“Three sides around a lady’s home (Mrs. Denig’s) are on fire. The fourth is enclosed with an iron fence. An attempt to cross the fence burns her palm into crisp. She sits down in the middle of her narrow lot. Around her she folds a few rugs, dipped in water, to shelter her person against the heat. An old negro crouches down by her side, and helps to moisten the rugs. Her face, though covered, is blistered by the intense heat. Now and then God sends a breath of wind to waft the hot air away, and allows her to take breath. Virtually, it was a martyrdom at the stake, those two hours amid the flames. Only after she was rescued did the sight of her ruined home open the fountain of tears. ‘Don’t cry, missus,’ said Peter, the old negro; ‘de Lord saved our lives from de fire.’ In a few hours two thousand people are scattered through the suburbs of the town, in the fields, on the cemetery, amid the abode of the dead. A squad of rebels seized a flag, which a lady happened to have in her house. With some difficulty, she wrested it from their grasp, folded it around her person, and walked away from her burning house, past the furious soldiery, determined that the flag should become her shroud ere it should fall into the hands of the foe.
“Never was there so little saved at an extensive fire. Sixty-nine pianos were consumed. The most sacred family relics, keepsakes and portraits of deceased friends, old family Bibles, handed down from past generations, and the many objects imparting a priceless value to a Christian home, and which can never be replaced, were all destroyed.
“In the dim moonlight we meditated among the ruins. Chimney-stacks and fragments of walls formed the dreary outline of ruined houses. Not a light was left but the fitful glowing of embers, amid the rubbish that fills the cellars. The silence of the grave reigns where oft we have heard the voice of mirth and music, of prayer and praise. Now and then some one treads heavily along in the middle of the street; for the pavements are blocked up with fallen walls.
“Here we must pause a moment. More than fifty years ago, a happy young man brought his bride into yonder house, now in ruins. One room sufficed, on the second floor. A happier pair could not be found in the halls of affluence. The first day they said: ‘We will build an altar here.’ Around it they daily knelt. In 1812, the husband tore himself away from his weeping bride, to drive the British foe from our soil. From that day to this, his heart was aglow with the fire of Christian patriotism. Children were born to them, and children’s children. By industry, thrift and piety, they acquired a competent fortune, meanwhile giving much to Christ and His kingdom. Their children, too, they gave to Him. The first room continued a sacred ‘upper room.’ There were portraits, books and family keepsakes of fifty years’ gathering. Mementos of sorrow and joy were treasured up therein. Some years ago, the once happy bride, then an aged matron, died. Her death was like the falling of a great shadow on a sun-lit home. By this time the silvery locks of age adorned the brow of the bridegroom. Sorrow had made his home doubly sacred; trials riveted his heart to it. Still he prayed and read his old family Bible in the room where first he built the altar. With what a cheerful, buoyant spirit he bore the burdens of age! Under this room was a store, with a considerable quantity of powder. The fire is already hissing around the kegs. Still he lingers in his dear chamber, as if preferring death there to safety elsewhere. The violence of friendship forces him away just before the fatal explosion. Every domestic memorial, which piety and affection have gathered for more than half a century, are in the ashes. Two cases these, out of three hundred. Thousands of domestic and social ties bind the members of communities and of families together. To tear up and sunder all in a few hours, and cut hundreds of hearts loose from the moorings of past generations—who can fathom such a sorrow!
“The Rev. P. S. Davis, who lately entered upon the pastorate of the First Reformed Church, sustained a serious loss. A great portion of the clothing of his family and his manuscripts, the literary fruits of an earnest, laborious ministry, were consumed. Dr. Schneck vainly contended with the flames. His cozy, substantial house, with all that it contained—the costly relics borne home from two European tours, his valuable library, all his manuscripts, precious domestic keepsakes and furniture—all are a heap of undistinguishable ruins. To begin the world anew at his time of life, presents a cheerless prospect. Dr. Fisher’s is one of the four fortunate homes that were saved in the burned district.”
LETTER IV.
My dear Friend:
In your last letter, you ask me what are the feelings of our people, especially the immediate sufferers, under the severe stroke which has befallen them; whether desponding or otherwise, and whether the spirit of “retaliation for the bitterly severe losses and deprivations does not largely manifest itself among them.”
In regard to the first, I am enabled to say, that during the whole course of my life, I have not witnessed such an absence of despondent feeling under great trials and sudden reverses of earthly fortune, never such buoyancy and vigor of soul, and even cheerfulness amid accumulated woes and sorrows, as I have during these four weeks of our devastated town. And I leave you to imagine the many cases of extreme revulsion from independence and affluence to utter helplessness and want. The widow and fatherless, the aged and infirm, suddenly bereft of their earthly all, in very many instances, even of a change of clothing. Large and valuable libraries and manuscripts, the accumulations of many years; statuary, paintings, precious and never-to-be-replaced mementoes—more valuable than gold and silver—gone forever. And yet amid all these losses and the consequent self-denial and the necessity of adapting themselves to another and almost entirely different state of things, to which the great majority of the people were subjected, you seldom see a sad or sombre countenance on the street or elsewhere. Exceptions there are doubtless, traceable in part to feeble physical constitution, in part also to an inordinate love of and dependence upon transitory objects. But in a general way the sufferers by this wholesale devastation are among the most patient, unmurmuring, cheerful, hopeful people I have ever known. God really seems to have given special grace in a special time of need. When, on the morning after the burning and pillage (God’s sweet day of rest) I attempted to preach to an humble flock of Germans, whom I serve once a Sabbath, a godly woman belonging to the little congregation wept nearly during the whole service. On the way to my lodging-place, I overtook her and found her still in tears. Fearing I had been misinformed as to her safety from the recent calamity, I asked for the cause of her grief. “I weep for others, my dear pastor,” she replied, “and not altogether and entirely for others either, for I fear me that if my little all had been burnt before my eyes, I should not have had grace to bear up as you and the rest are enabled to do.” And then with an outburst of irrepressible emotion, she added: “And you can yet exhort us to forgive these our enemies, and not murmur and repine under all this, as not only you yourself but others have said, we should do. It’s this that makes me weep.”