2

THE LAST OF THE HERETICS

New York, a Democrat of power in his day. By reason of his birth my father was a Calvinistic Baptist in religion -in politics a Democrat.

tune.

My mother was Rachel Morris, the daughter of Thomas Morris, of the town of Bethel, Clermont County, Ohio, a leading citizen not only of his State of residence, but of the United States of America. He was, at the time of my father's courtship, representing his state in the Senate of the United States. Thomas Morris was not a politician, not even a statesman in the popular sense; he was a seer and a prophet, a hero and a martyr. A man of signal ability, he was self-educated and the maker of his own forWhile yet a lad, to escape the miasmatic atmosphere of slavery he migrated, alone, from his native State of Virginia, to the wilderness north of the Ohio River. Morris chose this region for his home, because by act of the Continental Congress, confirmed by the United States, the soil of this land was made for ever sacred to free labour. With all the courage of a pioneer this boy built his cabin on the banks of a small running stream in the depths of the forest; living by his own labour off the land and, after his day's work was done, enlarging his mind by reading history and law by the light of his hickory fire.

When the territory of Ohio was ready for the larger life of Statehood, Thomas Morris was also ready for political service. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention and of the early legislatures of the State, and after this a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 1830 he was chosen to represent his State in the United States SenGifted as a jury lawyer, he was successful at the bar and had accumulated quite a property.

ate.

My Grandfather Morris was pure Kelt. Driven by religious persecutions, certain Welsh families of the clans Morris and Griffiths left Wales and made new homes for themselves in the mountain regions of Virginia. These

families by intermarriage kept the race pure. father had all the characteristics of his race.

My grand

He was small

of stature and frame, intense in feeling, alert in action, highly emotional and deeply religious; he was easily moved to anger, and, in the outbreaks of his passion, given to violence. The whole life of Thomas Morris was mastered by a deep-seated, passionate hatred of human slavery as practised in his native State of Virginia. To escape it he exiled himself into the wilderness; to fight it he forfeited his political career.

This tragedy came upon him just as my father married into the family. The political exile, the social ostracism, the religious excommunication of my grandfather was the consequence of a speech made by him in the Senate in the session of 1836. This speech was made in answer to one of Henry Clay in which that Senator advocated one of his many compromises between freedom and slavery. Morris attacked the whole scheme of Clay, root and branch; he would permit no compromise with slavery; he not only defended the right of petition against it; he not only called for its abolition in the District of Columbia, he denounced the whole institution as a foul thing, cruel to the blacks, degrading to the whites, a violation of human rights; a contradiction of the fundamental principles of the American Republic, and repugnant to the Word and will of God. This speech had in it the sublimity of a biblical prophecyit laid bare the hideous social ulcer and called down upon the sins of the nation the wrath of God. Occupying the attention of the Senate for the better part of two days, this speech closed with these fateful words: "The Negro shall yet be free!"

For this speech the Southern Senators called for the expulsion of Morris from the Senate; he was read out of the Democratic Party, excommunicated by the Methodist 'Church, and hunted through his State as though he were a

mad dog. He joined the Liberty Party, and spent the rest of his life in anti-slavery agitation. He was a candidate of his party for Vice-President. He died in his sixtyninth year of a stroke of apoplexy, with the words "Lord have mercy on my soul" on his lips. He was denied Christian burial. The memory of this moral hero survives in a single paragraph in the National Biography, and in a "Life of Thomas Morris"-of incomparable dullness—written by one of his sons, a Presbyterian clergyman.

My mother was her father's daughter, a pure Kelt, low of stature, small of frame, tireless in action; extreme in her moods. Now dancing and singing on the terrace like a happy child; now, in deepest despair, wandering alone in the woods like a lost soul. It was the irony of love that married this passionate, practical woman to her calm, philosophic, impractical husband. My mother hated my father's name, Jacob. When speaking of or to him she called him Mr. Crapsey, and he called her Mrs. Crapsey! Under such circumstances, this union could not be a happy one, and yet it was not altogether unhappy. In a wistful way my father tried to meet the practical demands and humour the varying moods of my mother, and in an equally wistful way my mother admired the sterling honesty and intellectual supremacy of my father.

CHAPTER II

HOME LIFE

N the mid-nineteenth century the home, in a much larger measure than at present, was the economic

unit. It did not, as in the days of old, provide its own raw material, and the spinning-wheel was rather more for ornament than for use; but in spite of these changes the family was still an industrial establishment. It did its own baking; it manufactured the clothing for the women and the children; it made its own soap and did its own laundering; it canned and preserved its own fruits and vegetables and smoked its own meats; except in the cities, each family raised its own cattle, swine and fowls.

A family so organized could afford numerous children, because after the fifth year each child was an asset. The boy of six or seven could feed the chickens, weed the garden, gather the fruits and vegetables, and drive the cows to pasture. In those good old days a woman's place was in the home; there she found full occupation for her organizing power, and all the muscular exercise that she needed for her full development. In our home the wife and mother was the head of the industrial establishment. She, with the assistance of her children, not only directed, but performed, the labour of the house. Her working-hours were from six o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night. It was the variety of the work that made this life of constant occupation endurable. To the older children were assigned the duties of the care of the younger ones, and assisting, as far as they were able, in the household

tasks. Our father left immediately after breakfast, for his office in the city, and returned at nightfall to busy himself with the cattle. He did not meddle with the management of the house or the discipline of the children. In fact, until I was eight or nine years old I seldom saw my father; at breakfast or at supper I caught a glimpse of him; we younger children looked on him, not as a member of the household, but as company. He was never familiar with his children; from the first he treated us as his equals. If he were to meet me on the road he would say, “Well, sir, where are you going?" When he called me in the morning it was always by my full name; to others I might be "Al," or "Allie"; to my father I was always Algernon. I can hear him now, as if it were yesterday, calling up the stairs, "Algernon, Algernon; it is time to get up"-and he never called but once. But if I presumed upon his good nature and snuggled down to sleep again, I heard a treble voice, quick, decided, crying, "Allie! Allie! Get up this minute"-and I got up, for this voice meant business. It was my father's calling me in the early morning light that first put me in awe of my name; it was such a big name for such a little boy! It came to me because of my eldest brother's admiration for Algernon Sidney, the lieutenant of Cromwell. To my mother I was nothing but the baby boy to be petted and whipped as occasion required.

In those days we lived in a sort of rude luxury. We had abundance of food, in which no thought of calories entered. Toothsome ignorance ruled in the kitchen and served at the table. Our breakfast consisted of fried meats, beef or pork, fried potatoes and buckwheat cakes; our dinner of boiled or roast meats, vegetables and pie; our supper of chicken or eggs, fruit and cake. My mother made wonderful pies and cakes and she never denied us a second piece. I look back on those gargantuan feasts with astonishment and terror. That my digestive organs were unequal to