Madame’s sister, as I before observed, was married to the respectable and intelligent magistrate, who administered justice not only to the town, but to the whole neighbourhood. In their house, also, such of the military were received, and kindly entertained, as had the sanction of their sister’s approbation. This judicious and equitable person, who, in the course of trading in early life upon the lakes, had undergone many of the hardships, and even dangers, which awaited the military in that perilous path of duty, knew well what they had to encounter in the defence of a surly and self-righted race, who were little inclined to show them common indulgence, far less gratitude. He judged equitably between both parties; and while with the most patriotic steadiness he resisted every attempt of the military to seize any thing with a high hand—he set the example himself, and used every art of persuasion to induce his countrymen to every concession that could conduce to the ease and comfort of their protectors. So far, at length, he succeeded; that when the regiment to which I allude, arrived in town, and showed in general an amiable and obliging disposition, they were quartered in different houses; the superior officers being lodged willingly by the most respectable of the inhabitants, such as not having large families, had room to accommodate them. The colonel and madame happened at the time of these arrangements, to be at New-York.
In the mean while society began to assume a new aspect; of the satellites, which, on various pretexts, official and commercial, had followed the army, several had families, and those began to mingle more frequently with the inhabitants, who were, as yet, too simple to detect the surreptitious tone of lax morals and second-hand manners which prevailed among many of those who had but very lately climbed up to the stations they held, and in whose houses the European modes and diversions were to be met with; these were not in the best style, yet even in that style they began to be relished by some young persons, with whom the power of novelty prevailed over that of habit; and in a few rare instances, the influence of the young drew the old into a faint consent to these attempted innovations; but with many the resistance was not to be overcome.
In this state of matters, one guardian genius watched over the community with unremitting vigilance. From the original settlement of the place there had been a succession of good, quiet clergymen, who came from Holland to take the command of this expatriated colony. These good men found an easy charge among a people with whom the external duties of religion were settled habits, which no one thought of dispensing with; and where the primitive state of manners, and the constant occupation of the mind in planting and defending a territory where every thing was, as it were, to be new created, was a preservation to the morals. Religion being never branded with the reproach of imputed hypocrisy, or darkened by the frown of austere bigotry, was venerated even by those who were content to glide thoughtless down the stream of time, without seriously considering whither it was conveying them, till sorrow or sickness reminded them of the great purpose for which they were indulged with the privilege of existence.
The dominees, as these people called their ministers, contented themselves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain to the people; and living quietly in the retirement of their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit; and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of their chief duties. Domine Freylinghausen, however, was not contented with this quietude, which he seemed to consider as tending to languish into indifference. Ardent in his disposition, eloquent in his preaching, animated and zealous in his conversation, and frank and popular in his manners, he thought it his duty to awaken in every breast that slumbering spirit of devotion, which he considered as lulled by security, or drooping in the meridian of prosperity, like tender plants in the blaze of sunshine. These he endeavoured to refresh by daily exhortation, as well as by the exercise of his public duties. Though rigid in some of his notions, his life was spotless, and his concern for his people warm and affectionate. His endeavours to amend and inspire them with happier desires and aims, were considered as the labour of love, and rewarded by the warmest affection, and the most profound veneration; and what to him was of much more value, by a growing solicitude for the attainment of that higher order of excellence, which it was his delight to point out to them. But while he thus incessantly “allured to brighter worlds, and led the way,” he might, perhaps, insensibly have acquired a taste of dominion, which might make him unwilling to part with any portion of that most desirable species of power, which subjects to us, not human actions only, but the will which directs them. A vulgar ambition contents itself with power to command obedience, but the more exalted and refined ambition aims at domination over the mind. Hence the leaders of a sect, or even those who have powers to awake the dying embers of pious fervour, sway the hearts of their followers in a manner far more gratifying to them than any enjoyment to be derived from temporal power. That this desire should unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not wonderful, when one considers how the best propensities of the human heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others, to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better.
To return to the apostolic and much beloved Freylinghausen. The progress which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard, alarmed and grieved the good man not a little; and the intelligence he received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honour of lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste, in those respects, from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the good pastor’s labours. The evil was daily growing—and what, alas! could Domine Freylinghausen do but preach! This he did earnestly and even angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated, but none reclaimed. The good domine, however, had those who shared his sorrows and resentments; the elder and wiser heads of families, and, indeed, a great majority of the primitive inhabitants, were steadfast against innovation. The colonel of the regiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay; and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before, in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so captivated him with his good breeding and affability, that he was ready to humour any scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under the auspices of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from elegance as it was from the honest, artless cheerfulness of the meetings usual among them. The good domine more and more alarmed, not content with preaching, now began to prophecy; but like Cassandra, or, to speak as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doomed always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.
CHAP. XXXV.
Plays acted—Displeasure of the Domine.
Now the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple good people, was approaching; for now the officers, encouraged by the success of all their projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted within the sphere of their influence; and, for this purpose, a private theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play. Except the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not, perhaps, one of the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time, the town, once so closely united by intermarriages and numberless other ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided into two factions; one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger class, as, having a smattering of New-York education, and a little more of dress and vivacity, or, perhaps, levity, than the rest, were eager to mingle in the society, and adopt the manners of those strangers. It is but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were included in this number; these, however they might have been captivated with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an impious neglect of duties the most sacred, was generally imputed, and whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the imputation of cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to. The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended, notwithstanding the good Domine’s earnest charges to the contrary. It was the Beaux Stratagem; no favourable specimen of the delicacy or morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet they “laughed consumedly,” as Scrub says, and actually did so, “because they were talking of him.” They laughed at Scrub’s gestures and appearance: and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans, displaying great hoops, and with painted cheeks and coloured eyebrows, sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to their own habits, they laughed anew at the recollection of their late masquerade. “It is much,” says Falstaff, “that a lie with a grave face, and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow who never had the ache in his shoulders.” One need only look back to the first rude efforts at comic humour which delighted our fathers, to know what gross and feeble jests amuse the mind, as yet a stranger to refinement. The loud and artless mirth so easily excited in a good-humoured child, the naivete of its odd questions and ignorant wonder, which delight us while associated with innocence and simplicity, would provoke the utmost disgust if we met with them where we look for intelligence and decorous observances. The simplicity of primitive manners, in what regards the petty amusements and minute attentions to which we have become accustomed, is exactly tantamount to that of childhood; it is a thing which, in our state of society, we have no idea of. Those who are, from their depressed situation, ignorant of the forms of polished life, know, at least, that such exist; and either awkwardly imitate them, or carefully avoid committing themselves, by betraying their ignorance. Here, while this simplicity, which, by the by, was no more vulgar than that of Shakspeare’s Miranda, with its concomitant purity, continued unbroken by foreign modes, it had all the charm of undesigning childhood; but when half education and ill supported pretensions took place of this sweet attraction, it assumed a very different aspect; it was no longer simplicity but vulgarity. There are things that every one feels and no one can describe, and this is one of them.
But to return to our Mirandas and their theatrical heroes: the fame of their exhibitions went abroad, and opinions were formed of them no way favourable to the actors or to the audience. In this region of reality, where rigid truth was always undisguised, they had not learned to distinguish between fiction and falsehood. It was said that the officers, familiar with every vice and every disguise, had not only spent a whole night in telling lies in a counterfeited place, the reality of which had never existed, but that they were themselves a lie, and had degraded manhood, and broke through an express prohibition in Scripture, by assuming female habits; that they had not only told lies, but cursed and swore the whole night; and assumed the characters of knaves, fools, and robbers, which every wise and good man held in detestation, and no one would put on unless they felt themselves easy in them. Painting their faces, of all other things, seemed most to violate the Albanian ideas of decorum, and was looked upon as a most flagrant abomination. Great and loud was the outcry produced by it. Little skilled in sophistry, and strangers to all the arts “that make the worst appear the better reason,” the young auditors could only say, “that indeed it was very amusing; made them laugh heartily, and did harm to nobody.” So harmless, indeed, and agreeable did this entertainment appear to the new converts to fashion, that the Recruiting Officer was given out for another night, to the great annoyance of Domine Freylinghausen, who invoked heaven and earth to witness and avenge this contempt, not only of his authority, but, as he expressed it, of the source from whence it was derived. Such had been the sanctity of this good man’s life, and the laborious diligence and awful earnestness with which he inculcated the doctrines he taught, that they had produced a correspondent effect, for the most part, on the lives of his hearers, and led them to regard him as the next thing to an evangelist. Accustomed to success in all his undertakings, and to “honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,” and all that gratitude and veneration can offer to its most distinguished object, this rebellion against his authority, and contempt of his opinion, once the standard by which every one’s judgment was regulated, wounded him very deeply. The abhorrence with which he inspired the parents of the transgressors, among whom were many young men of spirit and intelligence, was the occasion of some family disagreements, a thing formerly scarcely known. Those young people, accustomed to regard their parents with implicit reverence, were unwilling to impute to them unqualified harshness, and therefore removed the blame of a conduct so unusual to their spiritual guide; “and while he thought, good easy man, full surely his greatness was a ripening, nipt his root.” Early one Monday morning, after the Domine had, on the preceding day, been peculiarly eloquent on the subject of theatrical amusements, and pernicious innovations, some unknown person left within his door a club, a pair of old shoes, a crust of black bread, and a dollar. The worthy pastor was puzzled to think what this could mean, but had it too soon explained to him. It was an emblematic message, to signify the desire entertained of his departure. The stick was to push him away, the shoes to wear on the road, and the bread and money a provision for his journey. These symbols, appear, in former days, to have been more commonly used, and better understood than at present; for instance, we find that when Robert Bruce, afterwards king of Scotland, was in a kind of honourable captivity in the court of England; when his friend, the Earl of Glocester, discovered that it was the intention of the king to imprison him in the tower, lest he should escape to Scotland and assert his rights, unwilling by word or writing to discover what had passed in council, and at the same time desirous to save his friend, he sent him a pair of gilt spurs and twelve crowns, and ordered the servant to carry them to him as returning what he had formerly borrowed from him. This mysterious gift and message was immediately understood, and proved the means of restoring Bruce, and, with him, the laws and liberty of his native kingdom. Very different, however, was the effect produced by this mal a-propos symbol of dislike. Too conscious, and too fond of popularity, the pastor languished under a sense of imaginary degradation, grew jealous, and thought every one alienated from him, because a few giddy young people were stimulated, by momentary resentments, to express disapprobation in this vague and dubious manner. Thus, insensibly, do vanity and self-opinion, mingle with our highest duties. Had the Domine, satisfied with the testimony of a good conscience, gone on in the exercise of his duty, and been above allowing little personal resentments to mingle with his zeal for what he thought right, he might have felt himself far above an insult of this kind; but he found to his cost, that “a habitation giddy and unsure hath he, that buildeth on the fickle heart” of the unsteady, wavering multitude.