"Get but the Truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born, that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumults of the earth can shake."
Unable to sleep any more, Mrs. Claremont arose very early the next morning. She was impatient to see Walter, and yet scarcely knew how to meet him. She wished to atone for her lack of sympathy at the moment he most needed it, not knowing that the joy of his new-born faith was greater than he could derive from any favor this world could dispense, yet so softening in its tenderness as to be doubly appreciative of the faintest ray of human cheer.
He had reached that spiritual height where commiseration for the blindness of those who sought to imprison an idea swept away every other feeling; and for them, not for himself, he breathed in earnest prayer that the divine effulgence of infinite Love might penetrate the darkness and lead them unto that peace which would make them one with God, filling their souls with the heavenly manna which Cometh from above and is sufficient for all things. Then would they see the folly as well as the impotence of every attempt to roll back the onward march of human progress, whether in the intellectual achievements of science or the moral influences at work for the elevation of humanity.
Having passed the night in the peaceful repose of a quiet conscience he arose unusually early and went out in the orchard to inhale the fragrance of the fresh morning air, laden with the odors of flower and fruit, the sweet scented clover and the newly mown hay, all now baptised in one common faith by unseen agencies that needed not the laying on of earthly hands. Filled with the spirit of adoration the whole earth looked to him as if kneeling before its Maker in grateful praise for the blessings of the night in which he was ready to join.
Presently the sound of a footstep behind him disturbed his devotions, and looking round he saw his mother approaching with such a benignant smile in her eyes, that ere he was aware, his arms encircled her neck.
"Mother!"
"Walter!"
Not another word was said. Soul met soul, and language was needless. They walked into the house in silence where they found the rest of the family already astir. Unknown to themselves Ernest was an observer of the scene as he looked from his chamber window and called Rosalind, but she was not quick enough. At breakfast an indescribable joy pervaded the whole family as if a great shadow had been suddenly lifted, which was no less a trouble that it was only a shadow. All felt the change but none knew how it happened. Even Lilly seemed to comprehend it who slid down from her chair, and going to Walter, put her hand on his knee, and looked up into his face, as much as to say, "Can't you tell me what makes you so happy?"
Where now were all the heresies she had attributed to Walter? banished, like a noon-day illusion. Now that Mrs. Claremont had embraced the "spirit that giveth life," she could see how "the letter killeth." She saw that the Sabbath, which was made for man, could not be too sacred to plead for the rights of man; that the religion which was too sacred to admit the humblest to its communion as children of the same Father, and therefore entitled to the same birthright as the highest, was not worthy the name of Christian, whatever good works it might perform.
"Did not even the Pharisees the same?" "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, but he who doeth the will of the Father shall be my disciple."
What is the will of the Father? Not merely to visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, but to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free. What is faith without works? Of what use the daily prayer to God that righteousness shall prevail through all the earth, without making use of the human instrumentalities he has ordained for its accomplishment?
In the following autumn Walter visited the classic ground of his Alma Mater. On the first evening of his arrival a large meeting was held to discuss those very questions to which he had consecrated his life, awakening no little interest in the community, for excitement was then at its height.
The reverend doctors of divinity, and the honorables of every profession met in solemn convocation to decide what limit should be assigned to free speech, and how far a man should be amenable to God in yielding to the dictates of his conscience. Rev. Dr. Southron opened the meeting with prayer, which consisted more in a statement of its objects than an approach to the throne of Grace for wisdom to be guided in an impartial verdict, after which he made a short address, taking for his text, "The powers that be are ordained of God," inculcating the principle that governments are divine, and resistance to them a crime against God and man. Then he proceeded to show what constitutes rebellion against a government, and what course should be pursued toward those who stirred up sedition and revolt. "If we let them go on," said he, "what anarchy and confusion will follow, divisions in the church, dissensions in society, and the overthrow of all law." He closed with an argument in defence of slavery based on the Bible, beginning with the patriarch Abraham and the Mosaic law, and ending with the since threadbare tale of Paul and Onesimus under the new dispensation.
This was going rather farther than most of the audience were ready to endorse, not being yet quite enough indoctrinated into the southern catechism to answer in the affirmative: "Is not the chief end of man to glorify God by enslaving his brother so that he may also teach him to glorify him?"
They believed in submission to the laws whether good or bad, in standing by the country, whether right or wrong, but it was a bitter pill to swallow on the soil of the Pilgrims, concocted of the alien idea that a ten-fold worse oppression than that they sought to escape should promote the very end they had in view. There was a slight murmur of disapprobation when he took his seat, which, however, was quickly suppressed as the silver tongued orator, whose name was a synonym for all that was chaste in language and classical in style, arose to defend the Union. He sped an arrow's flight beyond the comprehension of the people who could see very little connection between the elements of that massive structure and the consequences likely to result from the unlimited exercise of free speech. He was, however, vociferously cheered, as every word coming from his lips would be, if it had been expressed in an unintelligible language. At the close of his remarks, another gentleman arose who took exception to some of his sentiments.
"There was no need," he said, "to defend the Union, for that rested on a foundation as sure as the everlasting hills. Our fathers made it, and we have no right to question its integrity, or doubt its stability. Let us not harbor a thought that it can be rent asunder by any force brought to assail it, the possibility of which it would be a sin to admit, a libel on the wisdom of our fathers!"
A strong feeling of dissatisfaction was here manifested by the audience, who, though they in no wise differed from the last speaker, would not tolerate the appearance of dissent from any sentiment advanced by their pet orator. The latter was also evidently misunderstood, for his remarks were intended more as a rhetorical flourish to pass encomiums on those who framed, the Union and present them as models for the present generation to follow, than to intimate danger, thus conveying a negative rebuke of that spirit which assumed to be wiser than they. This was more to his taste, and accorded better with his method of dealing with an evil than positive condemnation.
True, ho was in favor of making free speech an indictable offense, but his argument was so plausibly worded as to make it appear something else than an open denial of the constitutional right of freedom of speech. His intentions might not have been bad, nothing more nor less than to preserve the fraternal feeling he supposed to exist between the north and south, without which the ship of state would flounder, and all these magnificent proportions of an overarching structure which stretched forth its friendly arms to embrace the oppressed of all lands who sought its protection, would crumble into atoms.
The slave, what was he? Only a wedge to make it still firmer, the fruit of whose toil would help to swell the streams of benevolence so profusely applied to the evangelization of heathen lands. Did he suffer? No matter, if thereby the Union was made stronger.
Before order was fully restored a young man was seen to approach the stand, a stranger to most who occupied it, but familiar to many persons in the galleries who shouted and cheered anew; for what reason they did not themselves know. It was Walter Claremont. No little interest was manifested at the youthful appearance of one who had the boldness to come forward after so much distinguished talent, and his winning appearance prepossessed all in his favor. He stood, surveying the audience until silence reigned throughout the crowded hall.
"Law is divine," said he. "From the starry worlds overhead to the minutest insect at our feet, law is the one great fact which binds every object and every being to an immutable fiat that is coeval with creation, and which our puny efforts may strive in vain to oppose. The same is true of the moral world. God has written his law in every human soul, with the penalties annexed for its violation; and as well might you attempt to blot Arcturus from the skies as to evade its retributions on the evil doer. What is government? The reverend gentleman who occupied this platform asserts that governments are divine, when all history teems with their sacrilegious proceedings. Or does he mean simply that this government is divine? If so, where is its sign-manual? The proper function of law as applied to society, is the protection of the rights of the individual. When it fails in this it is no longer binding on the conscience, according to the authority of one of the brightest lights in jurisprudence, whence this nation borrowed its common law. In other words all human enactments must conform to the natural or revealed law before they can impose obligations to obey them, since that is coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself; of binding force over all the globe in all countries, and at all times. The reverend gentlemen raises the objection, that if every one were allowed to follow the dictates of his own conscience, anarchy would soon follow; and draws a lamentable picture of divisions in the church, civil war and a whole catalogue of evils, if a person be allowed to speak his own honest thought and call a sin a sin, whether committed in high places or low. Does he think we shall avoid them by continuing in our wickedness? Is that the kingdom of God he was sent to preach? Dare he stand in the sacred desk and ask the blessing of God on his efforts to christianize the heathen of foreign lands, when defending a system which denies the Bible to the heathen on our own shores? Nay, more, who charges Him with giving it his divine sanction?
"There is a certain recognized moral standard which requires no logic for its interpretation, nor scholastic display of forensic ability to decide its claims on the conscience, being as clear and indisputable to the simplest child as to the most learned professor. Once admit that we may legislate crime into a law, and what becomes of our obligations to God? What anchor have we to prevent us from drifting on the dark and dismal shores of Atheism the moment we set up injustice as the bulwark of a nation's safety,—the God whom we are commanded to worship and obey? In vain may you plead laws and precedents; inferiority of race, or christianizing influences if that were possible; you cannot abate one iota of the crime you commit when you take from a single human being, however degraded or debased, one of the absolute rights that are the birthright of humanity.
"Injustice may flourish for a while, and the nation grow rich on its spoils, but so sure as He sits on the throne of the universe, there will not be wanting at the appointed time a Moses or a Joshua to lead forth the oppressed from their long captivity, in vindication of their outrages at the hands of those who have assumed prerogatives that belong only to the Almighty.
"Allusion has been made to the dangerous tendency of free speech, and in the same connection the memory of our fathers commended to the highest reverence and their example presented as worthy of all imitation. Who was it that said, errors of opinion might be safely tolerated where reason was left free to combat them, and trembled for his country when he reflected that God was just, and had no attribute that would take side with the oppressor? Who described that crime for denouncing which this meeting has been convened to call us to account, as 'one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which our fathers rose in rebellion to oppose?'
"A gentleman here says that the Union 'rests on a foundation as sure as the everlasting hills.' Did not the Eternal City claim a foundation just as sure, and what has been her subsequent history? Go on if you will, and close every avenue to free discussion, the mind will still be left to conquer, whose empire is absolute and irresistible, and which has itself the power to snap this Union in sunder when it shall no longer serve the purpose for which it was intended.
"Under the despotisms of the old world it may be possible to smoulder free discussion at the point of the bayonet, but not in a republic where every man's thought is a power in the state and the life of the government.
"Again and again has constitutional liberty turned on this very point, and again and again has it been baptized in the blood of the martyrs who defended and bequeathed it to us their children as the richest heritage God or man can bestow. Shall we be recreant to the trust and barter away this glorious magna-charta of our liberties, that the most flagrant crime that ever darkened the universe of God may pursue its mad career!
"You cannot imprison the immortal soul of man. An emanation from the divine One who spurns alike the lordly tyrant and the cowering slave, it is ever towering upward to meet the stature of its prototype.
"Ye learned doctors of divinity and versed expounders of the law, tell me if you can where, in the annals of paganism, or the advancing light of civilization, you can point to a single nation that has laid its corner-stone in the violated instincts of the human soul, and reared its pillars at the expense of its own acknowledged principles of justice, without meeting sooner or later those convulsions that upheave the foundations of society in the struggle for the maintenance of those rights which antedate every text and every parchment. The spirit of, the Pilgrims who first sought these shores that they might enjoy unmolested the blessings of civil and religious liberty, still lives on this soil. You cannot conquer it, for it is invincible. Heed it, be guided by it before it is too late! Once submit to the dictation of the myrmidons of the south, and before this generation shall have passed away, you will witness one of the bloodiest civil wars on record."
An awe-struck silence pervaded the assembly when he took his seat. They were so taken by surprise that passion forgot to vent itself. All were spellbound, and it was some moments before the chairman arose, when the meeting was adjourned.
Many of Walter's old classmates were present, who went to express their sympathy with the objects of the meeting in whatever way accorded best with their spirit and inclination; either by cheering those who defended them or interrupting any who might chance to speak in opposition They were professed "law and order" men, as ready to instigate a mob for their preservation as to institute a well-ordered police to guard the peace. Though graduated at a university, they had not been taught to know the difference. Exceptions existed of course, but they were of too modest and lukewarm a character to volunteer their honest opinions in the face of overwhelming opposition. All, however, were for the moment swayed by an involuntary sense of admiration. There was something so bold and manly in the moral courage he had displayed, so truthful in his utterances and instructive in his prophetic warnings, as to command a hearty response from the un trammeled impulses of their souls, then just passing under the tuition which afterwards culminated in such melancholy expositions of the "higher law," and garbled interpretations of scripture texts, by which, when the laws of God and man conflict, the latter have been made to appear the better of the two to people of easy consciences.