Our Temperance Prayer-Meeting.
IT is late in the fall. The summer birds have fled southward. The summer residents have fled to their city homes. The mountains have blossomed out in all the brilliance of their autumnal colors; but the transitory glory has gone and they are brown and bare. One little flurry of snow has given us warning of what is coming. The furnace has been put in order; the double windows have been put on; a storm-house has enclosed our porch; a great pile of wood lies up against the stable, giving my boy promise of plenty of exercise during the long winter. And still the summer lingers in these bright and glorious autumnal days. And of them the carpenters and the painters are making much in their work on the new library-hall.
Do not let the reader deceive himself by erecting in his imagination an edifice of brick or stone, with all the magnificent architectural display which belongs to the modern style of American cosmopolitan architecture. Library-hall is a plain wooden building, one story high, and containing but three rooms. It is to cost us just $1,000, when it is finished. Let me record here how it came to be begun.
Temperance is not one of the virtues for which Wheathedge is, or ought to be, famous. I know not where you will find cooler springs of more delicious water, than gush from its mountain sides. I know not where you will find grapes for home wine-that modern recipe for drunkenness-more abundant or more admirably adapted to the vintner's purpose. But the springs have few customers, and one man easily makes all the domestic wine which the inhabitants of Wheathedge consume. But at the landing there are at least four grog-shops which give every indication of doing a thriving business, beside Poole's, half-way to the Mill village; to say nothing of the bar the busiest room by all odds, at Guzzem's hotel, busiest, alas! on the Sabbath day.
Maurice Mapleson is not one who considers that his parish and his congregation are coterminus. "I like the Established Church for one thing," he says. "The parish is geographical, not ecclesiastical. All within its bounds are under the parson's care. In our system the minister is only responsible for his own congregation. It is like caring for the wounded who are brought into hospital, and leaving those that are on the field of battle uncared for."
A little incident occurring soon after he came, first opened Maurice's eyes, I think, to the need of temperance reform in the community.
He had occasion, one evening after prayer-meeting, to visit a sick child of his Sabbath-school. The family were poor and his road led him down near the brickyard toward "Limerick," as this settlement of huts-half house, half pig-stye-is derisively called. The night was dark, and returning, abstracted in thought, he almost fell over what he first took to be a log lying in the street. It was a man, who, on a cursory examination, proved to be suffering under no less a disorder than that of hopeless intoxication. It was a dangerous bed. Maurice made one or two unsuccessful attempts to arouse the fellow, but in vain. Retracing his steps a few rods to the nearest hut, he summoned assistance, and with the aid of Pat sober, got Pat drunk upon his feet. But he was quite too drunk to help himself, and too large and heavy to be left to the sole charge of Pat sober, who happened to recognize a friend, whose home he said was a quarter of a mile down the valley. Maurice, who had preached a few Sundays ago on the parable of the Good Samaritan, could not bring himself to imitate the example of the Priest and Levite; so steadying the tipsy pedestrian on one side, while sober Pat sustained him on the other, they half led, half dragged the still unconscious sleeper to a little round hut, which he called home. The wife was sitting up for her husband and received both him and his custodians with objurgations loud on the first, and thanks equally loud addressed to the others. No sooner was the stupid husband safely deposited on the bed than, begging them to wait a moment, she went to the cupboard and taking down a big, black bottle, half filled a cracked tea-cup with whiskey, which she offered to Maurice as an expression of her gratitude. "I do not know," said Maurice to me, as he told me the story, "that she will ever forgive me for declining, though I couched my declension as courteously as possible."
Coming home and pondering this incident, he made up his mind that something must be done for the temperance cause in Wheathedge; and further pondering led him to the conclusion that he must begin at the church.
So one evening last week he came round to talk with me about it.
"The first thing," said he to me, "is to arouse the Church. I believe in preaching the gospel of temperance to the Jews first, and afterwards to the Gentiles. I will begin in the Synagogue. Afterwards I will go to the streets, and lanes, and highways."
"You will meet with some opposition," said I. "A temperance meeting in the church has never been heard of in Wheathedge. You will be departing from the landmarks."
"Do you think so?" said Maurice.
"I am sure of it," said I.
"Very good," said he, "if I meet with opposition it will prove I am right. It will prove that the Church needs stirring up on the subject. If I am not opposed I shall be inclined to give up the plan. However I will not wait for opportunity. I will challenge it."
The next Sunday he gave notice that that evening there would be a Temperance prayer and conference meeting in the church, in lieu of preaching.
"The town," said he, "is cursed with intemperance. There is one miscellaneous dry-goods and grocery store, one drug store, one mill, about half a bookstore, and an ice-cream saloon; and within a radius of half a mile of this church there are ten grog-shops and two distilleries, quite too large a proportion even for those who believe, as I do not, in moderate drinking. I have no remedy to propose. I have no temperance address to deliver. What I do propose is that we gather to-night and make it the subject of earnest prayer to God, and of serious conference among ourselves, that we may know what our duty is in the case, and knowing, may do it bravely and well."
As we came out of church the proposed Temperance prayer-meeting was the theme of general discussion.
Mr. Guzzem was sorry to see that this church was threatened with an irruption of fanaticism. He thought the minister had better stick to his business and leave side-issues alone.
Mr. Wheaton thought the true remedy for intemperance was the cultivation of the grape, and the manufacture of modern wines. He did not believe in meetings.
Mr. Hardcap was as much a foe to intemperance as any one; but he thought the true remedy for intemperance was the preaching of the Gospel. Paul was the model for preachers, and Paul knew nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Deacon Goodsole inquired who that man was that preached before Felix of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. But Mr. Hardcap apparently did not hear the question, at least he did not answer it.
Elder Law thought it might be very well, but that the minister ought not to change the service of the Sabbath without consulting the Session. It was a dangerous precedent.
Deacon Goodsole thought it a move in the right direction, and vowed he would give the afternoon to drumming up recruits. Miss Moore said she would go with him.
Mr. Gear, who has not been inside a prayer-meeting since he has been at Wheathedge, declared when I told him of the meeting, that it was the first sensible thing he had ever known the church to do; and if they were really going to work in that fashion he would like to be counted in. And sure enough he was at the prayer-meeting in the evening, to the great surprise of everybody, and to the consternation of Mr. Hardcap, who found in the fact that an infidel came to the meeting, a confirmation of his opinion that it was a desecration of the Sabbath and the sanctuary.
Mrs. Laynes, whose eldest boy jumped off the dock last Spring in a fit of delirium tremens, came to Maurice with tears in her eyes to thank him for holding a temperance meeting. "I can't do anything but pray," she said; "but oh, Pastor, that I can and will do."
The meeting was certainly a remarkable success, there was just opposition enough to make it so. Those that were determined it should succeed were there ready to speak, to sing, to pray. Those that did not believe in it were there to see it fail. Those that were indifferent were there, curious to see whether it would succeed or fail, and what it would be like. And Deacon Goodsole and Miss Moore were there with their recruits, a curious and motley addition to the congregation. The church was full. Every ear was attention; every heart aroused. And when finally good old Father Hyatt, with his thin white hair and tremulous voice, and eyes suffused with tears, told in tones of unaffected pathos, the sad story of Charl. Pie's death, I do not believe that even Jim Wheaton's eyes were dry. At all events I noticed that when, at the close of the meeting, Maurice put the question whether a second meeting should be held the following month, Jim Wheaton was among those who voted in the affirmative. There were no dissentients.
When I came home from this meeting, I put on paper as well as I could Father Hyatt's pathetic story. It is as follows:
Father Hyatt's Story.
IF you had known Charlie P., and had seen his little struggle, and had felt as I did the anguish caused by his tragic death, you would not talk of moderate drinking as a remedy for intemperance.
I was away from my parish when I first heard of it. I very well remember the start with which I read the first line of the note, "Charlie P— is dead;" and how after I had finished the account, written in haste and partaking of the confusion of the hour, the letter dropped from my hands, and I sat in the gathering darkness of the summer twilight, rehearsing to myself the story of his life, and the sad, sad story of his tragic death. Years have passed since, but the whole is impressed upon my memory in figures that time cannot fade. If I were an artist, I could paint his portrait, I am sure, as I see him even now. Such a grand, open-hearted, whole-souled fellow as he was.
It was about a year before that I first saw him in my church. His peculiar gait as he walked up the center aisle, first attracted my attention. He carried a stout cane and walked a little lame. His wife was with him. Indeed, except at his office, I rarely saw them apart. She loved him with an almost idolatrous affection; as well she might, for he was the most lovable man I ever knew; and he loved her with a tenderness almost womanly. I think he never for a moment forgot that it was her assiduous nursing which saved his life. His face attracted me from the first, and I rather think I called on the new-comers that very week. At all events we soon became fast friends, and at the very next communion husband and wife united with my church by letter from —, but no matter where; I had best give neither names nor dates. They lived in a quite, simple way, going but little into society, for they were society to each other. They rarely spent an evening out, if I except the weekly prayer-meeting. They came together to that. He very soon went into the Sabbath-school. A Bible-class of young people gathered about him as if by magic. He had just the genial way, the social qualities, and the personal magnetism to draw the young to him. I used to look about sometimes with a kind of envy at the eager attentive faces of his class.
Judge of my surprise when, one day, a warm friend of Charlie's came to me, privately, and said, "Charlie P. is drinking."
"Impossible," said I.
"Alas!" said he, "it is too true. I have talked with him time and again. He promises reform, but keeps no promise. His wife is almost broken-hearted, but carries her burden alone. You have influence with him, more than any one else I think. I want you to see him and talk with him."
I promised, of course. I made the effort, but without success. I called once or twice at his office. He was always immersed in business. I called at his house. But I never could see him alone. I was really and greatly perplexed, when he relieved me of my perplexity. Perhaps he suspected my design. At all events one morning he surprised me by a call at my study. He opened the subject at once himself.
"Pastor," said he, "I have come to talk with you about myself. I am bringing shame on the Church and disgrace on my family. You know all about it. Everybody knows all about it. I wonder that the children do not point at me in the street as I go along. Oh! my poor wife! my poor wife! what shall I do?"
He was intensely excited. I suspected that he had been drinking to nerve himself to what he regarded as a disagreeable but unavoidable duty. I calmed him as well as I could, and he told me his story.
He was formerly a temperate though never a total abstinence man. He was employed on a railroad in some capacity-express messenger I think. The cars ran off the track. That in which he was sitting was thrown down an embankment. He was dreadfully bruised and mangled, and was taken up for dead. It seemed at first as though he had hardly a whole bone in his body; but by one of those marvelous freaks, as we account them, which defeat all physicians' calculations, he survived. Gradually he rallied. For twelve months he lived on stimulants. His wife's assiduous nursing through these twelve months of anxiety prostrated her upon a bed of sickness. From his couch he arose, as he supposed, to go through life on crutches. But returning strength had enabled him to substitute a cane. Her attack of typhoid fever left her an invalid, never to be strong again. Alas! his twelve months' use of stimulants had kindled a fire within him which it seemed impossible to quench.
"I cannot do my work," said he, "without a little, and a little is enough to overset me. I am not a hard drinker, Pastor, indeed I am not. But half a glass of liquor will sometimes almost craze me."
I told him he must give up the little. For him there was but one course of safety, that of total abstinence. He was reluctant to come to it. His father's sideboard was never empty. It was hard to put aside the notions of hospitality which he had learned in his childhood, and adopt the principles of a total abstinence, which he had always been taught to ridicule. However, he resolved bravely, and went away from my study, as I fondly hoped, a saved man.
I had not then learned, as I have since, the meaning of the declaration, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
I saw him every few days. He never showed any signs of liquor. I asked him casually, as I had opportunity, how he was getting along. He always answered, "Well." I sounded others cautiously. No one suspected him of any evil habit. I concluded he had conquered it. Though I did not lose him from my thoughts or prayers, I grew less anxious. He kept his Bible-class, which grew in numbers and in interest. Spring came, and I relaxed a little my labors, as that climate-no matter where it was, to me the climate was bad enough-required it. Despite the caution, the subtle malaria laid hold of me. I fought for three weeks a hard battle with disease. When I arose from my bed the doctor forbade all study and all work for six weeks at least. No minister can rest in his own parish. My people understood that, as parishes do not always. One bright spring day, one of my deacons called, and put a sealed envelope into my hand to be opened when he had left. It contained a check for my traveling expenses, and an official note from the officers of the church bidding me go and spend it. In three days I was on my way to the White Mountains. It was there my wife's hurried note told me the story of Charlie's death. And this was it:
The habit had proved too strong for his weak will. He had resumed drinking. No one knew it but his wife and one confidential friend. He rarely took much; never so much as to be brutal at home, or unfit for business at the office; but enough to prove to him that he was not his own master. The shame of his bondage he felt keenly, powerless as he felt himself to break the chains. The week after I left home his wife left also for a visit to her father's. She took the children, one a young babe three months old, with her. Mr. P. was to follow her in a fortnight. She never saw him again. One night he went to his solitary home. Possibly he had been drinking-no one ever knew-opened his photograph album, covered his own photograph with a piece of an old envelope, that it might no longer look upon the picture of his wife on the opposite page, and wrote her, on a scrap of paper torn from a letter, this line of farewell:
"I have fought the battle as long as I can. It is no use. I will not suffer my wife and children to share with me a drunkard's shame. God-bye. God have mercy on you and me."
The next morning, long after the streets had resumed their accustomed activity, and other houses threw wide open their shutters to admit the fragrance of flowers, and the song of birds, and the glad sunshine, and all the joy of life, that house was shut and still. When the office clerk, missing him, came to seek him, the door was fast. Neighbors were called in. A window was forced open. Lying upon the bed, where he had fallen the night before, lay poor Charlie P. A few drops of blood stained the white coverlet. It oozed from a bullet wound in the back of his head. The hand in death still grasped the pistol that fired the fatal shot.
Our Village Library.
TO that prayer-meeting and Father Hyatt's story of Charlie P.,Wheathedge owes its library.
"Mr. Laicus," said Mr. Gear as we came out of the meeting together, "I hope this temperance movement isn't going to end in a prayer-meeting. The praying is all very well, but I want to see some work go along with it."
"Very well," said I, "what do you propose?"
"I don't know," said he. "But I think we might do something. I believe in the old proverb. The gods help those who help themselves."
That very week Mr. Mapleson called at my house to express the same idea. "What can we do to shut up Poole's?" said he. "It's dreadful. Half our young men spend half their evenings there lounging and drinking away their time." He proposed half a dozen plans and abandoned them as fast as he proposed them. He suggested that we organize a Sons of Temperance, and gave it up because neither of us believed in secret societies; suggested organizing a Band of Hope in the Sabbath-school, but withdrew the suggestion on my remarking that the Sabbath-school would not touch the class that made Poole's bar the busiest place in town; hinted at trying to get John B. Gough, but doubted whether he could be obtained. I told him I would think it over. And the next evening I walked up to Poole's to survey the ground a little. I found, just as you turn the corner from the Main street to go up the hill, what I had never noticed before-a sign, not very legible from old age and dirt, "Free Reading-room." Having some literary predilections, I went in. A bar-room, with three or four loungers before the counter, occupied the foreground. In the rear were two round wooden tables. On one were half a dozen copies of notorious sensation sheets, one or two with infamous illustrations. A young lad of sixteen was gloating over the pages of one of them. The other table was ornamented with a backgammon board and a greasy pack of cards. The atmosphere of the room was composed of the commingled fumes of bad liquor, bad tobacco, kerosene oil and coal gas. It did not take me long to gauge the merits of the free reading-room. But I inwardly thanked the proprietor for the suggestion it afforded me.
"A free reading-room," said I to myself; "that is what we want atWheathedge."
The same thought had fortunately occurred almost simultaneously to my friend Mr. Korley, though his reason for desiring its establishment were quite different from mine. His family spends every summer at Wheathedge. His wife and daughters found themselves at a loss how to spend their time. They had nothing to do. They pestered Mr. Korley to bring them up the last novels. But his mind was too full of stocks; he always forgot the novels. On Saturday he went over to Newtown, hearing there was a circulating library there. He found the sign, but no books. "I had some books once," the proprietor explained, "but the Wheathedge folks carried them all off and never returned them." Thus it happened that when the week after my visit to the free reading-room, I met Mr. Korley on board the train, he remarked to me, "We ought to have a circulating library at Wheathedge."
"And a reading-room with it," said I.
"Well, yes," said he. "That's a fact. A good reading-room would be a capital thing."
"Think of the scores of young men," said I, "that are going down to ruin there. They have no home, no decent shelter even for a winter's evening, except the grog-shop."
"I don't care so much about the young men," said Mr. Korley, "as I do about the middle-aged ones: My Jennie pesters me almost to death every time I go down, to buy her something to read. Of course I always forget it. Besides, I would like a place where I could see the papers and periodicals myself. I would give fifty dollars to see a good library and reading-room in Wheathedge."
"Very good," said I, "I will put you down for that amount." So I took out my pocket-book and made a memorandum.
"What! are you taking subscriptions?" asked Mr. Korley.
"Have taken one," said I.
That was the beginning. That night I took a blank book and drew up a subscription paper. It was very simple. It read as follows:
"We, the undersigned, for the purpose of establishing a library and reading-room in Wheathedge, subscribe the sums set opposite our names, and agree that when $500 is subscribed the first subscribers shall call a meeting of the others to form an organization."
I put Mr. Korley's name down for $50, which started it well. Mr. Jowett could do no less than Mr. Korley, and Mr. Wheaton no less than Mr. Jowett; and so, the subscription once started, grew very rapidly, like a boy's snowball, to adequate proportions. The second Tuesday in July I was enabled to give notice to all the subcribers to meet at my house. My parlors were well filled. I had taken pains to get some lady subscribers, and they were there as well as the gentlemen. I read to the company the law of the State providing for the organization of a library association. Resolutions were drawn up and adopted. Stock was fixed at $5, that everybody might be a stockholder. The annual dues were made $2, imposed alike on stockholders and on outsiders. A Board of trustees was elected. And so our little boat was fairly launched.
We began in a very humble way. The school trustees loaned us during the summer vacation a couple of recitation-rooms which we converted into a library and conversation-room. The former we furnished in the first instance with the popular magazines and two or three of the daily newspapers. We forthwith began also to accumulate something of a library. Mr. Wheaton presented us with a full assortment of Patent Office reports, which will be very valuable for reference if any body should ever want to refer to them. We also have two shelves full chiefly of old school-books, which a committee on donations succeeded in raising in the neighborhood.
But apart from these treasures of knowledge our collection is eminently readable. Maurice Mapleson is on the library committee, and Maurice Mapleson is fortunately a very sensible man. "The first thing," he says, "is to get books that people will read. Valuable books that they won't read may as well stay on the publishers' shelves as on ours." So as yet we buy only current literature. We rarely purchase any book in more than two volumes. We have a good liberal assortment of modern novels-but they are selected with some care. We sprinkle in a good proportion of popular history and popular science. The consequence is our library is used. The books really circulate. Our conversation-room has proved quite as popular as the library. It is furnished with chess and checkers. What is more important it is furnished with young ladies. For the Wheathedge library knows neither male nor female. And the young men find our checkers more attractive than Tom Poole's cards. They are ready to exchange the stale tobacco smoke and bad whiskey of his bar-room for the fair, fresh faces that make our reading-room so attractive. The boys, too, as a class are very willing to give up the shameless pictorial literature of his free reading-room for Harper's and the Illustrated Christian Weekly. In a word the Wheathedge library became so universally popular that when the opening of the school threatened to crowd us out of our quarters, there was no difficulty in raising the money to build a small house, large enough for our present and prospective needs. The only objection was Mr. Hardcap. For Mr. Hardcap does not approve of novels.
This objection came out when I first asked him for a subscription, payable in work on the new building.
"Do you have novels in your library?" said he.
"Of course," said I.
"Then," said he, "don't come to me for any help. I won't do anything to encourage the reading of novels."
"You do not approve of novels, then, I judge, Mr. Hardcap?" said I.
"Approve of novels!" said he, energetically. "If I had my way, the pestiferous things should never come near my house. I totally condemn them. I don't see how any consistent Christian can suffer them. They're a pack of lies, anyhow."
"Do you not think," said I, "that we ought to discriminate; that there are different sorts of novels, and that we ought not to condemn the good with the bad?"
"I don't believe in no kind of fiction, nohow," said Mr. Hardcap, emphatically. "What we want is facts, Mr. Laicus-hard facts. That's what I was brought up on when I was a boy, and that's what I mean to bring my boys up on."
I thought of Mr. Gradgrind, but said nothing.
"Yes," said Mr. Hardcap, half soliloquizing, "there is Charles Dickens. He was nothing in the world but a novel writer, and they buried him in Westminster Cathedral, as though he were a saint; and preached sermons about him, and glorified him in our religious papers. Sallie is crazy to get a copy of his works, and even wife wants to read some of them. But they'll have to go out of my house to do it, I tell ye. Why, they couldn't make more to do if it was Bunyan or Milton."
"Bunyan?" said I. "Do you mean the author of Pilgrim's Progress?"
"Yes," said he: "that is a book. Why, it's worth a hundred of your modern novels."
"How is that?" said I. "Pilgrim's Progress, if I mistake not, is fiction."
"Oh! well," said .Mr. Hardcap, "that's a very different thing. It isn't a novel. It's a allegory. That's altogether different."
"What is the difference?" said I.
"Oh! well," said he, "that's altogether different. I suppose it is fictitious; but then it's altogether different. It's a allegory."
"Now I don't approve," continued Mr. Hardcap, without explaining himself any further, "of our modern Sunday-school libraries. I have complained a good deal, but it's no use. Tom brings home a story book every Sunday. I can't very well say he shan't take any books out of the library, and I don't want to take him out of Sunday-school. But I don't like these Sunday-school stories. They are nothing but little novels anyhow. And they're all lies. I don't believe in telling stories to teach children. If I had my way, there wouldn't be but one book in the library. That would be the Bible."
"You could hardly leave in all the Bible," said I. "You would have to cross out the parable of the prodigal son."
"The parable of the prodigal son!" exclaimed Mr. Hardcap, in astonishment.
"Yes," said I: "that is, if you did not allow any fiction in yourSunday reading."
"Oh!" said he, "that's very different. That's not fiction; that's a parable. That's entirely different. Besides," continued he, "I don't know what right you have to assume that it is a story at all. I have no doubt that it is true. Christ says distinctly that a man had two sons, and one came and asked him for his portion. He tells it all for a fact, and I think it very dishonoring to him to assume that it is not. I have no doubt that he knew just such a case."
"And the same thing is true of the parable of the lost sheep, and the lost piece of money, and the sower, and the merchantman, and the pearl, and the unfaithful steward?" I asked.
"Yes," said he, "I have no doubt of it."
"Well," said I, "that is at least a new view of Scripture teaching."
"I have no doubt it is the correct one," said he. "I don't believe there is any fiction in the Bible at all."
"Well," said I, "when you get home you read Jotham's story of the trees, in the Book of Judges; I think it's about the ninth chapter."
"I will," said he; "but if it's in the Bible I have no doubt it is true, no doubt whatever."
But in spite of Mr. Hardcap, the Wheathedge library flourished; and next week our new quarters are to be dedicated to the cause of literature and temperance by a public meeting. And I am assured by those that know, that Tom Poole's business was never so poor as it has been since we started our opposition to his free reading-room.
Miss Moore asked Maurice Mapleson last week to suggest a subject for an illuminated motto to hang on the wall of the reading-room over the librarian's desk.
"Overcome evil with good," said he.
Maurice Mapleson Tries an Experiment.
FIVE or six weeks ago Maurice came to me in some excitement. "Mr. Laicus," said he, "is it true that ten of you gentlemen have to contribute thirty dollars a piece this year to make up my salary?"
"No," said I.
"Why, John," said Jennie.
"We didn't have to do it," I continued. But in point of fact we do it."
"I don't like that," said he soberly. "If the church can't pay me fifteen hundred dollars a year I do not want to receive it. I thought the church was strong and well able to do all it professed to do."
"My dear Mr. Mapleson," said I, "you attend to the spiritual interests of the church and leave its finances to us. If we cannot pay you all we have promised, we will come and beg off. Till then you just take it for granted that it's all right."
Maurice shook his head.
"Why, my dear friend," said I, "how much do you suppose I pay for pew rent?"
"I haven't the least idea," said he.
"Fifty dollars," said I. "That provides myself and wife and Harry with a pew in church twice on the Sabbath if we want it. It pays for Harry's Sabbath-school instruction and for your service as a pastor to me and to mine. But we will make no account of that. Fifty dollars a Sabbath is a dollar a week, fifty cents a service, twenty cents a head. Harry half price, and the Sabbath-school, and the prayer-meetings, and the pastoral work thrown in. It is cheaper than any lecturer would give it to us, and a great deal better quality too. My pew rent isn't what I pay for the support of the Gospel. It is what I pay for my own spiritual bread and butter. It won't hurt me, nor Deacon Goodsole, nor Mr. Wheaton, nor Mr. Gowett, nor any one else on that list to contribute thirty dollars more for the cause of Christ and the good of the community."
Maurice shook his head thoughtfully, but said nothing more about it then, and the matter dropped.
The last week in December we have our annual meeting. It is generally rather a stupid affair. The nine or ten gentlemen who constitute the board of trustees meet in the capacity of an ecclesiastical society. In the capacity of a board of trustees they report to themselves in the capacity of a society. In the capacity of a society they accept the report which they have presented in the capacity of a board of trustees, and pass unanimously a resolution of thanks to the board, i. e. themselves, for the efficient and energetic manner in which they have discharged their duties. They then ballot in a solemn manner for themselves for the ensuing year and elect the ticket without opposition. And the annual meeting is over.
But this year our annual meeting was a very different affair. The Sabbath preceding, the parson preached a sermon on the text: "The poor have the Gospel preached to them." In this sermon he advocated a free-pew system. His arguments were not very fresh or new (there is not much that is new to be said on the subject) till he came to the close. Then he startled us all by making the following proposition:
"The chief objection," said he, "to the free-pew system is the question, 'Where shall the money come from?' From God, I answer. I believe if we feed his poor, he will feed us. I, for one, am willing to trust Him, at least for one year."
It slipped out very naturally, and there was a little laugh in the congregation at the preacher's expense. But he was very much in earnest.
"I propose to the society to throw open the doors of this church, and declare all the pews free. Provide envelopes and papers, and scatter them through the pews. Let each man write thereon what he is willing to pay for the support of the Gospel, and whether he will pay it weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-quarterly or annually. Give these sealed envelopes to me. No one shall know what they contain but myself and the treasurer. I will pay out of the proceeds all the current expenses of the church, except the interest. Whatever remains, I will take as my salary. The interest, the trustees will provide out of the plate collections and with the aid of the ladies. This is my proposition. Consider it seriously, earnestly, prayerfully, and come together next Wednesday night to act intelligently upon it."
I hardly think the minister's eloquence would have sufficed to carry this plan, but the treasurer's balance-sheet helped his case amazingly.
I supposed there would be a small deficit, but thought I knew it could not be very great. But I had not reckoned on the genius for incapacity which characterises church boards. To have the unusual deficit, which was involved by the increase of the parson's salary, provided for by a special subscription was more than they could bear. They had regarded it as their duty, made plain by the example of their predecessors in office for many years, to bring the church in debt, and nobly had they fulfilled their duty. On the strength of that extraordinary subscription they had rushed into extraordinary expenditures with a looseness that was marvellous to behold.
Here is the annual exhibit as it appears in the treasurer's report:
BALANCE SHEET.Cr.Pew-rents$1,250.00Sunday Collections325.25Received by a Ladies' Fair113.34Special Subscription300.00
$1,988.59
Dr.Minister's Salary$1,500.00Organist (a new expenditure advocated by Mr. Wheaton because of the SpecialSubscription), Six months' salary100.00Church Repairs, (a new fence and new blinds, &c., advocated by Mr. Wheatonbecause of the Special Subscription)134.75Reed Organ for the Sabbath-School (advocated by Mr. Wheaton because of theSpecial Subscription)150.00Interest on Mortgage315.00Sexton200.00Fire, lights and incidentals225.00Commission for collecting pew-rents55.75
$2,680.50
1,988.59 Deficit $691.91
Of course, the minister's salary was behind; and, of course, the minister was behind to the grocer, and the baker, and the butcher, and the dry-goods dealer; and, of course, everybody felt blue. There was a good deal of informal discussion before the parson's proposition was taken up. Mr. Hardcap wanted to decrease the minister's salary. Mr. Wheaton wanted to raise the pew rents. Mr. Leacock thought Mr. Wheaton could afford to give up his mortgage on the church. Mr. Line proposed to take up a subscription, pay the balance off on the spot, and begin the new year afresh. Mr. Gazbag thought it ought to be left to the ladies to clear off the debt with a concert or something of that sort. Mr. Cerulian thought (though he said it very quietly) that if we had a minister who could draw better, we shouldn't have any difficulty.
The parson kept his own counsel till these various plans had been, one after another, proposed and abandoned. Then he again proposed his own.
"I do not want," he said, "any more salary than this church and congregation can well afford to give. I am willing if it is poor to share its poverty. I believe if it is prosperous it will be willing to share with me its prosperity. I have studied this matter a good deal; I believe the pew rent system to be thoroughly bad. It excludes the poor. What is more to the purpose it excludes those whom we most need to reach. The men who most need the Gospel will not pay for it. The law of supply and demand does not apply. No man pays a pew rent who does not already at least respect religion, if he does not personally practise it. The influence within the church of selling the Gospel in open market is as deadly as its influence without. It creates a caste system. Practically our pews are classified. We have a parquette, a dress circle, a family circle, and an amphitheatre. The rich and poor do not meet together. We are not one in Christ Jesus. Moreover I believe it to be as bad financially as it is morally. When an American makes a bargain he wants to make a good one. What he buys he wants to get as cheap as his neighbor. If you rent your pews, every renter expects to get his seat at the lowest rates. But Americans are liberal in giving. If they contributed to the support of the Gospel, if what they gave the church was a free gift, I believe they would give with a free hand. At all events I would like to try the experiment. It can be no worse than it has been this year. The trustees can have no difficulty in raising interest money from the plate collections and a special subscription. There can be no injustice in requiring them to secure a special fund for any special expenditures. And all the other expenditures I will provide for myself out of the free gifts of the congregation. I am willing to run all the risks. It may do good. It can do the church no harm."
A long discussion followed this proposal.
Mr. Wheaton was at first utterly opposed to the plan. He thought it was tempting Providence to make no more adequate provision for our debts. Six of us quietly agreed to assume the mortgage debt, that is to say to insure him that the plate collections and the ladies together would pay the interest promptly. That changed his view. He said that if the minister had a mind to risk his salary on such a crazy scheme, very well. And at the last he voted for it.
Mr. Hardcap thought it was a first-rate plan. It was noticed afterward that he moved from a plain seat in the gallery to a cushioned and carpeted seat in the center aisle. Whether he paid any more contribution than he had before paid of pew rent, nobody but the parson knows. But nobody suspects him of doing so.
Mrs. Potiphar thought it was horrid. What was to prevent any common, low-born fellow, any carpenter's son, right from his shop, coming and sitting right alongside her Lillian? She couldn't sanction such communist notions in the church.
Deacon Goodsole warmly favored the minister's idea-was its most earnest advocate, and was the man who first started the plan for buying Mr. Wheaton's acquiescence.
Mr. Line hadn't a great deal of faith in it. This was not the way the church used to raise money when he was a boy. Still, he wanted to support the minister, and he wanted to have the poor reached, and he hadn't anything to say against it.
Squire Rawlins said, "Go ahead. The minister takes all the risk, don't you see? He's a big fool in my opinion. But there's no law agin a man makin' a fool of himself, ef he wants ter."
Miss Moore organized that very night a double force to carry the plan into effect. One was a ladies' society to pay the interest; the other was a band of workers, young men and young women, to go out on Sunday afternoons and invite the people who now do not go anywhere to church, to come to ours.
On the final vote the plan was carried without a dissenting voice. I beg Mrs. Potiphar's pardon. Her voice was heard in very decided dissent as the meeting broke up. But as the ladies do not vote in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, her protest did not prevent the vote from being unanimous.
Maurice Mapleson is sanguine of results, I am not. I am afraid he will come out bankrupt himself at the end of the year. I wanted to raise a special subscription quietly to ensure his salary. But he would not hear of it. He replied to my suggestion, "I said I would trust the Lord, and I will. If you want to add to your envelope contribution, very well. But I do not want any more than that will give me."
But one thing I notice and record here. Our congregation have increased from ten to twenty per cent. Miss Moore's invitations have met with far greater success than I anticipated. I never could get any of the boys from the Mill village to come to church at all regularly under the old system. When this change was made I gave notice of it, and now over half my Bible-class are in the congregation. But I can get no intimation from Maurice how the plan is prospering financially. All he will say is, "We shall all know at the close of the year."
Mr. Hardcap's Family Prayers.
"JENNIE," said I, the other evening, "I should like to go and make a call at Mr. Hardcap's."
Our new pastor had preached a sermon on that unapplied passage of Scripture, Luke xiv: 12-14. It had made a great stir in our little village. Mr. Wheaton thought it was a grand sermon, but impracticable. Mrs. Potiphar resented it as personal. Deacon Goodsole thought it was good sound doctrine. I thought I would give the sermon a trial; meanwhile I reserved my judgment.
It is not a bad method, by the way, of judging a sermon to try it and see how it works in actual experiment.
Jennie assented with alacrity to my proposition; her toilet did not take long, and to Mr. Hardcap's we went.
It was very evident that they did not go into society or expect callers. In answer to our knock we heard the patter of a child's feet on the hall floor and Susie opened the door. As good fortune would have it, the sitting-room door at the other end of the hall stood invitingly open, and so, without waiting for ceremony, I pushed right forward to the common room, which a great blazing wood fire illuminated so thoroughly that the candles were hardly necessary. Mrs. Hardcap started in dismay to gather up her basket of stockings, but on my positive assurance that we should leave forthwith if she stopped her work she sat down to it again. Luckily the night was cold and there was no fire in the stove of the cheerless and inhospitable parlor. So they were fain to let us share with them the cheery blaze of the cozy sitting-room. We did not start out till after seven, and we had not been in the room more than ten minutes before the old-fashioned clock in the corner rang out the departure of the hour and ushered in eight o'clock—whereat James laid aside his book, and at a signal from his father brought him the family Bible.
"We always have family prayers at eight o'clock," said Mr. Hardcap, "before the children go to bed; and I never let anything interfere with it."
This in the tone of a defiant martyr; as one under the impression that we were living in the middle ages and that I was an Inquisitor ready to march the united family to the stake on the satisfactory evidence that the reading of the Bible was maintained in it.
I begged him to proceed, and he did so, the defiant spirit a little mollified.
He opened at a mark somewhere in Numbers. It was a chapter devoted to the names of the tribes and their families. Poor Mr. Hardcap! If he was defiant at the first threatening of martyrdom, he endured the infliction of the torture with a resolute bravery worthy of a covenanter. The extent to which he became entangled in those names, the new baptism they received at his hands, the singular contortions of which he proved himself capable in reproducing them, the extraordinary and entirely novel methods of pronunciation which he evolved for that occasion, and the heroic bravery with which he struggled through, awoke my keenest sympathies. Words which he fought and vanquished in the first paragraph rose in rebellion in a second to be fought and vanquished yet again. The chapter at length drew to an end. I saw to my infinite relief that he was at last emerging from this interminable feast of names. What was my horror to see him turn the page and enter with fresh zeal upon the conquest of a second chapter.
Little Charlie (five years old) was sound asleep in his mother's arms. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy and her mind interiorly calculating something. I wondered not that James snored audibly on the sofa. Susie never took her eyes off her father, but sat as one that watches to see how a task is done. My wife listened for a little while with averted face, then wandered off, as she afterwards told me, to a mental calculation of her resources and expenses for the next month. And still Mr. Hardcap rolled out those census tables of Judea's ancient history. It was not till he had finished three chapters that at length he closed the book and invited me to lead in prayer.
Half an hour later, after Jamie had been roused up from his corner of the sofa and sent off to bed, and Charlie had been undressed and put to bed without being more than half aroused, Mrs. Hardcap asked my advice as to this method of reading the Bible.
"Mr. Hardcap," said she, "read a statement the other day to the effect that by reading three chapters every day and five on Sunday he could finish the Bible in a year. And he is going through it in regular course. But I sometimes doubt whether that is the best way. I am sure our children do not take the interest in it which they ought to; and I am afraid those chapters of hard names do not always profit me."
The martyr in Mr. Hardcap re-asserted itself.
"All Scripture," said he solemnly, "is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness. We cannot afford to pass by any part of the word of God."
"What do you think about it, Mr. Laicus?" said Mrs. Hardcap.
"Think!" said I; "I should be afraid to say what I think lest your husband should account me a hopeless and irreclaimable unbeliever."
"Speak out," said Mr. Hardcap; "as one who at the stake should say, 'pile the fuel on the flame, and try my constancy to its utmost.' "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
"Well," said I, "if I were to speak out, I should say that this way of reading the Bible reminds me of the countryman who went to a city hotel and undertook to eat right down the bill of fare, supposing he ought not to call for fish till he had eaten every kind of soup. It is as if one being sick, should go to the apothecary's shop, and beginning on one side, go right down the store taking in due order every pill, potion, and powder, till he was cured-or killed."
Mr. Hardcap shook his head resolutely. "Is it not true," said he, "that all Scripture is profitable?"
"Yes," said I, "but not that it is all equally profitable for all occasions. All the food on the table is profitable, but not to be eaten at one meal. All the medicine in the apothecary's shop is profitable, but not for the same disease."
"There is another thing," said Mrs. Hardcap, "that I cannot help being doubtful about. James is learning the New Testament through as a punishment."
"As a punishment!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," said she. "That is, Mr. Hardcap has given him the New Testament, and for his little offences about the house he allots him so many verses to learn; sometimes only ten or twelve, sometimes a whole chapter. I am afraid it will give the poor boy a distaste for the word of God."
"There is no danger," said Mr. Hardcap, oracularly. "The word of God is sharper than a two edged sword, and is quick even to the dividing asunder of the joints and the marrow. It is the book to awaken conviction of sin, the proper book for the sinner. There is no book so fitting to bring him to a sense of his sinfulness and awaken in him a better mind."
"And how," said I, "do you find it practically works? Does he seem to love his Bible?"
"Says he hates it awfully," said his mother.
"Such," said Mr. Hardcap, "is the dreadful depravity of the human heart. It is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."
It was quite idle to argue with Mr. Hardcap. We left him unconvinced, and I doubt not he is still reading his three chapters a day and five on Sunday. But I pity poor James from the bottom of my heart; and as my wife and I walked home I could not but help contrasting in my own mind Mr. Hardcap's way of reading the Bible and that which Deacon Goodsole pursues in his family.