The Heathen School by John Demos

Author:John Demos [Demos, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-35166-9
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

The previous night, she is spirited away to a neighbor’s house, “it being thought unsafe for me to stay at home.” She is shown to an upstairs room, from which she has “a full prospect of the solemn transactions in our Valley.” At the appointed hour, many “respectable young people, Ladies and Gentlemen” gather as a group “to witness and approve the scene & express their indignation.” Most are well known to Harriet. Some are her longtime friends; one is her cherished older brother Stephen. Special staging has been prepared ahead of time, including “a painting…[of] a beautiful young Lady & an Indian…[and] also … a woman, as an instigator of Indian marriages.” (These, of course, are meant to represent the chief targets of the meeting: Harriet, Elias Boudinot, and Lydia Northrup.) As twilight falls, church bells begin to toll—“one would conclude, speaking the departure of a soul.” Two young men bring “corpses” [effigies] to simulate a funeral pyre. Stephen steps forward and ignites a “barrel of tar” as a means to consume the whole. Flames and smoke shoot skyward, reminding “some … of the smoke of their torment [in Hell?] which they feared would ascend forever.” Watching from her hideout, Harriet is stricken: “[M]y heart truly sung with anguish at the dreadful scene.” The fact that these “transactions” take place “but a few rods east of the Mission School-house” strikes her very forcibly; she takes comfort in thinking that the scholars are “in that very season … assembled in their Academy, praying … I trust earnestly & sincerely, for their enemies.” (From here on, “their enemies” and hers will be the same.) Alas, these include “not … merely … the wicked world”; for “professed Christians” are present in the angry crowd and give “their approbation.”90

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.