It was quite the custom in the last
century and the beginning of the present one for cultivated
people to keep diaries, in which the incidents of
each day were jotted down, accompanied by the expression
of private opinions and feelings. Women, especially,
found this diary a pleasant sort of confessional,
a confidante to whose pages they could entrust their
most secret thoughts without fear of rebuke or betrayal.
Sarah Grimke’s diary, covering over five hundred
pages of closely written manuscript, though not begun
until 1821, gives many reminiscences of her youth,
and describes with painful conscientiousness her religious
experiences. She also repeatedly regrets the fact
that her education, though what was considered at
that time a good one, was entirely superficial, embracing
only that kind of knowledge which is acquired for
display. What useful information she received
she owed to the conversations of her father and her
brother Thomas, her “beloved companion and friend.”
There is no doubt that this want of
proper training was to her a cause of regret during
her whole life. With her, learning was always
a passion; and, in passing, I may say she never thought
herself too old for study and the acquisition of knowledge.
As she grew up, and saw the very different education
her brothers were receiving, her ambition and independence
were fired, and she longed to share their advantages.
But in vain she entreated permission to do so.
The only answer she received was: “You
are a girl; what do you want of Latin and Greek and
philosophy? You can never use them.”
And when it was discovered that she was secretly studying
law, and was ambitious to stand side by side with
her brother at the bar, smiles and sneers rebuked her
“unwomanly” aspirations. And though
she argued the point with much spirit, unable to see
why the mere fact of being a girl should confine her
to the necessity of being a “doll, a coquette,
a fashionable fool,” she failed to secure a
single adherent to her strong-minded ideas. Her
nature thus denied its proper nutriment, and her most
earnest desires crushed, she sought relief in another
direction. Painting, poetry, general reading
occupied her leisure time, while she was receiving
private tuition from the best masters in Charleston.
At sixteen she was introduced into
society, or, as she phrases it, “initiated into
the circles of dissipation and folly.” In
her account of the life she led in those circles she
does not spare herself.
“I believe,” she writes,
“for the short space I was exhibited on this
theatre, few have exceeded me in extravagance of every
kind, and in the sinful indulgence of pride and vanity,
sentiments which, however, were strongly mingled with
a sense of their insufficiency to produce even earthly
happiness, with an eager desire for intellectual pursuits,
and a thorough contempt for the trifles I was engaged
in. Often during this period have I returned
home, sick of the frivolous beings I had been with,
mortified at my own folly, and weary of the ball-room
and its gilded toys. Night after night, as I
glittered now in this gay scene, now in that, my soul
has been disturbed by the query, ’Where are the
talents committed to thy charge?’ But the intrusive
thought would be silenced by the approach of some
companion, or a call to join the dance, or by the
presentation of the stimulating cordial, and my remorse
and my hopeless desires would be drowned for the time
being. Once, in utter disgust, I made a resolution
to abstain from such amusements; but it was made in
self-will, and did not stand long, though I was so
earnest that I gave away much of my finery. I
cannot look back to those years without a blush of
shame, a feeling of anguish at the utter perversion
of the ends of my being. But for my tutelary
god, my idolized brother, my young, passionate nature,
stimulated by that love of admiration which carries
many a high and noble soul down the stream of folly
to the whirlpool of an unhallowed marriage, I had
rushed into this lifelong misery. Happily for
me, this butterfly life did not last long. My
ardent nature had another channel opened for it, through
which it rushed with its usual impetuosity. I
was converted, and turned over to doing good.”
Up to this time she was a communicant
in the Episcopal church, and a regular attendant on
its various services. But, as she records, her
heart was never touched, her soul never stirred.
She heard the same things preached week after week, the
necessity of coming to Christ and the danger of delay, and she wondered at her
insensibility. She joined in family worship, and was scrupulously exact in
her private devotions; but all was done mechanically, from habit, and no
quickening sense of her awful condition came to her until she went one night,
on the invitation of a friend, to hear a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Henry
Kolloch, celebrated for his eloquence. He preached a thrilling sermon, and
Sarah was deeply moved. But the impression soon wore off, and she returned
to her gay life with renewed ardor. A year after, the same minister
revisited Charleston; and again she went to hear him, and again felt the arrows
of conscience, and again disregarded the solemn warning. The journal
continues:
“After this he came no more;
and in the winter of 1813-14 I was led in an unusual
degree into scenes of dissipation and frivolity.
It seemed as if my cup of worldly pleasure was filled
to the brim; and after enjoying all the city afforded,
I went into the country in the spring with a fashionable
acquaintance, designing to finish my wild career there.”
While on this visit, she accidentally
met the Rev. Dr. Kolloch, and became acquainted with
him. He seems to have taken a warm interest in
her spiritual welfare, and his conversations made a
serious impression on her which her gay friends tried
to remove. But her sensitive spirit was so affected
by his admonitions, and warnings of the awful consequences
of persisting in a course of conduct which must eventually
lead to everlasting punishment, that she was made very
miserable. She trembled as he portrayed her doom,
and wept bitterly; but, though she assented to the
truth of his declarations, she did not feel quite
prepared to give up the pomps and vanities of her life,
unsatisfactory as they were. A sore conflict
began in her mind, and she could take no pleasure
in anything. Dr. Kolloch’s parting question
to her, spoken in the most solemn tones, “Can
you, then, dare to hesitate?” rang continually
in her ears; and the next few days and nights were
passed in a turmoil of various feelings, until, exhausted,
she gave up the struggle, and acknowledged herself
sensible of the emptiness of worldly gratifications,
and thought she was willing to resign all for Christ.
She returned home sorrowful and heavy-hearted.
The glory of the world was stained, and she no longer
dared to participate in its vain pleasures. She
felt “loaded down with iniquity,” and,
almost sinking under a sense of her guilt and her
danger, she secluded herself from society, and put
away her ornaments, “determined to purchase Heaven
at any price.” But she found no relief
in these sacrifices; and, after enduring much trial
at her ill success, she wrote to Dr. Kolloch, informing
him of her state of mind.
“Over his answer,” she
writes, “I shed many tears; but, instead of
prostrating myself in deep abasement before the Lord,
and craving his pardon, I was desirous of doing something
which might claim his approbation and disperse the
thick cloud which seemed to hide him from me.
I therefore set earnestly to work to do good according
to my capacity. I fed the hungry and clothed
the naked, I visited the sick and afflicted, and vainly
hoped these outside works would purify a heart defiled
with the pride of life, still the seat of carnal propensities
and evil passions; but here, too, I failed. I
went mourning on my way under the curse of a broken
law; and, though I often watered my couch with my
tears, and pleaded with my Maker, yet I knew nothing
of the sanctifying influence of his holy spirit, and,
not finding that happiness in religion I anticipated,
I, by degrees, through the persuasions of companions
and the inclination of my depraved heart, began to
go a little more into society, and to resume my former
style of dressing, though in comparative moderation.”
She then states how, some time after she had thus departed from her Christian
profession. Dr. Kolloch came once more, and his sad and earnest rebukes
made her unutterably wretched. But she tried to stifle the voice of
conscience by entering more and more into worldly amusements, until she had lost
nearly all spiritual sense. Her disposition became soured by incessantly
yielding to temptation, and she adds:
“I know not where I might have
been landed, had not the merciful interposition of
Providence stopped my progress.”
This “merciful interposition
of Providence” was nothing less than the declining
health of her father; and it affords, indeed, a curious
comment on the old Orthodox teachings, that this young
woman, devotedly attached to her father, and fully
appreciating his value to his family, should have
regarded his ill-health as sent by God for her especial
benefit, to interrupt her worldly course, and compass
her salvation.
Judge Grimke’s illness continued
for a year or more; and so faithfully did Sarah nurse
him that when it was decided that he should go to
Philadelphia to consult Dr. Physic, she was chosen
to accompany him.
This first visit to the North was
the most important event of Sarah’s life, for
the influences and impressions there received gave
some shape to her vague and wayward fancies, and showed
her a gleam of the light beyond the tangled path which
still stretched before her.
She found lodgings for her father and herself in a Quaker family whose name
is not mentioned. About their life there, little is said; Sarah being too
much occupied with the care of her dear invalid to take much interest in her new
surroundings. Judge Grimkes health continued to decline. His
daughters account of the last days of his life is very touching, and shows not
only how deep was her religious feeling, but how tender and yet how strong she
was all through this great trial. The father and daughter, strangers in a
strange land, drawn more closely together by his suffering and her necessary
care, became friends. indeed; their attachment increasing day by day, until, ere
their final separation, they loved each other with that fervent affection which
grows only with true sympathy and unbounded confidence. Sarah thus wrote
of it:
“I regard this as the greatest
blessing, next to my conversion, I have ever received
from God, and I think if all my future life is passed
in affliction this mercy alone should make me willingly,
yea, cheerfully and joyously, submit to the chastisements
of the Lord.”
During their stay in Philadelphia,
she had hoped for her father’s recovery, but
when, by the doctor’s advice, they went to Long
Branch, and she saw how weak and ill he was, this
hope forsook her, and she describes her agony as something
never to be effaced from her memory. Doubtless
this was intensified by her lone and friendless position.
They were in a tavern, without one human being to soothe
them or sympathize with them. “But,”
she writes, “let me here acknowledge the mercy
of that Being whose everlasting arms supported me in
this hour of suffering. After the first burst
of grief I became calm, and felt an assurance that
He in whom I trusted would never leave nor forsake
me, and that I would have strength given me, even
to the performance of the last sad duties. But
the end was not yet; the disease fluctuated, some
days arousing a gleam of hope, only to be extinguished
by the next day’s weakness. Alas!
I was compelled to see that death was certainly, though
slowly, approaching, and all feeling for my own suffering
was sunk in anxiety to contribute to my father’s
comfort, and smooth his passage to the grave.
And, blessed be God, I was not only able to minister
to many of his temporal wants, but permitted to strengthen
his hopes of a happy immortality. I prayed with
him and read to him, and I cannot recollect hearing
an impatient expression from him during his whole
illness, or a wish that his sufferings might be lessened
or abridged. He often tried to conceal his bodily
pain, and to soothe me by every appearance of cheerful
piety. Thus he lingered until the 6th of August,
when he grew visibly worse. Many incoherent expressions
escaped him, but even then how tenderly he spoke of
me, I ever shall remember.... About eight o’clock
I moved him to his own bed, and, sitting down, prepared
to watch by him. He entreated me to lie down,
and I told him when he slept I would.
“‘Oh, God,’ he exclaimed
with fervent energy, ’how sweet to sleep and
wake in heaven!’ This last desire was realized.
He clasped one of my hands, and as I bent over him
and arranged his pillow he put his arm around me.
I did not stir; apparently he slept. But the relaxed
grasp, the dewy coldness, the damps of death which
stood upon his forehead, all told me that he was hastening
fast to Jesus. Alone, at the hour of midnight,
I sat by this bed of death. My eyes were fixed
on that face whose calmness seemed to say, ‘I
rest in peace.’ A gentle pressure of the
hand, and a scarcely audible respiration, alone indicated
that life was not extinct; at length that pressure
ceased, and the strained ear could no longer hear
a breath. I continued gazing on the lifeless form,
closed his eyes and kissed him. His spirit, freed
from the shackles of mortality, had sprung to its
source, the bosom of his God. I passed the rest
of the night alone.”
And alone, the only mourner, this
brave, heart-stricken girl followed the remains of
her beloved father to the grave.
When all was over she went back to
Philadelphia, where she remained two or three months,
and then returned to Charleston.
During the season of family mourning
which followed, having nothing especial to do, Sarah
became more than ever concerned about her spiritual
welfare. She constantly deplored her lukewarmness,
and regarded herself as standing on the edge of a
precipice from which she had no power to withdraw.
The subject of slavery began now also to agitate her
mind. After her residence in Philadelphia, where
doubtless she had to listen to some sharp reflections
on the Southern institution, it seemed more than ever
abhorrent to her, but it does not appear that she
gave utterance to her feelings on more than one or
two occasions. Even her diary contains only a
slight and occasional reference to them. She
saw, she says, how useless it was to discuss the subject,
as even Angelina, the child of her own training, could
see nothing wrong in the mere fact of slave-holding,
if the slaves were kindly treated.
Her brother Thomas, to whom she might
have opened her overburdened heart, and received from
his affection and good sense, comfort and strength,
she saw little of; besides, he was a slave-owner, and
among his numerous reform theories of education, politics,
and religion, he does not seem to have thought of
touching slavery. He was a leading member of
the bar, very busy with his literary work, had a wife
and family, and resided out of the city.
Alone, therefore, Sarah brooded over
her trials, and those of the slaves, “until
they became like a canker, incessantly gnawing.”
Upon the latter she could only look as one in bonds
herself, powerless to prevent or ameliorate them.
Her sole consolation was teaching the objects of her
compassion, within the lawful restrictions, whenever
she could find the opportunity. But she began
to look upon the world as a wilderness of desolation
and suffering, and herself as the most miserable of
sinners, fast hastening to destruction. In this
frame of mind she was induced to listen to the doctrine
of universal salvation, and eagerly adopted it, hoping
thereby to find relief from her doubts and fears.
Her mother discovered this with horror, and, trembling
for her daughter’s safety, she aroused herself
to argue so strongly against what she termed the false
and awful doctrine, that, though Sarah refused to
acknowledge the force of all she said, it had its effect,
and she gradually lost her hold on her new belief.
But losing that, she lost all hope. “Wormwood
and gall” were her portion, and, while she fulfilled
the outward duties of religion, dreariness and settled
despondency took possession of her mind. She writes:
“Tears never moistened my eyes;
to prayer I was a stranger. With Job I dared
to curse the day of my birth. One day I was tempted
to say something of the kind to my mother. She
was greatly shocked, and reproved me seriously.
I craved a hiding-place in the grave, as a rest from
the distress of my feelings, thinking that no estate
could be worse than the present. Sometimes, being
unable to pray, unable to command one feeling of good,
either natural or spiritual, I was tempted to commit
some great crime, thinking I could repent and thus
restore my lost sensibility. On this I often
meditated, and assuredly should have fallen into this
snare had not the mercy of God still followed me.”
I might go on for many pages painting this dreary picture of a misdirected
life, but enough has been quoted at present to show Sarah Grimkes strong,
earnest, impressionable nature, and the effects upon it of the teachings of the
old theology, mingled with the narrow Southern ideas of usefulness and womans
sphere. Endowed with a superior intellect, with a most benevolent and
unselfish disposition, with a cheerful, loving nature, she desired above all
things to be an active, useful member of society. But every noble impulse
was strangled at its birth by the iron bands of a religion that taught the
crucifixion of every natural feeling as the most acceptable offering to a stern
and relentless God. She was now twenty-eight years of age, and with the
exception of the period devoted to her father she had as yet thought and worked
only for herself. I do not mean that she neglected home duties, or her
private charities and visits to the afflicted, but all these offices were
performed from one especial motive and with the same end in view to avert from
herself the wrath of her Maker. This one thought filled all her mind.
All else was as nothing. Family and friends, home and humanity, were of
importance only as they furthered this object. It is in this spirit that
she mentioned her fathers illness and death, and the heroic, self-sacrificing
death, by shipwreck, of her brother Benjamin, to which she could resign herself
from a conviction that the stroke was sent as a chastisement to her, and was a
merciful dispensation to draw his young wife nearer to God. We read not
one word of solicitude for mother, or brothers, or sisters, not a single prayer
for their conversion. She was too busy watching and weeping over her own
short-comings to concern herself about their doom. The long diary is
filled with the reiteration of her fears, her sorrows, and her prayers.
Many years afterwards she thus referred to this condition of her mind:
“I cannot without shuddering
look back to that period. How dreadful did the
state of my mind become! Nothing interested me;
I fulfilled my duties without any feeling of satisfaction,
in gloomy silence. My lips moved in prayer, my
feet carried me to the holy sanctuary, but my heart
was estranged from piety. I felt as if my doom
was irrevocably fixed, and I was destined to that
fire which is never quenched. I have never experienced
any feeling so terrific as the despair of salvation.
My soul still remembers the wormwood and the gall,
still remembers how awful the conviction that every
door of hope was closed, and that I was given over
unto death.”
Naturally, such a strain at last impaired
her health, and, her mother becoming alarmed, she
was sent in the autumn of 1820 to North Carolina,
where several relatives owned plantations on the Cape
Fear River. She was welcomed with great affection,
especially by her aunt, the wife of her uncle James
Smith, and mother of Barnwell Rhett. (This name was
assumed by him on the inheritance of property from
a relative of that name.)
In the village near which this aunt
lived there was no place of worship except the Methodist
meeting-house. Sarah attended this; and under
the earnest and alarming preaching she heard there,
together with association with some of the most spiritual-minded
of the members, she was aroused from her apathetic
state, and was enabled to join in their services with
some interest. She even offered up prayer with
them, and at one of their love feasts delivered a
public testimony to the truths of the gospel.
Thus associated with them, she was induced to examine
their principles and doctrines, but found them as faulty
as all the rest she had from time to time investigated.
She therefore soon decided not to become one of them.
From her earliest serious impressions, she had been
dissatisfied with Episcopacy, feeling its forms lifeless;
but now, after having carefully considered the various
other sects, and finding error in all, she concluded
to remain in the church whose doctrines at least satisfied
her as well as those of any other, and were those
of her mother and her family.
Of the Society of Friends she knew little, and that little was unfavorable.
To a remark made one day by her mother, relative to her turning Quaker, she
replied, with some warmth:
“Anything but a Quaker or a Catholic!”
Having made up her mind that the Friends
were wrong, she had steadily refused, during her stay
in Philadelphia, to attend their meetings or read
any of their writings. Nevertheless many things
about them, scarcely noticed at the time, their
quiet dress, orderly manner of life and gentle tones
of voice, together with their many acts of kindness
to her and her father, came back to her
after she had left them, and especially impressed
her as contrasting so strongly with the slack habits
and irregular discipline which made her own home so
unhappy.
On the vessel which carried her from
Philadelphia to Charleston, after her father’s
death, was a party of Friends; and in the seven days
which it then required to make the voyage, an intimacy
sprang up between them and Sarah which influenced
her whole after-life. From one of them she had
accepted a copy of Woolman’s works, evidence
that there must have been religious discussions between
them. And that there was talk probably
some jesting in the family about Quakers is shown by the little incident Sarah
relates of her brother Thomas presenting her, soon after her return from North
Carolina, with a volume of Quaker writings he had picked up at some sale.
He placed it in her hand, saying jocosely,
“Thee had better turn Quaker,
Sally; thy long face would suit well their sober dress.”
She was, as we have said, of a naturally
cheerful disposition; but her false views of religion
led her to believe that “by the sadness of the
countenance the heart is made better,” and she
shed more tears, and offered up more petitions for
forgiveness, over occasional irresistible merriment
than I have space to record.
She accepted the book from her brother,
read it, and, needing some explanation of portions
of it, wrote to one of the Friends in Philadelphia
whose acquaintance she had made on the vessel.
A correspondence ensued, which resulted after some
months in her entire conversion to Quakerism.
She had now reached, she thought,
a resting-place for her weary, sore-travailed spirit;
and, like a tired pilgrim, she dropped all her burdens
beside this fresh stream, from whose waters she expected
to drink such cooling draughts. The quiet of
the little meeting-house in Charleston, the absence
of ornament and ceremony, the silent worship by the
few members, the affectionate thee and thou, all soothed
her restless soul for a while, and a sweet calm fell
upon her. But she believed that God constantly
spoke to her heart, directing her by the still, small
voice; and the fidelity with which she obeyed this
invisible guide was not only a real detriment to her
spiritual progress, but the cause of much distress
to her.
When, as sometimes happened from various
causes, she failed in obedience, her mental suffering
was intense, and in abject humility she accepted as
punishment any mortification or sorrow that came to
her afterwards. As a sequence to this hallucination,
she also had visions at various times, and saw and
communed with spirits, and did not hesitate to acknowledge
their influence and to respect their intimations.
So marvellously real were her feelings on these points
that her immediate friends, though greatly deploring
their effect upon her, seldom ventured any remonstrance
against them. Now, under the influence of her
new belief, the impression of a divine call to be made
upon her deepened, and soon took shape in the persuasion
that it was to be a call to the ministry. Her
soul recoiled at the very thought of work so solemn,
and she prayed the Lord to spare her; but the more
she prayed, the stronger and clearer the intimations
became, until she felt that no loop-hole of escape
was left her from obedience to her Master’s
will. From the publicity the work involved, she
intuitively shrank. Her natural sensitiveness
and all the prejudices of her life rebelled against
it, and she could not look forward to it without fear
and trembling. Every meeting now found her, she
says, like a craven, dreading to hear the summons
which would oblige her to rise and open her lips before
the two or three gathered there. Vainly did she
try to “hide herself from the Lord.”
The evidence came distinctly to her one morning that
some words of admonition were required of her; but
so appalling did the act appear to her that she trembled,
hesitated, resisted, and was silent. Sorrow and
remorse at once filled her soul; and, feeling that
she had sinned against the Holy Ghost, she thought
that God never could forgive her, and that no sacrifice
she could ever offer could atone for this first act
of disobedience. Through long and dreary years
it was the spectre that never would down, but stood
ready to point its accusing finger whenever she was
tempted to seek the cause of her disappointments and
sorrows.
Thus, in the very outset of her new
departure, arose apprehensions which followed her
continually, robbing her religious exercises of all
peace, and bringing her such a depth of misery that,
she says, it almost destroyed her soul. The frequent
letters of her Quaker friend, though calculated to
soothe and encourage her, were all firm on the point
of implicit obedience to the movements of the Spirit;
and she found herself in a straight and narrow path,
from which she was not allowed to deviate.
To this friend, Israel Morris, Sarah
seems to have confessed all her shortcomings, all
her fears, until, encouraged by his sympathy, and led
by her longing for a wider field of action, she began
to contemplate a removal to the North. There
were other causes which urged her to seek another
home. The inharmonious life in her family, joined
to the reproaches and ridicule constantly aimed at
her, and which stung her to the quick, naturally inspired
the desire to go where she would be rid of it all,
and live in peace. In her religious exaltation,
it was easy for her to persuade herself that she was
moved to make this important change by the Lord’s
command. She sincerely believed it was so, and
speaks of it as an unmistakable call, not to be disregarded,
to go forth from that land, and her work would be
shown her. Naturally, Philadelphia was the spot
to which she was directed. When informed of her
desires, Israel Morris not only gave his approval,
but invited her to a home in his family. A door
of shelter and safety being thus thrown open to her,
she no longer hesitated, but at once made known her
intention to her relatives. There seems to have
been little or no opposition offered to a step so
serious; in fact, her brothers and sisters, though
much attached to her, for her loving nature
was irresistible, evidently felt it a relief
when she was gone, her strict and pious life being
a constant rebuke to their worldly views and practices.
Her sister Anna, at her urgent request,
accompanied her on the voyage. This sister, the
widow of an Episcopal clergyman, though a defender
of slavery as an institution, recognized its evil
influences on the society where it existed, and gladly
accepted the opportunity offered to take her young
daughter away from them. It was necessary, too,
that she should do something to increase her slender
income, and Sarah advised opening a small school in
Philadelphia, a thing which she could not
have done in Charleston without a sacrifice of her
own social position and of the family pride.
There is nothing said of the parting,
even from Angelina, though we know it must have been
a hard trial for Sarah to leave this young sister,
just budding into womanhood, and surrounded by all
the snares whose alluring influences she understood
so well. That she could consent to leave her
thus is perhaps the strongest proof of her faith in
the imperative nature of the summons to which she felt
she was yielding obedience.
The exiles reached Philadelphia without
accident in the latter part of May, 1821. Lodgings
were found for Mrs. Frost and her child, and Sarah
went at once to the residence of her friend, Israel
Morris.