Sarah Grimke had always enjoyed such good health, and was so unaccustomed to
even small ailments, that when a slight attack came in the beginning of August,
1873, in the shape of a fainting-fit in the night, she did not understand what
it meant. For two or three years she had had an occasional attack of the
same kind, but was never before conscious of it, and as she had frequently
expressed a desire to be alone when she died, to have no human presence between
her and her God, she thought, as the faintness came over her, that this desire
was about to be gratified. But not so: she returned to
consciousness, somewhat to her disappointment, and seemed to quite recover her
health in a few days. The weather, however, was extremely warm, and she
felt its prostrating effects. On the 27th of August another fainting-spell
came over her, also in the night, and she felt so unwell on coming out of it
that she was obliged to call assistance. For several weeks she was very
ill, and scarcely a hope of her recovery was entertained; but again she rallied
and tried to mingle with the family as usual, though feeling very weak.
Writing to Sarah Douglass of this illness, she says:
“The first two weeks are nearly
a blank. I only remember a sense of intense suffering,
and that the second day I thought I was dying, and
felt calm with that sweet peace which our heavenly
Father gives to those who lay their heads on His bosom
and breathe out their souls to Him. Death is
so beautiful a transition to another and a higher sphere
of usefulness and happiness, that it no longer looks
to me like passing through a dark valley, but rather
like merging into sunlight and joy. When consciousness
returned to me, I was floating in an ocean of divine
love. Oh, dear Sarah, the unspeakable peace that
I enjoyed! Of course I was to come down from
the mount, but not into the valley of despondency.
My mind has been calm, my faith steadfast, my continual
prayer that I may fulfil the design of my Father in
thus restoring me to life and finish the work he must
have for me to do, either active or passive.
I am lost in wonder, love, and praise at the vast
outlay of affection and means used for my restoration.
Stuart was like a tender daughter, and all have been
so loving, so patient.”
She continued very feeble, but insisted upon joining the family at meals,
though she frequently had to be carried back to her room. Still her lively
interest in every one about her showed no diminution, and she still wrote, as
strength permitted, short letters to old friends. A few passages may be
quoted from these letters to show how clear her intellect remained, and with
what a holy calm her soul was clothed. To one nearly her own age, she
says:
“You and I and all who are on
the passage to redemption know that Gethsemane has
done more for us than the Mount of Transfiguration.
I am sure I have advanced more in the right way through
my sins than through my righteousness, and for nothing
am I more fervently grateful than for the lessons
of humility I have learned in this way.”
To another who was mourning the death
of a dear child, she writes: “My whole
heart goes out in unspeakable yearnings for you; not,
dearest, that you may be delivered from your present
trials; not only that you may be blessed with returning
health, but that you may find something better, holier,
stronger than philosophy to sustain you. Philosophy
may enable us to endure; this is its highest
mission; it cannot give the peace of God which passeth
all understanding. This is what I covet for you.
And how can you doubt of immortality when you look
on your beloved’s face? Can you believe
that the soul which looked out of those eyes can be
quenched in endless night? No; never! As
soon doubt existence itself. It is this these
central truths, the existence and the love of God,
and the immortality of the soul, which rob death of
its terrors and shed upon it the blessed light of a
hope which triumphs over death itself. Oh that
you could make Christ your friend! He is so near
and dear to me that more than ever does he seem to
be my link to the Father and to the life everlasting.”
As she complained only of weakness,
Sarah’s friends hoped that, when the cool weather
came on, she would regain her strength and be as well
as usual. But though she continued to move about
the house, trying to make herself useful, there was
very little perceptible change in her condition as
the autumn passed and winter came on. Thus she
continued until the 12th of December, when she took
a violent cold. She was in the habit of airing
her bed every night just before retiring, turning
back the cover, and opening wide her window. On
that day it had rained, and the air was very damp,
but she had her bed and window opened as usual, insisting
that Florence Nightingale asserted that damp air never
hurt anyone. That night she coughed a great deal,
but in answer to Angelina’s expressions of anxiety,
said she felt no worse than usual. But though
she still went down to her meals, it was evident that
she was weaker than she had been. On Sunday, the
14th, company coming to tea, she preferred to remain
in her room. She never went down again.
Her breathing was much oppressed on Monday and her
cough worse, but it was not until Tuesday evening,
after having passed a distressing day, that she would
consent to have a physician called. Everything
was done for her that could be thought of, and, as
she grew worse, two other physicians were sent for.
But all in vain: it was evident that the summons
to “come up higher” had reached her yearning
soul, and that a bright New Year was dawning for her
in that unseen world which she was so well prepared
to enter.
She lingered, suffering at times great
agony from suffocation, until the afternoon of the
23d, when she was seized with the most severe paroxysm
she had yet had. Her family gathered about her
bed, relieved her as far as it was possible, and saw
her sink exhausted into an unconscious state, from
which, two hours later, she crossed the threshold
of Eternity. Her “precious Nina” bent
over her, caught the last breath, and exclaimed:
“Well done, good and faithful servant, enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord!”
The gates of heaven swung wide to admit that great soul, and the form of clay
that was left lying there seemed touched with the glory that streamed forth.
All traces of suffering vanished, and the placid face wore
“The look of one who
bore away
Glad tidings from the hills
of day.”
Every sorrow brings a peace with it,
and Angelina’s sorrow was swallowed up in joy
that the beloved sister had escaped from pain and
infirmity, and entered into fuller and closer communion
with her heavenly Father.
She and Sarah had promised each other
that no stranger hands should perform the last offices
to their mortal remains. How lovingly this promise
was now kept by Angelina, we must all understand.
The weather was very cold, and in
order to give her friends at a distance opportunity
to attend the funeral it did not take place until
the 27th. One of the last requests of this woman,
whose life had been an embodiment of the most tender
chanty and the truest humility, was that she might
be laid in a plain pine coffin, and the difference
in price between it and the usual costly one be given
as her last gift to the poor. She knew divine
soul! that her cold form would sleep just
as quietly, be guarded by the angels just as faithfully,
and as certainly go to its resurrection glory from
a pine box as from the richest rosewood casket.
And it was like the sweet simplicity of her whole
life, nothing for show, all for God and
his poor.
Her request was complied with, but
loving hands covered every inch of that plain stained
coffin with fragrant flowers, making it rich and beautiful
with those sincere tributes of affection and gratitude
to one whose memory was a benediction.
The funeral services were conducted
by the Rev. Francis Williams, pastor of the Unitarian
Church of Hyde Park, and eloquent remarks were made
by him and by Wm. Lloyd Garrison.
Mr. Williams could only testify to
Sarah’s life as he had known it since she came
to live in the village.
“To the last,” he said,
“while her mind could plan, her pen could move,
and her heart could prompt, she was busy in the service
of humanity, with her might and beyond
her strength, in constant nameless deeds of kindness
to those in need in our own neighborhood, and far
to the south, deeds which were wise and beautiful, help
to the poor, sympathy with the suffering, consolation
to the dying. She has fought the good fight of
right and love; she has finished her course of duty;
she has kept the faith of friendship and sacrifice.
“We will more truly live because
she has lived among us. May her hope and peace
be ours.”
Mr. Garrison gave a brief summary
of her life, and ended by saying: “In view
of such a life as hers, consecrated to suffering humanity
in its manifold needs, embracing all goodness, animated
by the broadest catholicity of spirit, and adorned
with every excellent attribute, any attempt at panegyric
here seems as needless as it must be inadequate.
Here there is nothing to depress or deplore, nothing
premature or startling, nothing to be supplemented
or finished. It is the consummation of a long
life, well rounded with charitable deeds, active sympathies,
toils, loving ministrations, grand testimonies, and
nobly self-sacrificing endeavors. She lived only
to do good, neither seeking nor desiring to be known,
ever unselfish, unobtrusive, compassionate, and loving,
dwelling in God and God in her.”
The last look was then taken, the
last kiss given, and the coffin, lifted by those who
loved and honored the form it enclosed, was borne
to its resting-place in Mount Hope Cemetery.
“Dear friend,” wrote Angelina
to me, before yet the last rites had been performed,
“you know what I have lost, not a sister only,
but a mother, friend, counsellor, everything
I could lose in a woman.”
The longer our loved ones are spared
to us, the closer becomes the tie by which we are
bound to them, and the deeper the pain of separation.
It was thus with Angelina. She could rejoice at
her sister’s blessed translation, but she keenly
felt the bereavement notwithstanding. Their lives
had been so bound together; they had walked so many
years side by side; they had so shared each other’s
burdens, cares, and sorrows, that she who was left
scarcely knew how to live the daily life without that
dear twin-soul. And so tender, so true and sacred
was the communion which had grown between them, that
they could not be separated long.
Angelina continued, as her feeble
health permitted, to do alone the work Sarah had shared
with her. The sick, the poor, the sorrowing,
were looked after and cared for as usual; but as she
was already weighed down by declining years, the burdens
she tried to bear were too heavy. Sarah used
to say: “Angelina’s creed is, for
herself, work till you drop; for others, spare yourself.”
Now, with no anxiously watchful sister to restrain
her, she overtaxed every power, and brought on the
result which had been long feared, the paralysis
which finally ended her life.
Those who have read Mr. Weld’s
beautiful memorial of his wife, with the touching
account of her last days, will find no fault, I am
sure, if I reproduce a portion of it here, while to
those who have not been so fortunate, it will show
her sweet Christian spirit, mighty in its gentleness,
as no words of mine could do. In vain may we look
back through the centuries for a higher example of
divine love and patience and heroic fortitude; and,
as a friend observed, her expressions of gratitude
for the long and perfect use of her faculties at the
very moment when she felt the fatal touch which was
to deprive her of them, was the sublimity of sweet
and grateful trust.
The early shattering of Angelinas nervous system rendered her always
exceedingly sensitive to outward impressions. She could not look upon any
form of suffering without, in a measure, feeling it herself; nor could she read
or listen to an account of great physical agony without a sensation of faintness
which frequently obliged her, at such times, to leave the room and seek relief
in the open air. The first stroke of paralysis occurred the summer after
Sarahs death, and was brought on in a singular manner. Mr. Welds account
of the incident and its consequences is thus given:
“For weeks she had visited almost
daily a distant neighbor, far gone in consumption,
whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated
and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she
passed their house in returning home, too much overdone
to call, as she thought to do, and had gone a quarter
of a mile toward home, when it occurred to her, Mr.
W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as
she feared, found him dying. As she sat by his
bedside, holding his hand, a sensation never felt
before seized her so strongly that she at once attempted
to withdraw her hand, but saw that she could not without
disturbing the dying man’s last moments.
She sat thus, in exceeding discomfort, half an hour,
with that strange feeling creeping up her arm and
down her side.
“At last his grasp relaxed,
and she left, only able to totter, and upon getting
home, she hardly knew how, declined supper, and went
at once to bed, saying only, ‘Tired, tired.’
In the morning, when her husband rose, she said, ‘I’ve
something to tell you.’ Her tone alarmed
him. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ she
said. To his anxious question, ’Pray, what
is it?’ she said again, ’Now you mustn’t
be troubled, I’m not; it’s all for the
best. Something ails my right side, I can’t
move hand or foot. It must be paralysis.
Well, how thankful I should be that I have had the
perfect use of all my faculties, limbs, and senses
for sixty-eight years! And now, if they are to
be taken from me, I shall have it always to be grateful
for that I have had them so long. Why, I do think
I am grateful for this, too. Come, let
us be grateful together.’ Her half-palsied
husband could respond only in weakest words to the
appeal of his unpalsied wife. While exulting in
the sublime triumph of her spirit over the stroke
that felled her, well might he feel abashed, as he
did, to find that, in such a strait, he was so poor
a help to her who, in all his straits, had been such
a help to him. After a pause she added:
’Oh, possibly it is only the effect of my being
so tired out last night. Why, it seems to me I
was never half so tired. I wonder if a hard rubbing
of your strong hands mightn’t throw it off.’
Long and strongly he plied with friction the parts
affected, but no muscle responded. All seemed
dead to volition and motion. Though thus crippled
in a moment, she insisted upon rising, that she might
be ready for breakfast at the usual hour. As
the process of dressing went on, she playfully enlivened
it thus: ’Well, here I am a baby again;
have to be dressed and fed, perhaps lugged round in
arms or trundled in a wheel-chair, taught to walk on
one foot, and sew and darn stockings with my left hand.
Plenty of new lessons to learn that will keep me busy.
See what a chance I have to learn patience! The
dear Father knew just what I needed,’ etc.
“Soon after breakfast she gave
herself a lesson in writing with her left hand, stopping
often, as she slowly scrawled on, to laugh at her
‘quail tracks.’ After three months
of tireless persistence, she partially recovered the
use of her paralyzed muscles, so that she could write,
sew, knit, wipe dishes, and sweep, and do ’very
shabbily,’ as she insisted, almost everything
that she had done before.
“During the six years that remained
of her life here, she had what seemed to be two other
slight shocks of paralysis, one about three
years after the first, and the other only three weeks
before her death. This last was manifest in the
sudden sinking of her bodily powers, preeminently
those of speech. During all those years she looked
upon herself as ‘a soldier hourly awaiting orders,’
often saying with her good-night kiss, ’May
be this will be the last here,’ or, ‘Perhaps
I shall send back my next from the other shore;’
or, ‘The dear Father may call me from you before
morning;’ or, ’Perhaps when I wake, it
may be in a morning that has no night; then I can
help you more than I can now.’
“Many letters received asked
for her latest views and feelings about death and
the life beyond, as one expressed it, when
she was entering the dark valley.’ The
‘valley’ she saw, but no darkness, neither
night nor shadow; all was light and peace. On
the future life she had pondered much, but ever with
a trust absolute and an abounding cheer. Fear,
doubt, anxiety, suspense, she knew nothing of; none
of them had power to mar her peace or jostle her conviction.
While she could speak, she expressed the utmost gratitude
that the dear Father was loosening the cords of life
so gently that she had no pain.
“When her speech failed, after
a sinking in which she seemed dying, she strove to
let us know that she knew it by trying to speak
the word ‘death.’ Divining her thought,
I said, ‘Is it death?’ Then in a kind
of convulsive outburst came, ‘Death, death!’
Thinking that she was right, that it was indeed to
her death begun, of what could die,
thus dating her life immortal, I said, ’No,
oh no! not death, but life immortal.’ She
instantly caught my meaning, and cried out, ‘Life
eternal! E ter nal life.’
She soon sank into a gentle sleep for hours.
When she awoke, what seemed that fatal sinking had
passed.
“One night, while watching with
her, after she had been a long time quietly sleeping,
she seemed to be in pain, and began to toss excitedly.
It was soon plain that what seemed bodily pain was
mental anguish. She began to talk earnestly in
mingled tones of pathos and strong remonstrance.
She was back again among the scenes of childhood,
talking upon slavery. At first, only words could
be caught here and there, but enough to show that
she was living over again the old horrors, and remonstrating
with slave-holders upon the wrongs of slavery.
Then came passages of Scripture, their most telling
words given with strong emphasis, the others indistinctly;
some in tones of solemn rebuke, others in those of
heart-broken pathos, but most distinctly audible in
detached fragments. There was one exception, a
few words uttered brokenly, with a half-explosive force,
from James 5: 4: ’The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries are in the ears of the Lord.’...
“As we stood around her, straining
to catch again some fragmentary word, she would turn
her eyes upon our faces, one by one, as though lovingly
piercing our inmost; but though all speech failed,
the intense longing of that look outspoke all words....
“Then there was again a vain
struggle to speak, but no words came! Only abortive
sounds painfully shattered! How precious those
unborn words! Oh, that we knew them!”
Thus quietly, peacefully, almost joyfully,
the life forces of the worn and weary toiler weakened
day by day, until, on the 26th of October, 1879, the
great Husbandman called her from her labors at last.
She lived the life and died the death of a saint.
Who shall dare to say when and where
the echoes of her soul died away? Not in vain
such lives as hers and her beloved sister’s.
They take their place with those of the heroes of
the world, great among the greatest.
One last thing I must mention, as
strongly illustrative of Angelina’s modesty,
and that shrinking from any praise of man which was
such a marked trait in her character. She never
voluntarily alluded to any act of hers which would
be likely to draw upon her commendatory notice, even
from the members of her own family, and in her charities
she followed out as far as possible the Bible injunction:
“When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth.”
Her husband relates the following:
“In November, 1839, in making
provision for the then to her not improbable
contingency of sudden death, Angelina prepared a communication
to her husband, filled with details concerning themselves
alone. This was enclosed in a sealed envelope,
with directions that it should be opened only after
her death. When, a few days after her decease,
he broke the seal, he found, among many details, this
item: ’I also leave to thee the liability
of being called upon eventually to support in part
four emancipated slaves in Charleston, S.C., whose
freedom I have been instrumental in obtaining.’”
It is plain from the wording of the
letter that she had never stated the fact to him.
She lived forty years after writing it and putting
it under seal; and yet, during all those years, she
never gave him the least intimation of her having
freed those four slaves and contributed to their support,
as she had done. Even Sarah could not have known
anything of it. Her brother Henry, to whom the
bill of sale was made out, as they could not be legally
emancipated, was probably the only person who was
aware of her generous act. He became technically
their owner, responsible for them to the State, but
left them free to live and work for themselves as
they pleased.
Angelina’s funeral took place
on the 29th of October, and to it came many old friends
and veteran co-workers in the anti-slavery cause.
The services were in keeping with the record of the
life they commemorated. They were opened by that
beautiful chant, “Thy will be done,” followed
by a touching prayer from the Rev. Mr. Morrison, who
then briefly sketched the life of her who lay so still
and beautiful before them. He was followed by
Elizur Wright, who, overcome by the memories with which
she was identified, memories of struggles, trials,
perils, and triumphs, that he stood for a moment unable
to speak. Then, only partially conquering his
emotion, he told of what she did and what she was in
those times which tried the souls of the stoutest.
“There is,” said he, “the courage
of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. There
is the courage of the warrior who marches up to the
cannon’s mouth, coolly pressing forward amid
engines of destruction on every side. But hers
was a courage greater than theirs. She not only
faced death at the hands of stealthy assassins and
howling mobs, in her loyalty to truth, duty, and humanity,
but she encountered unflinchingly the awful frowns
of the mighty consecrated leaders of society, the scoffs
and sneers of the multitude, the outstretched finger
of scorn, and the whispered mockery of pity, standing
up for the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the
very bosom of slavery, by her own observation and thought,
of one thing she became certain, that it
was a false, cruel, accursed relation between human
beings. And to this conviction, from the very
budding of her womanhood, she was true; not the fear
of poverty, obloquy, or death could induce her to
smother it. Neither wealth, nor fame, nor tyrant
fashion, nor all that the high position of her birth
had to offer, could bribe her to abate one syllable
of her testimony against the seductive system....
Let us hope that South Carolina will yet count this
noble, brave, excellent woman above all her past heroes.
She it was, more than all the rest of us put together,
who called out what was good and humane in the Christian
church to take the part of the slave, and deliver
the proud State of her birth from the monster that
had preyed on its vitals for a century. I have
no fitting words for a life like hers. With a
mind high and deep and broad enough to grasp the relations
of justice and mercy, and a heart warm enough to sympathize
with and cherish all that live, what a home she made!
Words cannot paint it. I saw it in that old stone
house, surrounded with its beautiful garden, at Belleville,
on the banks of the Passaic. I saw it in that
busy, bright, and cheery palace of true education at
Eagleswood, New Jersey. I have seen it here, in
this Mecca of the wise. Well done! Oh, well
done!”
Mr. Wright was followed by Robert
F. Walcutt, Lucy Stone, and Wendell Phillips.
“The women of to-day,”
said Lucy Stone, “owe more than they will ever
know to the high courage, the rare insight, and fidelity
to principle of this woman, by whose suffering easy
paths have been made for them. Her example was
a bugle-call to all other women. Who can tell
how many have been quickened in a great life purpose
by the heroism and self-forgetting devotion of her
whose voice we shall never hear again, but who, ‘being
dead, yet speaketh.’”
The remarks of Wendell Phillips were
peculiarly affecting, and were spoken with a tenderness
which, for once at least, disproved the assertion
that his eloquence was wanting in pathos.
“Friends,” he said, “this
life carries us back to the first chapter of that
great movement with which her name is associated, to
1835, ’36, ’37, ’38, when our cities
roared with riot, when William Lloyd Garrison was
dragged through the streets, when Dresser was mobbed
in Nashville, and Macintosh burned in St. Louis.
At that time, the hatred toward abolitionists was
so bitter and merciless that the friends of Lovejoy
left his grave long time unmarked; and at last ventured
to put, with his name, on his tombstone, only this
piteous entreaty: Jam Parce Sepulto, ‘Spare
him now in his grave.’
“As Friend Wright has said,
we were but a handful, and our words beat against
the stony public as powerless as if against the north
wind. We got no sympathy from most northern men:
their consciences were seared as with a hot iron.
At this time a young woman came from the proudest
State in the slave-holding section. She came to
lay on the altar of this despised cause, this seemingly
hopeless crusade, both family and friends, the best
social position, a high place in the church, genius,
and many gifts. No man at this day can know the
gratitude we felt for this help from such an unexpected
source. After this came James G. Birney from
the South, and many able and influential men and women
joined us. At last John Brown laid his life, the
crowning sacrifice, on the altar of the cause.
But no man who remembers 1837 and its lowering clouds
will deny that there was hardly any contribution to
the anti-slavery movement greater or more impressive
than the crusade of these Grimke sisters through the
New England States.
“When I think of Angelina, there
comes to me the picture of the spotless dove in the
tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking for
some place to rest her foot. She reminds me of
innocence personified in Spenser’s poem.
In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she comforts the
slave in his quarters, mentally struggling with the
problems his position wakes her to. Alone, not
confused, but seeking something to lean on, she grasps
the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit
disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying
each by the infallible touchstone of that clear, child-like
conscience. The two old, lonely Quakers rest her
foot awhile. But the eager soul must work, not
rest in testimony. Coming North at last, she
makes her own religion one of sacrifice and toil.
Breaking away from, rising above, all forms, the dove
floats at last in the blue sky where no clouds reach....
This is no place for tears. Graciously, in loving
kindness and tenderly, God broke the shackles and freed
her soul. It was not the dust which surrounded
her that we loved. It was not the form which
encompassed her that we revere; but it was the soul.
We linger a very little while, her old comrades.
The hour comes, it is even now at the door, that God
will open our eyes to see her as she is: the
white-souled child of twelve years old ministering
to want and sorrow; the ripe life, full of great influences;
the serene old age, example and inspiration whose
light will not soon go out. Farewell for a very
little while. God keep us fit to join thee in
that broader service on which thou hast entered.”
At the close of Mr. Phillips’
remarks a hymn was read and sung, followed by a fervent
prayer from Mr. Morrison, when the services closed
with the reading and singing of “Nearer, my God
to Thee.” Then, after the last look had
been taken, the coffin-lid was softly closed over
the placidly sleeping presence beneath, and the precious
form was borne to Mount Hope, and tenderly lowered
to its final resting-place. There the sisters,
inseparable in life, lie side by side next the “Evergreen
Path,” in that “dreamless realm of silence.”
A friend, describing the funeral, says:
“The funeral services throughout
wore no air of gloom. That sombre crape shrouded
no one with its dismal tokens. The light of a
glorious autumn day streamed in through uncurtained
windows. It was not a house of mourning, no
sad word said, no look of sorrow worn. The tears
that freely fell were not of grief, but tears of yearning
love, of sympathy, of solemn joy and gratitude to
God for such a life in its rounded completeness, such
an example and testimony, such fidelity to conscience,
such recoil from all self-seeking, such unswerving
devotion to duty, come what might of peril or loss,
even unto death.”
Florence Nightingale, writing of a woman whose life, like the lives of Sarah
and Angelina Grimke, had been devoted to the service of the poor, the weak, the
oppressed, says at the close:
“This is not an in memoriam,
it is a war-cry such as she would have bid me write, a
cry for others to fill her place, to fill up the ranks,
and fight the good fight against sin and vice and misery
and wretchedness as she did, the call to
arms such as she was ever ready to obey.”