They were scarcely settled amid their
new surroundings before the sisters received a formal
notice of their disownment by the Society of Friends
because of Angelina’s marriage. The notification,
signed by two prominent women elders of the Society,
expressed regret that Sarah and Angelina had not more
highly prized their right of membership, and added
an earnest desire that they might come to a sense of
their real state, and manifest a disposition to condemn
their deviations from the path of duty.
Angelina replied without delay that
they wished the discipline of the Society to have
free course with regard to them. “It is
our joy,” she wrote, “that we have committed
no offence for which Christ Jesus will disown us as
members of the household of faith. If you regret
that we have valued our right of membership so little,
we equally regret that our Society should have adopted
a discipline which has no foundation in the Bible
or in reason; and we earnestly hope the time may come
when the simple Gospel rule with regard to marriage,
’Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,’
will be as conscientiously enforced as that sectarian
one which prohibits the union of the Lord’s own
people if their shibboleth be not exactly the same.
“We are very respectfully, in
that love which knows no distinction in color, clime,
or creed, your friends,
“A.E.G. WELD.
“SARAH M. GRIMKE.”
It will be noticed that in this reply
Angelina avoids the Quaker phraseology, and neither
she nor Sarah ever after used it, except occasionally
in correspondence with a Quaker friend.
Thus ended their connection with the
Society of Friends. From that time they never
attached themselves to any religious organization,
but rested contentedly in the simple religion of Christ,
illustrating by every act of their daily lives how
near they were to the heart of all true religion.
As I am approaching the limits prescribed
for this volume, I can, in the space remaining to
me, only note with any detail the chief incidents
of the years which followed Angelina’s marriage.
I would like to describe at length the beautiful family
life the trio created, and which disproved so clearly
the current assertion that interest in public matters
disqualifies woman for home duties or make these distasteful
to her. In the case of Sarah and Angelina those
duties were entered upon with joy and gratitude, and
with the same conscientious zeal that had characterized
their public labors. The simplicity and frugality,
too, which marked all their domestic arrangements,
and which neither thought it necessary to apologize
for at any time, recall to one’s mind the sweet
pictures of Arcadian life over which goodness, purity,
and innocence presided, creating an atmosphere of
perfect inward and outward peace.
Sarah’s letters detail their
every-day occupations, their division of labor, their
culinary experiments, often failures, for
of practical domestic economy they had little knowledge,
though they enjoyed the new experience like happy
children. She tells of rambles and picnics along
the Hudson, climbing rocks to get a fine view, halting
under the trees to read together for a while, taking
their simple dinner in some shady nook, and returning
weary but happy to their “dear little N,”
as she designates their house.
“Oh, Jane,” she writes,
“words cannot tell the goodness of the Lord to
us since we have sat down under the shadow of our own
roof, and gathered around our humble board. Peace
has flowed sweetly through our souls. The Lord
has been in the midst, and blessed us with his presence,
and the daily aspiration of our souls is: Lord,
show us thy will concerning us.” And in
another letter she says, “We are delighted with
our arrangement to do without a girl. Angelina
boils potatoes to admiration, and says she finds cooking
much easier than she expected.”
During the summer they were gratified by a visit from their good friend Jane,
who, it appears, gave them some useful and much-needed lessons in the art of
cookery. But about this time Sarah became converted to the Graham system
of diet, which Mr. Weld had adopted three, and Mrs. Weld two years
before. Sarah thus writes of it:
“We have heard Graham lectures,
and read Alcott’s ‘Young Housekeeper,’
and are truly thankful that the Lord has converted
us to this mode of living, and that we are all of
one heart and one mind. We believe it is the
most conducive to health, and, besides, it is such
an emancipation of woman from the toils of the kitchen,
and saves so much precious time for purposes of more
importance than eating and drinking. We have
a great variety of dishes, and, to our taste, very
savory. We can make good bread, and this with
milk is an excellent meal. This week I am cook,
and am writing this while my beans are boiling and
pears stewing for dinner. We use no tea or coffee,
and take our food cool.”
She then tells of the arrival one day of two friends from the city, just as
they had sat down to their simple meal of rice and molasses. But, she
says, we were very glad to see them, and with bread and milk, and pie without
shortening, and hominy, we contrived to give them enough, and as they were
pretty hungry they partook of it with tolerable appetite. Answering some
inquiries from Jane Smith, Angelina writes:
“As to how I have made out with
cooking, it so happens that labor (planting a garden)
gives Theodore such an appetite that everything is
sweet to him, so that my rice and asparagus, potatoes,
mush, and Indian bread all taste well, though some
might think them not fit to eat.”
They had but one cooking day, when enough was generally prepared to last a
week, so that very little time and mind was given to creature comforts; in fact,
no more than was necessary to the preservation of health. Their motto
literally was to eat to live, and this they felt to be a part of that
non-conformity to the world of which the apostle speaks, and after which Sarah,
at least, felt she must still strive. Their furniture corresponded with
the simplicity of their table. Angelina writes shortly after her marriage:
“We ordered our furniture to
be made of cherry, and quite enjoy the cheapness of
our outfit as well as our manner of life; for the less
we spend, the less the Anti-Slavery Society will have
to pay my Theodore for his labors as editor of all
the extra publications of the Society.”
Thus some high or unselfish motive
inspired all their conduct and influenced every arrangement.
Nothing superfluous or merely ornamental found a place
with these true and zealous followers of Him whose
precepts guided their lives. Everything in doors
and out served a special purpose of utility, or suggested
some duty or great moral aim. Angelina was exceedingly
fond of flowers, but refrained from cultivating them,
because of the time required, which she thought could
be better employed. She felt she had no right
to use one moment for her own selfish gratification
which could be given to some more necessary work.
Therefore, though both sisters were peculiarly gifted
with a love of the beautiful, as their frequent descriptions
of natural scenery show, they contented themselves,
from principle, with the enjoyment of “glorious
sunsets,” and with the flowers of the field
and wayside. Later they learned a different appreciation
of all the innocent pleasures of life; but at the
time I am describing, they had just emerged from Quaker
asceticism, and in the flush of their new religion,
and looking upon their past years as almost wasted,
they were eager only to make amends for them.
In one of her letters to her English friend, Angelina
acknowledges the present from her of a large picture
of a Kneeling Slave, and adds:
“We purpose pasting it on binder’s
boards, binding it with colored paper, and fixing
it over our mantelpiece. It is just such a speaking
monument of suffering as we want in our parlor, and
suits my fireboard most admirably. I first covered
this with plain paper, and then arranged as well as
I could about forty anti-slavery pictures upon it.
I never saw one like it, but we hope other abolitionists
will make them when they see what an ornamental and
impressive article of furniture can thus be manufactured.
We want those who come into our house to see at a
glance that we are on the side of the oppressed and
the poor.”
Sarah Douglass spent a day with them in September, and as I can have no more
fitting place to show how conscientious were these rare spirits in their
practical testimony against the color prejudice, I will quote a few passages
from a letter written to Sarah Douglass after her departure from the circle
where she had been treated as a most honored guest. Sarah Grimke begins as
follows:
“Thy letter, my beloved Sarah,
was truly acceptable as an evidence of thy love for
us, and because it told us one of our Lord’s
dear children had been comforted in being with us.
It would have been truly grateful to have had thee
a longer time with us, and we hope thy next visit
may be less brief. By the way, dear, as I love
frankness, I am going to tell thee what I have thought
in reading thy note. It seemed to me thy proposal
‘to spend a day’ with us was made under
a little feeling something like this: ’Well,
after all, I am not quite certain I shall be an acceptable
visitor.’ I can only say that it is no
surprise to me that thou shouldst be beset with such
a temptation, but set a strong guard against this
entrance to thy heart, lest the adversary poison all
the springs of comfort. I want thee to rise above
the suspicions which are so naturally aroused.
They are among the subtle devices of Satan, by which
he alienates us from Jesus, and makes us go mourning
on our way with the language in our hearts: ’Is
there not a cause?’”
Angelina adds:
“MY DEAR SARAH, I
can fully unite with my precious sister in all she
has said relative to thy late visit to us. Theodore
and I both felt surprised and disappointed that thou
proposedst spending but one day with us when we had
expected a visit of a week. It was indeed a comfort
to receive such a letter from thee, dear, and yet there
was much of pain mingled in the feeling. Thou
thankest us for our ‘Christian conduct.’
In what did it consist? In receiving and treating
thee as an equal, a sister beloved in the Lord?
Oh, how humbling to receive such thanks! What
a crowd of reflections throng the mind as we inquire,
Why does her full heart thus overflow with gratitude?
Yes, how irresistibly are we led to contemplate the
woes which iron-hearted prejudice inflicts on the
oppressed of our land, the hidden sorrows they endure the
full cup of bitterness which is wrung out to them by
the hands of professed followers of Him who is no respecter
of persons. And oh, how these reflections ought
to lead us to labor and to pray that the time may
soon come when thou canst no longer write such
a letter! The Lord in his mercy has made our little
household one in sentiment on this subject,
and we know we have been blessed in the exercise of
those Christian feelings which He hath taught us to
cherish, not only towards the outraged people of color,
but towards that large class of individuals who serve
in families, and are, at the same time, almost completely
separated from human society and sympathy so far as
their employers are concerned.
“Let me tell thee, dear Sarah,
how much good it did me to find that thy visit had
made thee love my precious husband as a brother, and
afforded thee an opportunity to feel what manner
of spirit is his. Now I greatly want thy dear
mother to know him too, and cannot but believe she
will come and visit us next summer.”
The gratitude of Sarah Douglass for
the reception given her at Fort Lee was not surprising,
considering how different such kindness was from the
treatment she and her excellent mother had always received
from the Society of Friends, of which they were members.
Scarcely anything more damaging to the Christian spirit
of the Society can be found than the testimony of
this mother and daughter, which Sarah Grimke obtained
and wrote out, but, I believe, never published.
Before his marriage, Mr. Weld lodged,
on principle, in a colored family in New York, even
submitting to the inconvenience of having no heat
in his room in winter, and bearing with singular charity
and patience what Sarah calls the sanctimonious pride
and Pharisaical aristocracy of his hosts. He,
also, and the sisters when they were in the city,
attended a colored church, which, however, became to
Sarah, at least, a place of such “spiritual
famine” that she gave up going.
In the winter of 1839-40, when it
became necessary to have more help in the household,
a colored woman, Betsy Dawson by name, was sent for.
She had been a slave in Colonel Grimke’s family,
and, falling to the share of Mrs. Frost when the estate
was settled up, was by her emancipated. She was
received into the family at Fort Lee as a friend,
and so treated in every respect. Sarah expresses
the pleasure it was to have one as a helper who knew
and loved them all, and adds: “Besides
I cannot tell thee how thankful we are that our heavenly
Father has put it in our power to have one who was
once a slave in our family to sit at our table and
be with us as a sister cherished, to place her on
an entire equality with, us in social intercourse,
and do all we can to show her we feel for her as we,
under like circumstances, would desire her to feel
for us. I don’t know what M.C. [a friend
from New York] thought of our having her at table and
in our parlor just like one of ourselves.”
Some time later, Angelina writes of
another of the family slaves, Stephen, to whom they
gave a home, putting him to do the cooking, lest,
being unaccustomed to a Northern climate, he should
suffer by exposure to outdoor work. He proved
an eyesore in every way, but they retained him as
long as it was possible to do so, and bore with him
patiently, as no one else would have him. Mrs.
Weld frequently allowed him to hire out for four or
five hours a day to husk corn, etc., and was
glad to give him this opportunity to earn something
extra while she did his work at home. In short,
wherever and whenever they could testify to their
convictions of duty on this point, it was done unhesitatingly
and zealously, without fear or favor of any man.
We might consider the incidents I have related, and
a dozen similar ones I could give, as evidence only
of a desire to perform a religious duty, to manifest
obedience to the command to do as they would be done
by, while beneath still lay the bias of early training
sustained by the almost universal feeling concerning
the inferiority of the negro race. With people
of such pure religious dedication, and such exalted
views, it was perhaps not difficult to treat their
ex-slaves as human beings, and the fact that they
did so may not excite much wonder. But there
came a time, then far in their future, when the sincerity
of their convictions upon this matter of prejudice
was most triumphantly vindicated.
Such a vindication even they, with
all their knowledge of the hidden evils of slavery,
never dreamed could ever be required of them,
but the manner in which they met the tremendous test
was the crowning glory of their lives. In all
the biographies I have read, such a manifestation
of the spirit of Jesus Christ does not appear.
This will be narrated in its proper place.
Happy as the sisters were in their home, it must not be supposed that they
had settled down to a life of ease and contented privacy, abandoning altogether
the great work of their lives. Far from it. The time economized from
household duties was devoted chiefly to private labor for the cause, from the
public advocacy of which they felt they had only stepped aside for a time.
Neither had any idea that this public work was over. Angelina writes to
her friend in England soon after her marriage:
“I cannot tell thee how I love
this private life how I have thanked my
heavenly Father for this respite from public labor,
or how earnestly I have prayed that whilst I am thus
dwelling at ease I may not forget the captives of
my land, or be unwilling to go forth again on the
high places of the field, to combat the giant sin of
Slavery with the smooth stones of the river of Truth,
if called to do so by Him who put me forth and went
before me in days that are past. My dear Theodore
entertains the noblest views of the rights and responsibilities
of woman, and will never lay a straw in the way of
my lecturing. He has many times strengthened
my hands in the work, and often tenderly admonished
me to keep my eye upon my great Leader, and my heart
in a state of readiness to go forth whenever I am called
out. I humbly trust I may, but as earnestly desire
to be preserved from going before I hear a voice saying
unto me, ’This is the way, walk in it, and I
will be thy shield and thy buckler.’ This
was the promise which was given me before, and how
faithfully it was fulfilled, my soul knoweth right
well.”
Sarah too, writes to Sarah Douglass
“I have thought much of my present
situation, laid aside from active service, but I see
no pointing of the divine finger to go forth, and I
believe the present dispensation of rest has been granted
to us not only as a reward for past faithfulness,
but as a means of personal advancement in holiness,
a time of deep searching of heart, when the soul may
contemplate itself, and seek nearer and fuller and
higher communion with its God.”
And again she says:
“It is true my nature shrinks
from public work, but whenever the mandate goes forth
to declare on the housetops that which I have heard
in the ear, I shall not dare to hold back. I conclude
that whenever my Father needs my services, He will
prepare me to obey the call by exercise of mind.”
In the meanwhile Sarah finished and
published a most important contribution to the arguments
on the woman’s rights subject. This was
a small volume of letters on the “Equality of
the Sexes,” commenced during her lecturing tour,
and addressed to Mary S. Parker, president of the
Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Written in
a gentle, reverent spirit, but clothed in Sarah’s
usual forcible language, they not only greatly aided
the cause which lay so near her heart, but relieved
and strengthened many tender consciences by their strong
arguments.
An extract or two from a letter written
to Sarah by Angelina and Theodore early in the autumn
of 1838 will show the tender relations existing between
these three, and which continued undisturbed by all
the changes and trials of succeeding years.
In September, Sarah went to Philadelphia to attend the Annual Anti-Slavery
Convention. Angelina writes to her a few days after her departure:
“We have just come up from our
evening meal, my beloved sister, and are sitting in
our little study for a while before taking our moonlight
ramble on the river bank. After thou left us,
I cleared up the dishes, and then swept the house;
got down to the kitchen just in time for dinner, which,
though eaten alone, was, I must confess, very much
relished, for exercise gives a good appetite, thou
knowest. I then set my beans to boil whilst I
dusted, and was upstairs waiting, ready dressed, for
the sound of the ‘Écho’s’ piston.
Soon I heard it, and blew my whistle, which was not
responded to, and I began to fear my Theodore was
not on board. But I blew again, and the glad response
came merrily over the water, and I thought I saw him.
In a little while he came, and gave me all your parting
messages. On Second Day the weather was almost
cold, and we were glad to take a run at noon up the
Palisades and sun ourselves on the rock at the first
opening. Returning, we gathered some field beans,
and some apples for stewing, as our fruit was nearly
out. In the evening it was so cool that we thought
a fire would be more comfortable, so we sat in the
kitchen, paring apples, shelling beans, and talking
over the Bible argument; and, as we had a fire,
I thought we had better stew the apples at once.
This was done to save time the next day, but I burnt
them sadly. However, thou knowest they were just
as nice to our Theodore, who never complains
of anything. Third Day evening we took a walk
up the Palisades. The moon shone most beautifully,
throwing her mantle of light all abroad over the blue
arch of heaven, the gently flowing river, and the
woods and vales around us. I could not help thinking,
if earth was so lovely and bright, what must be the
glories of that upper Temple which needeth not the
light of the sun or of the moon. O sister, shall
we ever wash our robes so white in the blood of the
Lamb as to be clean enough to enter that pure and
holy Temple of the Most High? We returned to
our dear little home, and went to bed by the lamp
of heaven; for we needed no other, so brightly did
she shine through our windows. We remembered
thee, dear sister, in our little seasons of prayer
at the opening and closing of each day. We pray
the Lord to bring thee back to us in the fulness of
the blessing of the Gospel of peace, and to make our
house a home to thy weary, tossed, afflicted
spirit. We feel it a great blessing to have thee
under our roof. Thy room looks very desolate;
for, though the sun shines brightly in it, I find,
after all, thou art the light of it.”
Theodore adds a postscript, addresses
Sarah as “My dearly loved sister,” and
says, “As dear Angy remarks, your room does look
so chill and desolate, and your place at table, and
your chair in our little morning and evening circle,
that we talk about it a dozen times a day. But
we rejoice that the Master put it into your heart to
go and give your testimony for our poor, suffering
brothers and sisters, wailing under bonds, and we
pray without ceasing that He who sent will teach,
strengthen, and help you greatly to do for Him and
the bleeding slave.”
Debarred from lecturing by the condition
of his throat, Mr. Weld was a most untiring worker
in the Anti-Slavery office in New York, from which
he received a small salary. His time out of office
hours was employed in writing for the different anti-slavery
papers, and in various editorial duties. Soon
after his marriage he began the preparation of a book,
which, when issued, produced perhaps a greater sensation
throughout the country than anything that had yet been
written or spoken. This was, “American Slavery
as it is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses,”
a book of two hundred and ten pages, and consisting
of a collection of facts relating to the actual condition
and treatment of slaves; facts drawn from slaveholders
themselves, and from Southern publications. The
design was to make the South condemn herself, and
never was success more complete. Of all the lists
of crimes, all the records of abominations, of moral
depravity, of marvellous inhumanity, of utter insensibility
to the commonest instincts of nature, the civilized
world has never read anything equal to it. Placed
by the side of Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,”
it outrivals it in all its revolting characters, and
calls up the burning blush of shame for our country
and its boasted Christian civilization. Notwithstanding
all that had been written on the subject, the public
was still comparatively ignorant of the sufferings
of the slaves, and the barbarities inflicted upon
them. Mr. Weld thought the state of the abolition
cause demanded a work which would not only prove by
argument that slavery and cruelty were inseparable,
but which would contain a mass of incontrovertible
facts, that would exhibit the horrid brutality of
the system. Nearly all the papers, most of them
of recent date, from which the extracts were taken,
were deposited at the office of the American Anti-Slavery
Society in New York, and all who thought the atrocities
described in Weld’s book were incredible, were
invited to call and examine for themselves.
This book was the most effective answer
ever given to the appeal made against free discussion,
based on the Southampton massacre. It was, in
fact, an offset of the horrors of that bloody affair,
giving, as it did, a picture of the deeper horrors
of slavery. It was the first adequate disclosure
of this “bloodiest picture in the book of time,”
which had yet been made, and all who read it felt that,
fearful as was the Virginia tragedy, the system which
provoked it included many things far worse, and demanded
investigation and discussion. Issued in pamphlet
form, the “Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses,”
was extensively circulated over the country, and most
advantageously used by anti-slavery lecturers and
advocates; and it is not too much to say that by awakening
the humanity and pride of the people to end this national
disgrace, it made much easier the formation of the
anti-slavery political party.
In the preparation of this work, Mr. Weld received invaluable assistance from
his wife and sister. Not only was the testimony of their personal
observation and experience given over their own names, but many files of
Southern papers were industriously examined for such facts as were needed, and
which Mr. Weld arranged. Early in January, 1839, Sarah writes:
“I do not think we ever labored
more assiduously for the slave than we have done this
fall and winter, and, although our work is of the kind
that may be privately performed, yet we find the same
holy peace in doing it which we found in the public
advocacy of the cause.”
Referring a little later to this work,
she says: “We have been almost too busy
to look out on the beautiful winter landscape, and
have been wrought up by our daily researches almost
to a frenzy of justice, intolerance, and enthusiasm
to crush the viper that is eating out the vitals of
the nation. Oh, what a blessed privilege to be
engaged in labor for the oppressed! We often
think, if the slaves are never emancipated, we are
richly rewarded by the hallowed influence of abolition
principles on our own hearts.”
In a recent letter to me, Mr. Weld makes some interesting statements
respecting this work. I will give them in his own words:
“The fact is, those dear souls
spent six months, averaging more than six hours a
day, in searching through thousands upon thousands
of Southern newspapers, marking and cutting out facts
of slave-holding disclosures for the book. I
engaged of the Superintendent of the New York Commercial
Reading-Room all his papers published in our Southern
States and Territories. These, after remaining
upon the files one month, were taken off and sold.
Thus was gathered the raw material for the manufacture
of ‘Slavery As It Is.’ After the work
was finished, we were curious to know how many newspapers
had been examined. So we went up to our attic
and took an inventory of bundles, as they were packed
heap upon heap. When our count had reached twenty
thousand newspapers, we said: ‘There,
let that suffice.’ Though the book had in
it many thousand facts thus authenticated by the slave-holders
themselves, yet it contained but a tiny fraction of
the nameless atrocities gathered from the papers examined.”
Besides this absorbing occupation,
the sisters busied themselves that winter getting
up a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia, and walked many miles,
day after day, to obtain signatures, meeting with
patience, humility, and sweetness the frequent rebuffs
of the rude and the ignorant, feeling only pity for
them, and gratitude to God who had touched and softened
their own hearts and enlightened their minds.
They received repeated invitations
from the different anti-slavery organizations to again
enter the lecture field, and great disappointment
was felt by all who had once listened to them that
they should have retired from public work.
Sarah speaks of attending “meeting,”
as, from habit, she called it, and doubtless they
all went regularly, as Mr. Weld was a communicant
of the Presbyterian Church, and Mrs. Weld and Sarah
were still sound on all the fundamental points of
Christian doctrine. During some portion of every
Sunday, Mrs. Weld was in the habit of visiting among
the very poor, white and colored, and preaching to
them the Gospel of peace and good will. In her
peculiarly tender and persuasive way, she opened to
those unhappy and benighted souls the promises and
hopes which supported her, and lavished upon them
the treasures of an eloquence that thousands had and
would still have crowded to listen to. There
were none to applaud in those sorrowful abodes, but
her words of courage and consolation lifted many a
despondent heart from the depths, while her own faith
in the love and mercy of her heavenly Father brought
confidence and comfort to many a benumbed and wavering
soul.
In December, 1839, the happiness of
the little household was increased by the birth of
a son, who received the name of Charles Stuart, in
loving remembrance of the eminent English philanthropist,
with whom Mr. Weld had been as a brother, and whom
he regarded as living as near the angels as mortal
man could live. The advent of this child was not
only an inexpressible blessing to the affectionate
hearts of the father and mother, but to Sarah it seemed
truly a mark of divine love to her, compensating her
for the home ties and affections once so nearly within
her grasp, and still often mourned for. She describes
her feelings as she pressed the infant in her arms
and folded him to her breast as a rhapsody of wild
delight. “Oh, the ecstacy and the gratitude!”
she exclaimed: “How I opened the little
blanket and peeped in to gaze, with swimming eyes,
at my treasure, and looked upon that face forever
so dear!”
For months before the birth of her
child, Mrs. Weld had read carefully different authors
on the treatment of children, and felt herself prepared
at every point with the best theories derived from
Combes’ “Physiological and Moral Management
of Infancy,” and kindred works. It is rather
amusing to read how systematically this baby was trained,
and how little he appreciated all the wise theories;
how he protested against going to sleep by rule; how
he wouldn’t be bathed in cold water; how he
was fed, a tablespoonful at a time, five times during
the twenty-four hours, at 8, 12, 4, 8, and
3 in the morning; how his fretting at last induced
his Aunt Sarah to take the responsibility of giving
him a little license with his bottle, when, horrified
at his gluttony, she was, at the same time, convinced
that the child had been slowly starving ever since
his birth. Allowed more indulgence in food, he
soon stopped fretting, and became a healthy, lively
baby.
Angelina, writing to a friend, speaks
of the blessed influence the child was exerting over
them all. “The idea,” she says, “of
a baby exercising moral influence never came into
my mind until I felt its power on my own heart.
I used to think all a parent’s reward for early
care and anxiety was reaped in after-life, save the
enjoyment of an infant as a pretty plaything.
But the Lord has taught me differently, and woe be
unto me if I do not profit by the instructions of this
little teacher sent from God.”
It was about this time that the injury
referred to in the last chapter was received, which
frustrated all Angelina’s hopes and plans for
continued public service for the slave, and condemned
her, with all her rare intellectual gifts, to a quiet
life. The sweet submission with which she bore
this trial proved how great was the peace which possessed
her soul, and kept her ready for whatever it seemed
good for the Father to send her. Henceforth,
shut out from the praises and plaudits of men, in
her own home, among her neighbors and among the poor
and afflicted, quietly and unobtrusively she fulfilled
every law of love and duty. And though during
the remainder of her life she was subject to frequent
weakness and intense pain, all was borne with such
fortitude and patience that only her husband and sister
knew that she suffered.
In the latter part of February, 1840, Mr. Weld, having purchased a farm of
fifty acres at Belleville, New Jersey, removed his family there. Angelina,
announcing the change to Jane Smith, says:
“Yes, we have left the sweet
little village of Fort Lee, a spot never to be forgotten
by me as the place where my Theodore and I first lived
together, and the birthplace of my darling babe, the
scene of my happiest days. There, too, my precious
sister ministered with untiring faithfulness to my
wants when sick, and there, too, I welcomed thee
for the first time under my roof.”
To their new home they brought the
simplicity of living to which they had adhered in
their old one, a simplicity which, with their more
commodious house, enabled them to exercise the broad
hospitality which they had been obliged to deny themselves
in a measure at Fort Lee. All the good deeds
done under this sacred name of hospitality during their
fourteen years’ residence at Belleville can never
be known. Few ever so diligently sought, or so
cheerfully accepted, opportunities for the exercise
of every good word and work. Scarcely a day passed
that they did not feel called upon to make some sacrifice
of comfort or convenience for the comfort or convenience
of others; and more than once the sacrifice involved
the risk of health and life. But in true humility
and with an unwavering trust in God, they looked away
from themselves and beyond ordinary considerations.
One of their first acts, after their
removal, was to take back to their service the incompetent
Stephen whom they had been forced to discharge from
Fort Lee, and who had lived a precarious life afterwards.
They gave him work on the farm, paid him the usual
wages, and patiently endeavored to correct his faults.
A young nephew in delicate health was also added to
their household; and, a few months later, Angelina
having heard that an old friend and her daughter in
Charleston were in pecuniary distress and feeble health,
wrote and offered them a home with her for a year.
“They have no means of support,
and are anxious to leave Carolina,” wrote Angelina
to Jane Smith; “we will keep them until their
health is recruited, their minds rested, and some
situation found for them where they can earn their
own living. We know not,” she adds, “whom
else the Lord may send us, and only pray Him to help
us to fulfil His will towards all whose lot may be
cast among us.”
The visitors to the Belleville farm chiefly
old and new anti-slavery friends were numerous,
and were always received with a cordiality which left
no room to doubt its sincerity.
At one time they received into their
family a poor young man from Jamaica, personally a
stranger, but of whose labors as a self-appointed
missionary among the recently emancipated slaves of
the West Indies they had heard. He had labored
for three years, supporting himself as he could, until
he was utterly broken down in health, when he came
back to die. His friendless situation appealed
to the warmest sympathy of the Welds, and he was brought
to their hospitable home. The pleasantest room
in the house was given to him, and every attention
bestowed upon him, until death came to his relief.
The people of their neighborhood soon
learned to know where they could confidently turn
for help in any kind of distress. It would be
difficult to tell the number of times that one or the
other of the great-hearted trio responded to the summons
from a sick or dying bed, and gave without stint of
their sympathy, their time, and their labor.
Once, following only her own conviction
of duty, Angelina left her home to go and nurse a
wretched colored man and his wife, ill with small-pox
and abandoned by everyone. She stayed with them
night and day until they were so far recovered as
to be able to help themselves.
What a picture is this! That
humble cabin with its miserable occupants and
they negroes ill with a loathsome disease,
suffering, praying for help, but deserted by neighbors
and friends. Suddenly a fair, delicate face bends
over them; a sweet, low voice bids them be comforted,
and gentle hands lift the cooling draught to their
parched lips, bathe their fevered brows, make comfortable
their poor bed, and then, angel as she appears to
them, stations herself beside them, to minister to
them like the true sister of mercy she was.
In this action, we may well suppose,
Angelina was not encouraged by her husband or sister,
but it was a sacred principle with them never to oppose
anything which she conscientiously saw it was her duty
to do. When this appeared to her so plain that
she felt she could not hold back from it, they committed
her to the Lord, and left their doubts and anxieties
with Him. She never shrank from the meanest offices
to the sick and suffering, though their performance
might be followed, as was often the case, by faintness
and nausea. She would return home exhausted,
but cheerful, and grateful that she had been able
to help “one of God’s suffering children.”
In other ways the members of this
united household were diligent in good works.
If a neighbor required a few hundred dollars to save
the foreclosure of a mortgage, the combined resources
of the family were taxed to aid him; if a poor student
needed a helping hand in his preparation for college,
or for teaching, it was gladly extended to him perhaps
his board and lodging given him for six months or a
year with much valuable instruction thrown
in. The instances of charity of this kind were
many, and were performed with such a cheerful spirit
that Sarah only incidentally alludes to the increase
of their cares and work at such times. In fact,
their roof was ever a shelter for the homeless, a
home for the friendless; and it is pleasant to record
that the return of ingratitude, so often made for
benevolence of this kind, was never their portion.
They always seem to have had the sweet satisfaction
of knowing, sooner or later, that their kindness was
not thrown away or under-estimated.
Besides the work of the farm, Mr.
Weld interested himself in all the local affairs of
his neighborhood. His energy, common sense, and
enthusiasm pushed forward many a lagging improvement,
while the influence of his moral and intellectual
views was felt in every household. He taught
the young men temperance, and the dignity of honest
labor; to the young women he preached self-reliance,
contempt for the frivolities of fashion, and the duty
of making themselves independent. He became superintendent
of the public schools of the township, and gave to
them his warmest and most active services.
Sarah, although always ready to second
Angelina in every charity, found her chief employment
at home. She relieved her sister almost entirely
of the care of the children, for in the course of years
two more little ones were given to them, and she lessened
the expenses by attending to household work, which
would otherwise have called for another servant.
After a short time, Mr. Weld’s father, mother,
sister, and brother, all invalids, came to live near
them, claiming much of their sympathy and their care.
Their niece also, the daughter of Mrs. Frost, now
married, and the mother of children, took up her residence
in the neighborhood, and Aunt Saï, as the children
called her, and as almost every one else came, in
time, to call her, found even fuller occupation for
heart and hands. Her love for children was intense,
and she had the rare faculty of being able to bring
her intelligence down to theirs. Angelina’s
children were literally as her own, on whom she ever
bestowed the tenderest care, and with whose welfare
her holiest affections were intertwined. She often
speaks of loving them with “all but a mother’s
love,” of having them “enshrined in her
heart of hearts,” of “receiving through
them the only cordial that could have raised a heart
bowed by sorrow and crushing memories.”
In one of her letters she says: I live for Theodore and Angelina and
the children, those blessed comforters to my poor, sad heart, and, during an
absence from home, she writes to Angelina:
“I have enjoyed being with my
friends: still there is a longing, a yearning
after my children. I miss the sight of those dear
faces, the sound of those voices that comes like music
to my ears.”
In a letter to Sarah Douglass, written
towards the close of their residence in Belleville,
she says:–
“In our precious children my
desolate heart found a sweet response to its love.
They have saved me from I know not what of horrible
despair, or rushing into some new and untried and
unsanctified effort to let off the fire that consumed
me. Crushed, mutilated, torn, they comforted
and cheered me, and furnished me with objects of interest
which drew me from myself. I feel that they were
the gift of a pitying Father, and that to love and
cherish them is my highest manifestation of love to
the Giver.”
As the children grew, the parents
began to feel the difficulty of educating them properly
without other companions, and it was at last decided
to take a few children into the family to be instructed
with their own.
This was the beginning of another
important chapter in their lives. As educators
Mr. and Mrs. Weld very soon developed such rare ability,
that although they had thought of limiting the number
of pupils to two or three, so many were pressed upon
them, with such good reasons for their acceptance,
that the two or three became a dozen, and were with
difficulty kept at that figure. In this new life
their trials were many, their labor great, and the
pecuniary compensation exceedingly moderate; but it
is inspiring to read from Sarah the accounts of Theodore’s
courage “always ready to take the
heaviest end of every burden,” and of Angelina’s
cheerfulness; and from Angelina the frequent testimony
to Sarah’s patience and fidelity. It took
this dear Aunt Saï many years to learn to like
teaching, especially as she never had any talent for
governing, save by love, and this method was not always
appreciated.
With their new and exacting work,
the farm, of course, had to be given up, and was finally
sold.
In 1852 the Raritan Bay Association,
consisting of thirty or forty educated and cultured
families of congenial tastes, was formed at Eagleswood,
near Perth Amboy, New Jersey; and a year later Mr.
and Mrs. Weld were invited to join the Association,
and take charge of its educational department.
They accepted in the hope of finding in the change
greater social advantages for themselves and their
children, with less responsibility and less labor;
for of these last the husband, wife, and sister, in
their Belleville school, had had more than they were
physically able to endure longer. Their desire
and plan was to establish, with the children of the
residents at Eagleswood, a school also for others,
and to charge such a moderate compensation only as
would enable the middle classes to profit by it.
In this project, as with every other, no selfish ambition
found a place.
They removed to Eagleswood in the autumn of 1854.
And now, as I am nearing the end of
my narrative, this seems to be the place to say a
few words relative to the religious views into which
the two sisters finally settled. We have followed
them through their various conflicts from early youth
to mature age, and have seen in their several changes
of belief that there was no fickleness, no real inconsistency.
They sought the truth, and at different times thought
they had found it. But it was the truth as taught
in Christ Jesus, the simple doctrine of the Cross
they wanted, the preaching and practice of love for
God, and for the meanest, the weakest, the lowest of
His children. The spiritual conflicts through
which they passed, prepared them to see the nothingness
of all outward forms, and they came at last to reject
the so-called orthodox creed, and to look only to God
for help and comfort.
During the entire period of Sarah’s
connection with religious organizations, and even
from her very first religious impressions, she found
it difficult to accept the doctrine of the Atonement;
and yet she professed and tried to think she believed
it, but only because the Bible, which she accepted
as a revelation from God, taught it. That her
reason rebelled against it is shown in her frequent
prayers to be delivered from this great temptation
of the arch enemy, and her deep repentance whenever
she lapsed into a state of doubt. The fear that
she might come to reject this fundamental dogma was at
least up to the time when she was driven from the
Quaker Church one of her most terrible trials, causing her at intervals more
agony than all else put together. But the worshipful element was so strong
in Sarah that she could not, even after her reason had satisfied her conscience
on this point, give up this Christ at whose feet she had learned her most
precious lessons of faith and meekness and gentleness and long-suffering, and
whom she had accepted and adored as her intermediary before an awful Jhovah.
In her whole life there appears to me nothing more beautiful than this full,
tender, abiding love of Jesus, and I believe it to have been the inspiration
always of all that was loveliest and grandest in her character. In one of
her letters, written while at Belleville, she says:
“I cannot grasp the idea of
an Infinite Being; but, without perplexing myself
with questions which I cannot solve, everything around
me proclaims the presence and the government of an
intelligent, law-abiding Law-giver, and I believe
implicitly in his power and his love. But I must
have the Friend of sinners to rest in.”
And again: “In one sense,
as Creator and Benefactor, I feel this Infinite Being
to be my Father, but I want a Jesus whom I can approach
as a fellow creature, yet who is so nearly allied to
God that I can look up to Him with reverence, and
love Him and lie in His bosom.”
And later, in a letter to Gerrit Smith, she says:
“God is love, and whoso dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God and God in him. O friends,
but for this faith, this anchor to the soul both sure
and steadfast, I know not what would have become of
us in the sweep which there has been of what we called
the doctrines of Christianity from our minds.
They have passed away like the shadows of night, but
the glorious truth remains that the Lord of love and
mercy reigns, and great peace have they who do His
will.”
Their increasingly liberal views,
and their growing indifference to most of the established
forms in religion, drew upon them the severe censure
of their Charleston relatives, and finally, when, about
1847, it came to be known that they no longer considered
the Sabbath in a sacred light, their sister Eliza
wrote to them that all personal intercourse must end
between them and her, and that her doors would be
forever closed against them. Angelina’s
answer, covering four full pages of foolscap, was
most affectionate; but, while she expressed her sorrow
at the feeling excited against them, she could not
regret that they had been brought from error to truth.
She argued the point fully, patiently giving all the
best authorities concerning the substitution of the
Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, and against their
sister’s assertion that the former was a divine
institution.
“When I began to understand,”
she says, “what the gift of the Holy Spirit
really was, then all outwardisms fell off. I did
not throw them off through force of argument or example
of others, but all reverence for them died in my heart.
I could not help it; it was unexpected to me, and
I wondered to find even the Sabbath gone. And
now, to give to God alone the ceaseless worship of
my life is all my creed, all my desire. Oh, for
this pure, exalted state, how my soul pants after it!
In my nursery and kitchen and parlor, when ministering
to the common little wants of my family, and encountering
the fretfulness and waywardness of my children, oh,
for the pure worship of the soul which can enable
me to meet and bear all the little trials of
life in quietness and love and patience. This
is the religion of Christ, and I feel that no other
can satisfy me or meet the wants of human nature.
I cannot sanction any other, and I dare not teach
any other to my precious children.”
Thus it came to pass with them and
with Theodore also, that to love Jesus more, and to
follow more and more after him, became the sum of
their religion. With increasing years and wider
experiences, their views broadened into the most comprehensive
liberality, but the high worship of an infinite God,
and the sweet reverence for his purest disciple never
left them.