"No, no; let us stay and hear this fellow," he answered. "This is one of their great guns, rammed up to the muzzle with grape and canister--to my mind, one of the most dangerous fellows in the Union." There was no roar of artillery, when Mr. McGrubber began. He commenced in a tone hardly raised above a whisper; and it is wonderful how dead was the silence which followed. Every one strained to hear his lightest word; and I must say that all my previous expectations were disappointed. The dull pedagogue of the house, and the boor of the dinner-table, was eloquent, really eloquent, on the platform; and I never heard a more shrewd and well-arranged argument against slavery than he contrived to interweave with his exhortations to faith, repentance, and reformation. It was all done apparently quite naturally; and the very quietness of his low but piercing tones seemed to enchain all attention. I can remember several fragments of his discourse.
"I call upon you, my brethren--I call upon you, the black as well as the white, the Jew likewise and the Gentile, to come to the foot of the cross and receive salvation. Why standest thou back, thou man of the dark skin? Why shrinkest thou from the presence of thy Redeemer? Is it because of the bonds upon thy hands? Is it because of the degradation which man, thy fellowman, has inflicted upon thee? Knowest thou not that he is the Saviour, the Liberator, the God to whom judgment belongs--who will avenge--who will wipe the tears from the eyes of the oppressed, and pile coals of burning fire upon the head of the oppressor? Come to Jesus, thy Lord and thy Saviour. Thinkest thou that He regards the colour of thy skin? Has He not said,--
"'Though thy sins be as scarlet, I will make them as white as snow?'
"And shall he who can so wash the spirit, have regard to the hue of the flesh?" Again, after awhile, he said, "But perhaps they have persuaded thee, as they have tried to persuade me, that thou art no man--that thou hast no soul to be saved--that thou art as the beasts that perish. But yet we find by their own law, that in the third, or the fourth, or the fifth degree of white blood, thou becomest as the white man. Will they tell me at what particular hue or shade of colour the soul--the responsible, the immortal soul--enters into the breast that was before void and tenantless? Nay, nay! Feel, understand, that thou too, whatever be thy colour, art an heir of eternal life, a child of God, an object of the Saviour's love; that they may shackle thy hands and bruise thy feet in the stocks, and the iron may enter into thy soul; still, the God of Israel is thy God, of whom it is written, 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.'" He subsequently took even a bolder strain; and, thrusting all religious topics aside, talked openly of slavery in its moral and political aspect. He did not at all conceal his opinions, nor temper his terms; but denounced the peculiar institution of the South, as alike degrading to master and man, as evil in itself and all its consequences. One of the most powerful parts of his discourse, as it struck me, was that in which he justified not only slaves themselves in attempting to escape from bondage, but all those who aided them in their efforts for that purpose. Breaking off in the midst of an argument, he suddenly began a sort of tale or apologue; he told how a white man, an American, a freeman, had been wrecked on the coast of Morocco; how he had been seized and exposed in the slave market; sold to the highest bidder; carried up into the country; sold again and again; till, at length, he found himself working in a garden in the neighbourhood of Tangiers. Then he painted in glowing terms the misery of the poor man's situation; how he had thirsted and panted and pined for liberty; how he had cast his eyes over the blue sea, and longed for his native land, and his friends, and his family; how the very luxuries of the climate and the kindness of his master were disgusting and abhorrent to him in his state of slavery. He then told us that a friendly Moor, in whom he had created an interest, determined to assist him in escaping. The two Europeans who were in the port had entered into the scheme, and that a thousand difficulties and dangers, on which I need not dwell, were encountered and overcome, till, at length, the fugitive was placed safely on board an American ship. "Were these men wrong?" he exclaimed. "Were these men criminal? Had he not a right to seek his liberty however he could find it? Did not the whole of these States ring with applause and admiration of those who enabled him to recover freedom, the best boon of life? Oh, perverted moral sense, which can in one instance laud to the skies the same conduct which in another, precisely similar, it dooms to the prison or the gallows?" While all this was going on, I felt some sort of apprehension as to the result, and I looked round from time to time to see what would be the impression upon the audience. The greater part of the listeners were white men, many of them slave owners, generally men of strong passions, but little subjected to control; and it would not at all have surprised me to see the preacher dragged from the platform and horsewhipped before the congregation. But I was mistaken; not a sound even of disapprobation met my ear. Some sighed, and some shook the head, but nobody attempted to interrupt the preacher. As soon as Mr. McGrubber had done, I turned away with Mr. Wheatley, and we bent our steps towards Beavors, keeping silence till we had got beyond the limits of the meeting.
"Well," said my companion at length, "what do you think of it all, Sir Richard? Moral, religious, and social, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha! We Americans are strange people, and take the oddest of all possible ways to arrive at our ends. We gather together a whole heap of men, women, and children, at night, in the midst of a forest--make two-thirds of them as drunk as possible--stimulate the passions of the others by every kind of exciting and enthusiastic discourse, and hug and fondle the young women, all for the purpose of promoting religion and morality."
"That part of the subject, I have long made up my mind upon," I replied, "from the description of others, and from what I have seen in fanatical meetings, where excitement was not carried to anything like the same pitch. But that which astonished me the most, was to hear so many men, in the very heart of a slave-holding state, preach doctrines perfectly adverse to its most cherished institutions, and to see such doctrines listened to, not only with patience, but with assent. I expected every moment to behold worthy Mr. McGrubber heartily pommelled for his pains."
"Oh, you are quite mistaken as to our state of feeling," said Mr. Wheatley, with one of his short laughs. "Virginia is well-nigh an abolition state. There is hardly a man here who would not emancipate all his slaves, if he could do so without utter ruin to himself and great danger to the State. Perhaps you are not aware that in the last session of our legislature, a bill for general emancipation was introduced, and lost, I think, only by one vote. Next session 'twill be carried, to a certainty, if my Northern friends will let it."
"I should think," I replied, "if the negroes hear many more such sermons as that of the Rev. Mr. McGrubber, they will take the matter into their own hands, and free themselves, with a vengeance."
"There is the danger," answered Mr. Wheatley, more gravely than was customary with him. "Not that an insurrection of the slaves could ever be successful in this country. You will never see a St. Domingo tragedy enacted here with any success. The whites are too strong and too much upon their guard. But what I apprehend is, that my fanatical friends of the North, not content with letting public opinion, which all tends towards emancipation, work its way quietly, will go a step too far, and either instigate the negroes to some sudden outbreak, which will be put down with some bloodshed, or else create a re-action in public sentiment, by their irritating diatribes. Men may be led who will not be driven; and, let me tell you, you can't drive a Virginian. You have seen to-night how much these people will bear quietly, when it takes the form of argument; but there can be no doubt, that such men as this McGrubber are even now circulating incendiary pamphlets amongst the slaves, which are read to little knots of them by any one who can read. In other instances, the same principles are spread by pictures and horrid bad prints--a sort of hieroglyphic abolitionism; and if this is carried too far, the tendency to emancipation will be extinguished at once, and every man will arm himself to resist to the death."
"It is a pity," I remarked, "that in all questions where there are two parties, each carries his argument beyond its legitimate limit. Passion enters in and exaggerates all things. Passion on the one side begets passion on the other; till, upon points where men were very nearly agreed, they break each other's heads, because they cannot fix the exact boundary of debate. How ridiculous that, when you admit Virginia has been within one vote of carrying emancipation, she should, as you say, be ready to retrace every step in that direction, simply because the North urges her a little too vehemently to follow it."