"I cannot understand what I am to do. If you should tell me to go to the top of the church steeple and jump off, I would readily do it, if thereby I could save my soul; but I do not know how to go to Jesus."
"Repent and believe," said he, "that is all you have to do to be happy here and hereafter."
"I am very sorry," I replied, "for all the evil I have done, and I believe all you tell me, and the more sincerely I believe, the more unhappy I am."
With the natural reaction from despair to hope many of us imagined ourselves converted, prayed and gave our experiences in the meetings, and at times rejoiced in the thought that we were Christians—chosen children of God—rather than sinners and outcasts.
But Dr. Finney's terrible anathemas on the depravity and deceitfulness of the human heart soon shortened our newborn hopes. His appearance in the pulpit on these memorable occasions is indelibly impressed on my mind. I can see him now, his great eyes rolling around the congregation and his arms flying about in the air like those of a windmill. One evening he described hell and the devil and the long procession of sinners being swept down the rapids, about to make the awful plunge into the burning depths of liquid fire below, and the rejoicing hosts in the inferno coming up to meet them with the shouts of the devils echoing through the vaulted arches. He suddenly halted, and, pointing his index finger at the supposed procession, he exclaimed:
"There, do you not see them!"
I was wrought up to such a pitch that I actually jumped up and gazed in the direction to which he pointed, while the picture glowed before my eyes and remained with me for months afterward. I cannot forbear saying that, although high respect is due to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual gifts of the venerable ex-president of Oberlin College, such preaching worked incalculable harm to the very souls he sought to save. Fear of the judgment seized my soul. Visions of the lost haunted my dreams. Mental anguish prostrated my health. Dethronement of my reason was apprehended by friends. But he was sincere, so peace to his ashes! Returning home, I often at night roused my father from his slumbers to pray for me, lest I should be cast into the bottomless pit before morning.
To change the current of my thoughts, a trip was planned to Niagara, and it was decided that the subject of religion was to be tabooed altogether. Accordingly our party, consisting of my sister, her husband, my father and myself, started in our private carriage, and for six weeks I heard nothing on the subject. About this time Gall and Spurzheim published their works on phrenology, followed by Combe's "Constitution of Man," his "Moral Philosophy," and many other liberal works, all so rational and opposed to the old theologies that they produced a profound impression on my brother-in-law's mind. As we had these books with us, reading and discussing by the way, we all became deeply interested in the new ideas. Thus, after many months of weary wandering in the intellectual labyrinth of "The Fall of Man," "Original Sin," "Total Depravity," "God's Wrath," "Satan's Triumph," "The Crucifixion," "The Atonement," and "Salvation by Faith," I found my way out of the darkness into the clear sunlight of Truth. My religious superstitions gave place to rational ideas based on scientific facts, and in proportion, as I looked at everything from a new standpoint, I grew more and more happy, day by day. Thus, with a delightful journey in the month of June, an entire change in my course of reading and the current of my thoughts, my mind was restored to its normal condition. I view it as one of the greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy superstitions; and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to poison all their joy in life.
After the restraints of childhood at home and in school, what a period of irrepressible joy and freedom comes to us in girlhood with the first taste of liberty. Then is our individuality in a measure recognized and our feelings and opinions consulted; then we decide where and when we will come and go, what we will eat, drink, wear, and do. To suit one's own fancy in clothes, to buy what one likes, and wear what one chooses is a great privilege to most young people. To go out at pleasure, to walk, to ride, to drive, with no one to say us nay or question our right to liberty, this is indeed like a birth into a new world of happiness and freedom. This is the period, too, when the emotions rule us, and we idealize everything in life; when love and hope make the present an ecstasy and the future bright with anticipation.
Then comes that dream of bliss that for weeks and months throws a halo of glory round the most ordinary characters in every-day life, holding the strongest and most common-sense young men and women in a thraldom from which few mortals escape. The period when love, in soft silver tones, whispers his first words of adoration, painting our graces and virtues day by day in living colors in poetry and prose, stealthily punctuated ever and anon with a kiss or fond embrace. What dignity it adds to a young girl's estimate of herself when some strong man makes her feel that in her hands rest his future peace and happiness! Though these seasons of intoxication may come once to all, yet they are seldom repeated. How often in after life we long for one more such rapturous dream of bliss, one more season of supreme human love and passion!
After leaving school, until my marriage, I had the most pleasant years of my girlhood. With frequent visits to a large circle of friends and relatives in various towns and cities, the monotony of home life was sufficiently broken to make our simple country pleasures always delightful and enjoyable. An entirely new life now opened to me. The old bondage of fear of the visible and the invisible was broken and, no longer subject to absolute authority, I rejoiced in the dawn of a new day of freedom in thought and action.
My brother-in-law, Edward Bayard, ten years my senior, was an inestimable blessing to me at this time, especially as my mind was just then opening to the consideration of all the varied problems of life. To me and my sisters he was a companion in all our amusements, a teacher in the higher departments of knowledge, and a counselor in all our youthful trials and disappointments. He was of a metaphysical turn of mind, and in the pursuit of truth was in no way trammeled by popular superstitions. He took nothing for granted and, like Socrates, went about asking questions. Nothing pleased him more than to get a bevy of bright young girls about him and teach them how to think clearly and reason logically.
One great advantage of the years my sisters and myself spent at the Troy Seminary was the large number of pleasant acquaintances we made there, many of which ripened into lifelong friendships. From time to time many of our classmates visited us, and all alike enjoyed the intellectual fencing in which my brother-in-law drilled them. He discoursed with us on law, philosophy, political economy, history, and poetry, and together we read novels without number. The long winter evenings thus passed pleasantly, Mr. Bayard alternately talking and reading aloud Scott, Bulwer, James, Cooper, and Dickens, whose works were just then coming out in numbers from week to week, always leaving us in suspense at the most critical point of the story. Our readings were varied with recitations, music, dancing, and games.
As we all enjoyed brisk exercise, even with the thermometer below zero, we took long walks and sleighrides during the day, and thus the winter months glided quickly by, while the glorious summer on those blue hills was a period of unmixed enjoyment. At this season we arose at five in the morning for a long ride on horseback through the beautiful Mohawk Valley and over the surrounding hills. Every road and lane in that region was as familiar to us and our ponies, as were the trees to the squirrels we frightened as we cantered by their favorite resorts.
Part of the time Margaret Christie, a young girl of Scotch descent, was a member of our family circle. She taught us French, music, and dancing. Our days were too short for all we had to do, for our time was not wholly given to pleasure. We were required to keep our rooms in order, mend and make our clothes, and do our own ironing. The latter was one of my mother's politic requirements, to make our laundry lists as short as possible.
Ironing on hot days in summer was a sore trial to all of us; but Miss Christie, being of an inventive turn of mind, soon taught us a short way out of it. She folded and smoothed her undergarments with her hands and then sat on them for a specified time. We all followed her example and thus utilized the hours devoted to our French lessons and, while reading "Corinne" and "Télémaque," in this primitive style we ironed our clothes. But for dresses, collars and cuffs, and pocket handkerchiefs, we were compelled to wield the hot iron, hence with these articles we used all due economy, and my mother's object was thus accomplished.
As