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Cyrus Pringle >> The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle\'s Diary
THE RECORD OF A
QUAKER CONSCIENCE
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
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TORONTO
THE RECORD OF A
QUAKER CONSCIENCE
CYRUS PRINGLE'S DIARY
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
RUFUS M. JONES
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1918
_All rights reserved_
Copyright, 1913
BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
Copyright, 1918
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and printed. Published, February, 1918
[Transcriber's Note:
Several unusual spellings have been kept as in the original, including:
northermost ("Fairhope meeting-house is in the northermost country") and
comformable ("yet probably in a manner comformable to").
In some cases, variant spellings of the same word are used, as in the
case of "enrolment" and "enrollment", "therefor" and "therefore", "well
meant" and "well-meant". These have been comfirmed with the original.
In referring to God, there is also inconsistency in the use of "His"
versus "his" and "Him" versus "him".]
INTRODUCTION
The body of this little book consists of the personal diary of a young
Quaker named Cyrus Guernsey Pringle of Charlotte, Vermont. He was
drafted for service in the Union Army, July 13th, 1863. Under the
existing draft law a person who had religious scruples against engaging
in war was given the privilege of paying a commutation fine of three
hundred dollars. This commutation money Pringle's conscience would not
allow him to pay. A prosperous uncle proposed to pay it surreptitiously
for him, but the honest-minded youth discovered the plan and refused to
accept the well meant kindness, since he believed, no doubt rightly,
that this money would be used to pay for an army substitute in his
place. The Diary relates in simple, naive style the experiences which
befell the narrator as he followed his hard path of duty, and
incidentally it reveals a fine and sensitive type of character, not
unlike that which comes so beautifully to light in the Journal of John
Woolman.
This is plainly not the psychological moment to study the highly complex
and delicate problem of conscience. The strain and tension of world
issues disturb our judgment. We cannot if we would turn away from the
events and movements that affect the destiny of nations to dwell calmly
and securely upon our own inner, private actions. It is never easy, even
when the world is most normal and peaceful, to mark off with sharp lines
the area of individual freedom. No person ever lives unto himself or is
sufficient to himself. He is inextricably woven into the tissue of the
social group. His privileges, his responsibilities, his obligations are
forever over-individual and come from beyond his narrow isolated life.
If he is to be a rational being at all he must _relate_ his life to
others and share in some measure their triumphs and their tragedies.
But at the same time the most precious thing in the universe is that
mysterious thing we call individual liberty and which even God himself
guards and respects. Up to some point, difficult certainly to delimit, a
man must be captain of his soul. He cannot be a _person_ if he does not
have a sphere of power over his own act. To treat him as a puppet of
external forces, or a mere cog in a vast social mechanism, is to wipe
out the unique distinction between person and thing. Somewhere the free
spirit must take its stand and claim its God-given distinction. If life
is to be at all worth while there must be some boundary within which the
soul holds its own august and ultimate tribunal. That Sanctuary domain
within the soul the Quakers, ever since their origin in the period of
the English Commonwealth, have always guarded as the most sacred
possession a man can have.
No grave difficulty, at least in the modern world, is involved in this
faith, until it suddenly comes into conflict with the urgent
requirements of social efficiency. When the social group is fused with
emotion and moves almost as an undivided unit toward some end, then the
claim of a right, on the ground of conscience, for the individual to
deviate from the group and to pursue another or an opposite course
appears serious if not positively insufferable. The abstract principle
of individual liberty all modern persons grant; the strain comes when
some one proposes to insist upon a concrete instance of it which
involves implications that may endanger the ends which the intensified
group is pursuing. A situation of this type confronts the Quakers
whenever their country engages in war, since as a people they feel that
they cannot fight or take any part in military operations.
They do not find it an easy thing to give a completely rational ground
for their opposition to war. Nor, as a matter of fact, is it any more
easy for the militarist to rationalize his method of solving world
difficulties. Both are evidently actuated by instinctive forces which
lie far beneath the level of pure reason.
The roots of the Quakers' opposition to war go deep down into the soil
of the past. They are the outgrowth and culmination of a long spiritual
movement. They carry along, in their ideas, emotions, habits and
attitudes, tendencies which have been unconsciously sucked in with their
mother's milk, and which, therefore, cannot be held up and analysed.
The mystics, the humanists, the anabaptists, the spiritual reformers,
are forerunners of the Quaker. They are a necessary part of his
pedigree,--and they were all profoundly opposed to war. This attitude
has become an integral part of the vital stock of truth by which the
Quaker lives his spiritual life, and to violate it is for him to stop
living "the way of truth," as the early Quakers quaintly called their
religious faith.
But the Quakers have never been champions of the negative. They do not
take kindly to the role of being "antis." Their negations grow out of
their insistent affirmations. If they are _against_ an established
institution or custom it is because they are _for_ some other way of
life which seems to them divinely right, and their first obligation is
to incarnate that way of life. They cannot, therefore, stand apart in
monastic seclusion and safely watch the swirl of forces which they
silently disapprove. If in war-time they do not fight, they _do_
something else. They accept and face the dangers incident to their way
of life. They feel a compulsion to take up and in some measure to bear
the burden of the world's suffering. They endeavour to exhibit, humbly
and modestly, the power of sacrificial love, freely, joyously given, and
they venture all that the brave can venture to carry their faith into
life and action. In the American civil war, in the Franco-Prussian, the
South African, the Balkan, the Russo-Japanese, small bands of Quakers
revealed the same spirit of service and the same obliviousness to danger
which have marked the larger groups that have manned the ambulance units
and the war-victims' relief and reconstruction work of this world war.
In this present crisis they have gone wherever they could go,--to
Belgium, to France, to Russia, to Italy, to Serbia and Greece and Syria
and Mesopotamia,--to carry into operation the forces of restoration and
of reconstruction. They have not stood aloof as spectators of the
world's tragedy. They have entered into it and shared it, and they have
counted neither money nor life dear to themselves in their desire to
reveal the power of redeeming and transforming love.
Slowly the sincerity of the Quaker conviction about war has made itself
felt and limited legislative provisions have been made, especially in
England and America, to meet the claims of conscience. The problem which
confronts the law-maker, even when he is sympathetic with the rights of
conviction, is the grave difficulty of determining where to draw the
line of special exception to general requirements and how to discover
the sincerity of conscientious objection to war. The "slacker" is
always a stern possibility. There must be no holes in the net for him to
escape through. The makers of armies naturally want every man who can be
spared from civilian life and can be utilized for military operations.
It has consequently often seemed necessary for law-makers to be narrow
and hard toward the obviously sincere for fear of being too easy and
lenient with those suspected of having sham consciences.
During the Civil War in America, President Lincoln, eager as he was to
win the war, was always deeply in sympathy with the Quakers, and he
stretched his administrative powers to their full limit to provide
relief for conscientious convictions. In the early stages of the great
conflict the President wrote the following kindly note in answer to a
message from New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends:
"Engaged as I am, in a great war, I fear it will be difficult for the
world to understand how fully I appreciate the principles of peace
inculcated in this letter [of yours] and every where by the Society of
Friends."[1] Both he and Secretary Stanton made many positive efforts to
find some way of providing for the tender consciences of Friends without
being unfair to the rights of others. They even requested American
Friends to call a conference to consider how to find a satisfactory
solution of the problem. Such a conference was held in Baltimore,
December 7th, 1863, and the Friends there assembled expressed great
appreciation of "the kindness evinced at all times by the President and
Secretary of War." A delegation from this conference visited Washington
and, in co-operation with Secretary Stanton, succeeded in securing a
clause in the enrolment bill, declaring Friends to be non-combatants,
assigning all drafted Friends to hospital service or work among
freedmen, and further providing for the entire exemption of Friends from
military service on the payment of $300 into a fund for the relief of
sick and wounded.[2]
On several occasions Friends in larger or smaller groups went to
Washington for times of prayer and spiritual communion with the great
President. These times were deeply appreciated by the heavily burdened
man. Tears ran down his cheeks, we are told, as he sat bowed in solemn
silence or knelt as some moved Friend prayed for him to Almighty God.
Writing of the visit of Isaac and Sarah Harvey of Clinton County, Ohio,
in the autumn of 1862, Lincoln tenderly said: "May the Lord comfort them
as they have sustained me." A letter written by the President in 1862 to
Eliza P. Gurney, one of a small group of Friends who visited him and
prayed with him in the autumn of that year, reveals forcibly how he
regarded these occasions:
"I am glad of this interview, and glad to know that I have your
sympathy and prayers. We are indeed going through a great trial--a
fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happen to
be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly
Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out his great purposes,
I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to his
will, and that it might be so, I have sought his aid; but if, after
endeavouring to do my best in the light which he affords me, I find
my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to
me, his will is otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would
never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way, this war
would have been ended before this; but we find it still continues,
and we must believe that he permits it for some wise purpose of
his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited
understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot
but believe that he who made the world still governs it."
Somewhat later President Lincoln wrote again to Eliza P. Gurney
requesting her to exercise her freedom to write to him as he felt the
need of spiritual help and reinforcement. Her letter of reply so closely
touched him and spoke to his condition that he carried it about with him
and it was found in his coat pocket at the time of his death, twenty
months after it was written. In the autumn of 1864, President Lincoln,
still impressed by the message which he had received, wrote a memorable
letter to Eliza P. Gurney. It was as follows:
"I have not forgotten--probably never shall forget--the very
impressive occasion when yourself and friends visited me on a
Sabbath forenoon two years ago. Nor has your kind letter, written
nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. In all it has been your
purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the
good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and
consolations; and to no one of them more than to yourself. The
purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we
erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We
hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before
this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet
acknowledge his wisdom, and our own error therein. Meanwhile we
must work earnestly in the best lights he gives us, trusting that
so working still conduces to the great ends he ordains. Surely he
intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no
mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. Your people, the
Friends, have had, and are having, a very great trial. On principle
and faith opposed to both war and oppression, they can only
practically oppose oppression by war. In this dilemma some have
chosen one horn and some the other. For those appealing to me on
conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could
and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That you
believe this I doubt not; and, believing it, I shall still receive
for our country and myself your earnest prayers to our Father in
heaven."
It is, then, not surprising that President Lincoln was "moved with
sympathy" when he heard the story of Pringle's suffering for conscience,
or that he quietly said to the Secretary of War, "It is my urgent wish
that this Friend be released."
RUFUS M. JONES.
Haverford, Pa.,
December, 1917.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nicolay and Hay: "Abraham Lincoln," Vol. VI, p. 328.
[2] Secretary Stanton endeavoured to provide that this commutation money
should be made into a fund for the care of freedmen. This suggestion
was, however, not adopted by Congress.
THE RECORD OF A QUAKER CONSCIENCE
At Burlington, Vt., on the 13th of the seventh month, 1863, I was
drafted. Pleasant are my recollections of the 14th. Much of that rainy
day I spent in my chamber, as yet unaware of my fate; in writing and
reading and in reflecting to compose my mind for any event. The day and
the exercise, by the blessing of the Father, brought me precious
reconciliation to the will of Providence.
With ardent zeal for our Faith and the cause of our peaceable
principles; and almost disgusted at the lukewarmness and unfaithfulness
of very many who profess these; and considering how heavily slight
crosses bore upon their shoulders, I felt to say, "Here am I, Father,
for thy service. As thou will." May I trust it was He who called me and
sent me forth with the consolation: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Deeply have I felt many times since that I am nothing without the
companionship of the Spirit.
I was to report on the 27th. Then, loyal to our country, Wm. Lindley
Dean and I appeared before the Provost Marshal with a statement of our
cases. We were ordered for a hearing on the 29th. On the afternoon of
that day W.L.D. was rejected upon examination of the Surgeon, but my
case not coming up, he remained with me,--much to my strength and
comfort. Sweet was his converse and long to be remembered, as we lay
together that warm summer night on the straw of the barracks. By his
encouragement much was my mind strengthened; my desires for a pure life,
and my resolutions for good. In him and those of whom he spoke I saw
the abstract beauty of Quakerism. On the next morning came Joshua M.
Dean to support me and plead my case before the Board of Enrollment. On
the day after, the 31st, I came before the Board. Respectfully those men
listened to the exposition of our principles; and, on our representing
that we looked for some relief from the President, the marshal released
me for twenty days. Meanwhile appeared Lindley M. Macomber and was
likewise, by the kindness of the marshal, though they had received
instructions from the Provost Marshal General to show such claims no
partiality, released to appear on the 20th day of the eighth month.
All these days we were urged by our acquaintances to pay our commutation
money; by some through well-meant kindness and sympathy; by others
through interest in the war; and by others still through a belief they
entertained it was our duty. But we confess a higher duty than that to
country; and, asking no military protection of our Government and
grateful for none, deny any obligation to support so unlawful a system,
as we hold a war to be even when waged in opposition to an evil and
oppressive power and ostensibly in defence of liberty, virtue, and free
institutions; and, though touched by the kind interest of friends, we
could not relieve their distress by a means we held even more sinful
than that of serving ourselves, as by supplying money to hire a
substitute we would not only be responsible for the result, but be the
agents in bringing others into evil. So looking to our Father alone for
help, and remembering that "Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall find
it; but whoso saveth it shall lose it," we presented ourselves again
before the Board, as we had promised to do when released. Being offered
four days more of time, we accepted it as affording opportunity to
visit our friends; and moreover as there would be more probability of
meeting Peter Dakin at Rutland.
Sweet was the comfort and sympathy of our friends as we visited them.
There was a deep comfort, as we left them, in the thought that so many
pure and pious people follow us with their love and prayers. Appearing
finally before the marshal on the 24th, suits and uniforms were selected
for us, and we were called upon to give receipts for them. L.M.M. was on
his guard, and, being first called upon, declared he could not do so, as
that would imply acceptance. Failing to come to any agreement, the
matter was postponed till next morning, when we certified to the fact
that the articles were "with us." Here I must make record of the
kindness of the marshal, Rolla Gleason, who treated us with respect and
kindness. He had spoken with respect of our Society; had given me
furloughs to the amount of twenty-four days, when the marshal at Rutland
considered himself restricted by his oath and duty to six days; and here
appeared in person to prevent any harsh treatment of us by his
sergeants; and though much against his inclinations, assisted in putting
on the uniform with his own hands. We bade him farewell with grateful
feelings and expressions of fear that we should not fall into as tender
hands again; and amid the rain in the early morning, as the town clock
tolled the hour of seven, we were driven amongst the flock that was
going forth to the slaughter, down the street and into the cars for
Brattleboro. Dark was the day with murk and cloud and rain; and, as we
rolled down through the narrow vales of eastern Vermont, somewhat of the
shadow crept into our hearts and filled them with dark apprehensions of
evil fortune ahead; of long, hopeless trials; of abuse from inferior
officers; of contempt from common soldiers; of patient endurance (or an
attempt at this), unto an end seen only by the eye of a strong faith.
Herded into a car by ourselves, we conscripts, substitutes, and the
rest, through the greater part of the day, swept over the fertile
meadows along the banks of the White River and the Connecticut, through
pleasant scenes that had little of delight for us. At Woodstock we were
joined by the conscripts from the 1st District,--altogether an inferior
company from those before with us, who were honest yeomen from the
northern and mountainous towns, while these were many of them
substitutes from the cities.
At Brattleboro we were marched up to the camp; our knapsacks and persons
searched; and any articles of citizen's dress taken from us; and then
shut up in a rough board building under a guard. Here the prospect was
dreary, and I felt some lack of confidence in our Father's arm, though
but two days before I wrote to my dear friend, E.M.H.,--
I go tomorrow where the din
Of war is in the sulphurous air.
I go the Prince of Peace to serve,
His cross of suffering to bear.
Brattleboro, _26th_, _8th_ month, 1863.--Twenty-five or thirty caged
lions roam lazily to and fro through this building hour after hour
through the day. On every side without, sentries pace their slow beat,
bearing loaded muskets. Men are ranging through the grounds or hanging
in synods about the doors of the different buildings, apparently without
a purpose. Aimless is military life, except betimes its aim is deadly.
Idle life blends with violent death-struggles till the man is unmade a
man; and henceforth there is little of manhood about him. Of a man he is
made a soldier, which is a man-destroying machine in two senses,--a
thing for the prosecuting or repelling an invasion like the block of
stone in the fortress or the plate of iron on the side of the Monitor.
They are alike. I have tried in vain to define a difference, and I see
only this. The iron-clad with its gun is the bigger soldier: the more
formidable in attack, the less liable to destruction in a given time;
the block the most capable of resistance; both are equally obedient to
officers. Or the more perfect is the soldier, the more nearly he
approaches these in this respect.
Three times a day we are marched out to the mess houses for our rations.
In our hands we carry a tin plate, whereon we bring back a piece of
bread (sour and tough most likely), and a cup. Morning and noon a piece
of meat, antique betimes, bears company with the bread. They who wish it
receive in their cups two sorts of decoctions: in the morning burnt
bread, or peas perhaps, steeped in water with some saccharine substance
added (I dare not affirm it to be sugar). At night steeped tea extended
by some other herbs probably and its pungency and acridity assuaged by
the saccharine principle aforementioned. On this we have so far
subsisted and, save some nauseating, comfortably. As we go out and
return, on right and left and in front and rear go bayonets. Some
substitutes heretofore have escaped and we are not to be neglected in
our attendants. Hard beds are healthy, but I query cannot the result be
defeated by the _degree_? Our mattresses are boards. Only the slight
elasticity of our thin blankets breaks the fall of our flesh and bones
thereon. Oh! now I praise the discipline I have received from uncarpeted
floors through warm summer nights of my boyhood.
The building resounds with petty talk; jokes and laughter and swearing.
Something more than that. Many of the caged lions are engaged with
cards, and money changes hands freely. Some of the caged lions read, and
some sleep, and so the weary day goes by.
L.M.M. and I addressed the following letter to Governor Holbrook and
hired a corporal to forward it to him.
BRATTLEBORO, VT., _26th_, _8th_ month, 1863.
FREDERICK HOLBROOK,
Governor of Vermont:--
We, the undersigned members of the Society of Friends, beg leave to
represent to thee, that we were lately drafted in the 3d Dist. of
Vermont, have been forced into the army and reached the camp near this
town yesterday.
That in the language of the elders of our New York Yearly Meeting, "We
love our country and acknowledge with gratitude to our Heavenly Father
the many blessings we have been favoured with under the government; and
can feel no sympathy with any who seek its overthrow."
But that, true to well-known principles of our Society, we cannot
violate our religious convictions either by complying with military
requisitions or by the equivalents of this compliance,--the furnishing
of a substitute or payment of commutation money. That, therefore, we are
brought into suffering and exposed to insult and contempt from those who
have us in charge, as well as to the penalties of insubordination,
though liberty of conscience is granted us by the Constitution of
Vermont as well as that of the United States.
Therefore, we beg of thee as Governor of our State any assistance thou
may be able to render, should it be no more than the influence of thy
position interceding in our behalf.
Truly Thy Friend,
CYRUS G. PRINGLE.
P.S.--We are informed we are to be sent to the vicinity of Boston
tomorrow.