CHAPTER XIV.
"No toil in despair, No tyrant, no slave, No bread-tax is there, With a maw like the grave."
All this was so suddenly done as scarce to leave us time to think. Therewas one instant, notwithstanding, while two Injins were assisting MaryWarren to jump from the wagon, when my incognito was in great danger.Perceiving that the young lady was treated with no particulardisrespect, I so far overcame the feeling as to remain quiet, though Isilently changed my position sufficiently to get near her elbow, where Icould and did whisper a word or two of encouragement. But Mary thoughtonly of her father, and had no fears for herself. She saw none but him,trembled only for him, dreaded and hoped for him alone.
As for Mr. Warren himself, he betrayed no discomposure. Had he beenabout to enter the desk, his manner could not have been more calm. Hegazed around him, to ascertain if it were possible to recognize any ofhis captors, but suddenly turned his head away, as if struck with theexpediency of not learning their names, even though it had beenpossible. He might be put on the stand as a witness against somemisguided neighbor, did he know his person. All this was so apparent inhis benevolent countenance, that I think it struck some among theInjins, and still believe it may have had a little influence on theirtreatment of him. A pot of tar and a bag of feathers had been broughtinto the road when the gang poured out of the bushes, but whether thiswere merely accidental, or it had originally been intended to use themon Mr. Warren, I cannot say. The offensive materials soon and silentlydisappeared, and with them every sign of any intention to offer personalinjury.
"What have I done that I am thus arrested in the public highway, by menarmed and disguised, contrary to law?" demanded the divine, as soon asthe general pause which succeeded the first movement invited him tospeak. "This is a rash and illegal step, that may yet bring repentance."
"No preachee now," answered Streak o' Lightning; "preachee for meetin',no good for road."
Mr. Warren afterward admitted to me that he was much relieved by thisreply, the substitution of the word "meeting" for "church" giving himthe grateful assurance that _this_ individual, at least, was not one ofhis own people.
"Admonition and remonstrance may always be useful when crime ismeditated. You are now committing a felony, for which the State's Prisonis the punishment prescribed by the laws of the land, and the duties ofmy holy office direct me to warn you of the consequences. The earthitself is but one of God's temples, and his ministers need neverhesitate to proclaim his laws on any part of it."
It was evident that the calm severity of the divine, aided, no doubt, byhis known character, produced an impression on the gang, for the two whohad still hold of his arms released them, and a little circle was nowformed, in the centre of which he stood.
"If you will enlarge this circle, my friends," continued Mr. Warren,"and give room, I will address you here, where we stand, and let youknow my reasons why I think your conduct ought to be----"
"No, no--no preachee here," suddenly interrupted Streak o' Lightning;"go to village, go to meetin'-'us'--preachee there--Two preacher,den.--Bring wagon and put him in. March, march; path open."
Although this was but an "Injin" imitation of Indian sententiousness,and somewhat of a caricature, everybody understood well enough what wasmeant. Mr. Warren offered no resistance, but suffered himself to beplaced in Miller's wagon, with my uncle at his side, without opposition.Then it was, however, that he bethought himself of his daughter, thoughhis daughter had never ceased to think of him. I had some littledifficulty in keeping her from rushing into the crowd and clinging tohis side. Mr. Warren rose, and, giving her an encouraging smile, badeher be calm, told her he had nothing to fear, and requested that shewould enter his own wagon again and return home, promising to rejoin heras soon as his duties at the village were discharged.
"Here is no one to drive the horse, my child, but our young Germanacquaintance. The distance is very short, and if he will thus oblige mehe can come down to the village with the wagon, as soon as he has seenyou safe at our own door."
Mary Warren was accustomed to defer to her father's opinions, and she sofar submitted, now, as to permit me to assist her into the wagon, and toplace myself at her side, whip in hand, proud of and pleased with theprecious charge thus committed to my care. These arrangements made, theInjins commenced their march, about half of them preceding, and theremainder following the wagon that contained their prisoner. Four,however, walked on each side of the vehicle, thus preventing thepossibility of escape. No noise was made, and little was said; theorders being given by signs and signals, rather than by words.
Our wagon continued stationary until the party had got at least ahundred yards from us, no one giving any heed to our movements. I hadwaited thus long for the double purpose of noting the manner of theproceedings among the Injins, and to obtain room to turn at a spot inthe road a short distance in advance of us, and which was wider thancommon. To this spot I now walked the horse, and was in the act ofturning the animal's head in the required direction, when I saw MaryWarren's little gloved hand laid hurriedly on the reins. She endeavoredto keep the head of the horse in the road.
"No, no," said the charming girl, speaking earnestly, as if she wouldnot be denied, "we will follow my father to the village. I may not, mustnot, _cannot_ quit him."
The time and place were every way propitious, and I determined to letMary Warren know who I was. By doing it I might give her confidence inme at a moment when she was in distress, and encourage her with the hopethat I might also befriend her father. At any rate, I was determined topass for an itinerant Dutch music-grinder with _her_ no longer.
"Miss Mary, Miss Warren," I commenced, cautiously, and with quite asmuch hesitation and diffidence of feeling as of manner, "I am not what Iseem--that is, I am no music-grinder."
The start, the look, and the alarm of my companion, were all eloquentand natural. Her hand was still on the reins, and she now drew on themso hard as actually to stop the horse. I thought she intended to jumpout of the vehicle, as a place no longer fit for her.
"Be not alarmed, Miss Warren," I said, eagerly, and, I trust, soearnestly as to inspire a little confidence. "You will not think theworse of me at finding I am your countryman instead of a foreigner, anda gentleman instead of a music-grinder. I shall do all you ask, and willprotect you with my life."
"This is so extraordinary!--so unusual. The whole country appearsunsettled! Pray, sir, if you are not the person whom you haverepresented yourself to be, who are you?"
"One who admires your filial love and courage--who honors you for themboth. I am the brother of your friend, Martha--I am Hugh Littlepage!"
The little hand now abandoned the reins, and the dear girl turned halfround on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! Ihad been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I wascompelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, asunnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becomingas a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went my cap, therefore, and offwent the wig after it, leaving my own shaggy curls for the sole settingof my face.
Mary made a slight exclamation as she gazed at me, and the deadlypaleness of her countenance was succeeded by a slight blush. A smile,too, parted her lips, and I fancied she was less alarmed.
"Am I forgiven, Miss Warren," I asked; "and will you recognize me forthe brother of your friend?"
"Does Martha--does Mrs. Littlepage know of this?" the charming girl atlength asked.
"Both; I have had the happiness of being embraced by both my grandmotherand my sister. You were taken out of the room yesterday by the first,that I might be left alone with the last, for that very purpose!"
"I see it all now; yes, I thought it singular then, though I felt therecould be no impropriety in any of Mrs. Littlepage's acts. DearestMartha! how well she played her part, and how admirably she has keptyour secret!"
"It is very necessary. You see the condition of the country, and willunderstand that it wou
ld be imprudent in me to appear openly, even on myown estate. I have a written covenant authorizing me to visit every farmnear us, to look after my own interests; yet it may be questioned if itwould be safe to visit one among them all, now that the spirits ofmisrule and covetousness are up and doing."
"Replace your disguise at once, Mr. Littlepage" said Mary, eagerly;"do--do not delay an instant."
I did as desired, Mary watching the process with interested and, at thesame time, amused eyes. I thought she looked as sorry as I felt myselfwhen that lank, villanous wig was again performing its office.
"Am I as well arranged as when we first met, Miss Warren? Do I appearagain the music-grinder?"
"I see no difference," returned the dear girl, laughing. How musical andcheering to me were the sounds of her voice in that little burst ofsweet, feminine merriment. "Indeed, indeed, I do not think even Marthacould know you _now_, for the person you the moment before seemed."
"My disguise is, then, perfect. I was in hopes it left a little that myfriends might recognize, while it effectually concealed me from myenemies."
"It does--oh! it does. Now I know who you are, I find no difficulty intracing in your features the resemblance to your portrait in the familygallery, at the Nest. The eyes, too, cannot be altered withoutartificial brows, and those you have not."
This was consoling; but all that time Mr. Warren and the party in fronthad been forgotten. Perhaps it was excusable in two young persons thussituated, and who had now known each other a week, to think more of whatwas just then passing in the wagon, than to recollect the tribe that wasmarching down the road, and the errand they were on. I felt thenecessity, however, of next consulting my companion as to our futuremovements. Mary heard me in evident anxiety, and her purpose seemedunsettled, for she changed color under each new impulse of her feelings.
"If it were not for one thing," she answered, after a thoughtful pause,"I should insist on following my father."
"And what may be the reason of this change of purpose?"
"Would it be altogether safe for _you_, Mr. Littlepage, to venture againamong those misguided men?"
"Never think of me, Miss Warren. You see I have been among them alreadyundetected, and it is my intention to join them again, even should Ifirst have to take you home. Decide for yourself."
"I will, then, follow my father. My presence may be the means of savinghim from some indignity."
I was rejoiced at this decision, on two accounts; of which one mighthave been creditable enough to me, while the other, I am sorry to say,was rather selfish. I delighted in the dear girl's devotion to herparent, and I was glad to have her company as long as possible thatmorning. Without entering into a very close analysis of motives,however, I drove down the road, keeping the horse on a very slow gait,being in no particular hurry to quit my present fair companion.
Mary and I had now a free, and in some sense, a confidential dialogue.Her manner toward me had entirely changed; for while it maintained themodesty and _retenue_ of her sex and station, it displayed much of thatfrankness which was the natural consequence of her great intimacy at theNest, and, as I have since ascertained, of her own ingenuous nature. Thecircumstance, too, that she now felt she was with one of her own class,who had opinions, habits, tastes, and thoughts like her own, removed amountain of restraint, and made her communications natural and easy. Iwas near an hour, I do believe, in driving the two miles that laybetween the point where the Injins had met and the village, and in thathour Mary Warren and I became better acquainted than would have been thecase, under ordinary circumstances, in a year.
In the first place, I explained the reasons and manners of my early andunexpected return home, and the motives by which I had been governed inthus coming in disguise on my own property. Then I said a little of myfuture intentions, and of my disposition to hold out to the last againstevery attempt on my rights, whether they might come from the openviolence and unprincipled designs of those below, or the equallyunprincipled schemes of those above. A spurious liberty and politicalcant were things that I despised, as every intelligent and independentman must; and I did not intend to be persuaded I was an aristocrat,merely because I had the habits of a gentleman, at the very moment whenI had less political influence than the hired laborers in my ownservice.
Mary Warren manifested a spirit and an intelligence that surprised me.She expressed her own belief that the proscribed classes of the countryhad only to be true to themselves to be restored to their just rights,and that on the very principle by which they were so fast losing them.The opinions she thus expressed are worthy of being recorded.
"Everything that is done in that way," said this gentle, but admirablecreature, "has hitherto been done on a principle that is quite as falseand vicious as that by which they are now oppressed. We have had a greatdeal written and said, lately, about uniting people of property, but ithas been so evidently with an intention to make money rule, and that inits most vulgar and vicious manner, that persons of right feelings wouldnot unite in such an effort; but it does seem to me, Mr. Littlepage,that if the gentlemen of New York would form themselves into anassociation in defence of their rights, and for nothing else, and let itbe known that they would _not_ be robbed with impunity, they arenumerous enough and powerful enough to put down this anti-rent projectby the mere force of numbers. Thousands would join them for the sake ofprinciples, and the country might be left to the enjoyment of the fruitsof liberty, without getting any of the fruits of its cant."
This is a capital idea, and might easily be carried out. It requiresnothing but a little self-denial, with the conviction of the necessityof doing something, if the downward tendency is to be ever checked shortof civil war, and a revolution that is to let in despotism in its moredirect form; despotism, in the indirect, is fast appearing among us, asit is.
"I have heard of a proposition for the legislature to appoint specialcommissioners, who are to settle all the difficulties between thelandlords and the tenants," I remarked, "a scheme in the result of whichsome people profess to have a faith. I regard it as only one of the manyprojects that have been devised to evade the laws and institutions ofthe country, as they now exist."
Mary Warren seemed thoughtful for a moment; then her eye and facebrightened as if she were struck with some thought suddenly; after whichthe color deepened on her cheek, and she turned to me as if halfdoubting, and yet half desirous of giving utterance to the idea that wasuppermost.
"You wish to say something, Miss Warren?"
"I dare say it will be very silly--and I hope you won't think itpedantic in a girl, but really it does look so to me--what differencewould there be between such a commission and the Star-Chamber judges ofthe Stuarts, Mr. Littlepage?"
"Not much in general principles, certainly, as both would be theinstruments of tyrants; but a very important one in a great essential.The Star-Chamber courts were legal, whereas this commission would beflagrantly illegal; the adoption of a special tribunal to effect certainpurposes that could exist only in the very teeth of the constitution,both in its spirit and its letter. Yet this project comes from men whoprate about the 'spirit of the institutions,' which they clearlyunderstand to be their own spirit, let that be what it may."
"Providence, I trust, will not smile on such desperate efforts to dowrong!" said Mary Warren, solemnly.
"One hardly dare look into the inscrutable ways of a Power that has itsmotives so high beyond our reach. Providence permits much evil to bedone, and is very apt to be, as Frederick of Prussia expressed it, onthe side of strong battalions, so far as human vision can penetrate. Ofone thing, however, I feel certain, and that is, that they who are nowthe most eager to overturn everything to effect present purposes, willbe made to repent of it bitterly, either in their own persons, or inthose of their descendants."
"That is what is meant, my father says, by visiting 'the sins of thefathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations.' Butthere is the party, with their prisoners, just entering the village
. Whois your companion, Mr. Littlepage?--One hired to act as an assistant?"
"It is my uncle himself. You have often heard, I should think, of Mr.Roger Littlepage?"
Mary gave a little exclamation at hearing this, and she almost laughed.After a short pause she blushed brightly, and turned to me as she said--
"And my father and I have supposed you, the one a pedler, and the othera street-musician!"
"But beddlars and moosic-grinders of goot etications, as might bepanished for deir bolitics."
Now, indeed, she laughed out, for the long and frank dialogue we hadheld together made this change to broken English seem as if a thirdperson had joined us. I profited by the occasion to exhort the dear girlto be calm, and not to feel any apprehension on the subject of herfather. I pointed out how little probable it was that violence would beoffered to a minister of the gospel, and showed her, by the number ofpersons that had collected in the village, that it was impossible heshould not have many warm and devoted friends present. I also gave herpermission to, nay, requested she would, tell Mr. Warren the fact of myuncle's and my own presence, and the reasons of our disguises, trustingaltogether to the very obvious interest the dear girl took in oursafety, that she would add, of her own accord, the necessary warning onthe subject of secrecy. Just as this conversation ended we drove intothe hamlet, and I helped my fair companion to alight.
Mary Warren now hastened to seek her father, while I was left to takecare of the horse. This I did by fastening him to the rails of a fence,that was lined for a long distance by horses and wagons drawn up by thewayside. Surprisingly few persons in the country, at this day, are seenon horseback. Notwithstanding the vast difference in the amount of thepopulation, ten horsemen were to be met with forty years ago, by allaccounts, on the highways of the State, for one to-day. The well-knownvehicle, called a dearborn, with its four light wheels and mere shell ofa box, is in such general use as to have superseded almost every otherspecies of conveyance. Coaches and chariots are no longer met with,except in the towns; and even the coachee, the English sociable, whichwas once so common, has very generally given way to a sort ofcarriage-wagon, that seems a very general favorite. My grandmother, whodid use the stately-looking and elegant chariot in town, had nothing butthis carriage-wagon in the country; and I question if one-half of thepopulation of the State would know what to call the former vehicle, ifthey should see it.
As a matter of course, the collection of people assembled at Little Neston this occasion had been brought together in dearborns, of which theremust have been between two and three hundred lining the fences andcrowding the horse-sheds of the two inns. The American countryman, inthe true sense of the word, is still quite rustic in many of hisnotions; though, on the whole, less marked in this particular than hisEuropean counterpart. As a rule, he has yet to learn that the littleliberties which are tolerated in a thinly peopled district, and whichare of no great moment when put in practice under such circumstances,become oppressive and offensive when reverted to in places of muchresort. The habits of popular control, too, come to aid in making themfancy that what everybody does in their part of the country can have nogreat harm in it. It was in conformity with this _tendency_ of theinstitutions, perhaps, that very many of the vehicles I have named werethrust into improper places, stopping up the footways, impeding theentrances to doors, here and there letting down bars without permission,and garnishing orchards and pastures with one-horse wagons. Nothing wasmeant by all these liberties beyond a desire to dispose of the horsesand vehicles in the manner easiest to their owners. Nevertheless, therewas some connection between the institutions and these little libertieswhich some statesmen might fancy existed in the _spirit_ of the former.This, however, was a capital mistake, inasmuch as the _spirit_ of theinstitutions is to be found in the laws, which prohibit and punish allsorts of trespasses, and which are enacted expressly to curb the_tendencies_ of human nature! No, no, as my uncle Ro says, nothing canbe less alike, sometimes, than the _spirit_ of institutions and their_tendencies_.
I was surprised to find nearly as many females as men had collected atthe Little Nest on this occasion. As for the Injins, after escorting Mr.Warren as far as the village, as if significantly to admonish him oftheir presence, they had quietly released him, permitting him to gowhere he pleased. Mary had no difficulty in finding him, and I saw herat his side, apparently in conversation with Opportunity and herbrother, Seneca, as soon as I moved down the road, after securing thehorses. The Injins themselves kept a little aloof, having my uncle intheir very centre; not as a prisoner, for it was clear no one suspectedhis character, but as a pedler. The watches were out again, and nearhalf of the whole gang seemed busy in trading, though I thought thatsome among them were anxious and distrustful.
It was a singular spectacle to see men who were raising the cry of"aristocracy" against those who happened to be richer than themselves,while they did not possess a single privilege or power that,substantially, was not equally shared by every other man in the country,thus openly arrayed in defiance of law, and thus violently trampling thelaw under their feet. What made the spectacle more painful was thecertainty that was obtained by their very actions on the ground, that nosmall portion of these Injins were mere boys, led on by artful andknavish men, and who considered the whole thing as a joke. When the lawsfall so much into disrepute as to be the subjects of jokes of this sort,it is time to inquire into their mode of administration. Does any onebelieve that fifty landlords could have thus flown into the face of arecent enactment, and committed felony openly, and under circumstancesthat had rendered their intentions no secret, for a time long enough toenable the authorities to collect a force sufficient to repress them? Myown opinion is, that had Mr. Stephen Rensselaer, and Mr. WilliamRensselaer, and Mr. Harry Livingston, and Mr. John Hunter, and Mr.Daniel Livingston, and Mr. Hugh Littlepage, and fifty more that I couldname, been caught armed and disguised, in order to _defend_ the rightsof property that are solemnly guaranteed in these institutions, of whichit would seem to be the notion of some that it is the "spirit" todispossess them, we should all of us have been the inmates of States'prisons, without legislators troubling themselves to pass laws for ourliberation! This is another of the extraordinary features of Americanaristocracy, which almost deprives the noble of the every-day use andbenefit of the law. It would be worth our while to lose a moment ininquiring into the process by which such strange results are broughtabout, but it is fortunately rendered unnecessary by the circumstancethat the principle will be amply developed in the course of thenarrative.
A stranger could hardly have felt the real character of this meeting bynoting the air and manner of those who had come to attend it. The "armedand disguised" kept themselves in a body, it is true, and maintained, ina slight degree, the appearance of distinctness from "the people," butmany of the latter stopped to speak to these men, and were apparently ongood terms with them. Not a few of the gentler sex, even, appeared tohave acquaintances in the gang; and it would have struck a politicalphilosopher from the other hemisphere with some surprise, to have seenthe "people" thus tolerating fellows who were openly trampling on a lawthat the "people" themselves had just enacted! A political philosopherfrom among ourselves, however, might have explained the seemingcontradiction by referring it to the "spirit of the institutions." Ifone were to ask Hugh Littlepage to solve the difficulty, he would havebeen very apt to answer that the "people" of Ravensnest wanted to compelhim to sell lands which he did not wish to sell, and that not a few ofthem were anxious to add to the compulsory bargains conditions as toprice that would rob him of about one-half of his estate; and that whatthe Albany philosophers called the "spirit of the institutions," was, infact, a "spirit of the devil," which the institutions were expresslydesigned to hold in subjection!
There was a good deal of out-door management going on, as might be seenby the private discussions that were held between pairs, under what iscalled the "horse-shedding" process. This "horse-shedding" process, Iunderstand, is well known amon
g us, and extends not only to politics,but to the administration of justice. Your regular "horse-shedder" isemployed to frequent taverns where jurors stay, and drop hints beforethem touching the merits of causes known to be on the calendars;possibly contrives to get into a room with six or eight beds, in whichthere may accidentally be a juror, or even two, in a bed, when he dropsinto a natural conversation on the merits of some matter at issue,praises one of the parties, while he drops dark hints to the prejudiceof the other, and makes his own representations of the facts in a way toscatter the seed where he is morally certain it will take root and grow.All this time he is not conversing with a juror, not he; he is onlyassuming the office of the judge by anticipation, and dissectingevidence before it has been given, in the ear of a particular friend. Itis true there is a law against doing anything of the sort; it is truethere is law to punish the editor of a newspaper who shall publishanything to prejudice the interests of litigants; it is true the"horse-shedding process" is flagrantly wicked, and intended to destroymost of the benefits of the jury system; but, notwithstanding all this,the "spirit of the institutions" carries everything before it, and menregard all these laws and provisions, as well as the eternal principlesof right, precisely as if they had no existence at all, or as if afreeman were above the law. He makes the law, and why should he notbreak it? Here is another effect of the "spirit of the institutions."
At length the bell rang, and the crowd began to move toward the"meetin'-'us'." This building was not that which had been originallyconstructed, and at the raising of which I have heard it said, my dearold grandmother, then a lovely and spirited girl of nineteen, had beenconspicuous for her coolness and judgment, but a far more pretendingsuccessor. The old building had been constructed on the true model ofthe highest dissenting spirit--a spirit that induced its advocates toquarrel with good taste as well as religious dogmas, in order to makethe chasm as wide as possible--while in this, some concessions had beenmade to the temper of the times. I very well remember the old"meetin'-'us'," at the "Little Nest," for it was pulled down to giveplace to its more pretending successor after I had attained my sixteenthyear. A description of both may let the reader into the secret of ourrural church architecture.
The "old Neest meetin'-'us'," like its successor, was of a hemlockframe, covered with pine clapboards, and painted white. Of late years,the paint had been of a most fleeting quality, the oil seeming toevaporate, instead of striking in and setting, leaving the coloringmatter in a somewhat decomposed condition, to rub off by friction andwash away in the rains. The house was a stiff, formal parallelogram,resembling a man with high shoulders, appearing to be "stuck up." It hadtwo rows of formal, short and ungraceful windows, _that_ being a pointin orthodoxy at the period of its erection. It had a tower, uncouth, andin some respects too large and others too small, if one can reconcilethe contradiction; but there are anomalies of this sort in art, as wellas in nature. On top of this tower stood a long-legged belfry, which hadgot a very dangerous, though a very common, propensity in ecclesiasticalmatters; in other words, it had begun to "cant." It was this diversionfrom the perpendicular which had suggested the necessity of erecting anew edifice, and the building in which the "lecture" on feudal tenuresand aristocracy was now to be delivered.
The new meeting-house at Little Nest was a much more pretending edificethan its predecessor. It was also of wood, but a bold diverging from"first principles" had been ventured on, not only in the physical, butin the moral church. The last was "new-school;" as, indeed, was thefirst. What "new-school" means, in a spiritual sense, I do not exactlyknow, but I suppose it to be some improvement on some other improvementof the more ancient and venerable dogmas of the sect to which itbelongs. These improvements on improvements are rather common among us,and are favorably viewed by a great number under the name of progress;though he who stands at a little distance can, half the time, discoverthat the parties in progress very often come out at the precise spotfrom which they started.
For my part, I find so much wisdom in the Bible--so profound a knowledgeof human nature, and of its tendencies--counsel so comprehensive and sosafe, and this solely in reference to the things of this life, that I donot believe everything is progress in the right direction because itsets us in motion on paths that are not two thousand years old! Ibelieve that we have quite as much that ought to be kept, as of thatwhich ought to be thrown away; and while I admit the vast number ofabuses that have grown up in the old world, under the "spirit of _their_institutions," as our philosophers would say, I can see a goodly numberthat are also growing up here, certainly not under the same "spirit,"unless we refer them both, as a truly wise man would, to our common andmiserable nature.
The main departure from first principles, in the sense of materialthings, was in the fact that the new meeting-house had only _one_ row ofwindows, and that the windows of that row had the pointed arch. The timehas been when this circumstance would have created a schism in thetheological world; and I hope that my youth and inexperience will bepardoned, if I respectfully suggest that a pointed arch, or any otherarch in _wood_, ought to create another in the world of taste.
But in we went, men, women and children; uncle Ro, Mr. Warren, Mary,Seneca, Opportunity, and all, the Injins excepted. For some reasonconnected with their policy, those savages remained outside, until thewhole audience had assembled in grave silence. The orator was in, or on,a sort of stage, which was made, under the new-light system inarchitecture, to supersede the old, inconvenient, and ugly pulpit,supported on each side by two divines, of what denomination I shall nottake on myself to say. It will be sufficient if I add, Mr. Warren wasnot one of them. He and Mary had taken their seats quite near the door,and under the gallery. I saw that the rector was uneasy the moment thelecturer and his two supporters entered the pulpit and appeared on thestage; and at length he arose, and, followed by Mary, he suddenly leftthe building. In an instant I was at their side, for it struck meindisposition was the cause of so strange a movement. Fortunately, atthis moment, the whole audience rose in a body, and one of the ministerscommenced an extempore prayer.
At that instant, the Injins had drawn themselves up around the building,close to its sides, and under the open windows, in a position thatenabled them to hear all that passed. As I afterward learned, thisarrangement was made with an understanding with those within, one of theministers having positively refused to address the throne of grace solong as any of the tribe were present. Well has it been said, that manoften strains at a gnat, and swallows a camel!