|
"Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory."[1]
[1] I Cor. 15:57.
Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some
hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?
The martyr, when faced even by a death
of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong
stimulant and tonic. There is a
vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of
suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.
But to live,--to wear on, day after day,
of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed,
every power of feeling gradually smothered,--this long and wasting
heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by
drop, hour after hour,--this is the true searching test of what there may be in
man or woman.
When Tom stood face to face with his
persecutor, and heard his threats, and thought in his very soul that his hour
was come, his heart swelled bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture
and fire, bear anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step
beyond; but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back
the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,--came back the sense of his utterly
degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily enough.
Long before his wounds were healed,
Legree insisted that he should be put to the regular field-work; and then came
day after day of pain and weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and
indignity that the ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise.
Whoever, in _our_ circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all
the alleviations which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that
comes with it. Tom no longer
wondered at the habitual surliness of his associates; nay, he found the placid,
sunny temper, which had been the habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely
strained, by the inroads of the same thing.
He had flattered himself on leisure to read his Bible; but there was no
such thing as leisure there. In the
height of the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through,
Sundays and week-days alike. Why
shouldn't he?--he made more cotton by it, and gained his wager; and if it wore
out a few more hands, he could buy better ones.
At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his Bible, by the flicker of
the fire, after he had returned from his daily toil; but, after the cruel
treatment he received, he used to come home so exhausted, that his head swam and
his eyes failed when he tried to read; and he was fain to stretch himself down,
with the others, in utter exhaustion.
Is it strange that the religious peace
and trust, which had upborne him hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul
and despondent darkness? The
gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his eyes,--souls
crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent.
It was weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness
and sorrow. He thought of Miss
Ophelia's letter to his Kentucky friends, and would pray earnestly that God
would send him deliverance. And
then he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sent to
redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his soul bitter
thoughts,--that it was vain to serve God, that God had forgotten him.
He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house, caught
a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little communion with
either; in fact, there was no time for him to commune with anybody.
One evening, he was sitting, in utter
dejection and prostration, by a few decaying brands, where his coarse supper was
baking. He put a few bits of
brushwood on the fire, and strove to raise the light, and then drew his worn
Bible from his pocket. There were
all the marked passages, which had thrilled his soul so often,--words of
patriarchs and seers, poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to
man,--voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in the race
of life. Had the word lost its
power, or could the failing eye and weary sense no longer answer to the touch of
that mighty inspiration? Heavily
sighing, he put it in his pocket. A
coarse laugh roused him; he looked up,--Legree was standing opposite to him.
"Well, old boy," he said,
"you find your religion don't work, it seems! I thought I should get that through your wool, at last!"
The cruel taunt was more than hunger and
cold and nakedness. Tom was silent.
"You were a fool," said
Legree; "for I meant to do well by you, when I bought you.
You might have been better off than Sambo, or Quimbo either, and had easy
times; and, instead of getting cut up and thrashed, every day or two, ye might
have had liberty to lord it round, and cut up the other niggers; and ye might
have had, now and then, a good warming of whiskey punch.
Come, Tom, don't you think you'd better be reasonable?--heave that ar old
pack of trash in the fire, and join my church!"
"The Lord forbid!" said Tom,
fervently.
"You see the Lord an't going to
help you; if he had been, he wouldn't have let _me_ get you!
This yer religion is all a mess of lying trumpery, Tom.
I know all about it. Ye'd
better hold to me; I'm somebody, and can do something!"
"No, Mas'r," said Tom;
"I'll hold on. The Lord may
help me, or not help; but I'll hold to him, and believe him to the last!"
"The more fool you!" said
Legree, spitting scornfully at him, and spurning him with his foot.
"Never mind; I'll chase you down, yet, and bring you under,--you'll
see!" and Legree turned away.
When a heavy weight presses the soul to
the lowest level at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and
desperate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and
hence the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage.
So was it now with Tom. The
atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his before dejected soul to the lowest
ebb; and, though the hand of faith still held to the eternal rock, it was a
numb, despairing grasp. Tom sat,
like one stunned, at the fire. Suddenly
everything around him seemed to fade, and a vision rose before him of one
crowned with thorns, buffeted and bleeding.
Tom gazed, in awe and wonder, at the majestic patience of the face; the
deep, pathetic eyes thrilled him to his inmost heart; his soul woke, as, with
floods of emotion, he stretched out his hands and fell upon his knees,--when,
gradually, the vision changed: the sharp thorns became rays of glory; and, in
splendor inconceivable, he saw that same face bending compassionately towards
him, and a voice said, "He that overcometh shall sit down with me on my
throne, even as I also overcome, and am set down with my Father on his
throne."
How long Tom lay there, he knew not.
When he came to himself, the fire was gone out, his clothes were wet with
the chill and drenching dews; but the dread soul-crisis was past, and, in the
joy that filled him, he no longer felt hunger, cold, degradation,
disappointment, wretchedness. From
his deepest soul, he that hour loosed and parted from every hope in life that
now is, and offered his own will an unquestioning sacrifice to the Infinite.
Tom looked up to the silent, ever-living stars,--types of the angelic
hosts who ever look down on man; and the solitude of the night rung with the
triumphant words of a hymn, which he had sung often in happier days, but never
with such feeling as now:
"The earth shall be dissolved like snow,
The sun shall cease to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Shall be forever mine.
"And when this mortal life shall fail,
And flesh and sense shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil
A life of joy and peace.
"When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining like the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we first
begun."
Those who have been familiar with the religious histories of
the slave population know that relations like what we have narrated are very
common among them. We have heard
some from their own lips, of a very touching and affecting character.
The psychologist tells us of a state, in which the affections and images
of the mind become so dominant and overpowering, that they press into their
service the outward imagining. Who
shall measure what an all-pervading Spirit may do with these capabilities of our
mortality, or the ways in which He may encourage the desponding souls of the
desolate? If the poor forgotten slave believes that Jesus hath appeared
and spoken to him, who shall contradict him?
Did He not say that his, mission, in all ages, was to bind up the
broken-hearted, and set at liberty them that are bruised?
When the dim gray of dawn woke the
slumberers to go forth to the field, there was among those tattered and
shivering wretches one who walked with an exultant tread; for firmer than the
ground he trod on was his strong faith in Almighty, eternal love.
Ah, Legree, try all your forces now!
Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of all things, shall only
hasten on the process by which he shall be made a king and a priest unto God!
From this time, an inviolable sphere of
peace encompassed the lowly heart of the oppressed one,--an ever-present Saviour
hallowed it as a temple. Past now
the bleeding of earthly regrets; past its fluctuations of hope, and fear, and
desire; the human will, bent, and bleeding, and struggling long, was now
entirely merged in the Divine. So
short now seemed the remaining voyage of life,--so near, so vivid, seemed
eternal blessedness,--that life's uttermost woes fell from him unharming.
All noticed the change in his
appearance. Cheerfulness and
alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury
could ruffle seemed to possess him.
"What the devil's got into
Tom?" Legree said to Sambo. "A
while ago he was all down in the mouth, and now he's peart as a cricket."
"Dunno, Mas'r; gwine to run off,
mebbe."
"Like to see him try that,"
said Legree, with a savage grin, "wouldn't we, Sambo?"
"Guess we would!
Haw! haw! ho!" said the sooty gnome, laughing obsequiously.
"Lord, de fun! To see
him stickin' in de mud,--chasin' and tarin' through de bushes, dogs a holdin' on
to him! Lord, I laughed fit to split, dat ar time we cotched Molly. I thought they'd a had her all stripped up afore I could get
'em off. She car's de marks o' dat
ar spree yet."
"I reckon she will, to her
grave," said Legree. "But
now, Sambo, you look sharp. If the
nigger's got anything of this sort going, trip him up."
"Mas'r, let me lone for dat,"
said Sambo, "I'll tree de coon. Ho,
ho, ho!"
This was spoken as Legree was getting on
his horse, to go to the neighboring town. That
night, as he was returning, he thought he would turn his horse and ride round
the quarters, and see if all was safe.
It was a superb moonlight night, and the
shadows of the graceful China trees lay minutely pencilled on the turf below,
and there was that transparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy
to disturb. Legree was a little
distance from the quarters, when he heard the voice of some one singing.
It was not a usual sound there, and he paused to listen.
A musical tenor voice sang,
"When I can read my title clear To
mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every
fear, And
wipe my weeping eyes
"Should earth against my soul engage, And
hellish darts be hurled, Then I can smile at Satan's
rage, And
face a frowning world.
"Let cares like a wild deluge come, And
storms of sorrow fall, May I but safely reach my home, My god,
my Heaven, my All."[2]
[2] "On My
Journey Home," hymn by Isaac Watts, found in many of the southern country
songbooks of the ante bellum period.
"So ho!" said Legree to himself, "he thinks so,
does he? How I hate these cursed
Methodist hymns! Here, you
nigger," said he, coming suddenly out upon Tom, and raising his
riding-whip, "how dare you be gettin' up this yer row, when you ought to be
in bed? Shut yer old black gash,
and get along in with you!"
"Yes, Mas'r," said Tom, with
ready cheerfulness, as he rose to to in.
Legree was provoked beyond measure by
Tom's evident happiness; and riding up to him, belabored him over his head and
shoulders.
"There, you dog," he said,
"see if you'll feel so comfortable, after that!"
But the blows fell now only on the outer
man, and not, as before, on the heart. Tom
stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not hide from himself that his
power over his bond thrall was somehow gone.
And, as Tom disappeared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenly
round, there passed through his mind one of those vivid flashes that often send
the lightning of conscience across the dark and wicked soul.
He understood full well that it was GOD who was standing between him and
his victim, and he blasphemed him. That
submissive and silent man, whom taunts, nor threats, nor stripes, nor cruelties,
could disturb, roused a voice within him, such as of old his Master roused in
the demoniac soul, saying, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
Nazareth?--art thou come to torment us before the time?"
Tom's whole soul overflowed with
compassion and sympathy for the poor wretches by whom he was surrounded.
To him it seemed as if his life-sorrows were now over, and as if, out of
that strange treasury of peace and joy, with which he had been endowed from
above, he longed to pour out something for the relief of their woes.
It is true, opportunities were scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and
back again, and during the hours of labor, chances fell in his way of extending
a helping-hand to the weary, the disheartened and discouraged. The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could
scarce comprehend this; but, when it was continued week after week, and month
after month, it began to awaken long-silent chords in their benumbed hearts.
Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, silent, patient man, who was
ready to bear every one's burden, and sought help from none,--who stood aside
for all, and came last, and took least, yet was foremost to share his little all
with any who needed,--the man who, in cold nights, would give up his tattered
blanket to add to the comfort of some woman who shivered with sickness, and who
filled the baskets of the weaker ones in the field, at the terrible risk of
coming short in his own measure,--and who, though pursued with unrelenting
cruelty by their common tyrant, never joined in uttering a word of reviling or
cursing,--this man, at last, began to have a strange power over them; and, when
the more pressing season was past, and they were allowed again their Sundays for
their own use, many would gather together to hear from him of Jesus.
They would gladly have met to hear, and pray, and sing, in some place,
together; but Legree would not permit it, and more than once broke up such
attempts, with oaths and brutal execrations,--so that the blessed news had to
circulate from individual to individual. Yet
who can speak the simple joy with which some of those poor outcasts, to whom
life was a joyless journey to a dark unknown, heard of a compassionate Redeemer
and a heavenly home? It is the
statement of missionaries, that, of all races of the earth, none have received
the Gospel with such eager docility as the African.
The principle of reliance and unquestioning faith, which is its
foundation, is more a native element in this race than any other; and it has
often been found among them, that a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze of
accident into hearts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit, whose
abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful culture.
The poor mulatto woman, whose simple
faith had been well-nigh crushed and overwhelmed, by the avalanche of cruelty
and wrong which had fallen upon her, felt her soul raised up by the hymns and
passages of Holy Writ, which this lowly missionary breathed into her ear in
intervals, as they were going to and returning from work; and even the
half-crazed and wandering mind of Cassy was soothed and calmed by his simple and
unobtrusive influences.
Stung to madness and despair by the
crushing agonies of a life, Cassy had often resolved in her soul an hour of
retribution, when her hand should avenge on her oppressor all the injustice and
cruelty to which she had been witness, or which _she_ had in her own person
suffered.
One night, after all in Tom's cabin were
sunk in sleep, he was suddenly aroused by seeing her face at the hole between
the logs, that served for a window. She
made a silent gesture for him to come out.
Tom came out the door.
It was between one and two o'clock at night,--broad, calm, still
moonlight. Tom remarked, as the
light of the moon fell upon Cassy's large, black eyes, that there was a wild and
peculiar glare in them, unlike their wonted fixed despair.
"Come here, Father Tom," she
said, laying her small hand on his wrist, and drawing him forward with a force
as if the hand were of steel; "come here,--I've news for you."
"What, Misse Cassy?" said Tom,
anxiously.
"Tom, wouldn't you like your
liberty?"
"I shall have it, Misse, in God's
time," said Tom. "Ay, but
you may have it tonight," said Cassy, with a flash of sudden energy.
"Come on."
Tom hesitated.
"Come!" said she, in a
whisper, fixing her black eyes on him. "Come
along! He's asleep--sound.
I put enough into his brandy to keep him so.
I wish I'd had more,--I shouldn't have wanted you.
But come, the back door is unlocked; there's an axe there, I put it
there,--his room door is open; I'll show you the way.
I'd a done it myself, only my arms are
so weak. Come along!"
"Not for ten thousand worlds,
Misse!" said Tom, firmly, stopping and holding her back, as she was
pressing forward.
"But think of all these poor
creatures," said Cassy. "We
might set them all free, and go somewhere in the swamps, and find an island, and
live by ourselves; I've heard of its being done. Any life is better than this."
"No!" said Tom, firmly.
"No! good never comes of wickedness.
I'd sooner chop my right hand off!"
"Then _I_ shall do it," said
Cassy, turning.
"O, Misse Cassy!" said Tom,
throwing himself before her, "for the dear Lord's sake that died for ye,
don't sell your precious soul to the devil, that way!
Nothing but evil will come of it. The
Lord hasn't called us to wrath. We
must suffer, and wait his time."
"Wait!" said Cassy.
"Haven't I waited?--waited till my head is dizzy and my heart sick?
What has he made me suffer? What
has he made hundreds of poor creatures suffer?
Isn't he wringing the life-blood out of you?
I'm called on; they call me! His
time's come, and I'll have his heart's blood!"
"No, no, no!" said Tom,
holding her small hands, which were clenched with spasmodic violence.
"No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn't do.
The dear, blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he
poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord,
help us to follow his steps, and love our enemies."
"Love!" said Cassy, with a
fierce glare; "love _such_ enemies! It
isn't in flesh and blood."
"No, Misse, it isn't," said
Tom, looking up; "but _He_ gives it to us, and that's the victory.
When we can love and pray over all and through all, the battle's past,
and the victory's come,--glory be to God!" And, with streaming eyes and
choking voice, the black man looked up to heaven.
And this, oh Africa! latest called of
nations,--called to the crown of thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the
cross of agony,--this is to be _thy_ victory; by this shalt thou reign with
Christ when his kingdom shall come on earth.
The deep fervor of Tom's feelings, the
softness of his voice, his tears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of
the poor woman. A softness gathered
over the lurid fires of her eye; she looked down, and Tom could feel the
relaxing muscles of her hands, as she said,
"Didn't I tell you that evil
spirits followed me? O! Father Tom,
I can't pray,--I wish I could. I
never have prayed since my children were sold!
What you say must be right, I know it must; but when I try to pray, I can
only hate and curse. I can't
pray!"
"Poor soul!" said Tom,
compassionately. "Satan
desires to have ye, and sift ye as wheat. I
pray the Lord for ye. O! Misse
Cassy, turn to the dear Lord Jesus. He
came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all that mourn."
Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy
tears dropped from her downcast eyes.
"Misse Cassy," said Tom, in a
hesitating tone, after surveying her in silence, "if ye only could get away
from here,--if the thing was possible,--I'd 'vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that
is, if ye could go without blood-guiltiness,--not otherwise."
"Would you try it with us, Father
Tom?"
"No," said Tom; "time was
when I would; but the Lord's given me a work among these yer poor souls, and
I'll stay with 'em and bear my cross with 'em till the end.
It's different with you; it's a snare to you,--it's more'n you can
stand,--and you'd better go, if you can."
"I know no way but through the
grave," said Cassy. "There's
no beast or bird but can find a home some where; even the snakes and the
alligators have their places to lie down and be quiet; but there's no place for
us. Down in the darkest swamps, their dogs will hunt us out, and find us.
Everybody and everything is against us; even the very beasts side against
us,--and where shall we go?"
Tom stood silent; at length he said,
"Him that saved Daniel in the den
of lions,--that saves the children in the fiery furnace,--Him that walked on the
sea, and bade the winds be still,--He's alive yet; and I've faith to believe he
can deliver you. Try it, and I'll
pray, with all my might, for you."
By what strange law of mind is it that
an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly
sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?
Cassy had often revolved, for hours, all
possible or probable schemes of escape, and dismissed them all, as hopeless and
impracticable; but at this moment there flashed through her mind a plan, so
simple and feasible in all its details, as to awaken an instant hope.
"Father Tom, I'll try it!" she
said, suddenly.
"Amen!" said Tom; "the
Lord help ye!"
|
