The Grimke Sisters Part 20

"I have been travelling all through our town and vicinity on foot, to get signers to a pet.i.tion to Congress for woman suffrage. It is not a pleasant work, often subjecting me to rudeness and coldness; but we are so frequently taunted with: 'Women don't want the ballot,' that we are trying to get one hundred thousand names of women who do want it, to reply to this taunt."

But the work which enlisted this indefatigable woman's warmest sympathies, and which was the last active charity in which she engaged, was that of begging cast-off clothing for the dest.i.tute freedmen of Charleston and Florida. Accounts reaching her of their wretched condition through successive failures of crops, she set to work with her old-time energy to do what she could for their relief.

She literally went from house to house, and from store to store, presenting her plea so touchingly that few could refuse her. Many barrels of clothing were in this way gathered, and she often returned home staggering beneath the weight of bundles she had carried perhaps for a mile. She also wrote to friends at a distance, on whose generosity she felt she could depend, and collected from them a considerable sum of money, which, went far to keep the suffering from starvation until new crops could be gathered. Writing to Sarah Dougla.s.s, she says:--

"I have been so happy this winter, going about to beg old clothing for the unfortunate freedmen in Florida. I have sent off several barrels of clothes already. Alas! there is no Christ to multiply the garments, and what are those I send among so many? I think of these dest.i.tute ones night and day, and feel so glad to help them even a little."

This happiness in helping others was the secret of Sarah Grimke's unvarying contentment, and there was always some one needing the help she was so ready to give, some one whose trials made her feel, she says, ashamed to think of her own. But the infirmities of old age were creeping upon her, and though her mental faculties remained as bright as ever, she began to complain of her eyes and her hearing. In August, 1872, she writes to a friend:--

"My strength is failing. I cannot do a t.i.the of the walking I used to do, and am really almost good for nothing. But I don't know but I may learn to enjoy doing nothing; and if it is needful, I shall be thankful, as that has always appeared to me a great trial."

Notwithstanding this representation, however, she was seldom idle a moment. She was an untiring knitter, and made quite a traffic of the tidies, cus.h.i.+on-covers, and other fancy articles she knitted and netted. These were purchased by her friends, and the proceeds given to the poor. Soon after she had penned the above quoted paragraph, too, she copied for the Rev. Henry Giles, the once successful Unitarian preacher, a lecture of sixty-five pages, from which he hoped to make some money. His eyesight had failed, and his means were too narrow to permit of his paying a copyist. She also managed to keep up more or less, as her strength permitted, her usual visits to the poor and afflicted; and during the hot summer of 1872 she and Angelina went daily to read to an old, bed-ridden lady, who was dying of cancer, and living almost alone. During the following winter Sarah's strength continued to fail, and she had several fainting spells, of which, however, she was kept in ignorance. But as life's pulse beat less vigorously, her heart seemed to grow warmer, and her interest in all that concerned her friends rather to increase than to lessen. She still wrote occasional short letters, and enjoyed nothing so much as those she received, especially from young correspondents. In January, 1873, she writes to an old friend:--

"Yes, dear.... I esteem it a very choice blessing that, as the outer man decays, the heart seems enlarged in charity, and more and more drawn towards those I love. Oh, this love! it is as subtle as the fragrance of the flower, an indefinable essence pervading the soul. My eyesight and my hearing are both in a weakly condition; but I trust, as the material senses fail, the interior perception of the divine may be opened to a clearer knowledge of G.o.d, and that I may read the glorious book of nature with a more heavenly light, and apprehend with clearer insight the majesty and divinity and capabilities of my own being."

A few months later, she writes: "My days of active usefulness are over; but there is a pa.s.sive work to be done, far harder than actual work,--namely, to exercise patience and study humble resignation to the will of G.o.d, whatever that may be. Thanks be to Him, I have not yet felt like complaining; nay, verily, the song of my heart is, Who so blest as I? In years gone by, I used to rejoice as every year sped its course and brought me nearer to the grave. But now, though the grave has no terrors for me, and death looks like a pleasant transition to another and a better condition, I am content to wait the Father's own time for my removal. I rejoice that my ideal is still in advance of my actual, though I can only look for realization in another life. I know of a truth that my immortal spirit must progress; not into a state of perfect happiness,--that would have no attractions for me; there must be deficiencies in my heaven, to leave room for progression. A realm of unqualified rest were a stagnant pool of being, and the circle of absolute perfection a waveless calm, the abstract cipher of indolence. But I believe I shall be gifted with higher faculties, greater powers, and therefore be capable of higher aspirations, better achievements, and a n.o.bler appreciation of G.o.d and His works."

The sweet tranquillity expressed in this letter, and which was the greatest blessing that could have been given to Sarah Grimke's last years, grew day by day, and shed its benign influence on all about her. She had long ceased to look back, and had long been satisfied that though she had had an ample share of sorrows and perplexities, her life had pa.s.sed, after all, with more of good than evil in it, more of enjoyment than sorrow. Her experience had been rich and varied; and, while she could see, in the past, sins committed, errors of judgment, idiosyncracies to which she had too readily yielded, she felt that all had been blest to her in enlarging her knowledge of herself, in widening her sphere of usefulness, and uniting her more closely to Him who had always been her guide, and whose promises sustained and blessed her, and crowned her latter days with joy supreme.

CHAPTER XVIII.

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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sistance. 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 Dougla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sive. 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d which pa.s.seth 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 n.o.bly self-sacrificing endeavors. She lived only to do good, neither seeking nor desiring to be known, ever unselfish, un.o.btrusive, compa.s.sionate, and loving, dwelling in G.o.d and G.o.d 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 fort.i.tude; and, as a friend observed, her expressions of grat.i.tude 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 Angelina's 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 Sarah's death, and was brought on in a singular manner. Mr. Weld's 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e;'

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 grat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed.

"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 pa.s.sages 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!"