die for the truth and the right, for which he never sees anything but defeat and destruction ahead.
During the late war, Theophilus has been a despairing patriot, dying daily, and giving up all for lost in every reverse from Bull Run to Fredericksburg. The surrender of Richmond and the capitulation of Lee shortened his visage somewhat; but the murder of the President soon brought it back to its old length. It is true, that, while Lincoln lived, he was in a perpetual state of dissent from all his measures. He had broken his heart for years over the miseries of the slaves, but he shuddered at the Emancipation Proclamation; a whirlwind of anarchy was about to sweep over the country, in which the black and the white would dash against each other and be shivered like potters' vessels. He was in despair at the accession of Johnson,—believing the worst of the unfavorable reports that clouded his reputation. Nevertheless he was among the first of loyal citizens to rally to the support of the new administration, because, though he had no hope in that, he could see nothing better.
You must not infer from all this that friend Theophilus is a social wet blanket, a goblin shadow at the domestic hearth. By no means. Nature has gifted him with that vein of humor and that impulse to friendly joviality which are frequent developments in sad-natured men, and often deceive superficial observers as to their real character. He who laughs well and makes you laugh is often called a man of cheerful disposition; yet in many cases nothing can be farther from it than precisely this kind of person.
Theophilus frequents our chimney-corner, perhaps because Mrs. Crowfieldand myself are, so to speak, children of the light and the day. My wife has precisely the opposite talent to that of our friend. She can discover the good point, the sound spot, where others see only defect and corruption. I myself am somewhat sanguine, and prone rather to expect good than evil, and with a vast stock of faith in the excellent things that may turn up in the future. The Millennium is one of the prime articles of my creed; and all the ups and downs of society I regard only as so many jolts on a very rough road that is taking the world on, through many upsets and disasters, to that final consummation.
Theophilus holds the same belief, theoretically; but it is apt to sink so far out of sight in the mire of present disaster as to be of very little comfort to him.
"Yes," he said, "we are going to ruin, in my view, about as fast as we can go. Miss Jennie, I will trouble you for another small lump of sugar in my tea."
"You have been saying that, about our going to ruin, every time you have taken tea here for four years past," said Jennie; "but I always noticed that your fears never spoiled your relish either for tea or muffins. People talk about being on the brink of a volcano, and the country going to destruction, and all that, just as they put pepper on their potatoes: it is an agreeable stimulant in conversation,—that's all."
"For my part," said my wife, "I can speak in another vein. When had we ever in all our history sobrightprospects, so much to be thankful for? Slavery is abolished; the last stain of disgrace is wiped from our national honor. We stand now before the world self-consistent with our principles. We have come out of one of the severest struggles that ever tried a nation, purer and stronger in morals and religion, as well as more prosperous in material things."
"My dear Madam, excuse me," said Theophilus; "but I cannot help being reminded of what an English reviewer once said,—that a lady's facts have as much poetry in them as Tom Moore's lyrics. Of course poetry is always agreeable, even though of no statistical value."
"I see no poetry in my facts," said Mrs. Crowfield. "Is not slavery forever abolished, by the confession of its best friends,—even of those who declare its abolition a misfortune, and themselves ruined in consequence?"
"I confess, my dear Madam, that we have succeeded as we human creatures commonly do, in supposing that we have destroyed an evil, when we have only changed its name. We have contrived to withdraw from the slave just that fiction of property relation which made it for the interest of some one to care for him a little, however imperfectly; and having destroyed that, we turn him out defenceless to shift for himself in a community every member of which is embittered against him. The whole South resounds with the outcries of slaves suffering the vindictive wrath of former masters; laws are being passed hunting them out of this State and out of that; the animosity of race—at all times the most bitter and unreasonable of animosities—is being aroused all over the land. And the Free States take the lead in injustice to them. Witness the late vote of Connecticut on the suffrage question. The efforts of Government to protect the rights of these poor defenceless creatures are about as energetic as such efforts always have been and always will be while human nature remains what it is. For a while the obvious rights of the weaker party will be confessed, with some show of consideration, in public speeches; they will be paraded by philanthropic sentimentalists, to give point to their eloquence; they will be here and there sustained in Governmental measures, when there is no strong temptation to the contrary, and nothing better to be done; but the moment that political combinations begin to be formed, all the rights and interests of this helpless people will be bandied about, as so many makeweights in the political scale. Any troublesomelion will have a negro thrown to him to keep him quiet. All their hopes will be dashed to the ground by the imperious Southern white, no longer feeling for them even the interest of a master, and regarding them with a mixture of hatred and loathing as the cause of all his reverses. Then, if, driven to despair, they seek to defend themselves by force, they will be crushed by the power of the Government, and ground to powder, as the weak have always been under the heel of the strong.
"So much for our abolition of slavery. As to our material prosperity, it consists of an inflated paper currency, an immense debt, a giddy, fool-hardy spirit of speculation and stock-gambling, and a perfect furor of extravagance, which is driving everybody to live beyond his means, and casting contempt on the republican virtues of simplicity and economy.
"As to advancement in morals, there never was so much intemperance in our people before, and the papers are full of accounts of frauds, defalcations, forgeries, robberies, assassinations, and arsons. Against this tide of corruption the various organized denominations of religion do nothing effectual. They are an army shut up within their own intrenchments, holding their own with difficulty, and in no situation to turn back the furious assaults of the enemy."
"In short," said Jennie, "according to your showing, the whole country is going to destruction. Now, if things really are so bad, if you really believe all you have been saying, you ought not to be sitting drinking your tea as you are now, or to have spent the afternoon playing croquet with us girls; you ought to gird yourself with sackcloth, and go up and down the land, raising the alarm, and saying, 'Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'"
"Well," said Theophilus, while a covert smile played about his lips, "you know the saying, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow,' etc. Things are not yetgoneto destruction, onlygoing,—and why not have a good time on deck before the ship goes to pieces? Your chimney-corner is a tranquil island in the ocean of trouble, and your muffins are absolutely perfect. I'll take another, if you'll please to pass them."
"I've a great mindnotto pass them," said Jennie. "Are you in earnest in what you are saying or are you only saying it for sensation? Howcanpeople believe such things and be comfortable?Icould not. If I believed all you have been saying, I could not sleep nights,—I should be perfectly miserable; andyoucannot really believe all this, or you would be."
"My dear child," said Mrs. Crowfield, "our friend's picture is the truth painted with all its shadows and none of its lights. All the dangers he speaks of are real and great, but he omits the counterbalancing good. Letmespeak now. There never has been a time in our history when so many honest and just men held power in our land as now,—never a government before in which the public councils recognized with more respect the just and the right. There never was an instance of a powerful government showing more tenderness in the protection of a weak and defenceless race than ours has shown in the care of the freedmen hitherto. There never was a case in which the people of a country were more willing to give money and time and disinterested labor to raise and educate those who have thus been thrown on their care. Considering that we have had a great, harassing, and expensive war on our hands, I think the amount done by Government and individuals for the freedmen unequalled in the history of nations; and I do not know why it should be predicted from this past fact, that, in the future, both Government and people are about to throw them to the lions, as Mr. Theophilus supposes. Let us wait, at least, and see. So long as Government maintains a freedmen's bureau, administered by men of such high moral character, we must think, at all events, that there are strong indications in the right direction. Just think of the immense advance of public opinion withinfour years, and of the grand successive steps of this advance,—Emancipation in the District of Columbia, the Repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law, the General Emancipation Act, the Amendment of the Constitution. All these do not look as if the black were about to be ground to powder beneath the heel of the white. If the negroes are oppressed in the South, they can emigrate; no laws hold them; active, industrious laborers will soon find openings in any part of the Union."
"No," said Theophilus, "there will be black laws like those of Illinois and Tennessee, there will be turbulent uprisings of the Irish, excited by political demagogues, that will bar them out of Northern States. Besides, as a class, theywillbe idle and worthless. It will not be their fault, but it will be the result of their slave education. All their past observation of their masters has taught them that liberty means licensed laziness, that work means degradation,—and therefore they will loathe work, and cherish laziness as the sign of liberty. 'Am not I free? Have I not as good a right to do nothing as you?' will be the cry.
"Already the lazy whites, who never lifted a hand in any useful employment, begin to raise the cry that "niggers won't work"; and I suspect the cry may not be without reason. Industrious citizens can never be made in a community where the higher class think useful labor a disgrace. The whites will oppose the negro in every effort to rise; they will debar him of every civil and social right; they will set him the worst possible example, as they have been doing for hundreds of years; and then they will hound and hiss at him for being what they made him. This is the old track of the world,—the good, broad, reputable road on which all aristocracies and privileged classes have been always travelling; and it's not likely that we shall have much of a secession from it. The Millennium isn't so near us as that, by a great deal."
"It's all very well arguing from human selfishness and human sin in that way," said I; "but you can't take up a newspaper that doesn't contain abundant facts to the contrary. Here, now,"—and I turned to the Tribune,—"is one item that fell under my eye accidentally, as you were speaking:—
"'The Superintendent of Freedmen's Affairs in Louisiana, in making up his last Annual Report, says he has 1,952 blacks settled temporarily on 9,650 acres of land, who last year raised crops to the value of $175,000, and that he had but few worthless blacks under his care, and that, as a class, the blacks have fewer vagrants than can be found among any other class of persons.'
"Such testimonies gem the newspapers like stars."
"Newspapers of your way of thinking, very likely," said Theophilus; "but if it comes to statistics, I can bring counter statements, numerous and dire, from scores of Southern papers, of vagrancy, laziness, improvidence, and wretchedness."
"Probably both are true," said I, "according to the greater or less care which has been taken of the blacks in different regions. Left to themselves, they tend downward, pressed down by the whole weight of semi-barbarous white society; but when the free North protects and guides, the results are as you see."
"And do you think the free North has salt enough in it to save this whole Southern mass from corruption? I wish I could think so; but all I can see in the free North at present is a raging, tearing, headlong chase aftermoney. Now money is of significance only as it gives people the power of expressing their ideal of life. And what does this ideal prove to be among us? Is it not to ape all the splendors and vices of old aristocratic society? Is it not to be able to live in idleness, without useful employment, a life of glitter and flutter and show? What do our New York dames of fashion seek after? To avoid family care, to find servants at any price who will relieve them of home responsibilities, and take charge of their houses and children while they shine at ball andopera, and drive in the park. And the servants who learn of these mistresses,—what do they seek after?Theyseek also to get rid of care, to live as nearly as possible without work, to dress and shine in their secondary sphere, as the mistresses do in the primary one. High wages with little work and plenty of company express Biddy's ideal of life, which is a little more respectable than that of her mistress, who wants high wages with no work. The house and the children are not hers; and why should she care more for their well-being than the mistress and the mother?
"Hence come wranglings and moanings. Biddy uses a chest of tea in three months, and the amount of the butcher's bill is fabulous; Jane gives the baby laudanum to quiet it, while she slips out toherparties; and the upper classes are shocked at the demoralized state of the Irish, their utter want of faithfulness and moral principle! How dreadful that there are no people who enjoy the self-denials and the cares which they dislike, that there are no people who rejoice in carrying that burden of duties which they do not wish to touch with one of their fingers! The outcry about the badness of servants means just this: that everybody is tired of self-helpfulness,—the servants as thoroughly as the masters and mistresses. All want the cream of life, without even the trouble of skimming; and the great fight now is, who shall drink the skim-milk, which nobody wants,Work,—honorable toil,—manly, womanly endeavor,—is just what nobody likes; and this is as much a fact in the free North as in the slave South.
"What are all the young girls looking for in marriage? Some man with money enough to save them from taking any care or having any trouble in domestic life, enabling them, like the lilies of the field, to rival Solomon in all his glory, while they toil not neither do they spin; and when they find that even money cannot purchase freedom from care in family life, because their servants are exactly of the same mind with themselves, and hate to do their duties as cordially as they themselves do, then are they in anguish of spirit, and wish for slavery, or aristocracy, or anything that would give them power over the lower classes."
"But surely, Mr. Theophilus," said Jennie, "there is no sin in disliking trouble, and wanting to live easily and have a good time in one's life,—it's so very natural."
"No sin, my dear, I admit; but there is a certain amount of work and trouble that somebody must take, to carry on the family and the world; and the mischief is, that all are agreed in wanting to get rid of it. Human nature is, above all things, lazy. I am lazy myself. Everybody is. The whole struggle of society is as to who shall eat the hard bread-and-cheese of labor, which must be eaten by somebody. Nobody wants it,—neither you in the parlor, nor Biddy in the kitchen.
"'The mass ought to labor, andwelie on sofas,' is a sentence that would unite more subscribers than any confession of faith that ever was presented, whether religious or political; and its subscribers would be as numerous and sincere in the Free States as in the Slave States, or I am much mistaken in my judgment. The negroes are men and women, like any of the rest of us, and particularly apt in the imitation of the ways and ideas current in good society; and consequently to learn to play on the piano, and to have nothing in particular to do, will be the goal of aspiration among colored girls and women, and to do house-work will seem to them intolerable drudgery, simply because it is so among the fair models to whom they look up in humble admiration. You see, my dear, what it is to live in a democracy. It deprives us of the vantage-ground on which we cultivated people can stand and say to our neighbor,—'The cream is for me, and the skim-milk for you; the white bread for me, and the brown for you. I am born to amuse myself and have a good time, and you are born to do everything that is tiresome and disagreeable to me.' The 'My Lady Ludlows' ofEngland can stand on their platform and lecture the lower classes from the Church Catechism, to 'order themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters'; and they can base their exhortations on the old established law of society, by which some are born to inherit the earth, and live a life of ease and pleasure, and others to toil, without pleasure or amusement, for their support and aggrandizement. An aristocracy, as I take it, is a combination of human beings to divide life into two parts, one of which shall comprise all social and moral ease, pleasure, and amusement,—and the other, incessant toil, with the absence of every privilege and blessing of human existence. Life thus divided, we aristocrats keep the good for ourselves and our children, and distribute the evil as the lot of the general mass of mankind. The desire to monopolize and to dominate is the most rooted form of human selfishness; it is the hydra with many heads, and, cut off in one place, it puts out in another.
"Nominally, the great aristocratic arrangement of American society has just been destroyed; but really, I take it, the essentialanimusof the slave system still exists, and pervades the community, North as well as South. Everybody is wanting to get the work done by somebody else, and to take the money himself; the grinding between employers and employed is going on all the time, and the field of controversy has only been made wider by bringing in, a whole new class of laborers. The Irish have now the opportunity to sustain their aristocracy over the negro. Shall they not have somebody to look down upon?
"All through free society, employers and employed are at incessant feud; and the more free and enlightened the society, the more bitter the feud. The standing complaint of life in America is the badness of servants; and England, which always follows at a certain rate behind us in our social movements, is beginning to raise very loudly the same complaint. The condition of service has been thought worthy of public attention in some of the leading British prints; and Ruskin, in a summing up article, speaks of it as a deep ulcer in society,—a thing hopeless of remedy."
"My dear Mr. Theophilus," said my wife, "I cannot imagine whither you are rambling, or to what purpose you are getting up these horrible shadows. You talk of the world as if there were no God in it, overruling the selfishness of men, and educating it up to order and justice. I do not deny that there is a vast deal of truth in what you say. Nobody doubts, that, in general, human natureisselfish, callous, unfeeling, willing to engross all good to itself, and to trample on the rights of others. Nevertheless, thanks to God's teaching and fatherly care, the world has worked along to the point of a great nation founded on the principles of strict equality, forbidding all monopolies, aristocracies, privileged classes, by its very constitution; and now, by God's wonderful providence, this nation has been brought, and forced, as it were, to overturn and abolish the only aristocratic institution that interfered with its free development. Does not this look as if a Mightier Power than ours were working in and for us, supplementing our weakness and infirmity? and if we believe that man is always ready to drop everything and let it run back to evil, shall we not have faith that God willnotdrop the noble work He has so evidently taken in hand in this nation?"
"And I want to know," said Jennie, "why your illustrations of selfishness are all drawn from the female sex. Why do you speak ofgirlsthat marry for money, any more than men? ofmistressesof families that want to be free from household duties and responsibilities, rather that of masters?"
"My charming young lady," said Theophilus, "it is a fact that in America, except the slaveholders, women have hitherto been the only aristocracy. Women have been the privileged class,—the only one to which our rough democracy has always end everywhere given the precedence,—and consequently thevices of aristocrats are more developed in them as a class than among men. The leading principle of aristocracy, which is to take pay without work, to live on the toils and earnings of others, is one which obtains more generally among women than among men in this country. The men of our country, as a general thing, even in our uppermost classes, always propose to themselves some work or business by which they may acquire a fortune, or enlarge that already made for them by their fathers. The women of the same class propose to themselves nothing but to live at their ease on the money made for them by the labors of fathers and husbands. As a consequence, they become enervated and indolent,—averse to any bracing, wholesome effort, either mental or physical. The unavoidable responsibilities and cares of a family, instead of being viewed by them in the light of a noble life-work, in which they do their part in the general labors of the world, seem to them so many injuries and wrongs; they seek to turn them upon servants, and find servants unwilling to take them; and so selfish are they, that I have heard more than one lady declare that she didn't care if it was unjust, she should like to have slaves rather than be plagued with servants who had so much liberty. All the novels, poetry, and light literature of the world, which form the general staple of female reading, are based upon aristocratic institutions, and impregnated with aristocratic ideas; and women among us are constantly aspiring to foreign and aristocratic modes of life rather than to those of native, republican simplicity. How many women are there, think you, that would not go in for aristocracy and aristocratic prerogatives, if they were only sure that they themselves should be of the privileged class? To be 'My Lady Duchess,' and to have a right by that simple title to the prostrate deference of all the lower orders! How many would have firmness to vote against such an establishment merely because it was bad for society? Tell the fair Mrs. Feathercap, 'In order that you may be a duchess, and have everything a paradise of elegance and luxury around you and your children, a hundred poor families must have no chance for anything better than black bread and muddy water all their lives, a hundred poor men must work all their lives on such wages that a fortnight's sickness will send their families to the almshouse, and that no amount of honesty and forethought can lay up any provision for old age'"—
"Come now, Sir," said Jennie, "don't tell me that there any girls or women so mean and selfish as to want aristocracy or rank so purchased! You are too bad, Mr. Theophilus!"
"Perhaps they might not, were it stated in just these terms; yet I think, if the question of the establishment of an order of aristocracy among us were put to vote, we should find more women than men who would go for it; and they would flout at the consequences to society with the lively wit and the musical laugh which make feminine selfishness so genteel and agreeable.
"No! It is a fact, that, in America, the women, in the wealthy classes, are like the noblemen of aristocracies, and the men are the workers. And in all this outcry that has been raised about women's wages being inferior to those of men there is one thing overlooked,—and that is, that women's work is generally inferior to that of men, because in every rank they are the pets of society, and are excused from the laborious drill and training by which men are fitted for their callings. Our fair friends come in generally by some royal road to knowledge, which saves them the dire necessity of real work,—a sort of feminine hop-skip-and-jump into science or mechanical skill,—nothing like the uncompromising hard labor to which the boy is put who would be a mechanic or farmer, a lawyer or physician.
"I admit freely that we men are to blame for most of the faults of our fair nobility. There is plenty of heroism, abundance of energy, and love of noble endeavor lying dormant in these sheltered and petted daughters of the betterclasses; butwekeep it down and smother it. Fathers and brothers think it discreditable to themselves not to give their daughters and sisters the means of living in idleness; and any adventurous fair one, who seeks to end the ennui of utter aimlessness by applying herself to some occupation whereby she may earn her own living, infallibly draws down on her the comments of her whole circle:—'Keeping school, is she? Isn't her father rich enough to support her? What could possess her?'"
"I am glad, my dear Sir Oracle, that you are beginning to recollect yourself and temper your severities on our sex, said my wife. As usual, there is much truth lying about loosely in the vicinity of your assertions; but they are as far from being in themselves the truth as would be their exact opposites.
"The class of American women who travel, live abroad, and represent our country to the foreign eye, have acquired the reputation of being Sybarites in luxury and extravagance, and there is much in the modes of life that are creeping into our richer circles to justify this.
"Miss Murray, ex-maid-of-honor to the Queen of England, among other impressions which she received from an extended tour through our country, states it as her conviction that young American girls of the better classes are less helpful in nursing the sick and in the general duties of family life than the daughters of the aristocracy of England; and I am inclined to believe it, because even the Queen has taken special pains to cultivate habits of energy and self-helpfulness in her children. One of the toys of the Princess Royal was said to be a cottage of her own, furnished with every accommodation for cooking and housekeeping, where she from time to time enacted the part of housekeeper, making bread and biscuit, boiling potatoes which she herself had gathered from her own garden-patch, and inviting her royal parents to meals of her own preparing; and report says, that the dignitaries of the German court have been horrified at the energetic determination of the young royal housekeeper to overlook her own linen-closets and attend to her own affairs. But, as an offset to what I have been saying, it must be admitted that America is a country where a young woman can be self-supporting without forfeiting her place in society. All our New England and Western towns show us female teachers who are as well received and as much caressed in society, and as often contract advantageous marriages, as any women whatever; and the productive labor of American women, in various arts, trades, and callings, would be found, I think, not inferior to that of any women in the world.
"Furthermore, the history of the late war has shown them capable of every form of heroic endeavor. We have had hundreds of Florence Nightingales, and an amount of real hard work has been done by female hands not inferior to that performed by men in the camp and field, and enough to make sure that American womanhood is not yet so enervated as seriously to interfere with the prospects of free republican society."
"I wonder," said Jennie, "what it is in our country that spoils the working-classes that come into it. They say that the emigrants, as they land here, are often simple-hearted people, willing to work, accustomed to early hours and plain living, decorous and respectful in their manners. It would seem as if aristocratic drilling had done them good. In a few months they become brawling, impertinent, grasping, want high wages, and are very unwilling to work. I went to several intelligence-offices the other day to look for a girl for Marianne, and I thought, by the way the candidates catechized the ladies, and the airs they took upon them, that they considered themselves the future mistresses interrogating their subordinates.
"'Does ye expect me to do the washin' with the cookin'?'
"'Yes.'
"'Thin I'll niver go to that place!'
"'And does ye expect me to get theearly breakfast for yer husband to be off in the train every mornin'?'
"'Yes.'
"'I niver does that,—that ought to be a second girl's work.'
"'How many servants does ye keep, Ma'am?'
"'Two.'
"'I niver lives with people that keeps but two servants.'
"'How many has ye in yer family?'
"'Seven.'
"'That's too large a family. Has ye much company?'
"'Yes, we have company occasionally.'
"'Thin I can't come to ye; it'll be too harrd a place.'
"In fact, the thing they were all in quest of seemed to be a very small family, with very high wages, and many perquisites and privileges.
"This is the kind of work-people our manners and institutions make of people that come over here. I remember one day seeing a coachman touch his cap to his mistress when she spoke to him, as is the way in Europe, and hearing one or two others saying among themselves,—
"'That chap's a greenie; he'll get over that soon.'"
"All these things show," said I, "that the staff of power has passed from the hands of gentility into those of labor. We may think the working-classes somewhat unseemly in their assertion of self-importance; but, after all, are they, considering their inferior advantages of breeding, any more overbearing and impertinent than the upper classes have always been to them in all ages and countries?
"When Biddy looks long, hedges in her work with many conditions, and is careful to get the most she can for the least labor, is she, after all, doing any more than you or I or all the rest of the world? I myself will not write articles for five dollars a page, when there are those who will give me fifteen. I would not do double duty as an editor on a salary of seven thousand, when I could get ten thousand for less work.
"Biddy and her mistress are two human beings, with the same human wants. Both want to escape trouble, to make their life comfortable and easy, with the least outlay of expense. Biddy's capital is her muscles and sinews; and she wants to get as many greenbacks in exchange for them as her wit and shrewdness will enable her to do. You feel, when you bargain with her, that she is nothing to you, except so far as her strength and knowledge may save you care and trouble; and she feels that you are nothing to her, except so far as she can get your money for her work. The free-and-easy airs of those seeking employment show one thing,—that the country in general is prosperous, and that openings for profitable employment are so numerous that it is not thought necessary to try to conciliate favor. If the community were at starvation-point, and the loss of a situation brought fear of the almshouse, the laboring-class would be more subservient. As it is, there is a little spice of the bitterness of a past age of servitude in their present attitude,—a bristling, self-defensive impertinence, which will gradually smooth away as society learns to accommodate itself to the new order of things."
"Well, but, papa," said Jennie, "don't you think all this a very severe test, if applied to us women particularly, more than to the men? Mr. Theophilus seems to think women are aristocrats, and go for enslaving the lower classes out of mere selfishness; but I say that we are a great deal more strongly tempted than men, because all these annoyances and trials of domestic life come upon us. It is very insidious, the aristocratic argument, as it appeals to us; there seems much to be said in its favor. It does appear to me that it is better to have servants and work-people tidy, industrious, respectful, and decorous, as they are in Europe, than domineering, impertinent, and negligent, as they are here,—and it seems that there is something in our institutions that produces these disagreeable traits: and I presume that the negroes will eventuallybe travelling the same road as the Irish, and from the same influences.
"When people see all these things, and feel all the inconveniences of them, I don't wonder that they are tempted not to like democracy, and to feel as if aristocratic institutions made a more agreeable state of society. It is not such a blank, bald, downright piece of brutal selfishness as Mr. Theophilus there seems to suppose, for us to wish there were some quiet, submissive, laborious lower class, who would be content to work for kind treatment and moderate wages."
"But, my little dear," said I, "the matter is not left to our choice. Wish it or not wish it, it's what we evidently can't have. The day for that thing is past. The power is passing out of the hands of the cultivated few into those of the strong, laborious many.Numbersis the king of our era; and he will reign over us, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. The sighers for an obedient lower class and the mourners for slavery may get ready their crape, and have their pocket-handkerchiefs bordered with black; for they have much weeping to do, and for many years to come. The good old feudal times, when two thirds of the population thought themselves born only for the honor, glory, and profit of the other third, are gone, with all their beautiful devotions, all their trappings of song and story. In the land where such institutions were most deeply rooted and most firmly established, they are assailed every day by hard hands and stout hearts; and their position resembles that of some of the picturesque ruins of Italy, which are constantly being torn away to build prosaic modern shops and houses.
"This great democratic movement is coming down into modern society with a march as irresistible as the glacier moves down from the mountains. Its front is in America,—and beyond are England, France, Italy, Prussia, and the Mohammedan countries. In all, the rights of the laboring masses are a living force, bearing slowly and inevitably all before it. Our war has been a marshalling of its armies, commanded by a hard-handed, inspired man of the working-class. An intelligent American, recently resident in Egypt, says it was affecting to notice the interest with which the working-classes there were looking upon our late struggle in America, and the earnestness of their wishes for the triumph of the Union. 'It is our cause, it is for us,' they said, as said the cotton-spinners of England and the silk-weavers of Lyons. The forces of this mighty movement are still directed by a man from the lower orders, the sworn foe of exclusive privileges and landed aristocracies. If Andy Johnson is consistent with himself, with the principles which raised him from a tailor's bench to the head of a mighty nation, he will see to it that the work that Lincoln began is so thoroughly done, that every man and every woman in America, of whatever race or complexion, shall have exactly equal rights before the law, and be free to rise or fall according to their individual intelligence, industry, and moral worth. So long as everything is not strictly in accordance with our principles of democracy, so long as there is in any part of the country an aristocratic upper class who despise labor, and a laboring lower class that is denied equal political rights, so long this grinding and discord between the two will never cease in America. It will make trouble not only in the South, but in the North,—trouble between all employers and employed,—trouble in every branch and department of labor,—trouble in every parlor and every kitchen.
"What is it that has driven every American woman out of domestic service, when domestic service is full as well paid, is easier, healthier, and in many cases far more agreeable, than shop and factory work? It is, more than anything else, the influence of slavery in the South,—its insensible influence on the minds of mistresses, giving them false ideas of what ought to be the position and treatment of a female citizen in domestic service, and its very markedinfluence on the minds of freedom-loving Americans, causing them to chooseanyposition rather than one which is regarded as assimilating them to slaves. It is difficult to say what are the very worst results of a system so altogether bad as that of slavery; but one of the worst is certainly the utter contempt it brings on useful labor, and the consequent utter physical and moral degradation of a large body of the whites; and this contempt of useful labor has been constantly spreading like an infection from the Southern to the Northern States, particularly among women, who, as our friend here has truly said, are by our worship and exaltation of them made peculiarly liable to take the malaria of aristocratic society. Let anybody observe the conversation in good society for an hour or two, and hear the tone in which servant-girls, seamstresses, mechanics, and all who work for their living, are sometimes mentioned, and he will see, that, while every one of the speakers professes to regard useful labor as respectable, she is yet deeply imbued with the leaven of aristocratic ideas.
"In the South the contempt for labor bred of slavery has so permeated society, that we see great, coarse, vulgarlazzaronilying about in rags and vermin, and dependent on government rations, maintaining, as their only source of self-respect, that they never have done and neverwilldo a stroke of useful work, in all their lives. In the North there are, I believe, nomenwho would make such a boast; but I think there are many women—beautiful, fascinatinglazzaroniof the parlor and boudoir—who make their boast of elegant helplessness and utter incompetence for any of woman's duties with equalnaïveté. The Spartans made their slaves drunk, to teach their children the evils of intoxication; and it seems to be the policy of a large class in the South now to keep down and degrade the only working-class they have, for the sake of teaching their children to despise work.
"We of the North, who know the dignity of labor, who know the value of free and equal institutions, who have enjoyed advantages for seeing their operation, ought, in true brotherliness, to exercise the power given us by the present position of the people of the Southern States, and put things thoroughly rightforthem, well knowing, that, though they may not like it at the moment, they will like it in the end, and that it will bring them peace, plenty, and settled prosperity, such as they have long envied here in the North. It is no kindness to an invalid brother, half recovered from delirium, to leave him a knife to cut his throat with, should he be so disposed. We should rather appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and do real kindness, trusting to the future for our meed of gratitude.
"Giving equal political rights to all the inhabitants of the Southern States will be their shortest way to quiet and to wealth. It will avert what is else almost certain,—a war of races; since all experience shows that the ballot introduces the very politest relations between the higher and lower classes. If the right be restricted, let it be by requirements of property and education, applying to all the population equally.
"Meanwhile, we citizens and citizenesses of the North should remember that Reconstruction means something more than setting things right in the Southern States. We have saved our government and institutions, but we have paid a fearful price for their salvation; and we ought to prove now that they are worth the price.
"The empty chair, never to be filled,—the light gone out on its candlestick, never on earth to be rekindled,—gallant souls that have exhaled to heaven in slow torture and starvation,—the precious blood that has drenched a hundred battle-fields,—all call to us with warning voices, and tell us not to let such sacrifices be in vain. They call on us by our clear understanding of the great principles of democratic equality, for which our martyred brethren suffered and died, to show to all the world that their death was no meanand useless waste, but a glorious investment for the future of mankind.
"This war, these sufferings, these sacrifices, ought to make every American man and woman look on himself and herself as belonging to a royal priesthood, a peculiar people. The blood of our slain ought to be a gulf, wide and deep as the Atlantic, dividing us from the opinions and the practices of countries whose government and society are founded on other and antagonistic ideas. Democratic republicanism has never yet been perfectly worked out either in this or any other country. It is a splendid edifice, half built, deformed by rude scaffolding, noisy with the clink of trowels, blinding the eyes with the dust of lime, and endangering our heads with falling brick. We make our way over heaps of shavings and lumber to view the stately apartments,—we endanger our necks in climbing ladders standing in the place of future staircases; but let us not for all this cry out that the old rat-holed mansions of former ages, with their mould, and moss, and cockroaches, are better than this new palace. There is no lime-dust, no clink of trowels, no rough scaffolding there, to be sure, and life goes on very quietly; but there is the foul air of slow and sure decay.