Hawthorne's hesitations about the "unbridled fanaticism" of the Quakers
is evident in this passage in which Dorothy is taking in Ibrahim.
The Quaker rose from the ground, but drew the boy closer to
her, while she gazed earnestly in Dorothy's face. Her mild, but saddened
features, and neat, matronly attire, harmonized together, and were like
a verse of fireside poetry. Her very aspect proved that she was blameless,
so far as mortal could be so, in respect to God and man; while the enthusiast,
in her robe of sackcloth and girdle of knotted cord, had as evidently violated
the duties of the present life and the future, by fixing her attention
wholly on the latter. The two females, as they held each a hand of Ilbrahim,
formed a practical allegory; it was rational piety and unbridled fanaticism,
contending for the empire of a young heart.
"Thou art not of our people," said the Quaker, mournfully.
"No, we are not of your people," replied Dorothy, with mildness, "but
we are Christians, looking upward to the same Heaven with you. Doubt not
that your boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing on our tender
and prayerful guidance of him. Thither, I trust, my own children have gone
before me, for I also have been a mother; I am no longer so," she added,
in a faultering tone, "and your son will have all my care."
"But will ye lead him in the path which his parents have trodden?"
demanded the Quaker. "Can ye teach him the enlightened faith which his
father has died for, and for which I, even I, am soon to become an unworthy
martyr? The boy has been baptized in blood; will ye keep the mark fresh
and ruddy upon his forehead?"
"I will not deceive you," answered Dorothy. "If your child become our
child, we must breed him up in the instruction which Heaven has imparted
to us; we must pray for him the prayers of our own faith; we must do towards
him according to the dictates of our own consciences, and not of yours.
Were we to act otherwise, we should abuse your trust, even in complying
with your wishes."
The mother looked down upon her boy with a troubled countenance, and
then turned her eyes upward to heaven. She seemed to pray internally, and
the contention of her soul was evident.
