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darkness, in which the Shepherd of Israel was pleas'd to arise, and
by the light of his glorious countenance, to scatter those clouds of
opposition. Then ability was receiv'd, and utterance given, to speak
of his marvellous works in the redemption of souls, and to op
the way of life and salvation, and the mysteries of his glorious
kingdom, which are hid from the wise and prudent of this world, and
reveal'd only unto those who are reduc'd into the state of little
children and babes in Christ.
And concluding another jaunt in 1794:
I was from home in this journey about five months, and travell
by land and water about two thousand two hundred and eighty-three
miles; having visited all the meetings of Friends in the New England
states, and many meetings amongst those of other professions; and
also visited many meetings, among Friends and others, in the upper
part of our own yearly meeting; and found real peace in my labors.
Another 'tramp' in 1798:
I was absent from home in this journey about five months and two
weeks, and rode about sixteen hundred miles, and attended about one
hundred and forty-three meetings.
Here are some memoranda of 1813, near home:
First day. Our meeting this day pass'd in silent labor. The cloud
rested on the tabernacle; and, although it was a day of much rain
outwardly, yet very little of the dew of Hermon appear'd to distil
among us. Nevertheless, a comfortable calm was witness'd towards the
close, which we must render to the account of unmerited mercy and
love.
Second day. Most of this day was occupied in a visit to a sick
friend, who appeared comforted therewith. Spent part of the evening
in reading part of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Third day. I was busied most of this day in my common vocations.
Spent the evening principally in reading Paul. Found considerable
satisfaction in his first epistle to the Corinthians; in which he
shows the danger of some in setting too high a value on those who
were instrumental in bringing them to the knowledge of the truth,
without looking through and beyond the instrument, to the great
first cause and Author of every blessing, to whom all the praise and
honor are due.
Fifth day, 1st of 4th month. At our meeting to-day found it, as
usual, a very close steady exercise to keep the mind center'
where it ought to be. What a multitude of intruding thoughts
imperceptibly, as it were, steal into the mind, and turn it from its
proper object, whenever it relaxes its vigilance in watching against
them. Felt a little strength, just at the close, to remind Friends
of the necessity of a steady perseverance, by a recapitulation of
the parable of the unjust judge, showing how men ought always to
pray, and not to faint.
Sixth day. Nothing material occurr'd, but a fear lest the cares of
the world should engross too much of my time.
Seventh day. Had an agreeable visit from two ancient friends, which
I have long lov'd. The rest of the day I employ'd in manual labor,
mostly in gardening.
But we find if we attend to records and details, we shall lay out an
endless task. We can briefly say, summarily, that his whole life was
a long religious missionary life of method, practicality, sincerity,
earnestness, and pure piety--as near to his time here, as one in Judea,
far back--or in any life, any age. The reader who feels interested must
get--with all its dryness and mere dates, absence of emotionality
or literary quality, and whatever abstract attraction (with even a
suspicion of cant, sniffling,) the "Journal of the Life and Religious
Labours of Elias Hicks, written by himself," at some Quaker book-store.
(It is from this headquarters I have extracted the preceding
quotations.) During E. H.'s matured life, continued from fifty to sixty
years--while working steadily, earning his living and paying his way
without intermission--he makes, as previously memorandized, several
hundred preaching visits, not only through Long Island, but some of them
away into the Middle or Southern States, or north into Canada, or the
then far West--extending to thousands of miles, or filling several weeks
and sometimes months. These religious journeys--scrupulously accepting
in payment only his transportation from place to place, with his own
food and shelter, and never receiving a dollar of money for "salary"
or preaching--Elias, through good bodily health and strength, continues
till quite the age of eighty. It was thus at one of his latest jaunts in
Brooklyn city I saw and heard him. This sight and hearing shall now be
described.
Elias Hicks was at this period in the latter part (November or December)
of 1829. It was the last tour of the many missions of the old man's
life. He was in the 81st year of his age, and a few months before he
had lost by death a beloved wife with whom he had lived in unalloyed
affection and esteem for 58 years. (But a few months after this meeting
Elias was paralyzed and died.) Though it is sixty years ago since--and I
a little boy at the time in Brooklyn, New York--I can remember my father
coming home toward sunset from his day's work as carpenter, and saying
briefly, as he throws down his armful of kindling-blocks with a bounce
on the kitchen floor, "Come, mother, Elias preaches to-night." Then my
mother, hastening the supper and the table-cleaning afterward, gets a
neighboring young woman, a friend of the family, to step in and keep
house for an hour or so--puts the two little ones to bed--and as I had
been behaving well that day, as a special reward I was allow'd to go
also.
We start for the meeting. Though, as I said, the stretch of more than
half a century has pass'd over me since then, with its war and peace,
and all its joys and sins and deaths (and what a half century! how it
comes up sometimes for an instant, like the lightning flash in a storm
at night!) I can recall that meeting yet. It is a strange place
for religious devotions. Elias preaches anywhere--no respect to
buildings--private or public houses, school-rooms, barns, even
theatres--anything that will accommodate. This time it is in a handsome
ball-room, on Brooklyn Heights, overlooking New York, and in full sight
of that great city, and its North and East rivers fill'd with ships--is
(to specify more particularly) the second story of "Morrison's Hotel,"
used for the most genteel concerts, balls, and assemblies--a large,
cheerful, gay-color'd room, with glass chandeliers bearing myriads of
sparkling pendants, plenty of settees and chairs, and a sort of velvet
divan running all round the side-walls. Before long the divan and all
the settees and chairs are fill'd; many fashionables out of curiosity;
all the principal dignitaries of the town, Gen. Jeremiah Johnson, Judge
Furman, George Hall, Mr. Willoughby, Mr. Pierrepont, N.B. Morse, Cyrus
P. Smith, and F.C. Tucker. Many young folks too; some richly dress'd
women; I remember I noticed with one party of ladies a group of
uniform'd officers, either from the U.S. Navy Yard, or some ship in the
stream, or some adjacent fort. On a slightly elevated platform at the
head of the room, facing the audience, sit a dozen or more Friends, most
of them elderly, grim, and with their broad-brimm'd hats on their heads.
Three or four women, too, in their characteristic Quaker costumes and
bonnets. All still as the grave.
At length after a pause and stillness becoming almost painful, Elias
rises and stands for a moment or two without a word. A tall, straight
figure, neither stout nor very thin, dress'd in drab cloth, clean-shaved
face, forehead of great expanse, and large and clear black eyes,[42]
long or middling-long white hair; he was at this time between 80 and 81
years of age, his head still wearing the broad-brim. A moment looking
around the audience with those piercing eyes, amid the perfect
stillness. (I can almost see him and the whole scene now.) Then the
words come from his lips, very emphatically and slowly pronounc'd, in a
resonant, grave, melodious voice, _What is the chief end of man? I was
told in my early youth, it was to glorify God, and seek and enjoy him
forever._
I cannot follow the discourse. It presently becomes very fervid, and in
the midst of its fervor he takes the broad-brim hat from his head, and
almost dashing it down with violence on the seat behind, continues with
uninterrupted earnestness. But, I say, I cannot repeat, hardly suggest
his sermon. Though the differences and disputes of the formal division
of the Society of Friends were even then under way, he did not allude
to them at all. A pleading, tender, nearly agonizing conviction,
and magnetic stream of natural eloquence, before which all minds and
natures, all emotions, high or low, gentle or simple, yielded entirely
without exception, was its cause, method, and effect. Many, very many
were in tears. Years afterward in Boston, I heard Father Taylor, the
sailor's preacher, and found in his passionate unstudied oratory the
resemblance to Elias Hicks's--not argumentative or intellectual, but so
penetrating--so different from anything in the books--(different as the
fresh air of a May morning or sea-shore breeze from the atmosphere of a
perfumer's shop.)
While he goes on he falls into the nasality and sing-song tone sometimes
heard in such meetings; but in a moment or two more as if recollecting
himself, he breaks off, stops, and resumes in a natural tone. This
occurs three or four times during the talk of the evening, till all
concludes.
Now and then, at the many scores and hundreds--even thousands--of his
discourses--as at this one--he was very mystical and radical,[43] and
had much to say of "the light within." Very likely this same inner
light, (so dwelt upon by newer men, as by Fox and Barclay at the
beginning, and all Friends and deep thinkers since and now,) is perhaps
only another name for the religious conscience. In my opinion they have
all diagnos'd, like superior doctors, the real in-most disease of our
times, probably any times. Amid the huge inflammation call'd society,
and that other inflammation call'd politics, what is there to-day of
moral power and ethic sanity as antiseptic to them and all? Though I
think the essential elements of the moral nature exist latent in the
good average people of the United States of to-day, and sometimes break
out strongly, it is certain that any mark'd or dominating National
Morality (if I may use the phrase) has not only not yet been develop'd,
but that--at any rate when the point of view is turn'd on business,
politics, competition, practical life, and in character and manners in
our New World--there seems to be a hideous depletion, almost absence, of
such moral nature. Elias taught throughout, as George Fox began it, or
rather reiterated and verified it, the Platonic doctrine that the ideals
of character, of justice, of religious action, whenever the highest is
at stake, are to be conform'd to no outside doctrine of creeds, Bibles,
legislative enactments, conventionalities, or even decorums, but are to
follow the inward Deity-planted law of the emotional soul. In this only
the true Quaker, or Friend, has faith; and it is from rigidly, perhaps
strainingly carrying it out, that both the Old and New England records
of Quakerdom show some unseemly and insane acts.
In one of the lives of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a list of lessons or
instructions, ("seal'd orders" the biographer calls them,) prepar'd by
the sage himself for his own guidance. Here is one:
Go forth with thy message among thy fellow-creatures; teach them that
they must trust themselves as guided by that inner light which dwells
with the pure in heart, to whom it was promis'd of old that they shall
see God.