NOBILITY AND SERVILITY.
The reader will doubtless and also correctly imagine that situated as Miss King has now been shown to be, she could not have experienced many very pleasant hours either of night or day,—pleasant so far as the sympathy of her numerous relatives and friends could serve to make them such. Fortunately, however she was not of that class whose happiness depends upon the smiles or the approbation of others earned at any cost—but upon a steady obedience to what in her inmost soul, she regarded as demanded by the laws of rectitude and justice.
That a young lady could break away without a struggle from the counsellors, friends and companions of her youth, is not to be expected. Miss King had her struggles; and the letter written to me by her on the consummation of our engagement evinced their character, and also her grandeur and nobility of soul:—
"I have endeavoured to solve, honorably, conscientiously and judiciously, the greatest problem of human life; and God and the holy angels have assisted me in thus solving. Friends may forsake me, and the world prove false, but the sweet assurance that I have your most devoted love, and that that love will strengthen and increase in proportion as the regard of others may diminish, is the only return I ask."
What vows I uttered in the secret chambers of my heart as I read the above and similar passages of that letter, let the reader imagine who may be disposed to credit me with the least aptitude of appreciating whatsoever in human nature is grand and noble, or in the human spirit, which is lovely, and true, and beautiful, and of good report.
Throughout the letter there was also a tone of gentle sadness—not that of regret for the course in contemplation,—but that which holily lingers around a loving heart, which, while it gives itself away, may not even lightly inflict the slightest pang upon other hearts to which it has long been bound by dearly-cherished ties.
But family opposition was not the only opposition which Miss King expected to, or did indeed encounter. Whoever sought to marry yet, and did the deed unblessed or uncursed of public praise or wrath? And aside from extraordinary circumstances, it is so pleasant to dip one's finger into a pie matrimonial.
The following paragraph of a letter written to me by Miss King a few days after I left her in December, amused me much,—it may possibly amuse the reader:—
"Professor,—You would smile if you only knew what an excitement your visit here caused among the good people of Fulton. Some would have it that we were married, and others said if we were not already married, they were sure that we would be; for they knew that you would not have spent a whole week with us if there had been no love existing between you and myself. Some of the villagers came to see me the day after you left, and begged of me, if I were determined to marry you, to do so at once, and not to keep the public in so much suspense."
Friend, have you ever heard or read of anything which came nearer to clapping the climax of the ridiculous than this most singular appeal couched in the last clause of this quotation, to the benevolence of Miss King? Certainly, if anything could have come nearer, it would have been the act of a certain lady who, having heard during this selfsame visit that we were to be married on the morrow, actually had her sleigh drawn up to the door, and would have driven off to the Elder's to "stop the wedding" had not her husband remonstrated. It is true, this lady opposed the marriage, not on the ground of an immorality, but of its inexpediency considering the existent state of American sentiment; but then it is curious to think of what amazing powers she must have imagined herself possessed.
Public opposition however, soon began to assume a more decided form. Neighbours far and near, began to visit the house of Elder King, and to adopt such remonstrance and expostulation as, in their view the state of the case demanded. Some thought our marriage would be dreadful, a most inconceivably horrid outrage. Some declared it would be vulgar, and had rather see every child of theirs dead and buried, than take the course which, they were shocked to find, Miss King seemed bent to do. Some sillier than all the rest, avowed that should the marriage be permitted to take place, it would be a sin against Almighty God; and it may be, they thought it would call down thunder-bolts from the chamber of heaven's wrath, to smite us from the earth.
"There is no peace," saith my God, "to the wicked."—And surely, clearer exemplifications of this saying of Holy Writ were never had, than in the brain-teasings, mind-torturings and heart-rackings of these precious people, out of deference to our welfare. May they be mercifully remembered and gloriously rewarded.
It is proper to introduce to the reader at this point, our cherished friends,—Mr. and Mrs. Porter,—and to say at once, that words are not expressive enough to describe the gratitude we owe them, nor in what remembrance we hold them in the deepest depths of our hearts. They stood by us throughout that season of intended bloody persecution, turning neither to the right nor the left, nor counting their own interests or lives as aught in comparison to the friendship they bore us, or to their love of the principles of truth, justice and humanity. Amid the raging billows, they stood as a rock to which to cling.
We had known these friends for months, nay, for years. They had also been students in Mc. Grawville, but had subsequently married, and at the time of my December visit to Fulton were teachers of a School in Phillipsville,—where, it may be proper here to say, was located the depôt of the Fulton trains of cars.
Not only belonging to that class of persons, (rare in America, even among those who claim to be Abolitionists and Christians), persons who do not profess to believe merely, but really do believe in the doctrine of the "unity, equality, and brotherhood of the human race;" and who are willing to accord to others the exercise of rights which they claim for themselves; but, having also great purity of heart and purpose, Mr. and Mrs. Porter did not, as they could not, sympathise with those whose ideas of marriage, as evinced in their conversation respecting Miss King and myself, never ascended beyond the region of the material into that of the high, the holy and the spiritual. Of all the families of Fulton and Phillipsville, this was the only one which publicly spoke approval of our course. So that, therefore it will be expected, that while those true hearts were friendly to us, they were equally with ourselves targets at which our enemies might shoot.
I have introduced Mr. and Mrs. Porter at this point, because, at this point, their services to us commenced. But for these faithful friends, Miss King would not have known whither to have fled when she found as she did, her own home becoming any other than a desirable habitation, owing to the growing opposition and bitter revilings of her step-mother, and the impertinent intermeddlings of others.
Thus far the opposition which Miss King had experienced, though disagreeable, had not become too much for the "utmost limit of human patience." Soon, however, a crisis occurred, in the arrival in Fulton, of the Rev. John B. King. This gentleman's visit was unexpected, and it is due to him to say, that he did not come on any errand connected with this subject; for until he arrived in Fulton, he did not know of the correspondence which had existed between his sister and myself. Though unexpected, his visit as already intimated, was fraught with results, which in their immediate influence, were extremely sad and woeful.
Mr. King was a Reform preacher, and had even come from Washington, District of Columbia, where he had been residing for the last two years, to collect money to build a church which should exclude from membership those who held their fellow-men in bondage, and who would not admit the doctrines of the human brotherhood. Just the man to assist us, one would have thought. But it is easy to preach and to talk. Who cannot do that? It is easier still to feel—this is humanity's instinct—for the wrongs and outrages inflicted upon our kind. But to plant one's feet rough-shod upon the neck and heels of a corrupt and controlling public sentiment, to cherish living faith in God, and, above all to crush the demon in one's own soul,—ah! this it is which only the great can do, who, only of men, can help the world onward up to heaven.
Mr. King had scarcely entered the house, and been told the story of our engagement, when he manifested the most unworthy and unchristian opposition. Unworthy and unchristian, since he frankly averred, that had I the remaining fourth Anglo-Saxon blood, he would be proud of me as a brother. He was bitter, not as wormwood only, but as wormwood and gall combined. He would not tolerate me as a visitor at his house, in company with his sister, unless I came in the capacity of driver or servant. A precious brother this, and a most glorious Christian teacher.
I have said that the arrival of this gentleman marked a crisis in the history of our troubles; and it did so in the fact that by the powerful influence which he exerted over his father, adverse to our marriage, and by the aid, strength and comfort which he gave to his step-mother; the Elder was at last brought to a reconsideration of his views, and to abandon the ground which he had hitherto maintained with so much heroism and valour.
I shall say no hard things of Elder King; now that the storm is over, I prefer to leave him to his own reflections, and especially to this one, which may be embodied in the following question,—What is the true relation which a Christian Reformer sustains to public opinion?
Had the Elder, supposing it to have been possible, assumed towards us a position more adverse than the one he did in this singular and unexpected change, the results could not, for the time being at least, have been sadder or more disastrous. How it affected the feelings of his daughter, the reader can well imagine, who will remember, that upon her father she had hitherto relied as upon a pillar of strength, and especially as her rock of refuge from the storms which beat upon her from without. Stricken thus, a weak spirit would have given up in despair; but not so with this heroic and noble-minded lady, upon whom misfortune seemed to have no other effect than to increase her faith in God.
Elder King now, not as hitherto out of his deference to the feelings of his wife, but of his own accord, averred that I should on no consideration whatever, be permitted to enter his house, to hold a conference with his daughter, providing said conference was to be promotive of our marriage. Miss King was compelled, therefore, to make an arrangement with Mr. Porter, by which our interviews should be held in his house when I should arrive, as I was expected to do so in a few days, from Boston. Strange to say, however, and paradoxical as it may seem, on the day on which I was expected to arrive in Fulton, the Elder himself took his daughter from Fulton to Phillipsville to meet me. I reached Phillipsville, on Saturday afternoon, January 29th, and, of course, was not advised of this altered state of things, until my arrival there—the Elder's change having taken place within a very few days previous.
The method which Elder King took to evince his hostility—his exclusion of me from his house—was extremely injudicious; and I have no doubt that he, himself, now sincerely regrets it. It excited to action the mob spirit which had all along existed in the hearts of the people, and was only awaiting the pretext which the Elder gave—the placing of me before the community, as a marauder upon the peace of his family. The mob, also, gave to the matter what the King family, evidently afterwards, greatly deplored—extraordinary notoriety. Elder King would certainly have displayed more worldly sagacity, to say nothing of Christian propriety, to have admitted me into his house as usual, where we could, all together, have reasoned the matter; and if prejudices could not have been conciliated, the Elder, at all events, by his previous acquaintance with my character, had every reason to suppose that I should have conducted myself as became a gentleman and a Christian. But so it is,—prejudice thus bewilders the faculties, and defeats the objects which it aims most to accomplish.