Kitabı oku: «Lessons in Life, for All Who Will Read Them», sayfa 9

"He was rude, then!"

"A little so," replied the wife, in a meek voice.

Mr. Malcolm paced the floor with rapid steps; he felt deeply disturbed.

An hour afterwards, he entered the store of Mr. Elder, and found the owner disengaged. He did not linger in preliminaries, but approached the subject thus:—

"You remember, Mr. Elder, that in the interview I had with you and two of the vestry previous to my accepting the call of this parish, you stated that my income would not be limited to the four hundred dollars named as the minister's salary, which I then told you was a smaller sum than I could possibly live upon?"

Mr. Elder exhibited a momentary confusion when the minister said this; but he immediately replied—"Yes, I believe something was said on that subject, though I have not thought of it since. We always had to make up something for Mr. Pelton, and I suppose we must do the same for you, if it is necessary. Do you find your salary inadequate?"

"Entirely so; and I knew it would be inadequate from the first. It is impossible for me to support my family on four hundred dollars; and had I not been assured that at least three or four hundred dollars extra would be made up during the year, I never would have dreamed of accepting the call. It has been a principle with me not to go in debt; and since I have been a man, I have not, until this time, owed a dollar; and should not have owed it now, had I received, since I have resided in C— the income I fully expected."

Mr. Malcolm spoke with warmth, for he felt some risings of the natural man at the indifference with which a promise of so much consequence to him had been disregarded.

"How much do you owe?" inquired the vestryman.

"About two hundred dollars."

"Indeed! so much?"

A bitter remark arose to the minister's lips, but he forced himself to keep silence. He was a man, with all the natural feelings of a man.

"Well, I suppose we must make it for you somehow," said Mr. Elder, the tone in which he spoke showing that the subject worried him. "Are any of the demands on you pressing?" he inquired, after a pause.

"All of them are pressing," replied the minister. "I am dunned every day."

"Indeed! That's bad!" returned Mr. Elder, speaking with more real kindness and sympathy than at first. "I am sorry you have been permitted to get into so unpleasant a situation."

"It certainly is very unpleasant, and entirely destroys my peace. Were I not thus unhappily situated, I should not have said a word to you on the subject of my salary."

"Don't let it distress you so much, Mr. Malcolm. I will see that the amount you need is at once made up."

The minister returned home, disturbed, mortified, and humiliated.

"If this is the way they pay their minister," he remarked to his wife, after relating to her what had happened, "it is the last year that I shall enjoy the benefits of their peculiar system. But little good will my preaching or that of any one else do them, while they disregard the first and plainest principles of honesty. There is no lack of ability to give a minister the support he needs; and the withholding of that support, or the supplying of it by constraint, shows a moral obtuseness that argues but poorly for their love of any thing but themselves. I believe that the labourer is worthy of his hire; that when men build a church and call a minister for their own spiritual good, they are bound to supply his natural wants; and that, if they fail to do so, it is a sign to the minister that he ought to leave them. Some may call this a selfish doctrine, and unworthy of a minister of God; but I believe it to be the true doctrine, and shall act up to it. It does men no good to let them quietly go on, year after year, starving their ministers, while they have abundant means to make them comfortable. If they prize their wealth higher than they do spiritual riches, it is but casting pearls before swine to scatter even the most brilliant gems of wisdom before them; and in this unprofitable task I am the last man to engage. I gave up all hope of worldly good, in order to preach the everlasting gospel for the salvation of men. In order to do this successfully, my mind must be kept free from the depressing cares of life, and there must be something reciprocal in those to whom I minister in heavenly things. If this be not the case, all my labour will be in vain."

On the next day, as the minister was walking down the street, he met Mr. Larkin. The allusion to this gentleman's personal matters, which the vestryman had made, still caused him to feel sore; it touched him in a vulnerable part. He had been talking quite freely, since then, to every member of the church he happened to meet about the coolness with which Mr. Malcolm, after running himself in debt, a thing he had no business to do, called upon the church to raise him more money. He for one he said, was not going to stand any such nonsense, and he hoped every member of the church would as firmly set his face against all such impositions. If they were to pay off this debt, they would have another twice as large to settle in a few months. It was the principle of the thing he went against; not that he cared about a few dollars. As soon as Mr. Larkin saw the minister a little ahead of him, he determined to give him a piece of his mind. So when they paused, face to face, and while their hands were locked in a friendly clasp, he said—

"Look here, friend Malcolm, I have got something against you; and as I am an independent plain-spoken man, you must not be offended with me for telling you my mind freely."

"The truth never offends me, Mr. Larkin," said the minister, with a smile. "I am not faultless, though willing to correct my faults when I see them."

"Very well." Mr. Larkin spoke in a resolute voice, and seemed to feel pleasure rather than pain in what he was doing. "In the first place, then, I am sorry to find that you possess one very bad fault, common to most ministers, and that is, a disposition to live beyond your means, and then come down upon the parish to pay your debts."

The blood came rushing to the face of the minister, which his monitor took to be the plainest kind of evidence that he had hit the nail fully upon the head. He went on more confidently.

"Now, this, Mr. Malcolm, I consider to be very wrong—very wrong, indeed!—and especially so in a young minister in his first year, and in his first parish. If such things are in the green tree, what are we to expect in the dry? You accepted our call, and were plainly informed that the salary would be four hundred dollars and rent free. Upon this our former minister had lived quite comfortably. If you thought the salary too little, you should not have accepted the call—accepting it, you should have lived upon it, if you had lived on bread and water."

Mr. Larkin paused. The minister stood with his eyes cast upon the pavement, but made no answer. Mr. Larkin resumed—

"It is such things as this that bring scandal upon the church, and drive right thinking men out of it. It isn't that I value a few dollars more than I do the wind; but I like to see principle; and hate all imposition. You are a young man, Mr. Malcolm, and I speak thus plainly to you for your good. I hope you will not feel offended."

Mr. Larkin paused, thinking, perhaps, that he had said enough. The minister's eyes were still upon the pavement, from which he lifted them as soon as his monitor was done speaking. The flush had left his cheeks, that were now pale.

"I thank you for your honesty in speaking so plainly, and will try to profit by what you have told me," said he, calmly. "The best of us are liable to err."

There was something in the words, voice, and manner of the minister that Mr. Larkin did not clearly comprehend. He had spoken harshly, and, he now felt, with some rudeness; but, while there was nothing in the air with which his reproof was received that evidenced the conviction of error there was no resentment. A moment before, he felt like a superior severely reprimanding an inferior; but now he stood in the presence of one whose calmness and dignity oppressed him. He was about commencing a confused apology for his apparent harshness, when Mr. Malcolm bowed and passed on.

Larkin did not feel very comfortable as he walked away. He soon more than half repented of what he had done, and before night, by way of atonement for his error, called upon Mr. Elder, and handed him a check for twenty-five dollars, to help pay off the minister's debt. So much for the principle concerned.

On the next Sabbath, to his great surprise, when the text was announced, it was in the following unexpected words—

"Owe no man any thing."

The sermon was didactive and narrative. In the didactic portion, the minister was exceedingly close in laying down the principles of honesty in all transactions between man and man, and showed that for a man to live beyond his known income, when that was sufficient to supply his actual wants, was dishonest. Then he gave sundry examples of very common but dishonest practices in those who withhold from others what is justly their due, and concluded this portion of his discourse, by plainly stating the glaring dishonesty of which too many congregations were guilty, in owing their ministers the difference between their regular and fixed income, and what they actually needed for their comfortable support and freedom from care. This, he said, was but a poor commentary upon their love for the church, and showed too plainly its sordid and selfish quality.

This was felt by many to be quite too pointed and out of place; and for a young man, like him, very bold and immodest. One member took out his box and struck the lid a smart, emphatic rap before taking a pinch of snuff,—another coughed—and three or four of the older ones gave several loud "a-h-h-hems!" Throughout the church there was an uneasy movement. But soon all was still again, for the minister had commenced the narrative of something which he said had occurred in a parish at no great distance. For a narrative, introduced in a sermon, all ears are open.

Very deliberately and very minutely did Mr. Malcolm give the leading facts which we have already placed before the reader, even down to the sound lecture he had received from Mr. Larkin, and then closed his sermon, after a few words of application, with a firm repetition of his text:

"My brethren, 'Owe no man any thing.'"

Of course, there was a buzzing in the hive after this. One made inquiries of another, and it was soon pretty well understood throughout, that seven or eight hundred dollars had actually been promised to the minister instead of the four, which all were very content that he should receive, thinking little and caring little whether he lived well or ill upon it. But who was it that had rated him so soundly? That was the next question. But nobody knew. Some of those most familiar with Mr. Malcolm boldly asked him the question, but he declined giving an answer. Poor Mr. Larkin trembled but the minister kept his own counsel.

On the Tuesday following this pointed discourse, Mr. Malcolm received his last quarter's salary four weeks in advance, and three hundred dollars besides. Two hundred of this had been loaned by Mr. Larkin until such time as it could be collected.

At the next meeting of the vestry, the resignation of Mr. Malcolm as minister of the parish was received. Before acting upon it, a church-meeting was called, at which it was unanimously voted to double the ministers salary. That is, make it eight hundred. Much was said in his favour as a man of fine talents and sincere piety. In fact, the congregation generally had become much attached to him, and could not bear to think of his leaving them. Money was no consideration now.

The vote of the meeting was conveyed to Mr. Malcolm. He expressed his thanks for the liberal offer, but again declined remaining. Another church-meeting was called, and a thousand dollars unhesitatingly named as the minister's salary, if he would stay. Many doubled their subscriptions, and said that, if necessary, they would quadruple them.

When Mr. Malcolm determined to leave C—, he had no parish in view; but he did not think it would be useful for him to remain. Nor had he any in view when he declined accepting the offer of eight hundred dollars. But it was different when the offer of a thousand dollars came, for then he held in his hand a call to a neighbouring parish, where the salary was the same.

The committee to wait upon him, and urge him to accept the still better terms offered, was composed of Messrs. Elder, Larkin, and three others among the oldest and most influential members. He answered their renewed application by handing them the letter he had just received. It was read aloud.

"If money is any object, Mr. Malcolm," said Larkin, promptly, "you need not leave us. Twelve hundred can be as easily made up to you as a thousand."

The minister was slightly disturbed at this. He replied in a low, unsteady voice:

"Money has no influence with me in this matter. All I ask is a comfortable maintenance for my family. This, your first offer of eight hundred dollars would have given; but I declined it, with no other place in view, because I thought it best for both you and me that we should separate. I have tried only to look to the good of the church in my decisions, and I will still endeavour to keep that end before my eyes."

"Have you accepted the call?" asked Mr. Elder.

"No, I have but just received it!"

"Have you positively determined that you will not remain with us?"

"I should not like to say positively."

"Very well. Now, let me say that the desire to have you remain is general, and that the few who have the management of the church affairs, and not the many who make up the congregation, are to blame for previously existing wrongs and errors. From the many comes a strong desire to have you stay. They say that your ministrations have been of great spiritual benefit to them, and that if you go away, they will suffer loss. Under these circumstances, Mr. Malcolm, are you willing to break your present connection?"

"Give me a few hours to reflect," replied the minister, a good deal affected by this unlooked-for appeal. "I wish to do right; and in doing it, am ready to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye. As Heaven is my witness, I set before me no earthly reward. If I do consent to remain, I will not receive more than your first offer of eight hundred dollars, for on that I can live comfortably."

When the committee again waited on Mr. Malcolm, to receive his answer, it was in the affirmative; but he was decided in his resolution not to receive more than eight hundred dollars. But the congregation was just as much decided on the other side, and although only two hundred dollars a quarter were paid to their minister by the treasurer, more than fifty dollars flowed in to him during the same period in presents of one useful thing and another, from friends known and unknown.

The parish of C— had quite reformed its mode of paying the minister.

HAD I BEEN CONSULTED

"HE'S too independent for me," said Matthew Page. "Too independent by half. Had I been consulted he would have done things very differently. But as it is, he will drive his head against the wall before he knows where he is."

"Why don't you advise him to act differently?"

"Advise him, indeed! Oh, no—let him go on in his own way, as he's so fond of it. Young men now-a-days think they know every thing. The experience of men like me goes for nothing with them. Advise him! He may go to the dogs; but he'll get no advice from me unasked."

"You really think he will ruin himself if he goes on in the way he is now going?"

"I know it. Simple addition will determine that, in five minutes. In the first place, instead of consulting me, or some one who knows all about it, he goes and buys that mill for just double what it is worth, and on the mere representation of a stranger, who had been himself deceived, and had an interest in misleading him, in order to get a bad bargain off of his hands. But that is just like your young chaps, now-a-days. They know every thing, and go ahead without talking to anybody. I could have told him, had he consulted me, that, instead of making money by the concern, he would sink all he had in less than two years."

"He is sanguine as to the result."

"I know. He told me, yesterday, that he expected not only to clear his land for nothing, but to make two or three thousand dollars a year out of the lumber for the next ten years. Preposterous!"

"Why didn't you disabuse him of his error, Mr. Page? It was such a good opportunity."

"Let him ask for my advice, if he wants it. It's a commodity I never throw away."

"You might save him from the loss of his little patrimony."

"He deserves to lose it for being such a fool. Buy a steam saw-mill two miles from his land, and expect to make money by clearing it? Ridiculous!"

"Your age and experience will give your advice weight with him, I am sure, Mr. Page. I really think you ought to give a word or two of warning, at least, and thus make an effort to prevent his running through with what little he has. A capital to start with in the world is not so easily obtained, and it is a pity to see Jordan waste his as he is doing."

"No, sir," replied Page. "I shall have nothing to say to him. If he wants my opinion, and asks for it, he shall have it in welcome; not without."

The individuals about whom these persons were conversing was a young man named Jordan, who, at majority, came into the possession of fifty acres of land and about six thousand dollars. The land was still in forest and lay about two miles from a flourishing town in the West, which stood on the bank of a small river that emptied into the Ohio some fifty miles below.

As soon as Jordan became the possessor of the property, he began to turn his thoughts toward its improvement, in order to increase its value. The land did not lie contiguous to his native town, but near to S—, where he was a stranger. To S—he went, and staying at one of the hotels, met with a very pleasant old gentleman who had just built a steam saw-mill on the banks of the river, and was getting in the engine preparatory to putting it in operation. This man's name was Barnaby. He had conceived the idea that a steam saw-mill at that point would be a fortune to any one, and had proceeded to the erection of one forthwith. Logs were to be cut some miles up the river and floated down to the mill, and, after being there manufactured into lumber, to be rafted to a market somewhere between that and New Orleans. Mr. Barnaby had put the whole thing down upon paper, and saw at a glance that it was an operation in which any man's fortune was certain. But, before his mill was completed, he had good reason to doubt the success of his new scheme. He had become acquainted with Matthew Page, a shrewd old resident of S—, who satisfied him, after two or three interviews, that, instead of making a fortune, he would stand a fair chance of losing his whole investment.

Barnaby was about as well satisfied as he wished to be on this head, when young Jordan arrived in S—. His business there was soon known, and Barnaby saw a chance of getting out of his unpromising speculation. To Jordan he became at once very attentive and polite; and gradually drew from him a full statement of the business that brought him to S—. It did not take a very long time for Barnaby to satisfy him, that, by purchasing his mill and sawing up the heavy timber with which his land was covered, he would make a great deal of money, and double the price of his land at the same time. Figures showed the whole result as plain as daylight, and Jordan saw it written out before him as distinctly as he ever saw in his multiplication table that two and two are four. The fairness of Barnaby he did not think of doubting for an instant. His age, address, intelligence, and asseveration of strict honour in every transaction in life, were enough to win his entire confidence.

Five thousand dollars was the price of the mill. The terms upon which it was offered to Jordan were, three thousand dollars in cash, a thousand in six months, and the balance in twelve months.

Shortly after Jordan arrived in the village, he became acquainted with Mr. Page into whose family, a very pleasant one, he had been introduced by a friend. For the old gentleman he felt a good deal of respect; and although it did not occur to him to consult him in regard to his business, thinking that he understood what he was about very well, yet, if Mr. Page had volunteered a suggestion, he would have listened to it and made it the subject of reflection. In fact, a single seriously expressed doubt as to the safety of the investment he was about making, coming from a man like Mr. Page, would have effectually prevented its being made, for Jordan would not have rested until he understood the very nature and groundwork of the objection. He would then have seen a new statement of figures, heard a new relation of facts and probabilities, and learned that Barnaby was selling at the suggestion of Mr. Page, after being fully convinced of the folly of proceeding another step.

But no warning came. The self-esteem of old Matthew Page, who felt himself to be something of an oracle in S—, was touched, because the young man had not consulted him; and now he might go to the dogs, for all he cared.

The preliminaries of sale were soon arranged. Jordan was as eager to enter upon his money-making as Barnaby was to get rid of his money-losing scheme. Three thousand dollars cash were paid, and notes given for the balance. An overseer, or manager of the whole business to be entered upon, was engaged at five hundred dollars a year; some twenty hands to cut timber, haul it to the mill, and saw it up when there, were hired; and twenty yokes of oxen bought for the purpose of hauling the logs from the woods, a distance of two miles. The price of a dollar a log, which Barnaby expected to pay for timber floated down the river, had been considered so dear a rate as to preclude all hope of profit in the business. The great advantages which Jordan felt that he possessed was in himself owning the timber, which had only to be cut and taken to the mill. He had, strangely enough, forgotten to make a calculation of what each log would cost him to cut and haul two miles. There were the wood-choppers at a dollar a day, the teamsters at seventy-five cents a day, and four pairs of oxen to each log to feed. Eight logs a day he was told that each team would haul, and he believed it. But two or three logs were the utmost that could be accomplished, for in the whole distance there was not a quarter of a mile of good solid road.

Six months in time, and a thousand dollars in money, over and above wages to his men, were spent in getting the mill into running order. Jordan had bought under the representation that it was all ready for starting. After he had got in possession, he learned that Barnaby had tried, but in vain, to get the mill to work.

In the mean time, the young man was extending his circle of acquaintance among the families of the place in most of which he was well received and well liked. Old Matthew Page had an only daughter, a beautiful young girl, who was the pride of the village. The first time she and Jordan met, they took a fancy to each other. But as Jordan was rather a modest young man, he did not make very bold advances toward the maiden, although he felt as if he should like to do so, were there any hope of his advances being met in a right spirit.

At the end of a year, all the young man's money was gone, and his last note to Barnaby was due. There was a small pile of lumber by his mill—a couple of hundred dollars worth, perhaps—for which he had found no sale, as the place was fully supplied, and had been for years, by a small mill that was worked by the owner with great economy. The sending of his lumber down the river was rather a serious operation for him, and required a good deal more lumber than he had yet been able to procure from his mill, which had never yet run for twenty-four hours without something getting wrong. These two or three hundred dollars' worth of lumber had cost him about fifteen hundred dollars in wages, &c. Still he was sanguine, and saw his way clear through the whole of it, if it were not for the fact that his capital were exhausted.

Matthew Page was looking on very coolly, and saying to himself, "If he had consulted me," but not offering the young man a word of voluntary counsel.

To continue his operations and bring out the ultimate prosperous result, Jordan threw one-half of his land into market and forced the sale at five dollars an acre. The proceeds of this sale did not last him over six months. Then he got a raft afloat, containing about a thousand dollars' worth of lumber, and sent it off under charge of his overseer, who sold it at Cincinnati, and absconded with the money.

In the mean time, Barnaby was pressing for the payment of the last note, which had been protested, and after threatening to sue, time after time, finally put his claim into the hands of an attorney, who had a writ served upon Jordan.

By this time, old Mr. Page began to think it best, even though not consulted, to volunteer a little advice to the young man. The reason of this may be inferred. Jordan was beginning to be rather particular in attention to Edith, his daughter; and apart from the fact that he had wasted his money in an unprofitable scheme, and had not been prudent enough to consult him, old Matthew Page had no particular objection to him as a son-in-law. His family stood high in the State, and his father, previous to his death, had been for many years in the State senate. The idea that Jordan would take a fancy to his daughter had not once crossed the mind of Mr. Page, or he would not have stood so firmly upon his dignity in the matter of being consulted.

Rather doubting as to the reception he should meet from the young man, he called upon him, one day, when the following conversation took place:

"I'm afraid, Mr. Jordan," said Page, after some commonplace chitchat, "that your saw-mill business is not going to turn out as well as you expected."

"It has not, so far, certainly," replied Jordan, frankly. "But this is owing to the fact of my having been deceived in the mill, and in the integrity of my manager; not to the nature of the business itself. I am still sanguine of success."

"Will you allow me to make a suggestion or two? I think I can show you that you are in error in regard to the business itself."

"Most gladly will I receive any suggestion," returned Jordan. "Though I am not apt to seek advice—a fault of character, perhaps—I am ever ready to listen to it and weigh it dispassionately, when given. A doubt as to the result of the business, if properly carried out, has never yet crossed my mind."

"I have always doubted it from the first. Indeed, I knew that you could not succeed."

"Then, my dear sir, why did you not tell me so?" said Jordan, earnestly.

"If you had consulted me, I would"—

"I never dreamed of consulting any one about it. I had confidence in Mr. Barnaby's statements; but more in my own judgment, based upon the data he furnished me."

"But I have none in either Barnaby or his data."

"I have none in him, for he has shamefully deceived me; but his data are fixed facts, and therefore cannot lie."

"There you err again. Barnaby knew that the data he gave you was incorrect. I had, myself, demonstrated this to him before he went far enough to involve himself seriously. Something led him to doubt the success of his project, and he came and consulted me on the subject. I satisfied him in ten minutes that it wouldn't do, and he at once abandoned it. Unfortunately, you arrived just at this time, and were made to bear the loss of his mistake."

"You are certainly not serious in what you say, Mr. Page!"

"I never was more serious in my life," returned the old gentleman.

"And you permitted me to be made the victim, upon your own acknowledgment, of a shameful swindle, and did not expend even a breath to save me!"

"I am not used to be spoken to in that way, young man," replied Mr. Page, coldly, and with a slightly offended air. "Nor am I in the habit of forcing my advice upon everybody."

"If you saw a man going blindfold towards the brink of a precipice, wouldn't you force your advice upon him?"

"Perhaps I might. But as you were not going blindfold over a precipice, I did not see that it was my business to interfere."

A cutting reply was on the lips of Jordan, but a thought of Edith cooled him off suddenly, and he in a milder and more respectful tone of voice, "I should be glad, Mr. Page, if you would demonstrate the error under which I have been labouring in regard to this business. If there is an error, I wish to see it; and can see it as quickly as any one, if it really exists, and the proper means of seeing it are furnished."

The change in the young man's manner softened Mr. Page, and he sat down, pencil in hand, and by the aid of the answers which the actual experience of Jordan enabled him to give, showed him, in ten minutes, that the more land he cleared and the more logs he sawed up, the poorer he would become.

"And you knew all this before?" said Jordan.

"Certainly I did. In fact, I built the saw-mill owned by Tompkins, and after sinking a couple of thousand dollars, was glad to get it off of my hands at any price. Tompkins makes a living with it, and nothing more. But then he is his own engineer, manager, clerk, and almost every thing else, and lives with the closest economy in his family—much closer than you or I would like to live."

"And you let me go on blindly and ruin myself, when a word from you might have saved me!"

There was something indignant in the young man's manner.

"You didn't consult me on the subject. It is not my place to look after everybody's business; I have enough to do to take care of my own concerns."