3. Constitution of the Schwenkfelder Society, subscribed in 1782, etc. · Part 1

3. Constitution of the Schwenkfelder Society, subscribed in 1782, etc.

HISTORY.

In the year 1490, seven years after the birth of Luther, two years before the discovery of America by Columbus, and one hundred and thirty-four before the birth of George Fox, was born in Silesia,[126] in the German or Austrian empire, Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossing, of a very old and noble extraction. His brother-in-law is mentioned as Conrad Thumb von Neuburg, hereditary marshal of the principality of Würtemberg. Caspar Schwenkfeld was a person of very handsome mien, dignified behavior, remarkable modesty, courtesy, and gentleness, accompanied by godliness, and fervency in prayer, and was of a Christian, pure, and temperate life. It is added that thus much even his bitter enemies must acknowledge, “as the clergy know.”[127] In his youth he studied two years at Cologne, and lived several years at other universities. He at length became well read in the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers. He was also many years in the confidential service of his liege lord, the Prince of Liegnitz (the Duke of Liegnitz?). Afterwards “God touched his heart,” and he turned away from his life at court, and became a teacher at St. John’s Church, in Liegnitz. He diligently read the writings of Luther and of others who were leaving the papacy, and he afterwards remarked that he had been as good a Lutheran as any. With the fiery reformer he, however, differed greatly afterwards; the first cause of difference being, as it appears, Luther’s views upon the Supper. Schwenkfeld says that the Lord Jesus had shown to him that he was not a bodily bread, but a spiritual and heavenly one.

Schwenkfeld also wrote a little work upon the misuse of the sacraments, which, without his knowledge, was printed in Switzerland. Hereupon Dr. Faber, bishop at Vienna, represented to the emperor, Ferdinand, that Schwenkfeld held false doctrines concerning the sacrament of the Supper, etc.; and Ferdinand was himself angry because his enemies had published the book. The emperor (or, as he is called, the king) wrote to the duke at Liegnitz to punish Schwenkfeld, but as his innocence was known to the duke, this prince thought it well that Schwenkfeld should ride away for a while.[128]

He did ride away in 1529, but, although he lived for thirty-three years after, he never rode back again.

He travelled to many places in Germany, and was prized and heard at many noble courts. Many times he stopped in cities of the empire, and suffered much opposition from the preachers.

A letter of pardon was sent to him by the emperor, Ferdinand, saying that if he would recall his opinion, and act differently, he should receive his knightly possessions; but, as already stated, he never returned to Silesia.

During his life he published ninety-two treatises, and after his death many of his books were published by his fellow-believers. All his writings were forbidden to be printed by the Papists and Lutherans, and in different places his writings were burnt, “nevertheless God has given means for several of these books to be published four or five times.”[129]

Many years after the publication of his little work, before spoken of, upon the misuse of the sacraments, Schwenkfeld sent to Luther a number of his own works, and called Luther’s attention to one of his favorite doctrines, “the glory of the manhood of Jesus Christ.” To the noble messenger who bore the letter, etc., Luther returned an answer, speaking in severe and ignominious terms of the author, reproaching him with having kindled a fire in Silesia against the holy sacrament, and with his Eutychianism, as Luther calls Schwenkfeld’s doctrine that the manhood of Jesus Christ is no creature.[130]

It was not the desire of Schwenkfeld to build up a sect of his own, nor did he judge any congregation already collected, but he exhorted all to pray in spirit and in truth in all places. He is said to have directed men only to Christ and his power, and to have filled, until his death, the office of a true evangelical preacher.

Before he departed, we read that he heard a voice, “Up, up into heaven!” which voice he had heard also before he rode out of his fatherland, saying, “Up, up out of the fire!” (His hearing had failed nearly forty years before his death.)

Not long before dying he said, “Now home; home into the true fatherland.”

“He died in God, and went home to his rest,” in the city of Ulm, in 1562.[131]

He was buried in a cellar. (It may be remembered that Menno was buried in a garden.)

Nearly three hundred years after the birth of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossing, the first Schwenkfeld congregation was organized; he was born in 1490, it was formed in 1782. It was upon the new continent discovered by Columbus, in the English colony of Pennsylvania, that a little band of exiled Schwenkfelders formed this society after they had sojourned here nearly fifty years. How were they able to continue Schwenkfelders, during the period of more than two hundred years between the death of their founder and their organization here?[132]

In Silesia the ruling church was Roman Catholic, but the Lutherans were generally tolerated. The Lutheran preachers, coming into contact with the Schwenkfelders, were often hostile and unfriendly to them; but the final self-banishment of the Pennsylvania colony was owing to the rigorous measures taken by the Jesuits for their conversion.[133]

In one of the persecutions of earlier times, we read of a certain Anthony Oelssner, who was called to strengthen the scattered faithful, about the year 1580; in which call he showed great diligence in prayer and preaching, until he was seized and lay imprisoned a while at Liegnitz. Afterward he was imprisoned at Löwenberg, in the tower, where he suffered almost the same strong temptations of Satan as we read in the lives of the fathers that old Anthony did, from which he was happily set free, as he writes in a long letter. One of his letters is from the lowest dungeon at Vienna, where he lay among thieves and malefactors.

He was also dragged about in the trenches and galleys,[134] all which he bore without a murmur, and met his persecutors with cheerfulness, encouraging the faithful by letters when he did not lie in dungeons too dark, or when ink, paper, etc., were not denied him. Of these writings a great part is still extant.

Certain of the Schwenkfelder prisoners, it seems, were sent upon the galleys to the Turkish war. “In taking the castle Gran, in 1593, they were obliged to go before the soldiers, through a narrow street; but they never killed a Turk, nor stained their hands with the blood of men (as is proper for the soldiers of Christ).”[135]

Another sufferer, old Martin John, tells how, when he lived at Kaufig, he beheld the lives of the priests, how they loaded themselves with eating and drinking, avarice and gaming, dancing and debauchery, and produced uproar in the beer-houses, and made a nine-pin alley, and played together in the parsonage yard. “And I thought that I could not any longer approve their godlessness. I was thus induced to stay at home, and read to my wife and children, and call them to repentance. Then the priest ran to my landlord,[136] and complained of me, but he would not listen, and I was left in peace for a year. Then my old master died, and his son, to please the godless preacher, drove me from my paternal inheritance.” The priest was named George M., and this was in 1584.

Martin John also says that the priest made jest of the Holy Ghost, saying, “Thou wilt have to wait long before the Holy Ghost will come and teach thee.”

Martin tells further, that he found a property cheap at Armenruh; but there he saw the same manner of life. “I did not have to go far, but heard in my own yard how the priest fiddled, and the rest danced and cried out, and found it much worse than in my own (former) home. So I stayed at home, and read, prayed, and sang, and other people came to hear. Then the priests ran to our landlords, and we were put into prison, where I was kept over four years, and the others over a year, and to these nothing was given to eat nor to drink.”

These cases of persecution all took place within fifty years after the death of Schwenkfeld, and seem to have befallen those who lived around the Spitzberg, in Lower Silesia; but in Upper Silesia, and in the district of Glatz, there was repose; and toward the end of the sixteenth century persecution appears to have declined, for _we do not find that any one writes letters from prison_.

During the Thirty Years’ War the Schwenkfelders, like others who opposed the Romish Church, did not remain undisturbed. Once during this period complaint was made of them to the prince at Liegnitz, but they sent to him one of Caspar Schwenkfeld’s books, which he graciously received, and permitted them to hold meetings in their houses. Meetings in the open air were forbidden by the emperor.[137]

At the close of the war they were again persecuted, the preachers complaining of them to the nobility. But the prince at Liegnitz set them all free, and allowed them to worship again in their houses.

Simple religious services, formerly held among the Schwenkfelders, are thus described.[138]

If any one had books and read on Sunday, the others went and listened. But this was the order: in the morning, after each prayed when he rose, they came together. (Elsewhere it is stated that they were generally fasting.) They sang morning songs standing; afterward prayed out of a prayer-book; then all, standing, sang prayer-songs, especially to the Holy Spirit; they also sang sitting, and prayed, and then read several sermons; then prayed again and sang a couple of songs; then ate dinner. Afterward prayed again standing, and sang prayer-songs; afterward read till toward evening; then standing prayed and sang. That was the order on Sunday.

And if, in week-time, the people came together at a spinning (_beym spinnen_), then there was almost always singing, and when they would go home they knelt down together and prayed.

In coming down to the year 1730, we read that there being no longer any great persecution, the zeal of most began to be extinguished; the young people liked to go to church, especially at Harpersdorf, where there was beautiful music. Some dreaded contempt; some, it is said, found freedom to live in sin, for if they only went to the Supper they might live as they pleased, and receive a beautiful funeral sermon; many left on account of a marriage. Thus the Schwenkfelders greatly declined.[139]

It was somewhat before the date above given, or in the year 1719, that the celebrated Jesuit mission came among the Schwenkfelders; that is, by imperial decree, there arrived two missionary priests. In 1721, the Schwenkfelders sent delegates to the emperor, craving further indulgence.

While the missionaries were trying to make them Catholic, the Lutherans offered protection to those who should join them; but a few (“a little heap”) remained true, without falling off on either side. Of the delegates sent to the emperor, two remained in Vienna five years, and found him not ungracious. He ordered that time should be taken for further consideration.

During this time the mission was taking severe measures, with fine and imprisonment. No Schwenkfelder was to be buried in the churchyard, but upon the cattle-paths (highways?), and none should accompany them to burial (but this they could not prevent).[140] None should be married who did not promise their offspring to the Catholics, which none would do; therefore many marriages were postponed for long years. On the contrary, when the new Lutherans (converts) were buried there was a great parade and procession, and a great throng at weddings. At length, in 1725, a severe edict was issued to oblige old and young to attend the mission teachings, and the Schwenkfelders were threatened with being fastened to wheelbarrows (_Schübkarren_), and with having their children taken away.

Now when affairs had come to an extremity, they heard that they might flee for a while to an honorable senator in Gorlitz, and also to his excellency Louis, Count of Zinzendorf, and Lord of Berthelsdorf;[141] and in 1726, and afterward, several families broke off by night, and in great danger, leaving their estates and property behind. More followed, and as they could better earn a living in the villages,[142] the greater part went to Berthelsdorf, and enjoyed protection there for eight years. But while living here in all stillness, in 1733, Zinzendorf informed them unexpectedly that they were no longer to be tolerated in Saxony. In this matter they suspected the influence of the Jesuits with the elector. (Zinzendorf himself was banished from 1736 to 1747.[143])

One year was allowed them before removing, and, after looking elsewhere, they concluded to come to Pennsylvania. In 1733 a couple of Schwenkfelder families had come hither,—and, as they say, “Our faithful friends in Holland advised us strongly to go.” About forty families, therefore, began the journey in the latter part of April, 1734, and cast anchor at Philadelphia on the 22d of September. “There, by the praiseworthy constitution of the country, we were made citizens, and partakers of all civil and religious freedom.”

After this flight the missionaries continued their efforts in Silesia, and several more families fled and came to Pennsylvania. In 1740 an imperial command was issued, that the Schwenkfelder heresy must out. Now were they greatly urged to join the Lutherans for their protection; and now, in houses, two were against three, and three against two, and a man’s foes were those of his own household. At last, the greater part went over to the Lutheran Church. However, in the following autumn, the emperor died, and Silesia was soon after conquered for Prussia by Frederick the Great.

All the Roman Catholic offices were then vacated, and Pater Regent, one of the mission, “retreated after us into Saxony; and other instruments sought shelter out of the country. The books of which we were robbed by the doctors and their followers were, we heard, taken to Liegnitz; and as for the homes and goods we had left behind, they had helped themselves to them, which is all one to us. We hope their enjoyment of them will be as profitable to them as the abandoning of them has been to us.”

In 1742, or eight years after the principal migration to Pennsylvania, the King of Prussia published an edict in favor of freedom of conscience, inviting the exiled Schwenkfelders to return to his duchy of Lower Silesia, or to dwell in any other part of his possessions. No further persecution afflicted these people, but they have become extinct in Europe, the last having died in 1826.

THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA.

When these wandering people no longer found a place of refuge in Saxony, in April of 1734 about forty families began that journey to Pennsylvania already spoken of. This was completed in September, in a period of about five months. An account of this long voyage is given at the close of the book already often referred to, the _Erläuterung_, or Explanation.

In Altona (near Hamburg), during a stay of eleven days, they received great hospitalities from the Herren v. Smissen, father and son.

On arriving at Haarlem (from some of whose citizens they had received contributions while still in Saxony), they could not enough admire the common joy and proofs of love with which they were received. The brothers Abraham, Isaac, and Jann v. Byuschanse were especially kind, entertaining them with flesh, fish, all kinds of vegetables, beer, coffee, and tea, and besides the children were daily presented with all kinds of baked gingerbread and such things.[144]

As regarded the journey of the exiles to America, the Herren v. Byuschanse had made an agreement with the captain at their own expense.

Two days’ journey from Holland, Gregory Meschter was presented with a healthy little son. Fifteen days they lay at Haarlem, and at Rotterdam, on the 21st of June, they went on board the English ship “St. Andrew,” Captain Stedman commander. While they lay still one week on board this vessel, “God gave David Schubert a young son.”

On the 28th they left Rotterdam. On the 16th of July, six Palatinate women and two men fought each other, and she who began it received her deserts.[145]

At Plymouth, England, which they left on the 29th, a rich woman gave the whole ship’s company one hundred and twenty-five shillings, and when it was divided each person received four and a half stivers, English. (The stiver is a Dutch coin of the value of one English penny, or two cents in our money.)

On the 9th of August a Palatinate mother and daughter fought each other. On the 10th a great fish was seen, which spurted water on high powerfully, as if out of pipes. (Our inland Silesians were not familiar with whales.)

A number of children and several grown persons died upon the sea. On September 22d, “God be forever thanked,” the anchor was happily cast before Philadelphia, and guns were fired. On the 23d, all males over sixteen had to go to the court-house to take the oath of fidelity to the King of Great Britain. “We Silesians, as on account of conscience we could not swear, were readily excused, and were allowed to promise faith by giving the hand” (_mit einem Handschlage_).

THE ANNIVERSARY OR YEARLY MEETING.

I asked a Schwenkfelder, “What are the exercises of your commemorative festival?” He answered, “It is a day of thanksgiving to God, that we live under a free government, where we can serve him according to our conscience.”

An animated description of the day has been given by the Rev. C. Z. Weiser, in the _Mercersburg Review_. This article, although apparently not quite true to history, and though written in a peculiar style, has a sprightliness which interests the reader.[146]

Mr. Weiser tells us, that whoever is not providentially prevented is bound to attend their yearly reunion. Nor has it been found necessary thus far to enter an urging statute to secure the presence of the fraternity. The “seeding” is done, the corn stands in shocks, and the farm-work of September is timely put aside, in order that all may participate in the memorial ceremonies of the 24th with a light, gay, and thankful heart.[147] It is on the day and day before that you may feast your eyes on many a well-laden carriage, the horses all in good condition, moving on toward one of the Schwenkfelder meeting-houses, selected in rotation, and one whole year in advance. The aged and infirm of both sexes stay not behind. The young men and women are largely and promptly there. The fathers are similarly enough clad to be considered uniformed. So too are the mothers arrayed in a manner very like to one another, with snow-white caps and bonnets that never vary. The sons and daughters do indeed not love the habits of their elders any the less, yet only the wicked world’s a little more.[148]

The morning service opens at nine o’clock, and is filled out with singing, praying, and recitals of portions of their ancestral history. All is gone through with in the Pennsylvania German dialect, but withal reverentially, solemnly, and earnestly, just as though it were newly and for the first time done.[149]

At twelve o’clock, the noonday feast is set. This is the feature of the day. It consists of light and newly-baked rye bread, sweet and handsomely printed butter, and the choicest apple-butter.[150] Nothing beyond these is set, but these are of the first water. The bare benches, but lately occupied by devout worshippers, serve as tables, along which the guests are lined out. Not in silence, nor in sullenness, do they eat their simple meal, but spicing it with cheerful talk, they dine with hearts full of joy. Still, you need fear no profane utterance or silly jest. They are mindful of the spirit of the occasion, of the place in which they congregate, and of the feast itself, which the singing of some familiar hymn has consecrated. If any one thirst, let him drink cold water.

And now think not that they feign simply to eat and drink,—that the meal from first to last is but a poor pretence. A full and hearty dinner is “made out” there. It is a bona fide eating and drinking that is done in the meeting-house of the Schwenkfelders on their _Gedächtniss Tag_ (Remembrance Day). They are all hard-working men and women,—farmers and farmers’ wives and farmers’ children. They are sunburnt, healthy, and hungry besides. And why should they not relish the sweet bread, with their sweet butter and apple-butter, then? Even strangers who attend and are hospitably entertained by the society show that one can make a full hand, even at such a table.

At two o’clock the tables become pews again, and the afternoon exercises are conducted according to the programme of the morning. These concluded, a general invitation is again extended to partake of the baskets of fragments gathered up and stored away in the rear of the meeting-house. A fraternal hand-shaking closes the anniversary for the year. The reflection that many part now who may never meet again on earth causes tears to trickle down some furrowed cheek, which generally prove more or less contagious, as is always the case in a company of hearts, when those tears flow in sincere channels. Hence, though all were happy all day long, they now feel sad.

To appreciate the meaning and spirit of this apparently homely scene, it is necessary to know that it is a memorial service all through. It was on this very 24th of September, 1734, that some seventy [forty] families of Schwenkfelders, who had landed on the 22d, and declared their allegiance on the 23d, held their thanksgiving service, in gratitude to God for a safe deliverance to the colony of Pennsylvania. They had arrived in the ship “St. Andrew,” at Philadelphia, as fugitives from Silesia.

Poor, but feeling rich in view of their long-sought liberty, they blessed God in an open assembly. We may judge their store and fare to have been scant and lean indeed; and to perpetuate the original service of their forefathers from generation to generation, they statedly celebrate their _Gedächtniss Tag_.

The poor fare before them is finely designed to impress the sore fact of their ancestors’ poverty indelibly upon their minds, memories, and hearts. They eat and drink in remembrance of former days,—the days of small things. They join thereto at the same time a gladsome worship, in thankfulness for the asylum opened up for them from their former house of bondage, and which proved so fair a heritage to their people ever since.[151]

CUSTOMS.

A lawyer of Norristown tells me that he taught a subscription school among the Schwenkfelders, some thirty years ago, and a day or two before the school closed he sent out his bills by the scholars. Every cent of the money due was paid in on the next morning,—and as he was then poor this was a delightful and memorable circumstance.[152]

Further, I find it laid down as a rule of their community that members must see to it that their debts are paid without legal proceedings.

Another instance of exactness in money matters is given in their history, namely, that while they were sojourning with or near Zinzendorf, some of their well-wishers in Holland sent to them a considerable contribution in money, of which they knew nothing until the merchants of Gorlitz announced and paid it to them. By their diligence in labor, and their skilful use of this money, they were able to supply the pressing wants of their poor, and to pay the expenses of the same to Altona. On their arrival at Haarlem, a little that remained was laid at the feet of their noble benefactors.[153]

I met with a young Dunker woman, in the neighborhood of the Schwenkfelder community, who said, “The poor always find their way to the Schwenkfelders;” and on my mentioning this subject at one of the houses which I visited, my host told me of persons having come to his house asking “how far they had to the Schwenkfelder _Thal_” (or valley).

The language spoken at two of the houses which I visited was almost entirely the Pennsylvania German; but my ignorance of the dialect forbids my knowing whether these Silesian emigrants speak it differently from the South German Palatines.

My power of talking German was perhaps never more exercised in the same length of time than during my visit here; the women and children in the houses alluded to speaking no English. In the second, the mother, who was in delicate health, had been reading German books, but was unable to read English. A like circumstance is certainly very uncommon, if not unknown, among the “Dutch” of my own county.

Neither does there appear to be the same objection to education there that exists among some of our people here. One of the Schwenkfelders said to me that he told his boys to learn as much as they can; “I’d not seen a man yet that had been too wise; and the girls may do the same.” He also told me that they do not neglect to teach the children in their family to read and write German, a custom which tends to preserve the purity of the language. But the Schwenkfelders find it difficult to preserve a knowledge of German, since the language is no longer taught in the public schools in their neighborhoods.

Like Quakers, Dunkers, etc., the Schwenkfelders have an unpaid ministry. One whom I met, who had been a preacher, cultivated fourteen acres of ground, and joined to this labor the mechanical occupations of making brooms and cigar boxes. I said to one of the society, “You do not pay your ministers?”

“No,” he answered, “but they are excused from all church expenses, such as the treasury for the poor, and building and keeping in repair our meeting-houses. Then, as one minister will be a farmer and another a mechanic, and one is called upon to leave his shop and the other his farm to attend funerals, we generally make such a one a present.

“It has been at times the case that presents have been offered to men in good circumstances, who would answer, thanking the giver, but they had no need of the gift; if at any other time it should be necessary they would accept it.”

Candidates for the ministry are elected by ballot; the votes being collected in a hat. Women do not vote, and of course they do not preach. If the candidates when elected prove to be “men of able tongues,” they are confirmed. Formerly the Schwenkfelders did not vote for preachers, but it seemed to them that the right kind did not come forward, and those who did come forward were not always desirable persons.

The sacraments of baptism and the supper have never been held among them.[154] A modern custom, originating in this country, and established in 1823, has thus been described: After the birth of a child, it is brought by the parents into church, and a preacher prays for the happiness and prosperity of the child, and admonishes the parents to bring it up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the will of God. Then there is prayer, and the singing of some appropriate verses. If the child or mother is delicate, this service is sometimes performed at their house.[155]

Not only are the Schwenkfelders forbidden to become soldiers, but also to train in military exercises. Upon this point, however, the late rebellion seems to have tried some of their members, as it did some Quakers.

“Do you bring lawsuits?” said I to a member.

“Not if we can help it. I never brought a lawsuit, nor had one brought against me, and hope I never shall.”

DOCTRINES.

In plainness of speech, behavior, and apparel, in opposition to war, to oaths, and to a paid ministry, in a belief in the teachings of the Divine Spirit and in the inferiority of the written word to the indwelling Spirit, in discarding religious forms, in opposition to priest-craft or a hierarchy, and, although not practising silent worship, yet in their desire to live “in the stillness,” the Schwenkfelders resemble Quakers. We might almost say that they are Quakers of an older type (Quakers it may be of whom George Fox had never heard). They differ from Quakers in employing stated prayers, in electing preachers, in not acknowledging the spiritual equality of women, and in their peculiar doctrine of the “glory of the manhood of Jesus Christ,—how it is no creature.”[156]

We give from the _Erläuterung_, or Explanation, some striking extracts upon some of these points. Upon the word of God, Schwenkfeld and Illyricus had a violent contest. Schwenkfeld holds that the tables upon which God writes, and the book or paper upon which man writes, are entirely two kinds of thing: between all printed and written books in the world and the true word of God a fundamental difference is to be maintained. The word is a living, internal, spiritual word, and can only be contained in the book of the believing heart.[157] Faith existed many hundred years before the Scripture. It proceeded from the eternal Word or Son of God, Jesus Christ, and from God, the All-powerful.[158]

Against what are called “the means of grace” Schwenkfeld preached. (Spiritual things, it is said, come not through canals.) Schwenkfeld maintained that Christ is only to be sought above with the Father, and thence we must all draw that which will make us upright and blessed. This was also recognized by the leaders who came out from the papacy; but there came a time when they taught that Christ and salvation were to be found below in external works and worship. But Schwenkfeld neither could nor would admit that Christ and the Holy Spirit were in outward works of preaching and hearing and in elements of this earthly existence, in water, bread, and wine.[159]

On baptism we find the following: The first and most eminent work of the sacrament of baptism is, the internal grace of inworking faith in the love of God, which moves, glows, and lives through the outpouring of the heavenly waters which flow from the Word of God, which is Christ. The other point is the external word and water which is outwardly poured upon and washes the body outwardly as the internal does the soul.

John the Baptist says, “I baptize with water to repentance, but he who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Here he distinguishes the work of the minister from the office of the Lord, and the visible water from the Holy Spirit.

Ambrose says, “Peter has not purified, nor Ambrose, nor Gregory, for ours is the ministry, but thine, Lord, are the sacraments. It is not the work of man to give divine things, thine is it, Lord, and the Father’s, who says through the prophets [prophet,] I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

That the subject of the Holy Supper is especially weighty may be judged by the agitations on account of it, and by the fact that on this account many thousands in many lands have been killed and burnt. And this was the article upon which the Reformers, with their gloriously begun work, fell to pieces. Upon this article Luther renounced his friendship to Schwenkfeld, and they publicly differed.[160]

Schwenkfeld thought that when they came out from the papacy they should preach the gospel in its purity, instruct old and young in the catechism, and earnestly pray until they could come to the right use of the sacrament.... Whereby whole parishes, towns, and countries should not at once be taken up, as if fit for the table of the Lord. But it should be held with those who received the word, and in whom there were tokens of amendment, whether these were only Caleb and Joshua. Schwenkfeld declared that he had no command to establish the sacraments, but his command had been to spread the gospel and point every man to Jesus Christ. “But we are comforted that we are instructed by God and from the Holy Scripture that our soul’s salvation is necessarily placed on no outward thing, but that one thing is needful.” (Luke x.) “But we pray the Lord Jesus Christ that he will reveal a right use of the sacraments, and himself establish them. We strive, moreover, to hold his supper daily with the Lord Christ, in the spirit of faith.” (Rev. iii.[161]) But though Schwenkfeld did not feel called upon to establish the sacraments, there is nothing in the catechism of the society opposed to the external rites.

The twelfth chapter of the Explanation, containing nearly eighty pages, is devoted to Schwenkfeld’s peculiar doctrine, of which I shall content myself with the heading of the chapter, as follows: “Of the divine Sonship and glory of the Manhood of Jesus Christ, that the same is no creature, but extinguished in the Transfiguration, and changed into the Godhead.”

To one passage in the Catechism I would like to call attention:

_Question._—How did God reveal himself in an external manner?

_Answer._—First, when God, by his almighty word, framed the universe, by which he has shown how great, almighty, wise, and good he is.[162]

And now may we not also rest our souls upon these expressions from the constitution of the Schwenkfelder society, translated almost literally?

In the nature of God, we first perceive love as that noble and outflowing power which binds God and men together.... If the society build upon this fundamental part of the divine nature, namely, love, then their only immovable aim will be, first, the glory of God, and second, the promotion of the common weal of every member.

* * * * *

The preceding article is published nearly as it appeared in the second edition of this work, which was issued late in 1873, with the date 1874. Almost as soon as the edition appeared, I learned that baptism had been introduced among the Schwenkfelders at a meeting held a few months before; and that perhaps in two cases it had also been administered at the approach of death.

In the spring of the present year, 1882, I visited a Schwenkfelder settlement in the upper part of Montgomery County, and was hospitably entertained at the house of one of their preachers. German or the Pennsylvania dialect was the language of the family. On Sunday I attended church, where, as before in another locality, the services were in German, as were nearly all the proceedings in the Sunday-school. Here I learned that the rite of the Supper has also been introduced among the Schwenkfelders, though not without opposition. I inquired on what grounds the opposition was brought, but received no satisfactory reply.

* * * * *

At the house of my entertainer I was shown a volume, published in 1879, containing a genealogical record of the descendants of the Schwenkfelders in this country, to which is prefixed a historical sketch by C. Heydrick, a lawyer of Franklin, Pennsylvania.

Herein it is stated that Schwenkfeld differed with Luther on several points; chiefly on the eucharist, the efficacy of the divine word, the human nature of Christ, and baptism.

Schwenkfeld held, says the writer, that the penitent believer partakes of the bread and the body of the Lord, not only at the sacramental altar, but elsewhere.

On the second point Schwenkfeld denied that the external word in the Scriptures has the power of healing and renewing the mind, but ascribed this power to the internal word, Christ himself. He regretted that Luther, who at first agreed with him, saw fit afterward to ascribe to the written or preached word the efficacy which is only in Christ, the eternal word.

Further, Schwenkfeld rejected infant baptism, and held that baptism and the Supper were not intended as means by which the unregenerate partaker can obtain salvation.

* * * * *

Two other volumes on these subjects have very lately come within my notice. One in German, by a pastor named Kadelbach, published about 1860, at Lauban, which is within forty miles of the city of Liegnitz, where Schwenkfeld was canon in a church. As early as 1846, in composing a history of the village of Probsthayn (where some of the Schwenkfelders formerly lived), he added to it some material concerning these people.

As this subject attracted attention, he endeavored to obtain material for a history of them, in which matter he met with much difficulty. It came to pass, however, that the Schwenkfelders in America sent an inquiry to the burgomaster of Probsthayn, asking whether there were still Schwenkfelder communities (_Gemeinden_) there. This inquiry came, in 1855, into the hands of Kadelbach, who was very glad to communicate with the Schwenkfelders in America, as he had never before been able to do. His volume is called “Complete History of Kaspar von Schwenkfeld and of the Schwenkfelders in Silesia, Upper Lusatia, and America.”[163] A copy has been placed in the archives of the German Society’s library in Philadelphia.

We may inter that the attention of the author was attracted to his subject by certain local objects or remains. He tells us that the Catholic chapel at Harpersdorf, and the graves on the cow-path (_viehweg_), are the last memorials that testify of the existence there, and of the persecution of the Schwenkfelders. The Catholic chapel was built for one of the missionaries who was striving to convert them. As to the graves on the cow-paths, the statement has before been quoted (in a note on page 222), that three hundred persons lay upon the cow-paths at Harpersdorf and Langenneudorff (or Langendorff).

The other volume in which the Schwenkfelders are especially noticed is Barclay’s Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. London, 1876. Barclay finds that on several points the teaching of Schwenkfeld was identical with that of George Fox, the first Quaker. Barclay gives a passage from Schwenkfeld, in which he says that the true knowledge of Christ, that which is according to the Holy Ghost must be expected, not alone out of the Scriptures, but much more from the gifts of grace revealed by the Father, yet so that this revelation should always be in unison with the witness of the Scriptures.[164]

Struck with the similarity between the Schwenkfelders and Quakers, Barclay appears to have written to the former, and to have received an answer, from which the following passages are taken:

To Robert Barclay, England:

... “Judging from the brief notices of the teachings of George Fox in our possession, we have reason to believe that they did not differ materially from those of Schwenkfeld, and among the followers of both, here in America, there is a striking similarity in the almost total absence of formalities and ceremonies in their religious practices. Both are discarding judicial oaths, carnal weapons, and are unostentatious in dress.

“Notwithstanding the fact that the Friends are of English descent, having their books, worship, and conversation in the English language, and the followers of Schwenkfeld here all of it in German, yet there always existed a lively sympathy, love, and esteem between the parties.... It is, however, proper to mention the fact that neither in Europe nor here have the followers of Schwenkfeld at any time administered baptism and the Lord’s Supper.[165]

“Owing to the persecutions which prevailed from 1630 to 1640, the religious practices of our ancestors in Germany about that period were chiefly confined to meeting in private houses for prayer and admonition, and in endeavors in the daily work of life to imitate as much as possible the example of the heavenly Master.

“In the love of Christ, sincerely your friends,

“GEORGE MESCHTER. “WILLIAM SCHULTZ. “JACOB MESCHTER. “Per DAN. S. SHULTZ.

“December 17th, 1875. COLEBROOKDALE, PENNA.”

A FRIEND.

About twenty miles from the line that divides Maryland and Pennsylvania, there stands, in the latter State, a retired farm-house, which was erected more than fifty years ago by Samuel Wilson, a Quaker of Quakers.

His was a character so rare in its quaintness and its nobility, that it might serve as a theme for a pen more practised and more skilful than the one that now essays to portray it.

Samuel Wilson was by nature romantic. When comparatively young, he made a pedestrian tour to the Falls of Niagara, stopping upon his return journey, and hiring with a farmer to recruit his exhausted funds; and when he had passed his grand climacteric, the enthusiasm of his friendship for the young, fair, and virtuous, still showed the poetic side of his character.

Veneration induced him to cherish the relics of his ancestry,—not only the genealogical tree, which traced the Wilsons back to the time of William Penn, and the marriage certificates of his father and grandfather, according to the regular order of the Society of Friends; but such more humble and familiar heirlooms as the tall eight-day clock, and the high bookcase upon a desk and chest of drawers, that had been his father’s, as well as the strong kitchen-chairs and extremely heavy fire-irons of his grandfather.

To this day there stands beside the Wilson farm-house a stone taken from one of the buildings erected by Samuel’s father, and preserved as an heirloom. Upon it the great-grandchildren read nearly the following inscription:

“James Wilson, ejus manus scripsit. [His hand wrote.] Deborah Wilson, 5 mo. 23d, 1757.”

Samuel Wilson, having been trained from his earliest years to that plainness of speech in which the Discipline requires that Friends bring up those under their care, not only discarded in speaking the simple titles in use in common conversation, but did not himself desire to be addressed as Mr. Wilson.

A colored woman, the wife of one of his tenants, said that he refused to answer her when she thus spoke to him.

A pleasant euphemism was generally employed by these people in addressing him. He and his wife were “Uncle Samuel” and “Aunt Anna” to their numerous dependents.

The apparel of Samuel and Anna was of the strict pattern of their own religious sect. To employ a figure of speech, it was the “wedding-garment,” without which, at that time and place, they would not have become elders in their society, and thus been entitled to sit with ministers, etc., upon the rising seats that faced the rest of the meeting.

But the plainness of Uncle Samuel was not limited to the fashion of his own garments. When Aunt Anna had made for her son a suit of domestic cloth, dyed brown with the hulls of the black walnut, and had arrayed him in his new clothes, of which the trousers were made roomy behind,—or, as the humorist says, “baggy in the reverse,”—she looked upon him with maternal pride and fondness, and exclaimed, “There’s my son!”

For this ejaculation she was not only reproved at the time by her husband, but in after-years, whenever he heard her, as he thought, thus fostering in the mind of their dear and only child pride in external appearance, he repeated the expression, “There’s my son!” which saying conveyed a volume of reproof.

From this and other circumstances of the kind, it may be supposed that Friend Wilson was a cold or bitter ascetic. But he possessed a vein of humor, and could be gently and pleasantly rallied when he seemed to run into extremes. But, though his intellect was good, the moral sentiments predominated in his character. His head was lofty and arched. His wants were very few; he possessed an ample competence, and he had no ambition to enter upon the fatiguing chase after riches. He disliked acquisitive men as much as the latter despised him. “I want so little for myself,” he said, “I think that I might be allowed to give something away.”

Sometimes—but rarely—a little abruptness was seen in his behavior. He had the manners of a gentleman by birth,—tender and true, open to melting charity, thinking humbly of himself, and respecting others.

The vein of humor to which I have alluded prompted the reply which he made on a certain occasion to a mechanic or laboring man employed in his own family. In this section of Lancaster County the farming population is composed principally of a laborious and in some respects a humble-minded people, who sit at table and eat with their hired people of both sexes.

The same custom was pursued by Samuel and Anna; but, as their hired people were mostly colored, they sometimes offended the prejudices or tastes of many who were not accustomed to this equality of treatment, which was maintained by several families of Friends. The white hired man to whom I have alluded, when he perceived who were seated at the table, hesitated or refused to sit down among them. As soon as Samuel was conscious of the difficulty, for which indeed his mind was not unprepared, he thus spoke aloud to his wife: “Anna, will thee set a plate at that other table for this stranger? He does not want to sit down with us.” And his request was quietly obeyed. The man who was thus set apart probably became tired of this peculiar seclusion, for he did not stay long at the Quaker homestead.

I think that Samuel was also in a humorous mood when he called that unpretending instrument, the accordion,—from which his daughter-in-law was striving one evening to draw forth musical sounds,—“Mary’s fiddle.” But, indeed, he left the house and went to call upon a neighbor, so greatly did he partake of that prejudice which was felt by most Friends against music.

The Discipline asks whether Friends are punctual to their promises; and (to quote a very different work) Fielding tells us that Squire Allworthy was not only careful to keep his greater engagements, but remembered also his promises to visit his friends.

Anna Wilson on one occasion having thoughtlessly made such a promise,—as, indeed, those in society frequently do when their friends say, “Come and see us,”—was often reminded of it in after-years by her husband. When he heard her lightly accepting such invitations, he would reprove her by saying in private, “When is thee going to see Benjamin Smith?”—the neighbor to whom the ancient promise was still unfulfilled.

The hospitality which the Scriptures enjoin was practised to a remarkable degree by Samuel and Anna. It has always been customary in their religious society to entertain Friends who come from a distance to attend meetings, and those travelling as preachers, etc. But the Wilson homestead was a place of rest and entertainment for many more than these. It stood not far from the great highway laid out by William Penn from Philadelphia westward, and here called the “Old Road.” Friends travelling westward in their own conveyance would stop and refresh themselves and their horses at the hospitable mansion, and would further say to their own friends, “Thee’d better stop at Samuel Wilson’s. Tell him I told thee to stop.” A further and greater extent of hospitality I shall mention hereafter.

The Discipline asks whether Friends are careful to keep those under their charge from pernicious books and from the corrupt conversation of the world; and I have heard that Samuel Wilson was grieved when his son began to go to the post-office and take out newspapers. Hitherto the principal periodical that came to the house was _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_, a little paper issued by that pioneer, Benjamin Lundy, who was born and reared in the Society of Friends. It does not appear, however, that the class of publications brought from the little village post-office to the retired farm-house were of the class usually called pernicious. They were _The Liberator_, _The Emancipator_, and others of the same order.

Samuel himself became interested in them, but never to the exclusion of the “Friends’ Miscellany,” a little set of volumes containing religious anecdotes of Friends. These volumes were by him highly prized and frequently read.

It has been said that he was a humorist; and perhaps he was partly jesting when he suggested that his infant granddaughter should be named Tabitha. The mother of the little one, on her part, suggested Helen.

“He-len!” the grandfather broke out in reply; “does thee know who _she_ was?” thus expressing his antipathy to the character of the notorious beauty of Greece. He did not insist, however, on endowing the precious newly-born infant with that peculiar name which is by interpretation Dorcas, the name of her who, in apostolic times, was full of good works and alms-deeds.

Friend Wilson shared the Quaker disregard for the great holidays of the church. To the colored people around him, who had been brought up at the South, where Christmas is so great a festival,—where it was so great a holiday for them especially,—it must have been a sombre change to live in a family where the day passed nearly like other working-days. One of the colored men, however, who had started at the time of the great festival to _take Christmas_, was seen, before long, coming back; “for,” said he, “Massa Wilson don’t ’prove on’t nohow.”

Among the lesser peculiarities of Samuel Wilson was his objection to having his picture taken,—an objection, however, which is felt to this day by some strict people belonging to other religious societies, but probably on somewhat different grounds.

One who warmly loved and greatly respected Friend Wilson took him once to the rooms of an eminent daguerreotypist, hoping that while he engaged the venerable man in looking at the objects around the room, the artist might be able to catch a likeness. But Samuel suspected some artifice, and no picture was taken. Some time after, however, the perseverance of his friend was rewarded by obtaining an excellent oil-painting of the aged man, from whom a reluctant consent to sit for his likeness had at length been obtained. It was remarked, however, that the expression of the face in the painting was sorrowful, as if the honorable man was grieved at complying with a custom which he had long stigmatized as idolatrous,—as idolatry of the perishing body.

Although at the time of the great division in the Society of Friends Samuel Wilson had decidedly taken the part of Elias Hicks, yet was he seldom or never heard to discuss those questions of dogmatic theology which some have thought were involved in that contest.

Samuel probably held, with many others of his Society, that the highest and surest guide which man possesses here is that Light which has been said to illumine every man that comes into the world; that next in importance is a rightly inspired gospel ministry, and afterward the Scriptures of truth. One evening, when certain mechanics in his employ were resting from their labors in the old-fashioned kitchen, he fell into conversation with them on matters of religion, and shocked one of his family, as he entered the sitting-room, by a sudden declaration of opinion. It was probably the uncommon warmth of his manner which produced this effect, quite as much as or more than the words that he spoke, which were nearly as follows: “There’s no use talking about it; the only religion in the world that’s worth anything is what makes men do what is right and leave off doing what is wrong.”

As far as was possible for one with so much fearless independence of thought and action, Samuel Wilson maintained the testimony of Friends against war. Not only did he suffer his corn to be seized in the field rather than voluntarily to pay the military taxes of the last war with Great Britain, but he went to what may appear to some a laughable extreme, in forbidding his young son’s going to the turnpike to see the grand procession which was passing near their house, escorting General Lafayette on his last visit to this country. He was not, however, alone in this. I have heard of other decided Friends who declined to swell the ovation to a man who was especially distinguished as a military hero. But we shall see hereafter that Friend Wilson met with circumstances which tried his non-resistant opinions further than they would bear.

The distinctive trait of his character, however,—that trait which made him exceptional,—was his attachment to the people of color. It was in entertaining fugitives from slavery that he showed the wide hospitality already referred to; and in this active benevolence he was excelled by few in our country. He inherited from his father this love of man; but I have imagined that the hostility to slavery was made broad and deep in his soul by removing, with the rest of his family, in his youth, from Pennsylvania into Delaware, and seeing the bondage which was suffered by colored people in the latter State contrasted with what he had seen in the former. Be that as it may, no sooner was he a householder than his door was ever open to those who were escaping from the South, coming by stealth and in darkness, having travelled in the slave States from the house of one free negro to another, and in Pennsylvania from Quaker to Quaker, until in later times the hostility to slavery increased in our community so far that others became agents of this underground railroad, and other routes were opened.

When the Wilson family came down in the morning, they saw around them these strange sable or yellow travellers (“strangers,” they were called in the family), who, having arrived during the night, had been received by some wakeful member of the household.

What feelings filled the hearts of the exiles! Alone, at times, having left all that they had ever loved of persons or of places, fearful, tired, foot-sore, throwing themselves upon the charity and the honor of a man unknown to them save by name and the direction which they had received to him, as one trustworthy.

Sometimes they came clothed in the undyed woollen cloth that showed so plainly to one experienced in the matter, the region of its manufacture; the heavy, strong cloth which had delighted the wearer’s heart when he received the annual Christmas suit with which his master furnished him, but which was now too peculiar and striking for him safely to wear. Women and children came too, and sometimes in considerable numbers.

When they had eaten and partaken of the necessary repose, they would communicate to Friend Wilson, in a secure situation, some particulars of their former history, especially the names and residences of the masters from whom they had escaped.

Some years after he had begun to entertain these strangers, Friend Wilson commenced a written record of those who came to him, and whence and from whom they had escaped. This list is estimated to have finally contained between five and six hundred names.

The next care was to bestow new titles upon the fugitives, that they might never be known by their former names to the pursuer and the betrayer.

From what has been already said, it may be supposed that these names were not always selected for their euphony or æsthetic associations. One tall, finely-built yellow man, who trembled when he was questioned in the sitting-room, lest his conversation about his old home and the free wife whom he longed to have brought to him should be overheard in the kitchen, expressed to me his dissatisfaction with his new name—Simon. “I never knowed anybody named that,” he said. His beautiful bright wife—bright in the _colored_ sense,—that is, bright-colored, or nearly white,—was secretly and safely brought to him, and nursed him through that fatal disease which made him of no value in the man-market,—the market which had been the great horror of his life. The particulars Friend Wilson collected concerning his humble charge the venerable man entered in his day-book, in a place especially assigned to them. If this record were still existing, I should, perhaps, be able to tell what name the fortunate and unfortunate Simon had been obliged to renounce. This record, however, is lost, as I shall mention hereafter. If the services of any of these fugitives were needed, within-doors or without, and the master’s pursuit was not supposed to be imminent, they were detained for a while, or perhaps became permanent residents in the neighborhood; otherwise, they were forwarded at night to Friends living nearer Philadelphia. Of these, two other families willing to receive the poor exiles lived about twelve miles farther on.

The house and farm were generally pretty well stocked with colored people, who were a wonder to the neighbors of the Wilson family; for these were in a great measure “Pennsylvania Dutch,”—a people anxious to do as much work with their own hands and by the hands of their own family as possible, in order to avoid expense. It is a remarkable circumstance that, although Samuel Wilson during thirty years or more entertained the humble strangers, and although he received so large a number, only one of them was seized upon his “plantation” and taken back to slavery. This was owing partly to the secluded situation of his house, and partly to the prudence and discretion that he exercised. “He was crafty,” it has been said.

Neither did he suffer any legal expenses, such as lawsuits, from the slaveholders who came in pursuit of their fleeing bondmen. Two friends who lived not far from him, and who prosecuted kidnappers, had their barns burned, and others, of whom he had knowledge, suffered great pecuniary loss in consequence of their assisting runaway slaves. He, however, limited his care to receiving, entertaining, and forwarding those who came to him in person, and never undertook any measures of offence,—any border raids, so to speak,—such as sending secretly into Maryland and Virginia for the relatives and friends of fugitives who were still living in those States as slaves. The one person of whom I have spoken, who was recaptured from the Wilson farm, was a young girl of fifteen or sixteen. Samuel and Anna were absent from home at the time, gone on a little journey, such as they frequently took, to attend their own monthly and quarterly meetings; assisting to preserve the discipline and order of the Society of Friends. The men who came in pursuit of the young girl told her that her friends, who had run away too, had concluded to go back South again; and the poor child, under these circumstances, could hardly do anything but go with the beguilers; not, however, to find the friends whom she expected.

There was also a man who was very near being taken,—a man who had “come away,” to use the brief euphemism sometimes employed in the Wilson family in speaking of fugitives from slavery. He escaped by having gone down the creek or adjacent mill-stream to set his muskrat-traps. This creek where it ran by the house was well wooded; therefore the colored man, looking up to the house, could see the white strangers without being seen himself. With what trembling did he see that they were persons whom he “knowed in Murrland,” as he expressed it! However, the friendly woods sheltered him, while Samuel at the house was talking with the slaveholder or his agents,—kidnappers, as the Wilsons called them.

The men told Samuel that they had come after a runaway nigger,—black, five feet ten inches high, lost one of his front teeth, etc. To this description Friend Wilson listened in silence. I do not know what he would have done had he been directly questioned by them, for the different items suited him of the muskrats,—the man who had gone to the woods. But during Samuel’s continued silence they went on to say, “He’s a very ornary nigger; no dependence to be placed on him nohow.” “There is no man here,” rejoined Samuel, greatly relieved, “that answers the description.” “We’ve very good reason to think he came here,” said one; “we got word very direct; reckon he’s lyin’ around here. Hain’t there been no strange nigger here?”

“There was a colored man here, but he has gone away; I don’t know as he will ever come back again.” For, from the man’s protracted absence, he doubtless had some idea of his having seen his pursuers, and having sought shelter.

“Tell him that his master says that if he will only come back again, down to Baltimore County, he sha’n’t be whipped, nor sold, nor nuthin’, but everything shall be looked over.”

“I’ll tell him what you say,” said Samuel, “if ever I see him again; but,” he added, regaining his accustomed independence, “I’ll tell him, too, that if I was in his place I’d never go back to you again.”

The men left, and under cover of the friendly night the fugitive sought a more secure hiding place.

There was one heroic black man in whom Samuel Wilson felt an abiding interest. When Jimmy Franklin told the tale of his perilous escapes and recaptures in the States of Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,—when he showed the shot still remaining in his legs—shot that had been fired at him as he ran, and, working through to the front, were perceived through the skin, like warts upon his legs,—the lads of the family looking and listening had their sympathies enkindled in such a manner as could never entirely die out. One of them, in after-years, was asked:

“How does thee account for that man’s persistent love of freedom? What traits of character did he possess that would account for his doing so much more than others to escape from the far South?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply, in the freedom of familiar conversation. “What was the reason that Fulton invented his steamboat? or that Bacon wrote his System? or that Napier invented logarithms?

“This man was a genius,—a greater man in his way than those I spoke of. If he had had education, and had been placed in circumstances to draw him out, he would have been the leader in some great movement among men.”

The narrative of James Franklin was written by a dear friend of him whom I call Samuel Wilson, but is supposed to have been burned when the mob destroyed Pennsylvania Hall.

It was in relation to these fugitives that Samuel sometimes forgot for a while his strictly peaceful principles; for there were to be found among the men of color those who could be induced to betray to the pursuers their fugitive brethren, giving such information as would lead to their recapture; or, if they should escape this, to their being obliged to abandon their resting-places and to flee again for safety.

It was in talking of some such betrayer that Samuel Wilson said to his colored friends, “What would you do with that man, if you had him on Mill-Creek bridge?” (a lofty structure by which the railroad crossed the adjacent stream,) thus hinting at a swift mode of punishment, and one that might possibly have been a fatal one.

Though with an unskilled pen, yet have I endeavored to describe that quiet family among whom the fugitive-slave law of 1850 fell like a blow. Samuel Wilson had ample opportunity to study its provisions and its peculiarities from the newspapers of which I have before spoken, and from the conversation which these journals called forth.

This horrible act gave the commissioner before whom the colored man was tried five dollars only if the man went free from the tribunal, but ten dollars if he was sent into slavery. Hitherto, men had suffered in assisting the fugitive _to escape_; now it was made a penal offence to refuse to lend active assistance in apprehending him.

Friend Wilson had read much of fines and imprisonment, having studied the sufferings of the people called Quakers. (Even a lady of so high a standing as she who became the wife of George Fox was not exempt from many years’ imprisonment, nor from persecution at the hands of her own son.) Friend Wilson was about seventy-five years old when the fugitive-slave bill was passed. In spite of his advanced years, however, after sorrowful reflection upon it, he said to one of his household, “I have made up my mind to go to jail.”

That hospitality and charity which had so long been the rule of his life he was not now prepared to forego through fear of any penalties which the law would inflict upon him.

It was while suffering from the infirmities of advanced years, and from the solicitude which this abominable enactment had called forth, that Samuel destroyed the record which he had kept for so many years of the slaves that had taken refuge with him. This record was contained in about forty pages of his day-book, and these he cut out and burned. How would they now be prized had they not thus been lost!

Samuel Wilson saw, with the prophetic eye of faith and hope, what he did not live to behold in the flesh,—the abolition of slavery. His mortal remains repose beside the Quaker meeting-house where he so long ministered as an elder. No monumental stone marks that humble resting-place; but these simple lines of mine, that portray a character so rare, may serve for an affectionate memorial.

COUSIN JEMIMA.

“Well, Phebe, I guess thee did not expect me this afternoon. Don’t get up. I will just lay my bonnet in the bedroom myself. Dinah Paddock told me thy quilt was in; so I came up as soon as I could. Laid out in orange-peel! I always did like orange-peel. Dinah’s was herring-bone; and thine is filled with wool, and plims up, and shows the works, as mother used to say. I’ll help thee roll before I sit down. Now then. Days are long, and we’ll try to do a stroke of work, for thee’s a branch quilter, I’ve heard say.

“Jethro Mitchell stopped to see me this morning. They got home from Ohio last week, and he says that Cousin Jemima Osborne’s very bad with typhoid fever. Poor Jemima! It had been pretty much through the family, and after nursing the rest, she was taken down. I almost know she has no one fit to take care of her,—only Samuel and the three boys, and maybe some hired girl that has all the housework to do. The neighbors will be very kind, to be sure, sitting up nights; but there’s been so much sickness in that country lately.

“Jemima was Uncle Brown Coffin’s daughter, thee knows, who used to live down at Sandwich, on the Cape, when thee and I were girls. She always came to Nantucket to Quarterly Meeting with Uncle Brown and Aunt Judith; and folks used to say she wasn’t a bit of a coof, if she was born on the Cape. When Samuel and she were married, they asked me and Gorham Hussey to stand up with them. Jemima looked very pretty in her lavender silk and round rosy cheeks. When meeting was over, she whispered to me that there was a wasp or bee under her neck-handkerchief that had stung her while she was saying the ceremony. But I don’t think anybody perceived it, she was so quiet. Poor dear! I seem to see her now on a sick-bed and a rolling pillow.

“After my Edward died, I was so much alone that I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I must just get up and go to Ohio, as Samuel and ’Mima had often asked me to. I stopped on the way at Mary Cooper’s at Beaver, and Mary’s son was joking a little about Cousin Samuel’s farming, and said he didn’t quite remember whether it was two or three fences that they had to climb going from the house to the barn-yard. I told him that Samuel wasn’t brought up to farming; he bought land when he moved out West.

“I found Jemima a good deal altered, now that she had a grown family; but we just began where we left off,—the same friendliness and kindness. When I was in Ohio was just when the English Friends, Jonathan and Hannah Purley, were in the country. We met them at Marlborough Quarterly Meeting. We were all together at William Smith’s house,—one of the neatest of places,—everything like waxwork, with three such daughters at home. How they worked to entertain Friends!

“First-day a great many world’s people were at meeting on account of the strange Friends. Meeting was very full,—nearly as many out in the yard as in the house. Very weighty remarks were made by Jonathan and Hannah. She spoke to my own state:—‘Leave thy widows and let thy fatherless children trust in Me.’ The meeting was disturbed some by the young babies; but we could hardly expect the mothers to stay away.

“Second-day was Quarterly Meeting. Of course the English Friends, being at William Smith’s, drew a great many others. We had forty to dinner. One of William’s daughters stayed in the kitchen, one waited on the table, and one sat down midway, where she could pass everything and wait on the Friends. It was in the Eighth Month, and we had a bountiful table of all the good things of that time of year,—vegetables and fruit too. William was a nurseryman.