Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish Part 5

I was just in that perplexity when night before last a meeting on behalf of the City Mission Society was held here. Mr. Mingins, the Superintendent of city missions, was one of the speakers.

He made an earnest and at times a really eloquent speech. He would have made a splendid jury lawyer. He depicted in the most lively colors the wretched condition of the outcast population of New York.

With all the eloquence of a warm heart, made more attractive by his broad Scotch, he pled with us to take an active part in their amelioration. "Pure religion and undefiled, before G.o.d and the Father, is this," cried he, "to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

I resolved to take up that cla.s.s of Mission boys straightways. But as I came out I met Hattie Bridgeman. She is an old friend of Jennie's and has had a hard, hard life. Her husband is an invalid.

Her children are thrown on her for support. As I met her at the door she pressed my hand without speaking. I could see by the trembling lip and the tearful eye, that her heart was full. "I wish I had not come to-night," she said, as we walked along together. "Such stories make my heart bleed. It seems as though I ought to go right out to visit the sick, comfort the afflicted, care for the neglected. But what can I do? My children are dependent on me. These six weeks at Wheathedge are my only vacation. The rest of the time I am teaching music from Monday morning till Sat.u.r.day night. Sunday, when I ought to rest, is my most exhausting day. For then I sing in church. If I were to leave my scholars my children would starve. How can I do anything for my Savior?"

It was very plain that she was to serve her Savior in the music lesson as indeed she does. For she goes into every house as a missionary. She carries the spirit of Christ in her heart. His joy is radiant in her face. She preaches the Gospel in houses where neighborhood prayer-meetings cannot be held, in households which tract-distributors never enter. The street that needs Gospel visitation most is Fifth avenue. That is in her district. And, n.o.bly, though unconsciously, she fulfils her mission. More than one person I have heard say, "If to be a Christian is to be like Mrs.

Bridgeman, I wish I were one." Our pastor preaches no such effective sermons as does she by her gentleness, her geniality, her patience, her long suffering with joyfulness. And when the Sabbath comes, her voice, though it leads the service of song in a fas.h.i.+onable city church, expresses the ardor of her Christian heart, and is fraught with quite as true devotion as the prayers of her pastor.

Something like this Jennie told her as we walked along from church; and she left us comforted. And I was a little comforted too. It is very clear, is it not, that we are not all drones who are not at work in the church. There are other fields than the Sabbath-school.

Do I carry Christ into my law office, and into the court-room, as Mrs. Bridgeman does into the parlor and the chair? That is the first point to be settled. The other comes up afterward. But it does persist in coming up. It is not settled yet. Will it hurt my Sunday to take that cla.s.s for an hour? I doubt it.

I must talk it over with Jennie and see what she really thinks about it.

CHAPTER VII.

The Field is the World.

LAST evening before I had found an opportunity to talk it over with Jennie, Dr. Argure and Deacon Goodsole called. I suspect the deacon's conscience had been quickened even more than mine respecting my duty to that mission cla.s.s by Mr. Minging's address.

For I have noticed that our consciences are apt to be quickened by sermons and addresses more respecting our neighbors' duties even than respecting our own.

Dr. Argure had come down the day before from Newtown to attend the city mission meeting. He is a very learned man. At least I suppose he is, for everybody says so. He is at all events a very sonorous man. He has a large vocabulary of large words, and there are a great many people who cannot distinguish between great words and great thoughts. I do not mean to impugn his intellectual capital when I say that he does a very large credit business. In sailing on lake Superior you can sometimes see the rocky bottom 30 or 40 feet below the surface--the water is so clear. You never can see the bottom of Dr. Argure's sermons. Perhaps it is because they are so deep; I sometimes think it is because they are so muddy. Still he really is an able man, and knows the books, and knows how to turn his knowledge to a good account. Last summer he preached a sermon at Wheathedge, on female education. He told us about female education among the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Hebrews, and the Persians, and the Egyptians--though not much about it in America of to-day. But it was a learned discourse--at least I suppose so. Three weeks after, I met the President of the Board of Trustees of the Polltown Female Seminary, I mentioned incidentally that I was spending the summer at Wheathedge.

"You have got a strong man up there somewhere," said he, "that Dr.

Argure, of Newtown. He delivered an address before our seminary last week on female education; full of learning sir, full of learning. We put him right on our Board of Trustees. Next year I think we shall make him President."

A month or so after I found in the weekly Watch Tower an editorial,--indeed I think there were three in successive numbers--on female education. They had a familiar sound, and happening to meet the editor, I spoke of them.

"Yes," said he "they are by Dr. Argure. A very learned man that sir.

Does an immense amount of work too. He is one of our editorial contributors as perhaps you see, and an able man, very learned sir.

Those are very original and able articles sir."

This fall I took up the Adriatic Magazine, and there what should my eye fall on but an article on female education. I did not read it; but the papers a.s.sured their readers that it was a learned and exhaustive discussion on the whole subject by that scholarly and erudite writer, Dr. Argure. And having heard this a.s.serted so often, I began to think that it certainly must be true. And then in January I received a pamphlet on female education by Dr. Argure. It was addressed to the Board of Education, and demanded a higher course of training for woman, and was a learned and exhaustive discussion of the whole subject from the days of Moses down.

"An able man that Dr. Argure," said Mr. Wheaton to me the other day referring to that same pamphlet.

"Yes, I think he is," I could not help saying. "I think he can stir more puddings with one pudding stick than any other man I know."

Still he stirs them pretty well. And if he can do it I do not know that there is any objection.

But if I do not believe in Dr. Argure quite as fully as some less sceptical members of his congregation do, Deacon Goodsole believes in him most implicitly. Deacon Goodsole is a believer--not I mean in anything in particular, but generally. He likes to believe; he enjoys it; he does it, not on evidence, but on general principles.

The deacons of the stories are all crabbed, gnarled, and cross-grained. They are the terrors of the little boys, and the thorn in the flesh to the minister. But Deacon Goodsole is the most cheery, bright, and genial of men. He is like a streak of suns.h.i.+ne.

He sensibly radiates the prayer-meeting, which would be rather cold except for him. The little boys always greet him with a "How do you do Deacon," and always get a smile, and a nod, and sometimes a stick of candy or a little book in return. His over-coat pockets are always full of some little books or tracts, and always of the bright and cheery description. Always full, I said; but that is a mistake; when he gets home at night they are generally empty. For he goes out literally as a sower went out to sow, I do not believe there is a child within five miles of Wheathedge that has not had one of the Deacon's little books.

I suspected that the Deacon had come partly to talk with me about that Bible cla.s.s, and I resolved to give him an opportunity. So I opened the way at once.

Laicus.:

--Well Deacon, how are church affairs coining on; pretty smoothly; salary paid up at last?

Deacon Goodsole.:

--Yes, Mr. Laicus; and we're obliged to you for it too. I don't think the parson would have got his money but for you.

Laicus.:

--Not at all, Deacon. Thank my wife, not me. She was righteously indignant at the church for leaving its minister unpaid so long. If I were the parson I would clear out that Board of Trustees and put in a new one, made up wholly of women.

Deacon Goodsole.:

--That's not a bad idea. I believe the women would make a deal better Board than the present one.

Dr. Argure: [(with great solemnity).]

--Mr. Laicus, have you considered the Scriptural teachings concerning the true relations and sphere of women in the church of Christ. The apostle says very distinctly that he does not suffer a woman to teach or to usurp authority over the man, and it is very clear that to permit the female members of the church to occupy such offices as those you have indicated would be to suffer her to usurp that authority which the Scripture reposes alone in the head--that is in man.

Laicus: [(naively).]

--Does the Scripture really say that women must not teach?

Dr. Argure.:

--Most certainly it does, sir. The apostle is very explicit on that point, very explicit. And I hold, sir, that for women to preach, or to speak in public, or in the prayer-meeting of the church, is a direct violation of the plain precepts of the inspired word.

Laicus.:

--I wonder you have any women teach in your Sabbath School? Or have you turned them all out?

Mrs. Laicus,: [(who evidently wishes to change the conversation).]

--How do affairs go on in the work of your church.

Dr. Argure,: [(who is not unwilling that it should be changed).]

--But slowly, madam. There is not that readiness and zeal in the work of the church, which I would wish to see. There are many fruitless branches on the tree, Mrs. Laicus, many members of my church who do nothing really to promote its interests. They are not to be found in the Sabbath School; they cannot be induced to partic.i.p.ate actively in tract distribution; and they are even not to be depended on in the devotional week-day meetings of the church.

Deacon Goodsole,: [(who always goes straight to the point).]