The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862: Devoted To Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862: Devoted To Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The 'man of prayer' was a tall, lean, raw-boned, angular-built
individual, with a thin, sharp, hatchet-face, a small sunken eye, and
long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy
black coat. He looked like nothing in the world I have ever seen, and
his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in comic keeping
with his discourse. His text was: 'Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they go forward.' And addressing the motley gathering of poor
whites and small-planters before him as the 'chosen people of God,' he
urged them to press on in the mad course their State had chosen. It was
a political harangue, a genuine stump-speech, but its frequent allusion
to the auditory as the legitimate children of the old patriarch, and the
rightful heirs of all the promises, struck me as out of place in a rural
district of South-Carolina, however appropriate it might have been in
one of the large towns, before an audience of merchants and traders, who
are, almost to a man, Jews.
The services over, the congregation slowly left the church. Gathered in
groups in front of the 'meeting-house,' they were engaging in a general
discussion of the affairs of the day, when the Colonel and I emerged
from the doorway. The better class greeted my host with considerable
cordiality, but I noticed that the well-to-do, small planters, who
composed the greater part of the assemblage, received him with decided
coolness. These people were the 'North county folks' on whom the
overseer had invoked a hanging. Except that their clothing was more
uncouth and ill-fashioned, and their faces generally less 'cute' of
expression, they did not differ materially in appearance from the rustic
citizens who may be seen on any pleasant Sunday gathered around the
door-ways of the rural meeting-houses of New-England.
One of them, who was leaning against a tree, quietly lighting a pipe,
was a fair type of the whole, and as he took a part in the scene which
followed, I will describe him. He was tall and spare, with a swinging,
awkward gait, and a wiry, athletic frame. His hair, which he wore almost
as long as a woman's, was coarse and black, and his face strongly
marked, and of the precise color of two small rivulets of tobacco-juice
that escaped from the corners of his mouth. He had an easy,
self-possessed manner, and a careless, devil-may-care way about him,
that showed he had measured his powers, and was accustomed to 'rough it'
with the world. He wore a broadcloth coat of the fashion of some years
ago, but his waistcoat and nether garments of the common, reddish
homespun, were loose and ill-shaped, as if their owner did not waste
thought on such trifles. His hat, as shockingly bad as Horace Greeley's,
had the inevitable broad brim, and fell over his face like a
calash-awning over a shop-window. As I approached him he extended his
hand with a pleasant 'How are ye, stranger?.'
'Very well,' I replied, returning his grasp with equal warmth, 'how are
you?'
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