Kitabı oku: «Folly as It Flies; Hit at by Fanny Fern», sayfa 5

NOTES UPON PREACHERS AND PREACHING

I CAN imagine nothing more disheartening to a clergyman, than to go to church, with an excellent sermon in his coat-pocket, and find an audience of twenty-five people. I was one of twenty-five, the other night, who can bear witness, that having turned out, in a pelting rain, to evening service, the clergyman preached to us with as much eloquence, good sense and zeal as if his audience numbered twenty-five hundred. You may ask why shouldn't he? If he believes one soul is more value than all the world, why shouldn't he? Merely because there is as much human nature in a clergyman as in anybody else. Merely because he is, like other people, affected by outward influences; and a row of empty seats might well have a depressing physical effect, notwithstanding his "belief."

When I go to church I want to carry something back with me wherewithal to fight the devil through the week. I don't want the ancestry of Jeroboam and Ezekiel, and Keranhappuck raked up and commented on; or any other fossil dodge, to cover up the speaker's barrenness of head or heart. I want something for to-day– for over-burdened men and women in this year of our Lord 1869. Something live; something that has some bearing on our daily work; something that recognizes the seething elements about us, and their bearings on the questions of conscience and duty we are all hourly called on to settle. I want a minister who won't forever take refuge in "the Ark," for fear of saying something that conservatism will hum! and ha! over.

One day I heard this remark, coming out of church where that style of sermon was preached: "Well – what has all that to do with me?" Now that's just it. It expresses my idea better than a whole library could. What has that to do with me? Me individually – bothered, perplexed, sore-hearted, weary me, hungry for soul-comfort. I think this is the trouble; ministers live too much in their libraries. If they would set fire to them, and study human nature more, the world would be the gainer. They need to get out of the old time-crusted groove. To stir round a bit, and see something besides Jeroboam; to know the tragedies that are going on in the lives of their parishioners, and find out the alleviations and the remedy. We have got to live on earth a while before we "get to heaven." It might be as well to consider that occasionally. It is quite as important to show us how to live here as how to get there.

I don't believe in a person's eyes being so fixed on heaven, that he goes blundering over everybody's corns on the way there. If that's his Christianity, the sooner he gets tripped up the better. I saw "a Christian" the other day. It was a workingman, who, noticing across the street a little girl of seven years, trying to lift with her little cold fingers a bundle, and poise it on her head, put down his box of tools, went across the street and lifted it up for her, and with a cheery "there now, my dear," went smiling on his way.

Oh, if clergymen would only study their fellow men more. If they would less often try to unravel some double-twisted theological knot, which, if pulled out straight, would never carry one drop of balm to a suffering fellow-being, or teach him how to bear bravely and patiently the trials, under which soul and body are ready to faint. If, looking into some yearning face before them on a Sunday, they would preach only to its wistful asking for spiritual help, in words easy to be understood – in heart-tones not to be mistaken – how different would Sundays seem, to many women, at least, whose heart-aches, and unshared burdens, none but their Maker knows. "Heavy laden!" Let our clergymen never forget that phrase in their abstruse examination of text and context. Let them not forget that as Lazarus watched for the falling crumbs from Dives' table, so some poor harassed soul before them may be sitting with expectant ear, for the hopeful words, that shall give courage to shoulder again the weary burden. I sometimes wonder, were I a clergyman, could I preach in this way to nodding plumes, and flashing jewels, and rustling silks? Would not my very soul be paralyzed within me, as theirs seems to be? And then I wish that nobody could own a velvet cushioned pew in church; that the doors of all churches were open to every man and woman, in whatsoever garb they might chance to wear in passing, and not parcelled and divided off for the reception of certain classes, and the exclusion (for it amounts to that) of those who most need spiritual help and teaching. You tell me that there are places provided for such people. So there are cars for colored people to ride in. My Christianity, if I have any, builds up no such walls of separation. How often have I seen a face loitering at a church threshold, listening to the swelling notes of the organ, and longing to go in, were it not for the wide social gulf between itself and those who assembled – I will not say worshipped – there, and I know if that clergyman, inside that church, spoke as his Master spake when on earth, that he would soon preach to empty walls. They want husks; they pay handsomely for husks, and they get them, I say in my vexation, as the door swings on its hinges in some poor creature's face, and he wanders forth to struggle unaided as best he may with a poor man's temptations. Our Roman Catholic brethren are wiser. Their creed is not my creed, save this part of it: "That the rich and the poor meet here together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all." I often go there to see it. I am glad when the poor servant drops on her knees in the aisle, and makes the sign of the cross, that nobody bids her rise, to make way for a silken robe that may be waiting behind her. I am glad the mother of many little children may drop in for a brief moment, before the altar, to recognize her spiritual needs, and then pass out to the cares she may not longer lose sight of. I do not believe as they do, but it gladdens my heart all the same, that one man is as good as his neighbor at least there– before God. I breathe freer at the thought. I can sit in a corner and watch them pass in and out, and rejoice that every one, how humble soever, feels that he or she is that church, just as much as the richest foreigner from the cathedrals of the old world, whom they may jostle in passing out. Said one poor girl to me – "I don't care what happens to me, or how hard I work through the week, if I can get away to my Sunday morning mass." She was a woman to be sure, and women, high and low, have more spirituality than men. They can't do without their church – sometimes, I am sorry to say, not even with it; for, as the same servant solemnly and truthfully remarked to me, "Even then the devil is sometimes too strong for 'em!"

A fashionable church is more distasteful to me because memory always conjures up certain pleasant country Sundays of long ago. Ah! that walk through the shady sweet-briar roads, full of perfume, and song, and dew, to the village church, in whose ample shed were tied Dobbins of every shape and color, switching the flies with their long tails, and neighing friendly acquaintance with each other. Oh! the wide open windows of the church, guiltless of painted apostles and dropsical cherubs, where the breeze played through, bringing with it the sweet odor of clover and honeysuckle and new-mown hay, and the drowsy hum of happy insect life, and now and then a little bird, who sang his little song without pay, and flitted out again. Oh! the good old snow-haired patriarchs – who didn't dye their hair or whiskers – leaning on their sticks, followed by chubby little grandchildren, whose cheeks rivalled the reddest apples in their orchards. Then the farmers' wives, with belts they could breathe under, with ample chests and sunny glances of content at Susan, and Nancy, and Tommy, in their best Sunday clothes. Then the good old-fashioned singing, with which nobody found fault, though a crack-voiced old deacon did join in, because he was too happy to keep silent about "Jordan." Then the hand-shaking after service, and the hearty good-will to "the minister and his folks." Then the adjournment to the grove near by, to pass the intermission till the afternoon service, and the selection of the sweetest and shadiest spot to unpack the lunch baskets. The shifting light through the branches, upon the pretty heads of the country girls, with their fresh cheeks and shining hair and blue ribbons. And after doughnuts and cheese and apple-pie, were shared and eaten, the ramble after wild-flowers round the roots of the mossy old trees, or the selection of the prettiest oak leaves to make wreaths for pretty heads, and the shy looks of admiration of the rustic beaux as they were severally adjusted. Then the little group under the trees, singing psalm tunes, as the matrons wandered over to the grave-yard to read for the hundredth time the little word "Anna," or "Joseph," or "Samuel," inscribed on some headstone, from which they pulled away the intrusive grass or clover, plucking a little leaf as they left, and hiding it in their ample, motherly bosoms.

All this came to me as I sat in that hot, stifled, painted-window, fashionable church, listening to the dull monotone about the Hittites, from which I reaped nothing but irritation; and I wished I was a school-girl again, back in that lovely village in New Hampshire, where Sundays were not opening days for millinery; where people went to church because they loved it, and not because it was "respectable" to be seen there once a day; where heaven's light was not excluded for any dim taper of man's lighting, and one could sing though he had not performed during the week at the opera; and the doxology rang out as only farmers' lungs can make it. I am glad I had this school-girl experience of lovely, balmy, country Sundays, though it spoils me for the formal, city Sunday. Every summer, when I go to the country, I hunt up some old church like this, which all the winter I have longed for. Though, truth to tell, what with city boarders who infest them, with their perfume and point-lace, and rustling silks, my country church is getting more difficult every year to find. How it spoils it all, when some grand city dame comes sailing in, with her astounding millinery devices, to profane my simple country church and astonish its simple worshippers! My dear madam, for my sake, please this summer "say your prayers" on the piazza of the grand hotel, afflicted by yourself and your seven mammoth travelling trunks.

I strayed into a strange church not long since, chose my seat, and sat down. Sextons are polite; but they have a way of marching one up, through a long aisle, under the very shadow of the pulpit, and under the noses of an expectant congregation, when unfortunately I have a fancy for a quiet, out of the way corner. The church was plain and neat, and nicely dressed, with its shining bunches of holly, and its stars, and its green wreathed-pillars. The temperature of the place was pleasant, and the bright lights, and the sweet tones of the organ, were all promotive of serenity and cheerfulness. The congregation dropped in, in groups and families, and took their places. They were not fashionable people; evidently they were workers on week-days. The men and the women, and even the children, had that look, in spite of their Sunday clothes. So much the more glad was I that they had such a bright, cheerful church to come to. By and by the minister came in. Now, thought I, God grant his sermon be cheerful too; for these are people who lead no holiday lives, and all the more need a lift out of it on Sunday. The burden of the first hymn he chose was "death's cold arms;" read in a tone studiedly corresponding to its cheerful sentiment. A wail from the organ preceded the singing, whose dolor affected me like a toss-out into a snow-drift. Then the minister rose. His first salutation was "My dying friends." Then he proceeded to inform them that the old year was dying. That there it lay, with its great hands crossed over its mighty heart, and the sepulchre yawning for its last pulsation. Then he reminded them that very likely many of those present would be in that very condition before the close of the new year. Then he told the young folks a frightful story about a dying young man whose friends sent for him (the speaker.) A young man who hadn't joined the church. When he got there, he said, "reason had deserted its throne;" which was his way of saying that the young man was crazy, and his way of inferring that it was a judgment on him for not "having joined the church." Then he said, that though they waited and waited for his reason to come back, his soul fled away without, and the inference was that it fled to hell. He didn't recognize any charitable possibility that much might have passed between that young man's soul and its Maker, though not expressed either to friends or pastor, which might savor of heaven instead of hell, and that – although he had not joined the church; – not a clue was left for the faintest hope for any of his friends that might happen to be present, that this young man's soul was not eternally dammed.

What right, indeed, had the Almighty to know more of one of his congregation than he himself? What right had He to pardon a fleeting soul, with no shriving from its pastoral keeper? I say this in no spirit of irreverence. But, oh! why will clergymen persist in scaring people to heaven? Why darken lives heavily laden with toil, discouragement, and care through the six days of the week, by adding to its depressing weight on Sunday? Has "Come unto me ye heavy laden" no place in their Bible? Is "God is Love" blotted from out its pages? Is the human heart – especially the youthful heart – untouchable by any appeal save the cowardly one of fear? Would those young people, when out of leading-strings, continue to look upon life through the charnel-house spectacles of this spiritual teacher? Would there come no dreadful rebound to those young men and young women, from this perpetual gloom? These were questions I there asked myself; wisely, or unwisely, you shall be the judge.

"Like as a father pitieth his children," I talismanically murmured to myself, as I left the church, with the last dolorous hymn ringing in my ear —

 
"When cold in death I lie."
 

How great the change in the temporal condition of the Minister of Old and Modern Times. The half-fed, ill-paid, scantily-clothed, over-worked, discouraged "minister" of the olden time is – where is he? The "minister," before whose pen and paper came the troubled faces of wife and children; who dreaded the knock of a parishioner, lest it should involve the diminution of a "salary" which a common day-laborer might well refuse for its pitiful inadequacy; the minister whose body was expected to be so Siamesed to his soul, that the "heavenly manna" would answer equally the demands of both. The minister who must plant and hoe his own potatoes, but always in a black coat and white neckcloth. The minister whose children must come up miniature saints, while all their father's spare time was spent in driving his parishioners' children safe to heaven. The minister who, when he was disabled for farther service, was turned out like an old horse to browse on thistles by the road-side; —that minister, to the credit of humanity be it said, is among the things that were. Instead – nobody is astonished at, or finds fault with, paragraphs in the papers announcing that the Rev. Rufus Rusk was presented by the board of trustees, in the name of many friends of his congregation, with a costly autograph album; upon every page of which was found a $10 greenback, amounting in all to $1,000; and that afterward he was invited to partake of an elegant collation. Or – that the Rev. Silas Sands received from his church and congregation securities to the amount of $10,000, as a testimonial of their esteem for his faithful services for many years. Or, that the Rev. Henry Cook had a gift of a commodious and pleasant residence from his church; or, that his health seeming to require a voyage to Europe, the necessary funds were promptly and cheerfully placed in his hands by his affectionate people.

The community do not faint away at these announcements, as far as I can find out. They seem to have come to the unanimous conclusion that the "minister," like other laborers, is "worthy of his hire." For one, I could wish this knowledge had come sooner; for I bethink me, in my day, of the good men and true, who have staggered to their graves without a sympathizing word, or the slightest token of recognition for services under which soul and body were fainting; and whose bitterest death-pang was the thought that their children, too young to help themselves, must, after all this serfdom, be the recipients of a grudging charity.

The presence of a clergyman is not now the signal for small children to be seized with mortal terror; he no longer sits like a night-mare on the panting chest of merriment. He is merry himself. The more Christianity he has the more cheerful he is, and ought to be. He talks upon other things than the ten commandments. He joins in innocent games and amusements. If he has an opinion, he dares express it, though it may differ from that of some "prominent man." He can fish and shoot, and drive and row, and take a milk punch, like other free agents without damaging his clerical robe or his usefulness. He can have beautiful things to make his home attractive, without being accused of "worldliness." He can wear a nicely fitting coat, or boot, or hat, without peril to anybody's salvation. He can give a good dinner, or go to one. He can go to the circus. He can attend the opera. He can own and drive a fast horse. His stomach consequently does not, as of yore, cling to his miserable backbone; nor are his cheeks cavernous; since he draws a free breath, and sneezes when he see fit, like the laymen. Every day I thank God that the clergyman's millennium has begun. That his wife looks no longer like a piece of worn-out old fur, nor his children like spring chickens. That congregations now feel a pride in their minister, and an honest shame when he really needs anything which they have, and he has not. That they no longer hurt his self-respect by their manner of "giving" what he has earned a thousand times over. In short, "the minister" is no longer a cringing creature, creeping close to the wall, lest he offend by the mere fact of his existence; but a brisk-stepping, square-shouldered, broad-chested, round human being, whom it is pleasant to look at and comforting to listen to, since his theology is no longer as pinched as his larder.

As to "the minister's wife" of the olden time, where is she? The ubiquitous "minister's wife," who must make and mend, and bake and brew, and churn, and have children, and nurse and educate them, and receive calls at all hours, with a sweet smile on her face, and thank everybody for reminding her of what they consider her short-comings; who must attend funerals, and weddings, and births, and social prayer-meetings, and "neighborhood-meetings," and "maternal meetings;" and contribute calico aprons for the Fejee Islanders, and sew flannel nightcaps for the Choctaw infants, and cut and make her husband's trousers; and call as often on Mrs. Deacon Smith, and stay as long to the minute, as she did on Mrs. Deacon Jones; and who must call a parish meeting to sit on her new bonnet, if so be that the old one was pronounced by all the Grundys unfit for farther service. The minister's wife, who was hunted through the weeks and months and years, by a carping, stingy parish, till she looked like a worn-out old piece of fur; behold her now!

For one, I like to see her pretty bonnet, I like to see her children shouting in the sunshine, all the same as if their "Pa" wasn't a minister. I like her daughters to play on the piano, and her boys to kick round independently and generally like the boys of other men. I like to see them live in a comfortable house, hung with pictures and filled with pretty things. I like their table to have nice cups and saucers, and table-cloths and napkins, and good things to eat on it. I am glad the minister's wife can stay at home when she feels like it; and not be trotted out with the toothache of a wet day to see if there is not danger of Squire Smith's baby sneezing because the wind is east; under penalty of her husband's dismissal from his pastoral charge. It does me good to see modern ministers' spouses hold up their heads and face the daylight like other men's wives, instead of creeping round on all fours, apologizing for their existence, and inviting cuffs from people who, born without souls, consequently can have no call for "a minister."