Читать книгу Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things. - Fern Fanny - Страница 13

It may strike you pleasantly, but when I am about to enter a church, the conspicuous intelligence upon its outside walls, that the "undertaker may be found at such a street," is anything but a pleasant announcement. Now not being myself a theologian of that school which compels a smiling countenance to be left at the porch of the "meetin'-house," I can, therefore, by no means indorse any gloomy surroundings, outside or inside.

One of the principal articles of my creed is, that Sunday should be the pleasantest day of all the week. When I open my eyes to its dawn, I always rejoice, if instead of a gray, cloudy sky, it be a lovely blue, and the sun be shining brightly; I think upon the thousands to whom this day is the only leisure day of all the seven; the thousands who, without this blessed rest, would scarcely have time to look upon the faces of wife or children; scarcely time to receive the regenerating caresses of little twining arms, or hear the recital of little griefs and joys which it is so blessed to share with one who never wearies in the hearing, and to whose fatherly ear nothing a little child can say is "trifling." It is blessed to me to think of the thousand humble homes where the Sabbath sun shines upon just such a scene as this; preaching through the family this simple gospel: that the humblest have those for whom they must strive to leave the legacy of a good and honest name. Now when a working-man, with his heart full of love and happiness, walks forth on a Sunday morning, do you think it wise when he approaches a church to shake a coffin in his face? Had I my way, I would tear these undertaker-placards all down to-morrow, and instead, I would write this, "Strangers furnished with free seats here every Sunday." Were I a clergyman, an undertaker should no more use my church walls to advertise his business, than the upholsterer who furnished the pew-cushions, or the bookseller who provided the hymn-books, or the man who found the gas-fixtures. Ah! but you say it is very convenient to know where the sexton lives. Very well, so it is; but let him advertise in the papers, as other people do, who have no convenient church walls to save their advertising fees. The truth is, that the whole undertaker business, as at present managed, is monstrously mis-managed. The other day, in one of our streets, I saw an oyster shop with heaps of bivalves curiously arranged in the window, over which was written: "Live and let live." Next door, being an undertaker, he had piled ostentatiously his wares, consisting of heaps of "fancy coffins," in his show-window. If he had only copied his bivalve-neighbor, so far as to write over the window, Die and let die, the farce would have been complete.

They who please may sniff at Sunday. To us it is a blessed reprieve from care and business, and worry of every sort. The very putting on of the fresh, clean, "best" raiment, is suggestive of best thoughts and best feelings for all whom we meet, and more than all, for the dear ones at home, whose happiness it is ours to make or to mar. Then the sweet, soothing hymn and the pleading prayer; and the sermon, in which it were hard, as a rule, to find nothing that we could not take home with us for our improvement and self-help. Then the pleasant family group at table, where the children should be. Ah! we are glad for this blessed Sunday, let him who will, decry or pervert it.

A Pitiable Sight. – There is no more pitiable sight than that of a husband and father reeling home at the end of the week, having left the greater part of his week's wages at some drinking saloon. We think of the patient, toiling wife and hungry children, and the miserable Sunday, and the coming week in store for them, and the utter hopelessness of their future lot, and can find no words of denunciation strong enough for the man who grows rich by tempting a brother's weakness, knowing, when he does so, that for his victim there is in this world no redemption.