Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Part 43

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.]

In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from reading the "Life and Letters of John Quincy Adams," which are given as containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own life- experience.

"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power, and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day recorded. Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance even the United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored people were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John Q. Adams had means of _proving_ there were no negroes. When he found that these falsified figures had been used with the English emba.s.sador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old man called on Calhoun, and showed him the industriously collected _proofs_ of the falsity of this census. He says: 'He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake, but said the census was full of mistakes; but one part balanced another,--it was not worth while to correct them.'

His whole life was an incessant warfare with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was coiling like a serpent around everything.

"At a time when the Southerners were like so many excited tigers and rattlesnakes,--when they bullied, and scoffed, and sneered, and threatened, this old man rose every day in his place, and, knowing every parliamentary rule and tactic of debate, found means to make himself heard. Then he presented a pet.i.tion from _negroes_, which raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the right of pet.i.tion was the right of every human being. They moved to expel him. By the rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled, may have the floor to make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He held the floor for _fourteen days_, and used his wonderful powers of memory and arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history of the usurpations of slavery; he would have spoken fourteen days more, but his enemies, finding the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, and the right of pet.i.tion was gained.

"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute record of going to church every Sunday, and an a.n.a.lysis of the text and sermon. There is something about these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often differing from the speaker--but with gravity and humility--he seems always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of sinfulness and weakness, but such trust in G.o.d's fatherly mercy, as is most beautiful to see. Just the record of his Sunday sermons, and his remarks upon them, would be most instructive to a, preacher. He was a regular communicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and Easter,--I cannot but love the old man. He died without seeing even the dawn of liberty which G.o.d has brought; but oh! I am sure he sees it from above. He died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and the last words he said were, 'This is the last of earth; I am content.' And now, I trust, he is with G.o.d.

"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of pottage; all the _men_ that stood and bore infamy and scorn for the truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill-- whether they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense, our lives are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the fleeting instead of the eternal, G.o.d may forgive us; but there must be an eternal regret! This man lived for humanity when hardest bestead; for truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when Christ stood chained and scourged in the person of the slave."

In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher of Brooklyn, N. Y.:--

49 FOREST STREET, HARTFORD, CONN., _October_ 11, 1887.

Dear Brother,--I was delighted to receive your kind letter. _You_ were my earliest religious teacher; your letters to me while a school- girl in Hartford gave me a high Christian aim and standard which I hope I have never lost. Not only did they do me good, but also my intimate friends, Georgiana May and Catherine Cogswell, to whom I read them. The simplicity, warmth, and childlike earnestness of those school days I love to recall. I am the _only one living_ of that circle of early friends. _Not one_ of my early schoolmates is living,--and now Henry, younger by a year or two than I, has gone--my husband also. [Footnote: Professor Stowe died August, 1886.] I often think, _Why_ am I spared? Is there yet anything for me to do? I am thinking with my son Charles's help of writing a review of my life, under the t.i.tle, "Pebbles from the Sh.o.r.es of a Past Life."

Charlie told me that he has got all written up to my twelfth or thirteenth year, when I came to be under sister Catherine's care in Hartford. I am writing daily my remembrances from that time. You were then, I think, teacher of the Grammar School in Hartford... .

So, my dear brother, let us keep good heart; no evil can befall us.

Sin alone is evil, and from that Christ will keep us. Our journey is _so_ short!

I feel about all things now as I do about the things that happen in a hotel, after my trunk is packed to go home. I may be vexed and annoyed ... but what of it! I am going home soon.

Your affectionate sister,

Hattie.

To a friend she writes a little later:--

"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my leaving you all and going home. I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage that is within sight of the River of Death, and I feel that now I must have all in readiness day and night for the messenger of the King. I have sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to and with Christ, and mult.i.tudes of holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other joy,--it cannot be told in the language of the world. What I have then I _know_ with absolute certainty, yet it is so unlike and above anything we conceive of in this world that it is difficult to put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness of Christ! It seems that about Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is the calm habit of the soul, that without words, without the necessity of demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul answers soul, we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel his answer in us, and there is no need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and going on ministries of good, and pa.s.sing each gave a thrill of joy to each as Jesus, the directing soul, the centre of all, 'over all, in all, and through all," was working his beautiful and merciful will to redeem and save. I was saying as I awoke:--

""T is joy enough, my all in all, At thy dear feet to lie.

Thou wilt not let me lower fall, And none can higher fly.'

"This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange sweetness in my mind."