Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish Part 17

"Mr. Laicus," said he, "I will think of it. Perhaps you are right. I have always meant to do my duty, if my duty was made clear. Perhaps I have failed, failed possibly in a point of prime importance. I do not know. I am in a maze. I believe there is a knowledge of G.o.d that I do not possess, a love of G.o.d that I do not experience. I believe in it because I believe in you M. Laicus, and yet more because I believe in my wife. But may be it will come in time. Time works wonders."

My very words to Jennie. And Jennie's answer was mine to him.

"Time never works Mr. Gear. It eats, and undermines, and rots, and rusts, and destroys. But it never works. It only gives us an opportunity to work."

And so I came away.

CHAPTER XVII.

Wanted--A Pastor.

WE are in a sorry condition here at Wheathedge. The prospects are, that it will be worse before it is better. For weeks now (it seems like a year or two) we have been without the Gospel. I do not mean that literally the preaching of the Gospel has been dispensed with.

On the contrary, I have heard more sermons on the text, "I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," than I ever heard before in my life. We are hearing candidates, and every candidate seems to feel it necessary to declare himself, to propound a sort of religious platform. The sermons seem to me to have about as much relation, as a general thing, to the spiritual condition of the hearers as Gov. Hoffman's last message to the real interests of the people of the State. In fact, if the truth were told, it is not a sermon we want, but a platform. We invite the candidate to preach, not that we may profit by the Gospel, but that he may show us his face. It has become a psychological curiosity to see how many different sermons can be evolved from that one text. I wonder sometimes if St. Paul would know himself in his modern attire.

I am very glad that Maurice Mapleson did not accept my invitation to come to Wheathedge, to preach as a candidate. For listening to a candidate and listening to the Gospel are two very different things.

The candidate preaches to show us how he can do it. We listen to hear how he can do it. From the moment he enters the pulpit all eyes are fixed upon him. His congregation is all attention. Let him not flatter himself. It is as critics, not as sinners, that we listen.

We turn round to see how he walks up the aisle. Is his wife so unfortunate as to accompany him? We a.n.a.lyze her bonnet, her dress, her features, her figure. If not, he monopolizes all attention. In five minutes we can, any of us-there are a few rare exceptions-tell you the cut of his coat, the character of his cravat, the shape of his collar, the way he wears his hair. If he has any peculiar pulpit habit, woe betide him; he is odd. If he has not, woe betide him; he is commonplace and conventional. He rises to invoke the blessing of G.o.d. If he goes to the throne of G.o.d he goes alone. We go no farther than the pulpit. We tell one another afterwards that he is eloquent in prayer, or that his prayers are very common. If his style is solemn, we condemn him as stilted. If it is conversational, we condemn him as too colloquial and familiar. He reads a hymn. We compare his elocution with that of our own favorites, or with some imaginary ideal, if we have no favorites. He preaches. We can, any of us, tell you how he does it. But what he says, there are not half a dozen who can tell. Does he tell us of our sins? We do not look at our own hearts, but at his picture, to see if it is painted well.

Does he hold before us the cross? We do not bow before it. We ask, is it well carved and draped? The Judgment is only a dramatic poem; the Crucifixion only a tableau.

So, though we have preaching, we have no Gospel at Wheathedge.

Perhaps the lack of the parish is quite as painfully felt in other departments as in the pulpit. The Church is without a head. It flounders about like a headless chicken; excuse the homely simile, which has nothing but truth to commend it. When Mrs. Beale died last week, we had to send to Wheatensville to get a minister to attend the funeral. When Sallie D. was married she sent there, too, for a minister. He was out of town, and the ceremony came near being delayed a week for want of him. The prayer-meeting lags. Little coldnesses between church members break out into open quarrels.

There is no one to weld the dissevered members. Poor old Mother Lang, who has not left her bed for five years, laments bitterly her loss, and asks me every time I call to see her, "When will you get a pastor?" The Young People's a.s.sociation begins to droop. Even the Sunday-school shows signs of friction, though Deacon Goodsole succeeds in keeping it in tolerably good running order by his imperturbable good humor. One advantage we have gained by this interregnum-only one. Even Mr. Hardcap is convinced that pastoral labors are not so unimportant as he had imagined.

For myself, I am in despair. I made no very serious objection to being put on the supply committee. I fancied the task a comparatively easy one. I had understood that there was no lack of ministers wanting places. There is none. We have applications three or four deep, of all sorts and kinds, from parishless clergymen. But such a jury as the Wheathedge congregation affords, I never saw and hope never to see again. I only wish there was some law to treat them as other juries are treated: shut them up in the jury-room till they agree on a verdict.

The first minister was too old; he would not suit the young folks.

The second, just out of the seminary, was too young; the old folks said he had not experience. The third had experience. He had been in a parish three years. He was still young, with the elastic hopes and strong enthusiasm of youth. But he was a bachelor. The people pretty universally declared that the minister should have a wife and a house. The women all said there must be somebody to organize the sewing circles, and to lead the female prayer-meetings. The fourth was married, but he had three or four children. We could not support him. The fifth was a most learned man, who told us the original Greek or Hebrew of his texts, and, morning or evening, never came nearer to America than Rome under Augustus C'sar. He was dull. The sixth afforded us a most brilliant pyrotechnic display. He spluttered, and fizzed, and banged, as though Fourth of July himself had taken orders and gone to preaching. The young people were carried away. But the old folks all said he was sensational.

Then, besides those we have heard, there are several we have talked about. There is the Rev. Mr. C-- who has the reputation of being a most excellent pastor. He is indefatigable in visiting the sick, in comforting the afflicted, in dealing with the recreant and the unconverted. But Mr. Wheaton says emphatically he will never do for our people. "He is no preacher, Mr. Laicus," says he; "and our people demand first-rate preaching. We must have a man that can draw."

We talked over Mr. K--. He is a rare preacher, by all accounts. I understand that his health has suffered somewhat by excessive study, and he would like another parish, a quieter one, where he can have more time to his study, and can use his old sermons. He preached once or twice in exchange with our old pastor before he left. But Solomon Hardcap would not hear of him, and even Deacon Goodsole shook his head at his suggestion, "He is not social," said the Deacon. "He does not know half the people in Highkrik, where he has been settled for over five years. He often pa.s.ses his best friend without noticing him, on the street." "Never would do," says Mr.

Hardcap. "He only visits his people once a year. I want to know my minister. We want a man who will run in and out as though he cared for us. Preaching is all very well, but we don't want a minister who is all talk."

I am in despair. And despite the breach of ecclesiastical etiquette, I have resolved to resort to advertising. I have not submitted my advertis.e.m.e.nt to the other members of the committee, but I am sure that it is in accord with the general feelings of the Church.

"Jennie, what do you think of my sending this advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Christian Union?"

WANTED.-A pastor. He must be irreproachable in his dress, without being an exquisite; married, but without children, young, but with great experience; learned, but not dull; eloquent in prayer, without being colloquial or stilted; reverential, but not conventional; neither old nor commonplace; a brilliant preacher, but not sensational; know every one, but have no favorites; settle all disputes, engage in none; be familiar with the children, but always dignified; be a careful writer, a good extempore speaker, and an a.s.siduous and diligent pastor. Such a person, to whom salary is less an object than a "field of usefulness," may hear of an advantageous opening by addressing Wheathedge, care of "The Christian Union," 27, Park Place.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Our Prayer-Meeting.

ONE thing we have gained by losing our pastor-the promise of better prayer-meetings.

Not that he was recreant in his duty. He performed it only too well.

We learned to depend on him. He suffered us to do so. It was only by a delicate irony that the prayer-meeting could be termed one of the "social meetings" of the Church. A solemn stillness pervaded the room. No one ever spoke after he entered the awful presence, unless he rose, formally addressed "the chair," and delivered himself of a set address. Occasionally one bolder than the rest spoke in a sepulchral whisper to his neighbor-that was all. In other social meetings the ladies, according to my observation, bear their full burden of conversation. In our prayer-meetings no woman ever ventured to open her mouth. In fact, I hardly know why they were called prayer-meetings. We rarely had any greater number of prayers than in our usual Sabbath service. Yes, I think we usually had one more.

The minister entered solemnly at the appointed hour, walked straight to his desk, without a word, a bow, a smile of recognition; read a long hymn, offered a very respectable imitation of the "long prayer," gave out a second hymn, and called on an elder to pray, who always imitated the imitation, and included in his broad sympathies all that his pastor had just prayed for-the Church, the Sabbath-school, the unconverted, backsliders, those in affliction, the President and all those in authority, the (Presbyterian) bishops and other clergy, not forgetting the heathen and the Jews. Then followed a pa.s.sage of Scripture for a text from the pastor, with a short sermon thereafter. Nor was it always short. I fancied he felt the necessity of occupying the time. It was not unfrequently long enough for a very respectable discourse, if length gives the discourse its respectability. Then we had another prayer from another layman, and then the invariable announcement, "the meeting is now open," and the invariable result, a long, dead pause. In fact, the meeting would not open. Like an oyster, it remained pertinaciously shut. Occasionally some good elder would rise to break the painful silence, by repeating some thought from the previous Sunday's sermon, or by telling some incident or some idea which he had seen in a previous number of "The Christian Union." But as we had all been to church, and as most of us take "The Christian Union," this did not add much to the interest of the meeting.

Generally another prayer and hymn, sometimes two, sufficed to fill the hour. The pastor kept his eye on the clock. When the hand pointed to nine he rose for the benediction. And never did a crowd of imprisoned schoolboys show more glad exultation at their release than was generally indicated by these brethren and sisters when the words of benediction dismissed them from their period of irksome restraint. Every man, and every woman, too, found a tongue. We broke up into little knots. A busy hum of many voices replaced the dead silence. The "social meeting" commenced when the "prayer-meeting"

ended. This, I think, is a fair portraiture of our prayer-meetings at Wheathedge as they were during our late pastor's presence with us.

The fault was not his-at least it was only proximately his. He felt the burden, groaned under it, tried hard, poor man! to remedy the evil. He often came to consult me about it. He tried various plans.

He gave a course of weekly lectures. The prayer-meeting was less a meeting of prayer than before. No man was willing to follow his elaborate lecture with a fragmentary talk. He announced from the pulpit, the preceding Sabbath, the topic for the next meeting. Worse and worse! A few members conscientiously studied up the pa.s.sage in "Barnes's Notes" and the "Comprehensive Commentary," and brought us the result of their investigations in discourse powerfully prosy, and recondite with second hand learning. The Minister at last gave up the matter in despair. I think the condition of our prayer-meetings was one consideration which greatly influenced him in deciding to leave.

I thought that there was nothing left in them to be lost, that no change could be other than for the better; but after he went what little meeting we had fell away. The few who had been attracted by his personal presence ceased to come. In vain we endeavored to revive our flagging spirits by continually reminding one another that the promise was to two or three gathered together. That was our standard text. Every leader referred to it in his prayers, and generally in his opening remarks. We had need of it. For the last two weeks there were not members enough present to serve as pall-bearers for the dead prayer-meeting.

This brought about a crisis. Two weeks ago, Deacon Goodsole came to me to talk over the spiritual condition of our church. I agreed with him that the prayer-meeting was a fatal symptom if not a fatal disease. We agreed to do what we could to remedy it. We asked the session to put it into our hands. They were only too glad to do so.

We spoke quietly to two other of the brethren to co-operate with us.

We divided the parish among ourselves, and undertook to visit all the praying and waking members-not a very onerous task. We talked with one by one, concerning the spiritual condition of the church, asked them to come next week to the prayer-meeting, and to bring with them warm hearts. "Come," we said, "from your closets. Come in the spirit of prayer." Fifteen minutes before the hour of meeting we four met in the Bible-cla.s.s room. One agreed to act that night as leader. It was Deacon Goodsole. He told the rest of us his subject.

Then we all knelt together and asked G.o.d's blessing on our prayer-meeting. From that brief and simple conference we went together to the conference-room. Each one agreed to carry some offering with him-a word, a prayer, a hymn. Each one agreed also to bring in speech but a single thought, and in prayer but a single pet.i.tion. The leader himself should occupy but five minutes. Our hearts were aglow. We never had such a prayer-meeting in Wheathedge.

Deacon Goodsole did not have to announce that the prayer-meeting was open. It opened itself. We had hard work to close it. The meeting last week was preceded in the same manner by fifteen minutes of prayer. It was characterized by the same warmth and freshness. We are astonished to find how short our hour is when we come to the meeting from our knees, when we bring to it, in our hearts, the spirit of G.o.d. We have no long speeches. So far we have had few exhortations and much true experience. Shall we fall back again into the old ruts? Perhaps. It is something that we are not in them now.

Meanwhile, from this brief experience I cull five proverbs for my own reflection.

The minister cannot make a good meeting.

Warm hearts are better than great thoughts.

Solemn faces do not make sacred hours.

Little leading makes much following.

Brevity is the soul of the prayer-meeting.

CHAPTER XIX.