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To her parents Aet. 43.
CHAMONIX, June 25, 1875 The descent into the valley of the Leuch was so steep that there was a continual danger of getting into a run, in which case no earthly power could have
. saved me from dashing right over the edge at the next sharp turn.
It was really a frightful walk.
I can assure you the flat sandy roads of Jersey looked beautiful and lovely to my mental vision, and I feel as if all my life long I had treated them with the most cruel injustice in not appreciating their , charming flatness.
Never again shall I sigh for mountains or valleys in the country of my habitation.
To her parents Aet. 43.
BALTIMORE, Oct. 18, 1875 We three sisters do enjoy so intensely being together.
We stick close together, and are quite the admiration of the Meeting, for our wonderful likeness to each other, and the love and unity that manifestly exists between us.
Aunt Julia said it was such a comfort on First Day, when poor dear Friends were screaming out their sermons, to look down at us three, and know how we sympathised.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay \ Aet. 44.
THE CEDARS, June 3, 1876 It is just a year since the great Brighton meeting, and the contrast between our lives then and now is certainly a very mysterious one.
Personally I greatly prefer the utter quiet and seclusion of the present, but it makes my heart ache to look at my dear husband, and think of the blight that has fallen on him.1
You think I make a mistake to say that his life is blasted.
You would not say this if you knew him, or if you could at all appreciate the crushing blow that has fallen upon him.
A more sensitive, tender-hearted, generous man never lived, and this blow has sorely crushed him in every tender spot.
It would have been so impossible for him to have treated anyone, even an enemy, as he has been treated by those who professed to be his dearest friends, that it has utterly crushed all power from his nature of trusting anyone, and he has shut himself up from everyone.
Then in a thousand ways, which no one knows but ourselves and those who have thus trodden down a tender trusting spirit, he has been wounded past healing.
He often says to me that his life is one long agony from morning until night, and from night until morning, in every working moment.
It could not possibly be otherwise; and I have not the faintest hope that he will ever recover from it.
There are storms which uproot and overturn even the stateliest trees, and what wonder then if the weaker ones are utterly prostrated by them.
Such a storm has Swept over us, and has left only a few broken and *See Note I at end of Chapter.
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withering branches.
The song has gone out of our lives, and only patient and cheerful endurance is left.
We are content, however, that it should be so, since it is the will of God, and have no thoughts in our hearts of anything but loving submission to Him.
While we thought He wanted us, we gave the very best we had without stint or measure, but this is all over now.
We have come to our country home for 5 months.
We absolutely decline all the urgent requests to hold meetings etc. that come to us continually, and go nowhere.
I sit mostly from morning until night in a little bay window that overlooks the children's croquet ground, and from where I can just see the dear parents' home across the lawn through the trees.
It would be impossible for you to conceive of such a quiet secluded life, and I expect it. would not seem pleasant to you, but if you had had such a heart-scald as we have, you would understand how thankful we are for such a refuge.
But I did not mean to write in this strain, for I have no feeling of complaining in my heart.
My life is full of the dear children's interests, and of sweet cares for my husband and parents.
A commonplace life is I am sure by far the most desirable life for a woman, and henceforth I shall seek to make mine such most emphatically.
Our children are having a happy summer.
Mary and Logan have both been to a swimming school and have learned to swim, and there are several small lakes and streams near us where they can swim.
'They have a boat and a horse, and, more than all, the liberty of American children, which means more than you can imagine.
They have just come up from a paddling excursion in the woods, where they have been revelling in mud and water, and all sorts of fun.
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
To Mrs. Anna Shipley Aet. 44.
THE CEDARS, Aug. 8, 1876 Now I am going to give thee a plain unvarnished statement of facts, and thee may make what theory out of them thee pleases.
I confess I am utterly nonplussed and cannot make any.
First of all as to the plan and object of the meeting.
It was planned by Dr. Cullis and its sole object was to reinstate Robert in the eyes of the church and the world.
I always said it ought not to have been called' a " Convention for the promotion of holiness", but a '"' Convention for the promotion of Pearsall Smith ".
Neither Robert nor I approved of it nor wanted it held, but Dr. Cullis was so sure it was " of the Lord ee and had so set his heart on it, that, as he had stood by 'Robert more nobly and grandly than any other human being, we both felt constrained simply out of gratitude to him, to yield to his wishes.1
To be fairly honest about it, we neither of us felt for a moment as if we were serving the Lord in the matter at all.
We both have felt ourselves dismissed from His service for a year now ; but we hitched ourselves on to Dr. Cullis's team, and concluded the Lord would not be very angry with us under the circumstances, though I confess I often secretly thought it would serve us right if He should make the meeting a complete failure as far as Robert and I were concerned.
And to tell the truth I did not care whether He did or not.
I only want 1 Of this convention Logan Pearsall Smith wrote, in Unforgotten Years,
"Neither my father nor mother wanted this 'Scamp Meeting', as Dr. Cullis wittily called it, but he said ' it was of the Lord *, and forced them to attend it,"
Dr. Cullis's joke depended on the fact that at this time Camp Meetings were a regular feature of religious life in America,
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the will of God done under all circumstances, and I really don't much care what His will is.
I felt utterly indifferent to the meeting in every way, except that it was a great trial to me to leave my home and the sweet children.
Nothing ever made Christian work pleasant to me except the thought that I was doing the will of God, and now that that is gone, I find no pleasure in it whatever.
So we made no preparations for the meeting, we neither studied, nor prayed, nor meditated, nor in fact thought about it at all.
We had got it to do, and when the time came we meant to do our best, and the rest was in the Lord's hands.
We both of us hated it cordially, and felt we should be only too thankful when it was over.
It was in no sense a religious or " pious " undertaking on our parts.
We were neither fervent, nor prayerful, nor concerned, nor anything that we ought to have been.
Thou sees I am telling the honest truth.
And I really cannot imagine a meeting begun in a worse frame of mind that ours was, according to all one's preconceived notions of what is the right and suitable thing.
And in precisely the same frame of mind we went through the meeting. It was all a wearisome performance to us.
We did it as over an Ampassable gulf.
The flood had come since the last time, and changed all things to us.
There was no interest, no enthusiasm.
The meetings were a bore, the work was like a treadmill.
We counted the hours until we could get away, and hailed the moment of emancipation with unspeakable joy.
And all pious chroniclers or church historians would have been compelled by the force of their logic to have added to this record, "' and no wonder the meeting was an utter failure "'
But still, to keep to facts, I am compelled to record that the meeting was a perfect success.
'There was just
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REBEL the same power and blessing as at Oxford or Brighton, only on a-smaller scale, because of the meeting being smaller.
There was every sign of the continual presence of the Spirit.
Souls were converted, backsliders restored, Christians sanctified, and all present seemed to receive definite blessings.
It is said by Dr. Cullis, and fo him by many others, to have been the best meeting ever held in this country.
And it really was a good meeting, even I, uninterested as I was, could see that.
There was just the same apparent wave of blessing as swept over our English meetings.
And Robert and I never worked more effectually.
He had all his old power in preaching and leading meetings and the very self-same atmosphere of the Spirit was with him as used to be in England.
As for me, thee knows I am not much given to tell of my own successes, but in this case in order that thee may have all the facts,
I shall have to tell thee that I was decidedly "' favoured"
© as Friends say.
In fact I don't believe I ever was as good.
All who had heard me before said so.
The fuss that was made over me was a little more then even in England. The preachers fairly sat at my feet, figuratively speaking, and constantly there kept coming to me testimonies of definite blessing received while I spoke.
The second time I spoke a Democratic 1 Editor was converted and consecrated on the spot ; and I could scarcely get a minute to myself for the enquirers who fairly overwhelmed me.
I hate to write all this, and thee must tear it right up, but how could thee know it unless I told thee, and the facts thee must have in order to see what a muddle it all is.
For who would have dreamed of such an outcome to the indifference and want of every sort of proper qualification for their work, which I have
? This, of course, refers to the political party of the convert.
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described beforehand?
I must say, it completely upsets all my preconceived notions, and I do not know what to make of it.
They all talked to me most solemnly about how dreadful it was in me to think of giving up public work, but I was utterly unmoved, and both Robert and I came away more confirmed than ever in our feelings of entire relief from everything of the kind.
We are done!
Somebody else may do it now.
\ The one satisfaction of the meeting to us was this, and it was a satisfaction, that Robert was treated with all the old deference and respect... ..
Henceforth home and home life for us.
To be a " good housekeeper " seems to me the height of honour now!
We had to refuse lots of urgent invitations to hold meetings in various places, but we did it without a longing thought, only foo thankful to be released.
And now, wHaT does thee think of it all?
J think one of two things, but which one I think I don't know.
Perhaps thee can tell me.
Either I was awfully wicked in the whole matter, and God was not in it anywhere, and all the success was by force of natural gifts and talents.
Or else I was awfully good, so good as to have lost sight of self to such a degree as to be only a straw wafted on the wind of the Spirit, and so consecrated as not to be able to form a desire even, except that the. will of God might be fully done.
I waver about myself continually.
Sometimes I feel sure I have progressed wonderfully, and that my present sphynx-like calm and indifference to everything whether inward or outward except the will of _
God, is very grand. And then again I think I am an utterly irreligious and lazy fatalist, with not a spark of the divinein me.
I do wish I could find out which Iam.
But at all events my orthodoxy has fled to the winds.
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I am Broad, Broader, Broadest!
So broad that I believe everything is good, or has a germ of good in it, and "nothing to be refused", if it be received with thankfulness.
I agree with everybody, and always think it likely everybody's "' view" is better than my own. I hold all sorts of heresies, and feel myself to have got out into a limitless ocean of the love of God that overflows all things.
My theology is complete, if you but grant me an omnipotent and just Creator I need nothing more.
All the tempests in the various religious teapots around me do seem so far off, so young, so green, so petty!
I know I was there once, it must have been ages ago, and it seems impossible.
'' God is love =f comprises my whole system of ethics.
And, as thou says, it seems to take in all.
There is certainly a very grave defect in any doctrine that universally makes its holders narrow and uncharitable, and this is always the case with strict so-called orthodoxy.
Whereas, as soon as Christian love comes in, the bounds widen infinitely.
I find that every soul that has travelled on this highway of holiness for any length of time, has invariably cut loose from its old moorings.
I bring out my heresies to such, expecting reproof, when lo !
I find sympathy.
We are " out on the ocean sailing "', that is certain.
And if it is the ocean of God's love, as I believe, it is grand.
But enough!
Now what will thee do with it all ?
"Be not righteous overmuch" is a salutary check I think.
But oh how sad, that the nearer we seek to approach our God, and the more we try to please Him, the greater our dangers!
That is, not sad, since it is His arrangement, but very perplexing.
I guess He means us to be good human beings in this world, and nothing more.
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To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay Aet. 44.
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16, 1876
Old age is so very sad I think, after active and useful lives, and it is not often anything but a burden.
But since it is the will of God so many should have to endure it, there must be some good end in view, and we shall know all about it sometime.
My dear aged parents are about as usual.
They are able to go out daily, but are feeble and delicate, and need most tender care and attention.
My time continues to be almost wholly occupied in waiting on them, and it is the sweetest occupation I could have.
My father is one of the executors of a large estate, and he goes down town daily to attend toit.
I wait on him there right after breakfast, when I have seen the children all off to school, and then go for him in an hour or two.
In the afternoons we very commonly drive in our beautiful city Park, and Mary goes with us on horseback whenever the weather is suitable.
In the evenings, after the children are through with preparing their lessons for the next day's school, and have all gone to bed, I go in and read aloud to my parents for an hour or two.
And so the day is pretty full without going outside of my dear home circle.
To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay Aet. 45.
PHILADELPHIA, April 13, 1877 Friends here are enjoying Stanley Pumphrey exceedingly ; I mean those we call Gurneyite Friends.
Among the others he is most unwelcome because of the turndown collar of his coat, and they can hardly endure
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL to see him in their galleries.1
Only this week he attended the Quarterly meeting at Haddonfield, which is the meeting we attend when living at our country place, and as he was going in the door, a Friend met him and told him that the Elders had met and had decided to request him not to sit facing the meeting on account of his coat!
So he had to betake himself to the side benches.
Can thee imagine such darkness in this century, and only 6 miles from Philadelphia ?
And even in this city in two or three of the meetings they only permit him in the gallery on sufferance, because some of the Gurney friends actually force him up there, and they neither rise, nor bow their heads, nor take off their hats when he prays, I believe some of them put them on and jam them down as a testimony against him!
I do not think he minds it much however.
I must tell thee such a smart thing about Ray [aged 8]. The other night when I was just leaving her after her goodnight kiss in bed, she said in such an old fashioned way, '' Well mother, I have had my first doubt."
'' Thy first doubt," I exclaimed, " why what was it?"
'"' Why," she answered, " Satan came to me and said, ' Ray, thee must not believe that Jesus loves thee, for he don't."
" Well," I asked, '' what did thee say?"
" Say," she repeated enthusiastically, * As I have already noted, the clothes of the men—as well as the women's—were an almost necessary token of holiness.
I do not know if this particular English Friend wore a beard ; for, to the Philadelphia
Quakers at least, beardlessness was also needful.
It was perhaps an earlier English Friend of whom H.W.S. wrote (for she seems broadmindedly to have swallowed the get-up of Stanley Pumphrey), " In spite of the fact that I have a great reverence for English Friends, his beard seemed to me so evidently the mark of the evil one, that I felt it almost a sin to listen to his preaching.
In several ' strict' Meetings this same preacher was refused entrance to the ' gallery' because of | his beard."
(The Unselfishness of God, p. 1 34.)
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** why I just said, ' Satan I will believe it,' and then he went away."
I was delighted to find how clearly she understood the right way of dealing with doubts, and encouraged her in it.
The next evening she had still further attacks to report ; " Well mother," she said as I was tucking her up in bed, " Satan has been at it again."
'' And what did he say this time?' I asked.
'' Oh," she replied, "he said, ' Ray, if I was thee I would not believe the Bible is true, for it is not,' and he tried to coax me not to believe it."
'' And what was thy answer ? " I asked.
"Why mother," she replied, "I just said to him ' Satan shut thy mouth !""
The emphasis with which she repeated this sentence was fairly laughable, and yet thee may imagine how thankful I was to find how well she understood it all.
She has been cured by Dr. Cullis's prayer of faith of a longstanding and very suffering dyspepsia.
She went through quite a little conflict before she could come to the point of letting him pray and lay hands on her, but finally gave up and trusted, and has been perfectly well now for more than a month.
She said to me the next morning, ''- Mother, Satan makes it very hard for me to believe that I am healed," but with this exception her faith does not seem to have wavered, and the cure is complete.
To Miss Priscilla Mounsey+ Aet. 46.
PHILADELPHIA, April 10, 1878 Dear friend, I have felt inclined to give thee a word of admonition, in noticing the recurrence again of thy old trouble of self-analysis and self-reflection.
Thy 1 An English spinster and devout friend.
L.P.S.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL inward dryness and barrenness, which so often trouble thee, are simply after all moods of feeling that may arise from a thousand surrounding causes of health, or weather, or good or bad news of outward things ; and they have no more to do with the real attitude of thy soul toward God, than a headache does, or a fit of indigestion.
; To her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith Aet. 46.
PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1878 My own darling husband.
This morning a plain Friend came to see me who thinks she committed the unpardonable sin when she was a little girl at Boarding school, and is almost crazy with agony ! I just poohpoohed the whole thing of course, and made her begin to say " Jesus saves me."'
One of her troubles is that she has felt for a long time as if she ought to pray for her husband and has never done it.
I made her promise to do it tonight when she went home.
E. G. Gibbons was here yesterday.
She says Mr.
McVicker was delighted at the plainness with which I declared Restitution 1 at Israel Maule's funeral, and I believe rather wondered I was not afraid, but of what should I be afraid?
IfI hold an opinion I would far rather people should know it. And I confess if it makes people afraid of me, and anxious not to have me at meetings and things, I shall be only too glad.
Anna Crew told E. Comstock that my friends were praying for me, that I might be brought back from my sad unbelief!
I have not a minute more, except to add warmest and tenderest love.
1 By " Restitution '? she means her quite heretical belief that damned souls will eventually be rescued from Hell.
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To Mrs. Anna Shipley \ Aet. 46.
THE CEDARS, June 15, 1878 As to '"' ups and downs "', beloved, don't thee know that I am one of the kind who never have any?
My path seems to lie along a sort of dead level arrangement, that is very comfortable, but not at all glorious.
My whole experience seems to be hopelessly commonplace always, except when I come in the way of fanatics, if they are fanatics.
And even then the glamour of the fanaticism will not get into my life, do what I may.
I see its heights, but cannot scale them, and have to trudge on in the homely old ways, like a poor stupid ox.
I cannot even get any inward voices and never could.
I remember when Anna Richards?! was in the depth of her mysticism, I tried hard to walk in the same paths, but in vain.
Scruples would not come, although I tried to cultivate them assiduously.
I even wooed a sugar scoop "' concern '',? and caps and handkerchiefs, but it was all of no use..
And just so it seems to be now.
With the exception of that affair of novelreading I do not find myself " called " into anything nor out of anything.
Even my Christian work comes to me in commonplace ways, and with none of the romance of Quaker "' concerns".
I expect the poetry 1 The wife of an American painter, well-known at this time.
2 A " concern "? was the name given to those inward impulses which were looked upon as the irrefutable and secret instructions of the Lord.
**A Quaker 'concern' was to my mind clothed with even more authority than the Bible, for the Bible was God's voice of long ago, while the 'concern' was His voice at the present moment, and, as such, was of far greater present importance.'
To the feminist in H.W.S. these voices were a matter for congratulation, since, as she writes, '' not the most tyrannical ' man Friend ', even if he wanted to, would ever dare to curtail the liberty of his womenkind, if only they could say they 'felt a concern' for any course of action'.
(The Unselfishness of God, p. 82.) E
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REBEL of mysticism is not for me, and I have got to plod on in the prose of commonplace life always.
Journal Letter to her friends + Aet. 46.
THE ADIRONDACKS, July 22, 1878 Night before last there came up a violent thunderstorm just at bed-time, most unexpectedly, and we had everything lying around, and such a hustling time as we had!
There were 2 or 3 parties out in boats, and I had made up a great big camp fire on the rocks to guide them home, and when the wind blew up it began
. to blow the sparks all over the dry grass and towards the tents.
There were several fires already burning in the mountains, and I was afraid we should soon have one in our camp if prompt measures were not taken, so I had to scatter the burning brands as fast as possible down the rocks into the water below.
Then having no possible light except matches there was no hope of finding anything, and we just had to grapple our way through, regardless of every consideration of comfort or propriety.
At last we got settled in our tents comfortably, when Mary felt her pillow heave up and down as though some live creature underneath were trying to make its way out. We thought it was a snake, and I had to march out in the dark and the rain through bush and briar to call one of the guides out of their birch bark shanty to come and catch the thing.
So much for the outward.
And now for the inward.
How do [I like this sort of life ?
I do not like it at all.
I can't sleep comfortably any- * A number of such letters ' to her friends "? will appear in this book.
Her custom was to send a letter to a particular correspondent, enclosing a list of other friends—sometimes as many as from fifteen to twenty— among whom it was to be circulated.
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where off of a spring bed with good bolsters and pillows.
Moreover four thick (Mary, Alys,1 Ray and myself) in.a bed is rather too much, even although I have had
Alys fenced off with stakes.
Then I cannot eat in a muss, nor do I like to get along without bread.
I do not care for boating, nor fishing, nor hunting, and sitting on a log does become monotonous after a while.
July 23, 1878 We beached our boats on a sandy beach in the midst of water lilies and began a wild mountain climb, finding our path only by the " blazes " on the trees.
It was a beautiful walk, or climb rather, and my spirit enjoyed it greatly, but my poor old fat body refused to respond to the spirit within, and I was soon suffering such agonies of fatigue from the climbing that I believe if I had had the prospect of a view of the whole universe from the mountain's top I could not have been induced to ascend it.
I got half way up, and then gave out utterly.
This has settled forever my climbing of mountains.
I have passed the age when it is possible, and I may as well accept the fact at once.
Hereafter I shall sit, and the rest may climb.
July 27, 1878 We have suffered intolerably from mosquitoes, and yesterday was the climax.
It rained steadily all day and we had to stay in our tents, and it seemed as if all the mosquitoes in the world might have been summoned to a conference there.
'The only relief from 117t was on this trip, according to her account, that Alys (Mrs.
Russell), the last of her family to undergo that process, experienced conversion.
I should add that she did not attain this condition along the ways pointed out by her parents, but through the efforts of her own will,
\ 44.
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REBEL them was smoke, and there are limits to one's endurance — of smoke.
So we just had to alternate between mosquitoes and smoke, bearing each one as long as we could, until we had pushed pleasure far beyond the verge of pain.
And so we determined on a move.
For it was forlorn enough to eat at a birch bark table in a dripping rain, even if the table did stand on the bank of a beautiful lake with lovely mountains all around.
Carey and Tom? had tramped up 7 milés in a pouring rain, and had stayed all night at a trapper's shanty.
And the wind howled, and the trees crashed, and bears dashed past, and their fire would not burn, and it was bitter cold, and the desolation and wildness altogether was enough to have satisfied the most earnest seeker after adventure.
Camping out is grand for young people, but J am too old !
Such a scatteration as there was of our family circle to make room for this invasion (of 7 unexpected visitors to supper! ). We had to gulp down or throw away the remnants of our own suppers, and wash our plates and cups and spoons for our guests.
We had some canned salmon served in a tin wash-basin and flap-jacks in a frying-pan, and drawn butter in an empty tomato can, and molasses in an empty yeast powder box, and butter in a tin pail, and salt in a glass jar, and one cup of chocolate for 3 or 4 to drink out of and 1 spoon to several.
August 6, 1878 It is rainy, as usual, and if it were not for this deserted house, we should be utterly uncomfortable.
And as to regular camping out, it is a snare and a delusion for anybody over the age of foolishness.
I 1A nephew and niece.
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feel myself competent to give advice to all enquirers on the subject of the Adirondacks, and after hearing my advice, they will most likely stay at home. I really cannot " 'mire what is not 'mgrable "', and I see nothing
"*mirable " in this kind of fife for old people.
Robert pretends he enjoys it, but as he does absolutely nothing but sit on the piazza and read all day long, I cannot see that it is necessary to come so far todo that.
I shall welcome the day of our escape from here with unmitigated joy.
August 10, 1878 We had got about half way up the lake when, in spite of the promising morning, down came the rain as usual, except that if ever the water was poured out of the sky in bucketfuls it was then.
Such sheets of rain I had never seen before.
But since the rain defied us so continually, we determined to defy the rain, and went straight on regardless, wrapping ourselves up in our gum blankets, and ignoring the existence of our feet, which of course were standing in water up to our ankles.
Finally we reached Blue Mountain which is about 2000 feet above the lake, and the view from the top, they say, is very beautiful.
Let it be/ We took our dinner at a little house on Raquette Lake, and then started out to find a shanty for the night, and the rain started with us.
It came down in torrents literally.
We landed on a lonely shore, and found the shanty we were aiming for already occupied!
And of course the occupants were not going to turn out in that relentless storm for us.
We took to our boats again amidst a drenching rain, and rowed across the lake to another point, where we found a shanty, to be sure, but
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filled with the clothes, guns, cookery utensils and stores of its absent owners.
_ Necessity knows no law, and we landed and took possession for that one night, trusting the owners would not return.
Shelter we had to have, by fair means or foul, for the rain came down faster and harder every minute, if that were possible.
So we settled ourselves in, the guides made a roaring big fire, and we covered ourselves with our blankets and retired for the night, six of us stretched out in a row on the floor of the shanty, with our feet to the fire.
The young people all managed to sleep, but I could not, and I doubt if I forgot myself for more than half an hour.
It was a most awful night!
Such thunder and lightning I never dreamed could be!
It was absolutely continuous from one o'clock until morning, and the wind howled and the water dashed, and it seemed as if the elements were let loose.
It was the longest night I ever spent, and I thought if once I should ever get into my own bed in the grd storey front of 1315 Filbert Street, I would be about the most thankful woman in the world.
The morning dawned stormier than ever, and we started out in a rain that literally seemed to come down in sheets, with one constant roar of the most terrific thunder, and lightning so near that Logan actually saw a tree struck and shivered close beside us on the banks of the lake...
Why anybody, having once gone through such experiences 'should ever want to repeat them, is past my finding out.
We passed several forlorn looking camps on our way with their forlorn looking occupants sitting in the fronts of their shanties, sad, and desolate, and lonely.
I am certain there were many disgusted souls among them, whether they ever confess it or not. ,.,
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We passed that lady and gentleman that our guide David had left us for, and a more forlorn looking couple
I never laid eyes on, to be taking their summer outing.
They were sitting side by side in a birch-bark shanty ' with the smoke of their fire in their eyes, looking out on an awfully lonely lake in the midst of a dismal rain.
I could not help exchanging a few words of disgusted sympathy with the poor deluded wife, who responded warmly, and assured me she did not mean to stay!
So they have gone in disgust, and David has come back to us.
To\Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay Aet. 46.
THE ADIRONDACKS, Aug. 11, 1878
There are hundreds of miles in these mountains as yet untrodden by the foot of man, and many mountain peaks that have never been scaled, unless by the native trapper.
I can give you no idea of the utter wildness, the seclusion, and beauty of the whole region.
It contains many thousands of square miles of almost unbroken forest...
Ray has just written a most entertaining letter about our experiences, to a little cousin and I must copy out a page for Girlie.1
She says describing a walk over one of the " carrys"', " It was perfectly awful, and very steep part of the way, and awfully wet.
"' There were several little streams that had logs over them, but the streams were so swollen that the logs
1 Daughter of Richard Barclay of Monkhams.
She married the Hon. Sir Lancelot Carnegie, son of the 9th Earl of Southesk.
After a diplomatic career at Madrid, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, he was appointed, in 1924, British Ambassador to Portugal.
L.P.S.
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REBEL were floating and slipped and rolled under your feet.
The water was ankle deep most of the way, and I marched right through it, all heedless of getting my feet soaked through and through.
I went ahead of the rest and followed the trail all alone for a long time and thought I was nearly at the end.
But at last I sat down on a log to rest and wait.
I waited and waited and nobody came, until at last I got scared, and told myself stories of bears coming and eating me up, and how the rest found my skeleton and wept over it, and then it was put in a coffin and lowered down into the earth, and then I was forgotten almost entirely and so on.
Well with these grave thoughts I got so frightened that I fairly rushed back a real long way until I mét Tom and one of the guides."
(LATER) We started for Whiteface Mountain about 8.30 in 2 one-horse wagons, and went about 2 miles, over the roughest roads imaginable, part way up the mountain.
Then we left our wagons behind and began the climb in real earnest, Mary and I each straddle-legged on our horses.
It is impossible to ride on side-saddles up this mountain, the trail is simply awful.
Thee would not believe it possible for a human being to stick on a horse's back, nor in fact for a horse alone even to get over such a road.
It was like going up stairs, all slippery with mud and water, with every now and then a hole broken through into which the horse would
. plunge almost up to his stomach.
It was simply azw/ful —no other word will do.
But I stuck on, determined not to be daunted, as.I knew I could not walk.
Once the horse brushed me off under a tree that leaned over the road, but I was not hurt, and mounted again, and stuck on all the tighter.
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To Sarah Little Hele Ay.
PHILADELPHIA, March 20, 1879 We are busier than ever, for Logan has added another dog to his collection, a monstrous St. Bernard dog this time, who is a perfect houseful, and who demands constant attention.
Poor Logan is wellnigh overwhelmed, and we have some funny scenes.
All last evening this great creature compelled me to sit and pet him, and every time I tried to do anything else he would put up his huge paw to shake hands, and sweep. out of the way all before it, so that I could neither read write nor cipher for a long time.
It was a trial.
Mrs. B. is a very interesting woman, but oh! such a lifetime of doubt as she has had to tell me of!
It was dreadful.
I dealt with her doubts-in a most summary manner, and actually forced her to give them up like a drunkard his drink.
Sister Sarah, ought thee not to do something for other people, instead of going to so many meetings for thy own enjoyment ?
To Mrs. Lawrence | Aet. 48.
GERMANTOWN, March 1880 I fell down 17 steep steps in the middle of the night, head foremost all in the pitch dark ; and on my way down discovered how to fall with the least risk, i.e. let oneself go like a drunken man. I put it in practice, and escaped with only some severe bruises on my forehead and one knee. I look like a fright, but feel well enough.
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To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay | Aet. 48.
; PHILADELPHIA, March 10, 1880 The latter part of January Logan and Alys came home for their holidays, bringing with them some of their school friends, and for two weeks we had a merry joyous household.
Then my dear mother died rather suddenly after a few days' illness, very quietly and peacefully.
And on the day of her funeral Ray [aged 11] was taken with scarlet fever.
I think from the first she was stricken with death.
Her brain was altogether too active for her little body, and at once the disease went there, not to make her delirious, but to rapidly burn up all her vitality.
She was as bright and sweet during the three days of her sickness as ever, and even the last afternoon seemed to possess all her mental powers in perfect vigour. Then suddenly as I was lying beside her singing a hymn, she became unconscious, and passed away most peacefully without a struggle.
After death her face was radiant with a surprised happy smile, as though she might, just in the moment of going, have caught a glimpse of the dawning glory.
I feel a strong conviction that she suddenly saw her grandma who had so lately gone before her; and I felt at once that she was at home!
F or myself all was peace.
The first moment I knew she was ill I began at once to say " Thy will be done", "Thy will be done " over and over, and it seemed as if the sweet will
_ of God came down like an enveloping fortress, and hid my soul in animpregnable calm.
I know God's choice for my darling is a perfect choice ; and I know she had gained by a short and easy road the Home of blessedness towards which the rest of us are travelling with slow and weary steps.
And in the face of this know-
BACK IN THE STATES: pany ledge, how can I grieve?
I never did care very much how J fared myself, if only my children were happy ; and why should I care now, when a lot so much more blessed than anything my tenderest love could have compassed, has been bestowed upon my darling by the free grace of her God?
On Jan. gth she wrote (in her Diary) "I am a little bit afraid of the dark (and)
I am going to try to overcome it.
If I just say to Jesus, when I am in such a position as to frighten me, 'Oh please take care of me, and don't let me be afraid,' and then say the text, ' Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,' why then generally
I can walk into the darkest corners with only a little bit of trembling.
...
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb the steps where Fame's proud temple shines afar!
Who can?
I wish J could, because if it is easy enough I'd like to try.
** A friend of mother's was here to dinner the other day, and they were all talking about woman's voting, and papa said that he thought it would come suddenly.
Some woman would rise up above everybody, and put a woman, perhaps herself, into the presidential chair.
Oh! wouldn't J like to be that woman!
To have such BURNING eloquence that I would hold my audience in breathless attention, and make everybody think as I think!
That would be the height of my ambition!
I want to make a stir in the world, [Pm not content with sitting still, and folding my hands, or being a good little busybody, just being respected and admired in one little corner of the world.
And what's more, I won't do it if I can possibly help it.
I know I ought to be content to be famous only to my Lord, but I'm not."
Alys [aged 13] wrote a few days _ afterward, '"' At first I could not say 'Thy will be done', but I think I can now."
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REBEL To Mrs. Henry Ford Barclay Aet. 48.
PORTLAND, OREGON, July 23, 1880 We branched off for a day to Salt Lake City, Utah, and had an opportunity of seeing somewhat into the peculiar institutions there.
I made a private call on one of Brigham Young's widows, and had a deeply interesting conversation with her.
She told me [she] '' had been sealed for Eternity to Joseph Smith, and, after his death, had been sealed for time to Brigham Young ".
And she seemed to think it was a wonderful advantage they possessed over us Gentiles that they were thus sure, by the sealing process, of having a husband throughout Eternity!
But upon further conversation I found her to be a deeply religious woman, who had been led into Mormonism by the hunger of her soul after communion with God and the knowing of His voice.
She said she saw this promised in the Bible, and she saw no Christians she knew realised it, and she determined to find it for herself ; and among Mormons she had found it to the perfect satisfaction of her soul.
And she assured me with the greatest solemnity that if I would only honestly seek to know God's will and to know the voice of His Holy Spirit, speaking in my heart, I would be led into Mormonism too !
I could not but be impressed with the woman's evident sincerity, and her loyalty to what she believed to be the truth of God, and I felt that I could never again condemn these people as utter reprobates.
Their delusion has taken a very unfortunate form, but it is an honest delusion for all that, and must be dealt with as charitably as we would wish our own especial delusions to be.
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To Miss Sarah Beck Aet. 48.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO, Aug. 18, 1880
I have had a great deal to do with incompatible people, and I soon found that I should be in condemnation all the while unless the Lord taught me the art of associating with them harmoniously.
And true to His promise to make a way in every temptation, He taught me this lesson—to settle down to the peculiarities of people as I would to heaviness of lead, and to be no more provoked at the manifestation of these peculiarities, than I would be at the manifestation of the weight of lead.
Since then as soon as I find anything disagreeable in the make-up of people, I accept it as part of them, and do not expect anything else ; and commit it to the Lord, asking Him to make the trial and discipline it brings just the medicine I need at that time.
In this way incompatible people have become my chief means of grace, and many a time I have turned them into chariots, or rather the Lord has, which have carried me to places of triumph over self that I could have reached in no other way.
To her sister, Sarah Nicholson pi A®.
Sept. 18, 1880 I have had a revelation about guidance that seems to make obedience a far simpler thing.
It has come to me through seeing the fatally sad mistakes made by so many.
It is this—that the voice of God comes through our judgment, and not through our impressions.
Our impressions may coincide with our judgments or they may not, but it is through the latter alone that God's voice comes.
And when people go by impres-
\ 54.
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REBEL sions in opposition to their judgments, they are turning from the true voice of God, to follow the false voices of self, or of evil spirits, or of morbid conscience, or of some evil influence from other people.
It is said in the Bible that He will guide the meek in judgment, and it is not said that He will guide them in impressions or feelings.
I believe this going by impressions always leads either into fanaticism as with S. F. S.1 and others, or into insanity as with the Friends.
While the people who are led by God through their judgments make very few mistakes.
Think of this and tell me thy views.
Now in the matter of novels thee and I only have impressions to go by. Our judgment tells us that a moderate reading of novels is a good thing as preserving the mind from overwork in one direction.
And as a fact, my best work both in preaching and writing has been done while I was taking the occasional recreation of reading good novels.
When I was writing '' Frank "
I kept a novel ? by me to read in whenever I grew tired of writing.
To her sister, Sarah Nicholson Aet. 49.
GERMANTOWN, Mar. 3, 1881 But, Sally, you cannot love if you do not.
You can so bring the Lord in as to lose all sight of the person, ? She is probably alluding to what, in her posthumous book, Religious
Fanaticism, she refers to as " Miss S's Fanaticism "—in fact to the old lady mentioned in the note on p. 6.
2 This statement is more startling than it might be thought.
" All fiction of every kind," she wrote (The Unselfishness of God, p. 128), "was considered by the Friends of those days to be ' pernicious ', and on this point our mother was very strict, and we were not allowed to read even the most innocent and select Sunday-school stories.
As to novels, the very word was felt to be wicked, and to this day I never use it without a momentarily instinctive feeling of lawlessness, as if I were deliberately doing something wrong," |
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and can be perfectly sweet and compassionate towards the person, but as to loving or respecting that which does not win love and respect and does not deserve it, you just cannot, and that is the long and short of it.
For instance, A. C., suppose it was my lot to live with her and bear things from her, or M. O., I could so see the Lord in it all as to be perfectly victorious, and . also to be tenderly compassionate towards them, but I coutp nor love nor respect them.
To Miss Priscilla Mounsey Aet. 49.
ROCKY MOUNTAINS, July 18, 1881 We are quite a large party and are travelling with quite an array; first go 4 horseback riders, then a large mountain wagon with 6 of us in it, then 3 baggage wagons with our tents, beds, provisions, stove, etc., etc., and finally a dog to guard our camps named " Buster "
We have 4 Guides and a cook, and are g ourselves, so we form quite a cavalcade.
The great excitement of our day is to find a good place to camp for the night where we shall have wood for a camp fire, water to drink, and grass for our 12 horses.
When we settle on a place we all have to go to work.
The men unloose the horses, and unload the wagons, and put up the tents; the cook gets out his stove and begins preparations for supper ; the boys pick up their guns and rifles and go off to hunt something for us to eat ; the girls pick up wood for thé fire, and I make the beds of blankets and buffalo robes, and get out the night wrappings.
We are travelling in an utterly wild country with antelopes, and deer, and elk, and even bears all around us, though the latter do not come very near our camp.
But the
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REBEL excitement of finding our way and of getting across the streams and over the mountains, and the adventures of the boys out hunting, make up pretty full days.
To her sister, Sarah Nicholson Aet. 49.
YELLOWSTONE PARK, Aug. 13, 1881
I am awfully sorry M. has missed all this, and yet I am sure she could not have stood it.
It is simple misery to me, and I have had a wretched time with my digestion. I really would have gone to bed if I had been at home, but I just had to keep on and stand it.
I prayed for wisdom to know what to do and at last bethought me of some pills as a tonic which Dr. D. had put up for me, and they have acted like a charm, so that now I am pretty well.
But how long it will last there is no telling.
We have had some rainy weather and just had to ride and eat and sleep in a perfect soak.
Why we are not all ill I cannot tell, but it was the concentrated essence of discomfort, that I know...
As to there being no fruition in life, I am not worried about that, for I do not think this life is meant for fruition.
Look at Mother, for instance, she just lived the ordinary round, kept house, brought up her children, was kind to her friends, but this was all + she did no especial work, and made no mark anywhere ; but I have no doubt she fulfilled her mission in this nursery stage, and it would have been folly for her to have bewailed herself.
I feel as if I had carried this camping-out party © through by prayer.
So many perils have beset us on every hand that I do not know what I could have done' if I could not have prayed.
So I have concluded I do
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pray about almost everything, though I had never especially noticed it.
But united prayer with other people I confess I do not care for, and I have told Mrs.
Little so and she doesn't expect it of me.
She and Cad 1 keep it up by the hour sometimes, but I tell them their prayers get answered upside down often.
They and Sarah Smiley met every day one summer to pray that J might not become " Broad Church ", and I kept getting broader and broader, and finally they got
Broad themselves.
To her friends Aet. 49.
YELLOWSTONE PARK, Aug. 18, 1881
Our cook, Tin Lee, is a great feature 'of these campfire entertainments.
Sometimes we get him to sing a Chinese song (he calls it "songing a sing"') and a sadder and more pathetic tune I have never heard anywhere.
It is always the same tune, and has no variations, and it seems to embody in its sad refrain all the grief of a hopeless race.
The night air is always cool enough to make the warmth agreeable and the deliciousness of lying stretched out on one's buffalo robes under the open sky, around a bright roaring fire, can only be understood by experience.
It seems, too, as if everyone's wits were sharper than usual under such circumstances and our young party have many grand nights that give the three quiet elders almost as much delight as themselves.
The only drawback is the inevitable coming of 10 o'clock, which I always consider the good time for going to bed.
The sound of my '"* Now, daughters, it Z eae her cousin, Mrs. Lawrence, one of the "' Five Mystic Birds ""
(see note on p. 81).
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is bedtime "', is almost as much dreaded as the cry of a panther would be.
There is only one other sound that spreads greater consternation, and that is the call of Tin Lee in the morning when breakfast is ready, and he wakes us up from our delicious morning naps by playing a tattoo on a tin pan, and calling out to us at the top of his funny squeaky voice:
"Hi there !
Breakfast!
Flappee jack!
Flappee jack!
Him all done!"
These Rocky Mountain parks are wonderfully beautiful things.
Imagine an English nobleman's country seat set right down in the midst of mountains, with great stretches of greenest grass, groups of beautiful trees, beds of brightest flowers, a winding, dashing mountain river, tiny lakes, slopes of turf, fantastic rocks scattered in the most romantic confusion, and around it all a girdle of grandest mountains, often flecked with snow and changing continually from sunshine to storm, one hour covered with clouds, and the next standing out in clear-cut beauty and sublimity against the deep blue sky.
The Rocky Mountains will always stand out in my memory as the emblem of all this world can give of peace and beauty and perfect rest.
At Tower Creek al] possibility of taking the wagon any further was at an end, and there was no alternative but to mount one of those wild beasts named by Adam a horse, and pursue the journey on horseback!
The guides picked me out a sober old creature named Foxy, used to carrying a pack, and therefore equal to my weight, while not likely to be frisky or foolish.
On the morning of the gth day of August we left Tower Creek, and started, a long train of 26 horses with their colts, and 2 dogs, for the Yellowstone Falls and Cafion.
As I was quite determined never to go out of a walk; on account of my tendency to slip off,
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I took the extreme rear of the pack train, and plodded on very contentedly, finding myself far more comfortable than I could have hoped.
But alas ! my comfort was of but short duration, for when we were about to stop for a lunch at the foot of Mount Washburn, Foxy lost sight of the pack train to which he felt he rightfully belonged, and getting either bewildered or angry, I could not tell which, he began to behave in the most unaccountable and uncomfortable manner.
He backed and forwarded, and sidled, and turned round and round, and neighed and completely mastered me, until one of the guides came up and attaching a rope to his bridle led him the rest of the way.
It was a most beautiful ride across the wooded pass over Mount Washburn, and but for Foxy I should have greatly enjoyed it.
I believe the rest of the party were enthusiastic in their delight, but from my uncomfortable and precarious seat a Foxy's back everything | wore a sombre aspect.
Then too it rained or drizzled all the afternoon, and we went into camp at night with grass and trees almost as wet as if it had been a swamp.
But in this forest and on that grass we had to make our beds and go to sleep.
And strange to say most of us had as comfortable a night as in our own beds at home, though I confess my old bones ached sometimes, and to turn over was an event.
On the roth we reached the Yellowstone Falls, and camped near the Cafion.
To the north it disappears in a sharper turn, and penetrates, they say, grander and wilder scenes, and one can see the mighty walls, rendered gloomy by the distant shadows that overhang its awful depths.
But to the south, and all around and beneath, there is no gloom, only " grandeur steeped in beauty".
And at certain hours in the morning,
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REBEL when the sun strikes the foam and spray of the cataract, the whole cafion at its foot is one glorious giant abyss of rainbows, shifting and changing with every breath of wind.
This cafion presents another aspect to a parent's mind, however, which must not be overlooked.
There are of course no railings along the dizzy edges of these awful heights and depths, and as young people will always go just as near the edge of things as they can, it cannot be said to be comfortable to take a party like ours into such a scene of temptation.
Both Robert and I felt truly thankful for every hour of safety while we remained in this neighbourhood.
The young fellows of our party found great delight in starting enormous fallen trees down the awful incline, and watching them crash their way with a fearful swiftness to the river's bank.
Any Mother will know how that made me feel, specially when I add that no doctor could be procured in that region under 7 days at the very least, and that we had neither houses nor beds, nor any of the things considered necessary in sickness.
I could not bear to spoil the enjoyment of the young people by unnecessary fussiness, but I confess I was thankful every minute that our family did not possess a country seat on the banks of the Yellowstone Cafion!
Often, all I could do was just to walk away and sit down with my back to things, and commit the whole company of juniors to the care of their Father in Heaven.
The day we left the Yellowstone Cafion we travelled about 12 or 15 miles to a point on the banks of the Yellowstone River, about 6 miles below the lake, I on the back of Foxy, at the tail end of the pack train.
The miseries I endured on the back of that creature would fill a volume. A great deal of this misery arose
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from the fact that every muscle ached with the unusual position ; and from this of course there was no relief.
Then the trails were often so steep, and the gullies we had to cross so deep and abrupt, and the saddle so slippery that it was only by sheer force of character
I could keep on at all.
Moreover, the moment that knowing animal lost sight of the pack train he would presume on my innocence, and begin a series of the most harrowing manceuvres, that baffled me utterly, and I felt that literally and truly I was at his mercy.
Once he gave an unexpected jump, and I went right over his back to the ground under his feet.
But providentially he stood still after this feat, and as I have learned how to fall by just letting myself go, I escaped with only an unimportant bruise.
Yet such was the inexorableness of circumstances, that there was literally nothing left for me to do but to pick myself up and climb on that dreadful back again.
At this Two Ocean Pass camp my miseries from Foxy came to an end.
For here the wagon road began again, and as our wagon had been sent around to meet us, I once more found myself (which I confess
I had hardly expected) respectably seated behind a pair of steady-going mules, jogging along over a good road.
No words can express the relief it was.
Neither can any words express strongly enough my unspoken resolve at that place never again under any circumstances to mount the back of any creature, whether called a horse or a lion!
NOTE I (p. 30) Robert Pearsall Smith, though it was never believed that he had gone to lengths which could be reckoned as sinful, had compromised himself with a female disciple.
Of this disaster, Logan Pearsall Smith writes in Unforgotten Years:
'' 'Salute one another with a holy kiss', Paul enjoined upon the Romans, and it has taken Christianity centuries
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to eliminate from its proceedings this holy kiss—if indeed it has succeeded in doing so completely.
Certainly in my father's time this exquisite secret doctrine was extremely prevalent in America; and my father, in spite of my mother's almost desperate warnings, would expound it to select gatherings mostly composed of spinsters of a certain age.
Unluckily one of these grew jealous of another; and let the great beautiful cat out of the bag, to the scandal of the righteous, and the extreme joy of the unholy, whose jokes about the ' Higher Life' as it was called, made my father feel that it would be wise for him to cease his ministrations."'
But following this blow, Robert Pearsall Smith lost more than his occupation ; he lost his faith as well.
His son has told me how, to this disbelieving and disillusioned preacher, believing disciples would still come for guidance: and how, though he beseeched them not to desert him, his children would steal mischievously away, and leave him to the awkward task of giving advice and encouragement of which he himself hardly believed a word.