Читать книгу The Gentleman from Everywhere - James Henry Foss - Страница 15

In the early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils and parents parted with mutual regrets. My pecuniary reward was small; but I shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received that I left the intellectual status of that town much higher than I found it. I have visited the place only once since, but my old friends had all passed on to the higher life, and my young ones were scattered to the four winds of heaven in search of that happiness and wealth which is seldom found beneath the stars.

I reached the old home under the hill, delighted to see once more the eyes which looked love to eyes that spoke again, to hear the familiar spring chorus from the river, the first robins and bluebirds rejoicing over the resurrection of nature, to explore each sheltered nook for the early cowslips, violets, pussy-willows, dandelions, and crocuses; to gossip with my old friends the chipmunks, the muskrats, and the woodchucks; to revisit each mossy hollow and sequestered retreat in my much loved pine woods; to whittle again the willow whistles, to caress the opening buds and tiny green growing blades of grass; to float once more in my little boat under the embracing arms of my chums, the oaks, birches, and hemlocks I loved so well; to watch the first flight of Psyche, the butterfly, so emblematic of the soaring of the immortal soul from the body dead. The wood duck seemed to smile upon me as of old as she sailed gracefully into the little coves in my river, the woodpeckers beat their drums in my honor, and the heron, the "Shu-Shugah"—screamed welcome oh, my lover.

The rapture of the returning life to nature thrilled my inmost being. Blue waves are tossing, white wings are crossing, the earth springs forth in the beauty of green, and the soul of the beautiful chanted to all, the sweet refrain:

Come to me, come to me, oh my God, oh, come to me everywhere,

Let the earth mean Thee, and the mountain sod, the ocean and the air,

For Thou art so far that I sometimes fear,

As on every side I stare

Searching within, and looking without, if Thou art anywhere.

My mother brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the "prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their inspiration to the hearty good cheer.

Within and without the genial spirit of springtime cheered the heart of man and the heart of nature, and all things animate and inanimate sang the words of the poet.

"Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing,

The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree;

Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing,

And the crocus darts up the spring to see.

Spring has come with a smile of blessing,

Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath,

Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing,

And wakes from the winter's dream of death."

That summer my services were frequently utilized as substitute preacher by our good pastor, who was much afflicted with what Mrs. Partington calls "brown creeturs." He had harped on one string of his vocal apparatus so long that like Jeshuran of old "it waxed fat and kicked." Exceedingly monotonous and soporific was his voice, and it was necessary to strain every nerve to tell whether he was preaching, praying or reading, the words were much the same in each case.

The long cramming of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and all things dead had driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire exclusion of all common sense. He forcibly reminded me of the Scotch dominie who stopped at the stove to shake off the water one rainy morning, and to rebuke the sexton for not having a fire. "Niver mind, yer Riverince," replied the indignant serving man, "ye'll be dry enough soon as ye begin praiching."

One hot Sunday when our clergyman was droning away as usual, a well-to-do fat brother, who once said he had such entire confidence in our clergyman's orthodoxy that he didn't feel obliged to keep awake to watch him, commenced to snore like a fog horn, nearly drowning the speaker's voice. The reverend stopped, and thinking innocently, that some animal was making the disturbance, said: "Will the sexton please put that dog out." This aroused fatty, who left the church in a rage, and his subscription was lost forever.

Our pious pastor was a fair sample of the "wooden men" turned out by the educational mills of the day; to an assembly of whom Edwin Booth is reported to have said: "The difference between the theatre and the church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. When you give less attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces of elocution, you may expect to do some good in the world."

His pastoral calls were appalling; arm extended like a pump handle to shake hands, one up and down motion, a "how do you do?"—"fine day," then a solemn pause, generally followed by his one story; "The day my wife and I were married it rained, but it cleared off pleasant soon after, and it has been pleasant ever since," then suspended animation, finally, "let us pray," and when the same old prayer with few variations was ended, once more the pump-handle operation and he departed, wearing the same hopeless face. He was not a two-faced man, for had he another face, he would surely have worn it.

This sad-eyed man was much tormented by a brother minister in the pews, who seemed to have a strong desire to secure our pastor's poor little salary for his own private use and behoof. His plan evidently was to throw the stigma of heresy upon the incumbent, and to this end, when our preacher was one day laboring hard to show us exactly where foreordination ends and free moral agency begins, the ex-minister arose, excitedly declaring such talk to be rank Arminianism, and denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an all-wise, all-loving Jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and others to hell. The regular speaker was dumbfounded. An argumentative duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up with great force: "From whence doth this union arise?" when the disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay another cent for such heretical sermons.

Later, a heated discussion arose among the church members as to whether fermented wine should be used at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "Pedo Baptist" church where he could have alcohol in his.

All this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of religion to languish. This was the time, famous in church history, when a great reaction set in against Cotton Mather theology, who proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect writhing in hell.

Unitarianism grew apace, and Henry Ward Beecher immortalized himself by saying: "Many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned! Result; they are not what their great Master commanded them to be—successful fishers of men."

Our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings, his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his demeanor, and when I recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of despair, and only one in a thousand escapes."

When I semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons I preached in those days of my youth, I am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull the hole in after me. I can fully believe the orator who said that a stupid speech once saved his life.

"I went back home," he said, "last year to spend Thanksgiving with the old folks. While waiting for the turkey to cook, I went into the woods gunning—it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. While promenading, it commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best Sunday-go-to-meetings, I crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by and I attempted to pull out, but to my horror, the log had contracted so that I was stuck fast in the hole, and I gave myself up for lost. I remembered all the sins of my youth, and conscience assured me that I richly deserved my fate; finally, I thought of a certain unspeakably asinine speech which I once inflicted upon a suffering audience, and I felt so small that I rattled round in that old log like a white bean in a washtub, and slipped like an eel out of the little pipe-stem end of that old tree. I was saved; but the audience had been ruined for life."