The Grimké Sisters. Catherine H. Birney
draughts. The quiet of the little meeting-house in Charleston, the absence of ornament and ceremony, the silent worship by the few members, the affectionate thee and thou, all soothed her restless soul for a while, and a sweet calm fell upon her. But she believed that God constantly spoke to her heart, directing her by the still, small voice; and the fidelity with which she obeyed this invisible guide was not only a real detriment to her spiritual progress, but the cause of much distress to her.
When, as sometimes happened from various causes, she failed in obedience, her mental suffering was intense, and in abject humility she accepted as punishment any mortification or sorrow that came to her afterwards. As a sequence to this hallucination, she also had visions at various times, and saw and communed with spirits, and did not hesitate to acknowledge their influence and to respect their intimations. So marvellously real were her feelings on these points that her immediate friends, though greatly deploring their effect upon her, seldom ventured any remonstrance against them. Now, under the influence of her new belief, the impression of a divine call to be made upon her deepened, and soon took shape in the persuasion that it was to be a call to the ministry. Her soul recoiled at the very thought of work so solemn, and she prayed the Lord to spare her; but the more she prayed, the stronger and clearer the intimations became, until she felt that no loop-hole of escape was left her from obedience to her Master's will. From the publicity the work involved, she intuitively shrank. Her natural sensitiveness and all the prejudices of her life rebelled against it, and she could not look forward to it without fear and trembling. Every meeting now found her, she says, like a craven, dreading to hear the summons which would oblige her to rise and open her lips before the two or three gathered there. Vainly did she try to "hide herself from the Lord." The evidence came distinctly to her one morning that some words of admonition were required of her; but so appalling did the act appear to her that she trembled, hesitated, resisted, and was silent. Sorrow and remorse at once filled her soul; and, feeling that she had sinned against the Holy Ghost, she thought that God never could forgive her, and that no sacrifice she could ever offer could atone for this first act of disobedience. Through long and dreary years it was the spectre that never would down, but stood ready to point its accusing finger whenever she was tempted to seek the cause of her disappointments and sorrows.
Thus, in the very outset of her new departure, arose apprehensions which followed her continually, robbing her religious exercises of all peace, and bringing her such a depth of misery that, she says, it almost destroyed her soul. The frequent letters of her Quaker friend, though calculated to soothe and encourage her, were all firm on the point of implicit obedience to the movements of the Spirit; and she found herself in a straight and narrow path, from which she was not allowed to deviate.
To this friend, Israel Morris, Sarah seems to have confessed all her shortcomings, all her fears, until, encouraged by his sympathy, and led by her longing for a wider field of action, she began to contemplate a removal to the North. There were other causes which urged her to seek another home. The inharmonious life in her family, joined to the reproaches and ridicule constantly aimed at her, and which stung her to the quick, naturally inspired the desire to go where she would be rid of it all, and live in peace. In her religious exaltation, it was easy for her to persuade herself that she was moved to make this important change by the Lord's command. She sincerely believed it was so, and speaks of it as an unmistakable call, not to be disregarded, to go forth from that land, and her work would be shown her. Naturally, Philadelphia was the spot to which she was directed. When informed of her desires, Israel Morris not only gave his approval, but invited her to a home in his family. A door of shelter and safety being thus thrown open to her, she no longer hesitated, but at once made known her intention to her relatives. There seems to have been little or no opposition offered to a step so serious; in fact, her brothers and sisters, though much attached to her—for her loving nature was irresistible—evidently felt it a relief when she was gone, her strict and pious life being a constant rebuke to their worldly views and practices.
Her sister Anna, at her urgent request, accompanied her on the voyage. This sister, the widow of an Episcopal clergyman, though a defender of slavery as an institution, recognized its evil influences on the society where it existed, and gladly accepted the opportunity offered to take her young daughter away from them. It was necessary, too, that she should do something to increase her slender income, and Sarah advised opening a small school in Philadelphia—a thing which she could not have done in Charleston without a sacrifice of her own social position and of the family pride.
There is nothing said of the parting, even from Angelina, though we know it must have been a hard trial for Sarah to leave this young sister, just budding into womanhood, and surrounded by all the snares whose alluring influences she understood so well. That she could consent to leave her thus is perhaps the strongest proof of her faith in the imperative nature of the summons to which she felt she was yielding obedience.
The exiles reached Philadelphia without accident in the latter part of May, 1821. Lodgings were found for Mrs. Frost and her child, and Sarah went at once to the residence of her friend, Israel Morris.
CHAPTER III.
It is very much to be regretted that all of Sarah Grimké's letters to Angelina, and to other members of her family at this time, were, at her own request, destroyed as received. They would not only have afforded most interesting reading, but would have thrown light on much which, without them, is necessarily obscure. Nor were there more than twenty-five or thirty of Angelina's letters preserved, and they were written between the years 1826 and 1828. We therefore have but little data by which to follow Sarah's life during the five years succeeding her return to Philadelphia, and before she again went, to Charleston; or Angelina's life at home, during the same period. Sarah's diary, frequently interrupted, continues to record her religious sorrows, for these followed her even into the peaceful home at "Greenhill Farm," the name of Israel Morris's place, where she was received and treated like a near and dear relative; and it was but natural and proper that she should be so accepted by the members of Mr. Morris's family. He was literally her only friend at the North. Through his influence she had been brought into the Quaker religion, and encouraged to leave her mother and native land. She was entirely unpractised in the ways of the world, and was besides in very narrow circumstances, her only available income being the interest on $10,000, the sum left by Judge Grimké to each of his children. The estate had not yet been settled up. Add to all this the virtue of hospitality, inculcated by the Quaker doctrine, and it seems perfectly natural that Sarah should accept the offer of her friend in the spirit in which it was made, and feel grateful to her Heavenly Father that such a refuge was provided for her.
The notes in her journal for that summer are rather meagre. She attended meeting regularly, but made no formal application to be received into the Society of Friends. It would hardly have been considered so soon; she must first go through a season of probation. How hard this was is told in the lamentations and prayers which she confided to her diary. The "fearful act of disobedience" of which she was guilty in Charleston lay as a heavy load on her spirit, troubling her thoughts by day and her dreams by night, until she says: "At times I am almost led to believe I shall never know good any more."
Notwithstanding these trying spiritual exercises, the summer seems to have passed in more peace than she had dared to hope for. Israel Morris was a truly good man, with a strong, genial nature, which must have had a soothing effect upon Sarah's troubled spirit. But before many months her thoughts began to turn back to home. Her mother's want of spirituality, from her standpoint, grieved her greatly. The accounts she received of the disorder in the family added to her anxieties, and she felt that her influence was needed to bring about harmony, and to guide her mother on the road to Zion. She laid the case before the Lord, and, receiving no intimation that she would be doing a wrong thing, she decided to return to Charleston.
Before leaving Philadelphia, however, she felt that it was her duty to assume the full Quaker dress. She had worn plain colors from the time she began to attend meeting in her native city, but the clothes were not fashioned after the Quaker style, and she still indulged herself in occasionally wearing a becoming black dress; though when she did so, she not only felt uncomfortable herself, but knew that she made many of her friends so. "Persisting in so doing," she says, "I have since been made sensible, manifested a want of condescension entirely