The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
throughout the world; and civilization, arrested by the Goths and
Vandals, who overturned the old Roman Empire, might resume its
triumphant march through the ages. Plans were forming to make the
democratic revolution as nearly simultaneous as possible in France,
Austria, Prussia, and Central Germany; at least to give these countries
sufficient employment at home to render them unable to go to the
assistance of the Pope.
Subsidiary to his purpose, he proposed a grand World’s Convention,
composed of delegates from the whole Protestant world, to be holden as
soon as possible at London. It might be assembled ostensibly for the
purpose of bringing about a better feeling and closer union of the
various Protestant sects, and none but those who could be safely trusted
should be initiated into its ulterior objects. Only the managers need
know its real purpose, or _modus operandi_. It might form a Protestant
Alliance, and recommend the formation of Protestant associations in all
Protestant States for the protection of the Reformation against Popery,
the conversion of the Pope and his Italian subjects. These associations
would have nothing to do but to raise funds, and meet once a year, hear
reports, and listen to flaming speeches in praise of the Bible and
religious liberty, and against the tyranny, idolatry, and superstition
of Popery. Thus they would, without knowing it, prepare the way and
furnish the means of driving the foreigner out of Italy, dethroning the
Pope, establishing the Roman Republic, and spreading liberty throughout
the world, and in a way, too, not to alarm the religious sensibilities
of the Italians, because those who showed themselves to Italians would
have apparently no connection with the Protestant movement.[2]
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Footnote 2:
This is in the main historical, and was communicated to the writer
through a mutual friend, by a delegate from Connecticut to the World’s
Convention, alluded to in the text.
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The plan of Young Italy, communicated with further details, and which
was substantially carried out from 1845 to 1849, when, contrary to all
human foresight, Republican—not Imperial—France suppressed the Roman
Republic, and restored the Pope, struck Priscilla and myself as
admirable, and we resolved to give it our hearty support. I hoped, by
the new power I had discovered, or was on the point of discovering, to
bring an unexpected force to its aid. The Signor accepted our pledges,
enrolled our names, administered to us the oath, and gave us the signs
and passwords agreed upon by the government of Young Italy.
When Signor Urbini had taken his leave of us, we, that is, Priscilla and
myself, came to a mutual understanding of the respective parts we were
to perform. We agreed that it was useless for either to attempt any
thing without the other. Our covenant was sealed. Poor Priscilla, little
did she foresee what the future had in store for her! But let me not
anticipate. We embraced, and I returned to my lodgings, intending to
leave the next day for my home in western New York. Hardly had I
regained my lodgings at the hotel, when I was called upon by the stanch
old puritan, Mr. Cotton. I have departed far enough from the stand-point
of my puritan ancestors, and have few traces in my moral constitution of
my puritan descent; but, I care not who knows it, I am proud of these
stern old men, the Bradfords, the Brewsters, the Hookers, the
Davenports, and the stout Miles Standish, who came forth into a new
world to battle with the wilderness, the savage, and the devil. Stern
they were, stout-hearted, and strong of arm, yet not without a touch of
human feeling. They had their loves, their affections, and their soft
moments, when Jonathan or Ezekiel wooed his Beulah or his Keziah, who
blushingly responded to his addresses, and the husband kissed his wife,
the mother her boy, if it was not on the Sabbath. Honor to their memory!
They did man’s work, and earned man’s wages, and as well might one of
the modern Trasteverini blush for his old Roman progenitors, as I for my
old puritan ancestors, who brought with them the bravest hearts and the
best laws and the noblest institutions of old England, which they loved
so tenderly, though she sent them forth as the Patriarch’s wife did
Hagar and the dear Ismael into the desert. I liked Mr. Cotton, too, for
his great ancestor’s sake, for great, O Cotton Mather, thou wast in thy
day; hard service didst thou against fiends and witches, and powers
invisible; and a noble epic hast thou left us in thy Magnalia. The
college thou lovedst so well, and which thou didst cherish in thy heart
of hearts, “_pro Christo et Ecclesia_,” may have ceased to cherish thy
memory, and the Second Church, over which thou wast pastor as colleague
with thy father, has learned to blush at thy memory, and to imagine it
shows its wisdom in calling thee a “learned fool.” I, who have as little
sympathy with them as with thee, honor thee as one of the worthies of my
country, and as one who was not the least among the worthies of my
native land in thy day and generation. Men look upon thee as antiquated,
and fancy that they have become wiser than thou wast. Would to Heaven
they had a little of thy good sense, and of the truth, which thou wast
not ashamed to profess and defend!
But this is quite aside from my purpose, and is artistically considered
a blemish in my narrative. But few are the writers who, if they speak
out from warm hearts their true, deep, genuine feelings as they arise,
but will violate some canon of art. I love art, but I love nature more.
I love a smoothly shaven lawn; I say nothing against your artificial
garden, trim and neat, where each plant and shrub grows and flowers
according to rule; but the wild forest, with its irregularities,
decaying logs, huge trees, fresh saplings, and tangled underbrush, was
as a boy, when it was my home, and is now I am a man, much more my
delight. By the same token, I love Boston, whose streets were laid out
by the cows going through the brushwood to drink, where you cannot find
a square corner, or a street a hundred yards in length without a curve,
better than the city of Penn, laid out by a carpenter’s line and chalk,
and presenting only the dull monotony of the chess-board, without the
excitement of the game. Yet the city of Penn has its merits. Many a
pleasant hour have I spent there, and many a sweet association is
entwined in my memory with its rectangles, and its plain, uniform,
drab-colored costume. But I have left Mr. Cotton all this time standing.
It was unintentional, for I was not displeased to see him. He knew me as
the son of an old friend, and he had, both as a friend and as a minister
of religion, called to expostulate with me. He was sure that I was
imperilling my soul, and he could not answer it to his conscience, if he
did not solemnly and yet affectionately warn me of my danger.
I have been sadly remiss in my faith and in my conduct, yet never have I
allowed myself to treat with scorn or contumely any professed minister
of religion who addressed me in tones of sincerity and affectionate
earnestness. Mr. Cotton, I was sure, meant well, although I knew his
expostulations would avail nothing, and his warning be unheeded. I
listened with respect, but untouched. At that time my heart was hard. I
was laboring under a perfect delusion, and body and soul were under the
power of the Evil One. “You may not believe it, Doctor,” said Mr.
Cotton, “but I tell you that you are forming a league with the devil. I
know you have grown wiser than your fathers were; that you deny the
existence of a devil or of evil spirits, but you are wise only in your
own conceit, and you are now really dealing with the devil, are plotting
to do the devil’s work, under pretence of science and world-reform. I
have watched you these many months, and I see where you are going. You
are also permitting yourself to be seduced by a Moabitish woman, and
allowing yourself to be cheated, with your eyes open, out of your five
senses by the sparkle of her eye, and the ruby of her lip. Why have you
suffered her to bewitch you? Leave her, never see her or speak to her
again, or you are a lost man.”
I am naturally a very mild-tempered man, and am not and never was very
sensitive to wounds inflicted by the tongue; and Mr. Cotton might have
abused me or said all manner of hard things against me till he was
exhausted, and I could have remained unmoved; but when he alluded to my
relation with another, especially since I could not defend it, and
called the beautiful, the lovely, the philanthropic Priscilla a
Moabitish woman, and attacked her honor, my blood was up, and I
instantly resolved that he should suffer for it. I however kept this to
myself, assured him that he was uncharitable, and judged an estimable
lady rashly; that my relations with Priscilla were not precisely a
matter for his cognizance, as we were neither of us under his parochial
charge. I respected him as an old friend of my father’s, and as a
descendant of one of the greatest men of the early Massachusetts Colony.
I had no doubt of his good intentions, and affectionate interest in me
and my family; but I was of age, and competent to take care of myself.
What I was doing I was doing with my eyes open, calmly, deliberately,
and from what I held to be justifiable motives. I was prepared to take
the responsibility. Warnings, expostulations, would avail nothing. I was
resolved to push my scientific investigations to the furthest limits
possible. I would, if I should be able, wrest from nature her last
secret, and avail myself of all her mysterious forces. I did not pretend
to say whether there were devils and evil spirits or not, although I
believed God made all things good, very good; but if there were, I had
nothing to do with them, for I invoked mysterious agencies only for a
good end, in the cause of philanthropy and human progress. If they were
spirits I was dealing with, they must be white spirits rather than
black; and if I studied and even practised magic, I was sure it was not
black magic, but white.
“All that is very well said,” replied Mr. Cotton, “and yet you know that
you are carried away by indiscreet curiosity, by an unholy ambition, and
perhaps by lawless lust, and you dare not, alone in your closet, ask the
blessing of God on your proceedings. Bear with me. I am an old man, and
let my gray hairs plead with you, if not my sacred profession. I know
that the young men of our time lose their reverence for religion, and
turn up their noses in profound disgust when we speak to them of duty
and the solemn responsibilities of life. I know they are impatient of
restraint, and burning with a passion for liberty, as they call it. I
know they deem it wisdom to depart from the old ways, to forsake the God
of their fathers, and to hew out to themselves cisterns, alas, broken
cisterns, which will hold no water. But let me tell you, my friend, that
they are only sowing the seeds of future sorrow, and will reap only a
too abundant harvest. No man in his old age ever regretted that he
feared God and practised virtue in his youth.”
“All that may be very true, Mr. Cotton, but much of it comes with no
good grace from a Puritan who has allowed himself the freedom of his own
judgment in religious matters. It is not long since your fathers forsook
their fathers’ God, and hewed out cisterns for themselves; whether
broken cisterns or not, it is not for me to say; certainly they departed
from the old ways, followed the new wisdom of their times, and you honor
them for it. Perhaps posterity will in like manner honor me and my
associates for daring to follow the new wisdom of our times, and to
incur reproach for my adhesion to the work of human emancipation. I am