Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860




Oddly enough, it was on that day of delusions, the first of April, that
I stumbled into the Doctor's revival of the age of miracles. I had been
engaged for three months on a geological survey in a Western Territory,
during which time I had received very brief and vague news from the
little city which was then my place of abode, and had not even had
a hint of the signs and wonders which there awaited my astonished
observation. Reaching home, I made it my first business to call on my
reverend friend; for the Doctor, it must be known, was one of my most
valued intimates, had baptized me, had counselled me, had travelled with
me in foreign lands; we had many interests, many sympathies in common,
and no differences except with regard to the extent of the Flood, the
date of the Creation, and other matters of small personal importance.
I found him in his study, surrounded by those seven hundred and odd
volumes, the learning and excellent spirit of which gave to his sermons
such a body of venerable divinity, such a bouquet of savory eloquence.
He was walking to and fro rapidly, studying a slip of manuscript with an
air of serious ecstasy. He did not look up until I had seized his hand,
and even then he stared at me as a man might be supposed to stare who
had been passing a fortnight with angels or other spiritual existences
and unexpectedly found himself among natural and reasonable beings
again.

"Ah, my dear Elderkin," he said at last, "I am glad to see you. How are
you, and how have you been? Excuse me for not recognizing you at once. I
had just lost myself in the consideration of a mystery which I believe
to be of the sublimest importance. Oh, my dear friend, I hope you will
be brought to attend to these things! They are above and beyond all your
geologies; they preceded and will outlive them."

"Indeed!" I replied. "Nothing in the way of chaos, I hope?"

"Look here at this sheet of foolscap," he exclaimed, waving it
excitedly. "Do you remember the belief which I have often expressed to
you,--the belief that the dispensation of miracles has never yet ceased
from earth,--that we have still a right to expect signs, wonders,
instantaneous healings, and unknown tongues,--and that, but for our
wretched incredulity, these things would constantly happen among us? You
have disputed it and ridiculed it, but here I hold a proof of its truth.
A month ago this blessing was vouchsafed to me. It was at one of our
Wednesday-evening exercises. I had just been speaking of supernatural
gifts, and of the duty which we lie under of expecting and demanding
them. The moment I sat down, a stranger (a gentleman whom I had
previously noticed at church) rose up with a strangely beaming look and
broke out in a discourse of sounds that were wholly unintelligible. You
need not smile. It was a true language, I am confident; it flowed forth
with a moving warmth and fluency; and the gestures which accompanied it
were earnest and most expressive."

"That was fortunate," said I; "otherwise you must have been very little
edified. But isn't it rather odd that the man should use earthly
gestures with an unearthly language?"

The Doctor shook his head reprovingly, and continued,--

"Deacon Jones, the editor of the 'Patriot,' is a phonographer. He took
down the close of the stranger's address, and next day brought it to me
written out in the ordinary alphabet. Let me read it to you. As you are
acquainted with several modern languages, perhaps you can give me a key
to an interpretation."

"I don't profess to know the modern languages of the other world," said
I. "However, let us hear it."

"Isse ta sopon otatirem isais ka rabatar itos ma deok," began the
Doctor, with a gravity which almost made me think him stark mad. "De
noton irbila orgonos ban orgonos amartalannen fi dunial maran ta
calderak isais deluden homox berbussen carantar. Falla esoro anglas
emoden ebuntar ta diliglas martix yehudas sathan val caraman
mendelsonnen lamata yendos nix poliglor opos discobul vanitarok ken
laros ma dasta finomallo in salubren to mallomas. Isse on esto opos fi
sathan."

And so he read on through more than a page and a half of closely written
manuscript, his eyes flashing brighter at each line, and his right hand
gesturing as impressively as if he understood every syllable.

"Bless you, it's nothing new," said I. "There's an institution at
Hartford where they cure people of talking that identical language."

"Just what I expected you to say," he replied, flushing up. "I know
you,--you scientific men,--you materialists. When you can't explain a
phenomenon, you call it nonsense, instead of throwing yourselves with
childlike faith into the arms of the supernatural. That is the sum and
finality of your so-called science. But, come, be rational now. Don't
you catch a single glimpse or suspicion of meaning in these remarkable
words?"

"I am thankful to say that I don't," declared I. "If ever I go mad, I
may change my mind."

"Well now, I _do_" he asseverated loudly. "There are words here that I
believe I understand, and I am not ashamed to own it. Why, look at it,
yourself," he added, pleadingly. "That word _sathan_, twice repeated,
can it be anything else than _Satan_? _Yehudas_, what is that but
_Jews?_ And then _homox_, how very near to the Latin _homo!_ I think,
too, that I have even got a notion of some of the grammatical forms of
the language. That termination of _en_, as in _deluden, salubren,_ seems
to me the sign of the present tense of the plural form of the verb. That
other termination of _tar_, as in _ebuntar, carantar_, I suppose to be
the sign of the infinitive. Depend upon it that this language is one
of absolute regularity, undeformed by the results of human folly and
sorrow, and as perfect as a crystal."

"But not as clear," I observed,--"at least, not to our apprehension.
Well, how was this extraordinary revelation received by the audience?"

"In dumb silence," said the Doctor. "Faith was at too low an ebb among
us to reach and encircle the amazing fact. I had to call out the
astonished brethren by name; and even then they responded briefly and
falteringly. But the leaven worked. I went round the next day and
talked to all my leading men. I found faith sprouting like a grain
of mustard-seed. I found my people waking up to the great idea of a
continuous, deathless, present miracle-demonstration. And these dim
suspicions, these far-off longings and fearful hopes, were, indeed,
precursors of such a movement of spirits, such a shower of supernatural
mercies, as the world has not perhaps seen for centuries. Yes, there
have been wonders wrought among us, and there are, I am persuaded,
greater wonders still to come. What do you think must be my feelings
when I see my worthiest parishioners rise in public and break out with
unknown tongues?"

"I should suppose you would rather see them break out with the
small-pox," I answered.

"Ah, Professor! wait, wait, and soon you will not laugh," said the
Doctor, solemnly.

"Perhaps not. I am a sincere friend of yours, and a tolerably
good-hearted sort of man, I hope. I shall probably feel more like
crying. But the world may laugh long and loud, Doctor. All who hate the
true revelation may laugh to see it mocked and caricatured by those who
profess and mean to honor it. Just consider, while it is yet time to
mend matters, how imprudent you are. Why, what do you know of the man
who has been your Columbus in this sea of wonders? Are you sure that he
is not a sharper, or an impostor, or a lunatic?"

"Impossible! He brought letters to three of our most respectable
families. His name is Riley, John M. Riley, of New York; and he is
son of the wealthy old merchant, James M. Riley, who has been such a
generous donor to all good works. As for his being a lunatic, you shall
hear his conversation."

"I should be a very poor judge of it, if he always speaks in his unknown
tongues."

"English! English! he talks English as good as your own. A more
gentlemanly person, a more intelligent mind, a meeker and more believing
spirit, I have not met this many a day. He is still here, and he is my
right hand in the work. I shall soon have the pleasure of making you
acquainted with him."

"Thank you; I shall be delighted," said I. "Only be good enough to hint
to him that I like to understand what is said to me. If he comes at me
with unknown tongues, I shall wish him in unknown parts. I can't stand
mysteries. I am a geologist, and believe that there are rocks all the
way down, and that we had much better stand on them than wriggle in mere
chaotic space. Good morning, Doctor. I shall come again soon; I shall
keep a lookout on you."

"Good morning," he replied, kindly. "I hope to see you in a better frame
before many days."

I hurried back to my hotel, and questioned the landlord about this
revival of the age of miracles. He gave me a long account of the affair,
and then every neighbor who strolled in gave me another, until by
dinner-time I had heard wonders and absurdities enough to make a new
"Book of Mormon." The lunacies of this Riley had entered into Dr. Potter
and his parishioners, like the legion of devils into the herd of swine,
and driven them headlong into a sea of folly. There had been more
tongues spoken during the past month in this little Yankee city than
would have sufficed for our whole stellar system. Blockheads who were
not troubled with an idea once a fortnight, and who could neither write
nor speak their mother English decently, had undertaken to expound
things which never happened in dialects which nobody understood. People
who hitherto had been chiefly remarkable for their ignorance of the
past and the slowness of their comprehension of the present fell to
foretelling the future, with a glibness which made Isaiah and Ezekiel
appear like minor prophets, and a destructiveness which nothing would
satisfy out the immediate advent of the final conflagration. Gouty
brothers whose own toes were a burden to them, and dropsical sisters
with swelled legs, hobbled from street to street, laying would-be
miraculous hands on each other, on teething children, on the dumb and
blind, on foundered horses and mangy dogs even, or whatsoever other
sickly creature happened to get under their silly noses. The doctors
lost half their practice in consequence of the reliance of the people on
these spiritual methods of physicking. Children were taken out of school
in order that they might attend the prophesyings and get all knowledge
by supernatural intuition. Logic and other worldly methods of arriving
at truth were superseded by dreams, discernings of spirits, and similar
irrational processes. The public madness was immense, tempestuous, and
unequalled by anything of the kind since the "jerks" which appeared in
the early part of this century under the thundering ministrations of
Peter Cartwright. That nothing might be lacking to make the movement a
fact in history, it had acquired a name. As its disciples used the word
"dispensation" freely, the public called them Dispensationists, and
their faith Dispensationism, while their meetings received the whimsical
title of Dispensaries.

Amid this clamor of daft delusion, Dr. Potter congratulated his people
on the resurrection of the age of miracles, and preached in furtherance
of the work with a fervid sincerity and eloquence rarely surpassed by
men who support the claims of true religion and right reason. Had he
brought the same zeal to bear against mathematics, it seems to me he
might have shaken the popular faith in the multiplication-table. The
wonders transacting in his church being noised abroad, the town was soon
crowded with curious strangers, mostly laymen, but several clergymen,
some anxious to believe, others ready to sneer, but all resolute to see.
As might have been expected, the nature of the excitement alarmed the
wiser pastors of the vicinity for the cause of Orthodoxy. They saw that
several of the asserted miracles were simply hoaxes or delusions; they
suspected that the unknown tongues might be nothing but the senseless
bubbling of overheated brainpans; they perceived that the Doctor in
his enthusiastic flights was soaring clear into the murky clouds of
Spiritualism; and they dreaded lest the scoffing world should make a
weapon out of these absurdities for an attack upon the Christian faith.
They began to preach against the fanaticism; and, of course, my friend
denounced them as infidels. High war ensued among the principalities and
powers of theology in all that portion of Yankeedom.

The reaction roused by the unbelieving clergymen reached the Doctor's
congregation, and emboldened all the sensible members to combine into
an anti-miracle party. At a meeting of these persons a committee was
appointed to wait upon the pastor and respectfully request him to
dismiss Riley, to cease his efforts after the supernatural, and to
return to his former profitable manner of ministration. Dr. Potter was
amazed and indignant; he replied, that he should preach the truth as it
was revealed to himself; he scouted the dictation of the committee, and
fell back upon the solemn duty of his office; he ended by informing the
gentlemen that they were unbelievers and materialists. Naturally the
dissenters grew all the more fractious for this currying, and held
another meeting, in which the reaction kicked up higher than ever. Being
resolved now to proceed to extremities, and, if necessary, to form a new
congregation, they drew up the following recantation and sent it to Dr.
Potter,--not with any hope that he would put his name to it, but for the
purpose of ridiculing his infatuation, and driving him to resign his
pulpit.

"I, the undersigned, pastor of the First Church in Troubleton, having
been led far from the truth by the absurdities of modern miracleism
and spiritualism, and having seen the error of my ways, do penitently
subscribe to the accompanying articles.

"1st. I promise to cease all intercourse with a blasphemous blockhead
named John M. Riley, who has been the human cause of my downfall.

"2d. I promise to avoid in future all rhapsodies, ecstasies, frenzies,
and whimseys which throw ridicule on true religion by caricaturing its
influences.

"3d. I promise to regard with the profoundest contempt and indifference
both my own dreams or somnambulisms and those of other people.

"4th. I promise not to unveil the secret things of Infinity, nor to
encourage others to unveil them, but to mind my own finite business, and
to rest satisfied with the revelations that are contained in the Bible.

"5th. I promise not to speak unknown tongues as long as I can speak
English, and not to listen to other people who commit the like
absurdity, unless I know them to be Frenchmen or Dutchmen or other
foreigners of some human species.

"6th. I promise not to heal the sick by any unnatural and miraculous
means, but rather to call in for their aid properly educated physicians,
giving the preference to those of the allopathic persuasion.

"7th. I promise not to work signs in heaven nor wonders on earth, but
to let all things take the course allotted to them by a good and wise
Providence."

Of course Dr. Potter looked upon this production as the height of
irreverence and irreligion, and proposed to excommunicate the authors
of it. Hence the dissenters declared themselves seceders, and took
immediate steps to form a new society.

It was at this stage of the excitement that I returned to Troubleton and
made my call upon the Doctor. I felt anxious to save my old friend and
worthy pastor. I saw, that, if he continued in his present courses,
he would strip himself, one after the other, of his influence, his
position, his religion, and his reason. That very evening, after the
usual conference-meeting was over, I called again on him, and found him
in a truly lyrical frame of spirit.

"Ah, my dear friend, there is no end to it!" exclaimed he. "The doors
are opening, one beyond another. Wonder shows forth after wonder,
miracle after miracle. Behind the veil! behind the veil!"

"Indeed!" said I, rather vexed. "You'll find yourself behind a grate
some day."

"There is now no question of the physical value as well as the spiritual
sublimity of these revelations," he continued, without observing my
sneer. "Life and death, the sparing of precious blood, the prevention of
crime, the punishment of the guilty,--you can appreciate these things, I
presume."

"When I am in my senses," returned I. "But what is the row? if I may use
that worldly expression. Has Mr. John M. Riley been brought to confess
any state-prison offences?"

"Ah, Elderkin!" sighed the Doctor, letting go my hand with a look of sad
reproach. "But no: you cannot remain forever in this skepticism; you
will be brought over to us before long. Let me tell you what has
happened. But, remember, you must keep the secret until to-morrow, as
you value precious lives. Mr. Riley has just left me. He has made me a
revelation, a prophecy, which will be proof to all men of the origin
of our present experiences. He has had a vision, thrice repeated. It
foretold that this very night a robbery and murder would be attempted in
the city of New Haven. The evil drama will open between two and three
o'clock. There will be three burglars. The house threatened is situated
in the suburbs, to the east of the city, and about a mile from the
colleges."

"Is it? And what are you going to do about it?--telegraph?"

"No. We will be there in person. We will ourselves prevent the crime and
seize the criminals. I shall have a word in season for that family, Sir.
I wish to improve the occasion for its conversion to a full belief in
these sublime mysteries. Mr. Riley, with three of my people, will meet
me at the station. We shall be in New Haven by eleven, stay an hour or
two in some hotel, and at half past one go to the house."

"My dear Sir, I remonstrate," exclaimed I. "You will get laughed at. You
will get shot at. You will get into disgrace. You will get into jail.
For pity's sake, give up this quixotic expedition, and grant me an
absolution before the fact for kicking Riley out of doors."

The Doctor turned his face away from me and walked to a window. His air
of profound, yet uncomplaining grief, struck me with compunction, and,
following him, I held out my hand.

"Come, excuse me," said I. "Look here,--if this comes true, I'll quit
geology and go to working miracles to-morrow. I'll come over to your
faith, if I have to wade through my reason."

"Will you?" he responded, joyfully. "You will never repent it. There,
shake hands. I am not angry. Your unbelief is natural, though saddening.
To-morrow night, then, come and see me again and I will tell you the
whole adventure. I must be off to the train now. Excuse me for leaving
you. Would you like to sit here awhile and look at Humby's 'Modern
Miracles'?"

"No, thank you. Prefer to look at your miracles. I am going with you."

"Going with me? Are you? I'm delighted!" he cried, not in the least
startled or embarrassed by the proposition. "Now you shall see with your
own eyes."

"Yes, if it isn't too dark, I will,--word of a geologist. Well, shall we
start?"

"But won't you have a weapon? We go armed, of course, inasmuch as the
scoundrels may show fight when we come to arrest them."

"I don't want it," said I, gently pushing away a pocket-pistol, about as
dangerous as a squirt. "All the burglars you see to-night may shoot at
me, and welcome."

We walked to the station, and found our party waiting for the Boston
train. The Doctor introduced me, with much affectionate effusion and
many particulars concerning my family and early history, to the man of
unearthly lingoes. He was a tall, lean, flat-chested, cadaverous being,
of about forty, his sandy hair nicely sleeked, thin yellow whiskers
spattered on his hollow cheeks, his nose short and snub, his face
small, wilted, and so freckled that it could hardly be said to have
a complexion. In short, by its littleness, by its yellowness, by its
appearance of dusty dryness, this singular physiognomy reminded me so
strongly of a pinch of snuff, that I almost sneezed at sight of it. His
diminutive green eyes were fringed with ragged flaxen lashes, and seemed
to be very loose in their reddened lids, as if he could cry them out at
the shortest notice. I observed that he never looked his interlocutors
in the face, but stared chiefly at their feet, as if surmising whether
they would kick, or gazed into remote distance, as if trying to see
round the world and get a view of his own back. His dress was a full
suit of black, fine in texture, but bagging about him in a way that made
you wonder whether he had not lost a hundred-weight or so in training
for his spiritual battles. His manners were quiet, and would not have
been disagreeable, but for an air of uncomfortably stiff solemnity,
which draped him from head to foot like a robe of moral oilcloth, and
might almost be said to rustle audibly. Whether he was a practical
joker, a swindler, a fanatic, or a madman, my spiritual vision was not
keen enough to discover at first sight. Beside him and ourselves the
party consisted of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick-maker,
all members of the Doctor's church and indefatigable workers of
miracles,--plain men and foolish, but respectable in standing and
sincere in their folly. Mr. Riley was so commonplace as to address me in
English, probably because he wanted an answer.

"Do you accompany us, Sir, on this blessed crusade against crime and
unbelief?" he asked.

"My friend, Dr. Potter, has granted me that inestimable privilege,"
responded I.

"I hope--in fact, I firmly believe--that Providence will aid us," he
continued.

"I hope so, too," said I. "But wouldn't it be advisable to have a
policeman, too?"

"By no means! Certainly not!" he returned, with considerable excitement.
"All we want is a band of saints, of justified souls, of men fitted for
the martyr's crown."

"Oh, that's all, is it, Sir? Well, shall we get into the cars? There
they are."

The train was full, and our party had to scatter, but Mr. Riley and I
got seats together.

"I have not seen you at our meetings, Sir," he continued. "Allow me to
ask, are you a believer in Dispensationism?"

"Not so strong as I might be. However, I have been absent from
Troubleton for three months, and only returned yesterday."

"Ah! you have lost precious opportunities. You must lose no more. Life
is short."

"And uncertain," I added. "Especially in railroad travelling."

"My dear Sir, I hope this road is prudently conducted," he said, with a
look of some little anxiety.

"Not many accidents," I answered. "And then, you know, we are always
in the hands of Providence. No fear of slipping through the fingers
unnoticed."

"No, Sir, certainly not," he remarked, wrapping his moral oilcloth about
him again. "Have you felt any extraordinary spiritual impressions since
you returned?"

"Nothing lasting, I think. Nothing that a night's sleep wouldn't take
off the edge of."

"No desire to lay hands on some sin-stricken wretch and cure him of the
evil that is in him?"

Now I did feel a strong desire to lay hands on this very Riley and pull
out his snub nose for him; but I forbore to say so, and simply shook my
head despondently.

"I know, that, if you would come to our Dispensaries and join in our
exercises, you would be sensible of a softening," he observed.

"Yes, in the brain," thought I; but I still remained silent.

"You should meditate upon the value of manifestations, unknown tongues,
the laying on of hands, visions, ecstasies, and such like matters," he
continued.

"So I have," said I.

"And with no result?"

"Nothing that particularly astonishes me. I think that I hate humbug
more than I did."

"That's a good sign," he replied, after a brief, sharp glance of inquiry
at me. "This vain world is a humbug, as you phrase it. Dead Orthodoxy is
a humbug. Human reason is a humbug. We are all humbugs, unless we are
made true by Dispensation. This age will be a humbug, unless it can
be wrought into an age of miracles. If you could be brought to hate
earnestly all these things, it would be a hopeful sign."

I was on the point of disputing the hypothesis, but prudently checked
myself. Suddenly he removed my hat and put his broad, hard palm upon my
organs with an impudent dexterity which made me doubt whether he had not
been a pickpocket or a phrenological lecturer.

"I lay my hand upon your head and desire you to note the effect," said
he. "Can no life come into these dry bones? Shall they not live?
Yea, they shall live! Do you feel no irrepressible emotion, Sir,--no
shaking?"

"Not a shake," replied I,--"unless it be from the bad grading."

"Evil is mighty, but the good must eventually prevail," he observed,
impertinently cocking his snub nose toward heaven.

"I believe you are quite right in both propositions," I admitted.
"Cardinal points of mine. But excuse me, Sir, if you could spare my hat,
I should like to put it on my head."

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