The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860

"Thank you. Well, it is nearly train-time, and I suppose I must leave you and my old place. I wish you every happiness in it."

And so the old proprietor sighingly departed, leaving the new one smiling on the doorstep. I was just thinking how nicely the world is arranged, so that one man's trouble may turn out another man's blessing, (the illness in this gentleman's family, for instance, being the cause of my getting a neat country-house cheap,) when my attention was arrested by the appearance of a thin, feeble-looking, white-bearded old man, who passed down the street with head bent and hands joined behind him. I stared at him till he got by; then I ran down to the gate and looked after him earnestly; and at last I darted forward, hatless, in eager pursuit. He heard my approaching steps, and put his snowy beard against his right shoulder in the act of taking a glance rearward. I now recognized the profile positively, and began conversation.

"Is it possible? My dear Doctor Potter, how are you? Don't you know me?

Your old friend Elderkin."

"Sir? Elderkin? Oh!—ah!—yes! How do you do, Mr. Elderkin?" he stammered, seeming very awkward, and hardly responding at all to my vigorous hand-shaking.

"I am delighted to see you again," I continued. "I have had no news of you these five years. Do you live in this neighborhood?"

"I—I reside in the next house, Sir," he replied, not looking me in the face, but glancing around uneasily, as if he wanted to run away.

"What! are you the prophet?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

"I am, Mr. Elderkin," he said, blushing until I thought his white hair would turn crimson.

We stared at each other in silence for ten seconds, each wishing himself or his interlocutor at the antipodes.

"I congratulate you on your gift," I remarked, as soon as I could speak. "I will see you again soon, and have a talk on the subject. We have discussed similar matters before. Good day, Doctor."

"Good day, Mr. Elderkin," he replied, drawing himself up with a poor pretence at self-respect.

He was greatly changed. Heterodoxy had not been so fattening to him as Orthodoxy. When I knew him, six years before, as pastor of a flourishing church, Doctor of Divinity, and staunch Calvinist, he had a plump and rosy face, a portly form, and vigorous carriage. He was a great favorite with the ladies, as clergymen are apt to be, and consequently never lacked for delicate and appetizing sustenance. He was esteemed, self-respectful, and happy; and all these things tend to good health and good looks. I propose to make myself famous as the Gibbon of the decline and fall of this reverend gentleman, once so honorably established on the everlasting hills of Orthodoxy, and now so overthrown and trampled under foot by the Alaric of Spiritualism. I do not expect, indeed, that anybody will take warning by my friend's sad history; nor do I insist that people in general would find it advantageous to learn much wisdom from the experience of others; for it is very clear, that, if we attempted only what our neighbors or our fathers had succeeded in doing, we should kill all chance of variety or improvement. It would be a stupidly wise world; there would be no sins, and, very possibly, no virtues; instead of "Everything happens," it would be "Nothing happens." Believing and hoping, therefore, that Dr. Potter's calamities will not be the smallest check upon any person who shall feel disposed to follow in his footsteps, I present the story to the public, not at all as a lesson, but merely as an item of curious information.

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.