Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish Part 12

"I am sure not, John,' said Jennie earnestly.

"Why is it then, Jennie," said I, "that you and I want youth in our minister? Young lawyers and young doctors are not in requisition.

Age generally brings confidence even when it does not endow with wisdom. I believe that Judge Ball's princ.i.p.al qualification for his office was his bald head and grey beard. When you discovered a couple of grey hairs on my head a little while ago, I was delighted.

I should like to multiply them. Every grey hair is worth a dollar.

Dr. Curall has hard work to get on in his profession because he is so young and looks still younger than he is. If there was such a thing as grey dye it would pay him to employ it. Lawyers and doctors must be old-ministers must be young. Why, Jennie?"

"Perhaps," said Jennie, "we want in our ministers enthusiasm more than wisdom."

"Enthusiasm," said I. "That might do for the Methodists. But it does not apply to the Congregationalists, and the Episcopalians, and the staid and sober Presbyterians."

"I don't know about that," said Jennie. "What we want of our preachers is not so much instruction as inspiration. We want some body not to think for us but to set us to thinking. Our souls get sluggish, and they want to be stirred up. I do not want some one to prove the authority of the ten commandments, John, but some one to make me more earnest to obey them. I do not care much about Dr.

Argure's learned expositions of the doctrine of atonement. But I do want some one who shall make me realize more and more that Jesus died for me."

"And what has that to do with youth, Jennie?" said I.

"I don't know," said Jennie, thoughtfully; "unless it is that the truth seems somehow new and fresh to the young minister. Besides it is not youth, John, altogether. It is freshness, and warmth, and enthusiasm, and spiritual life. Mr. Beecher is not young nor is Spurgeon, nor Dr. Hall, nor Dr. Tyng, nor John B. Gough. But they are all popular. Father Hyatt isn't young, John, but I had rather hear him than Dr. Argure any day."

I rather think Jennie is right. It is not youth we want at Wheathedge, but spiritual life and earnestness. At least it is to be thought of.

But as to salary-how we are to get a first cla.s.s man at a third cla.s.s salary puzzles me. I shall have to refer that to Mr. Wheaton.

He is the financier of our church I believe.

CHAPTER XIII.

Maurice Mapleson declines to submit to a compet.i.tive examination.

"I have a letter from Maurice Mapleson," said I to Jennie.

"What does he say? Will he come?" said she eagerly.

"No!" said I. "He won't come."

"I am sorry," said she. "It's too bad of him."

"You won't think so, my dear," said I, "when you hear his letter.

You'll be more sorry; but you'll think better of him than you did before."

We were at the tea-table. It is the rule of our meal hour to have the conversation one in which the children can engage-in which at all events they can take an interest. So the topic was suffered to drop till they were in bed, and we were alone in the library.

Maurice Mapleson was a young minister that I thought a good deal of.

So when two Sundays before, Mr. Wheaton suggested him to me as a successor to our retiring pastor, I welcomed the suggestion.

"You know that young Mapleson, don't you Mr. Laicus," said he, "who preached for us two Sundays last summer. I think he stopped at your house."

I a.s.sented.

"I wish you would write him, quite informally you know, to come down and preach for us a Sunday or two. The folks at our house were quite taken with him, and I think the people were generally. I shouldn't wonder if he were the 'coming man,' Mr. Laicus."

So that evening I stayed at home from church and wrote to him. I remembered what Mr. Wheaton had said about this being a peculiar parish, and our people a peculiar people, and I waxed eloquent as I wrote. I reminded Mr. Mapleson of our glorious scenery. I told him we were but a suburb of New York and he would have a city congregation, and I did not tell him that he would have to pay very nearly city prices for everything, and would not have anything that would approximate a city salary. I told him of the Mill village and the opportunities of Christian labor it opened before him. I a.s.sured him that he would find the people remembering him kindly, and ready to welcome him warmly. In short I considered myself retained as advocate In re the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and I rather laid myself out to produce an impression.

And I rather flatter myself that I did produce an impression. But I did not get a verdict. Here is his answer as I read it to Jennie that evening. KONIWa.s.sET CORNERS, Tuesday. JOHN LAICUS, ESQ.,

Dear Sir,--I thank you very warmly for your kind letter of the 6th instant. Kind it certainly is, and though I must decline the invitation it presents so cordially to me, I am none the less grateful for it, notwithstanding the fact that it has been a strong and not easily resisted temptation to violate my settled convictions of duty.

If I were writing formally to the committee it would be enough to decline your invitation without entering into any explanation. But the remembrance of the pleasant week I spent at your house last summer, and the tone of your letter, makes me feel as though I were writing to a personal friend. This is my excuse (if one is needed) for giving you more fully than I otherwise should, my reasons for declining. Those reasons are not in any way connected with the parish at Wheathedge. I am not insensible to the attractions which the place possesses as a residence, nor to that which the parish possesses as a field of labor. But I resolved when I first entered the ministry that I would never preach as a candidate. I never have, and I never will. I began my work in a mission school in New York City, while I was yet in the Seminary. When I left the Seminary, Mr.

Marcus who is one of the trustees of the mission asked me to come up to this church. It is a sort of mission among the miners, being half supported by Mr. Marcus who is one of the directors of the Koniwa.s.set Coal Co. I came for six months. The congregation asked me to remain, and I remained. And here I purpose to remain till G.o.d shall call me to another field. Another field I will not seek, though I should live and die here. I pretend to believe that Christ is my Bishop; and I shall not move without orders from him.

So long as I am pastor here I cannot preach with honor as a candidate in other parishes. I know other ministers do it-and I do not judge them. But I cannot. Suppose my people were to take advantage of my absence for a week to try a candidate. I wonder what I should say to that. And I cannot see that settled ministers have any more right to try other parishes with reference to a change of place, than parishes with settled ministers have to try other ministers with reference to a change of pastors. In a word I do not believe in free-love as applied to churches.

But apart from that I cannot preach as a candidate. The minister is ordained to preach to convert impenitent sinners and to build up and strengthen Christians. Do you suppose I should do either if I came to Wheathedge on your invitation to preach as a candidate? Not at all. The people would come to criticise, and I should go to be criticised. They would be judges and would expect to put me through my ministerial faces to try me. Come, the congregation says in effect to me in such an invitation, let us see how you can preach, exhibit your proficiency in the doctrines, try your skill in arousing sinners, see what you can do in interesting the saints, read us a hymn or two, as a test of your elocution, and display to us your "gifts in prayer;" and then when the service is over, spend a week and take tea with two or three of our princ.i.p.al families and show us what your social qualifications are, and give our children an opportunity to quiz you. That it is in effect Mr. Laicus, though it may seem somewhat presumptuous in me to say it. And to such a quizzing I am not at all inclined to submit. I never preached but one trial sermon-that was when I was licensed and I never mean to preach another.

Imagine Paul preaching as a candidate to the people of Athens or Corinth, and submitting his claims as an apostle to the popular verdict!

Or imagine, Mr. Laicus, a client coming to you and saying I have an important case to be tried sir, and I think of placing it in your hands. Will you oblige me by making a neat little speech for me. I want to see what kind of a speech you can make.

Since I wrote that last sentence I have read this letter over, and have been on the point, two or three times, of tearing it up and sending in its place a simple declination. But I feel as though I were writing to a friend, and it shall go. I am sorry it must be so.

I should like to go to Wheathedge. That it is a beautiful place, and has pleasant people, and is a far more important field of labor than this I recognize fully; and then, what possibly influences me quite as much, Helen, whom your wife knows very well, is waiting patiently for me, and I am waiting impatiently for her, and I never can marry on the little pittance I receive here. But she is of one mind with me in this matter, I know, for we have often talked it over together, and she holds me n.o.bly to my resolution. She, I am sure, would not have me write other than I do.

My kind regards to Mrs. Laicus and my sincere thanks to yourself. A kiss to Harry too, if you please, if he is not too old to take one.

The baby I have never seen. Yours sincerely, MAURICE MAPLESON.

"Well," said Jennie after I had finished reading the letter, "I believe he is right; but I am sorry John; sorrier than I was before."

"Sorry that he won't come, Jennie?"

"Sorry that he is right," said Jennie. "That is, if he is right."

"Do you doubt it, Jennie?" said I.

"Well I don't know, John. I go with him. I like him better for his letter. I cannot gainsay it. And yet it seems to me that it puts the ministers in a rather hard position."

"Yes?" said I interrogatively.

"Yes," said Jennie. "You know perfectly well John that our church here wouldn't call a man that isn't settled somewhere. The very fact that he was out of a parish,, would be almost conclusive against him. And they won't call a man without trying him. Must Maurice Mapleson live and die in that little out of the way corner? And if he is ever going to get out of it, how is it to come about? How does a minister have any chance for a change if he takes such a ground as that? It's high and n.o.ble John, and I honor him for it; but I am afraid it isn't practicable."

"Little woman," said I, "whatever is truly high and n.o.ble is practicable, and you would be the first to tell me so another time.

Don't let our wanting Maurice Mapleson here blind us to that."

Jennie smiled her a.s.sent. "Well John," said she, "what you are going to do about it?"