SUNDAY MORNING
HOW many pleasant breakfast-tables it looks down upon! No need to hurry away to office, or store, or counting-room. Fathers come leisurely down in dressing-gown and slippers, and sip their coffee without danger of choking. They have time to look round and see how tall the children are growing, and that nothing in this world is so beautiful as a rosy baby fresh from slumber. Mother, too, has the old girlish smile, that comes not often on a week-day, or if it does, father has not time to notice it, and that, perhaps, after all, is the reason it comes so seldom. It is pleasant, after eggs and coffee, to sit comfortably down, the centre of a ring of happy faces, and hear the church-bells chime. Time enough yet to go, for this is the first bell.
Church-bells are not, to my ear, an "impertinence." One is a free agent. I am free to go, which I like to do; you are free to stay, if you prefer; though I may think you make a mistake. I don't say that I should go every Sunday to hear a man who was always binding doctrines together like bundles of dry sticks, and thrusting them at his yawning hearers. I want to hear a sermon that any poor soul who straggles into church, from any by-lane or alley, can understand, and carry home with him to his cellar or garret; not a sermon that comes on chariot wheels, but afoot, and with a warm, life-like grasp for every honest, aye, and dishonest, hand in the assembly, defaulter or Magdalen; for who bade you slam heaven's gate in their faces?
I want a human sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel, or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what I am to do, and I want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it; somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and wants to fight when they are trodden on, and don't! That's the minister for me. I don't want a spiritual abstraction, with stony eyes and petrified fingers, and no blood to battle with. What credit is it to him to be proper? How can he understand me? Were there only such ministers in the pulpit, I wouldn't go to church either, because my impatient feet would only beat a tattoo on the pew floor till service was over: but, thank God! there are! and while they preach I shall go to hear them, and come home better and happier for having done it.
So I pray you don't abolish my Sunday, whatever you may do with yours. Don't take away my blessed Sunday breakfast, when we all have time to love one another. Don't take away the Sabbath bells, which I so love to hear. Don't take away my human minister, whose God is no tyrant, and is better pleased to see us go smiling home from church, than bowing our heads like a bulrush, and groaning back to our dinners, till all you anti-Sabbatarians are mad to abolish Sunday, – and no wonder.
Our Catholic brethren have set us, at least one good example; their churches are not silent as the tomb on week-days. Their worshippers do not do up all their religion on Sunday. It may be only for a few moments they step in through that open church-door, on a week-day, to kneel and lay down burdens too heavy else to be borne. I like the custom. I should rather say, I like the reminder, and the opportunity thus afforded them; and I heartily wish that all our Protestant churches could be thus opened. If rich Christians object to the promiscuous use of their velvet cushions and gilded prayer-books, at least let the aisles and altar be free for those who need God on the week-days; for the poor, the tried, the tempted; for those who shrink, in their shabby habiliments, from the Sunday exhibition of fine toilettes and superfine Christianity. Were I a minister, and obliged to preach to paniers and diamonds and satins, on Sunday, I think I should have to ease my heart in some such way as this, to make my pastoral life endurable, else my office would seem to me the most hollow of all mockeries. "The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all," should be inscribed outside my church door, had I one. I could not preach to those paniers and their owners. My tongue would be paralyzed at those kneeling distortions of womanhood, bearing such a resemblance to organ-grinders' monkeys. I am not sure that I should not grow hysterical over it, and laugh and cry in the same breath, instead of preaching. I can never tell what vent my disgust would take; but I am sure it must have some escape-valve. You may say that such worshippers (Heaven save the mark!) need preaching to. I tell you that women, so given over to "the devil and all his works," are past praying for; "having eyes, they see not; having ears, they hear not." They are ossified, impervious; they are Dead-Sea apples, full of ashes. There! now I feel better.
Having alluded to our Roman Catholic friends, allow me to ask leave of them to have the cross surmount all our Protestant churches, unless they have taken out a patent for the same. It is lovely to me, this symbol, as I pass along our streets. It rests my heart to look at it, amid the turmoil, and din, and hurry, and anxious faces, and sorrowful faces, and, worse than all, empty faces, that I meet. I say to myself, there is truth there; there is hope and comfort there, and this tangle of life is not the end. When I am a Protestant minister, the dear cross shall be on my church, and nobody shall stay away from it because they are ragged or poor, or because the cushions are too nice. Oh, I like Catholicism for that. They are nearer heaven than Protestants on this point.
I am very glad for the Protestant noonday prayer-meetings, wheresoever held. One may have a great spiritual need on other days than Sunday. One may happen in here – if such things ever happen, which I doubt – and there learn that need, and the way to satisfy it. The devil is cunningly and wisely busy every day and every night in the week. Why should good Christians think to circumvent this skilful diplomatist in one? – on Sunday only? The devil makes easy all the paths leading to perdition. Christians make hard and difficult the road to heaven, with their fine churches, and fine worshippers, and empty preaching once a week. And all around us pitiful hands are outstretched, and hungry hearts are waiting for the loving Christian word of help, temporal and spiritual; and men and women go down into the maelstrom of despair, folly, and sin; and we open our churches and let well-dressed Christians in to pray for them on Sunday. Sunday! the word has no meaning. Call it Monday or Tuesday, or Fourth of July, or anything you will, but not "Sunday." That once meant something.
Let me give you a postscript to a sermon I once heard. "Middle age is inevitable routine, but keep your souls above it," I heard a clergyman remark the other night. He "knew that it was difficult," he said, "not to merge one's self at that crisis in the shop, in the store, in the office; difficult not to become a mere drudge and a machine; but still, avoiding it was the only hope for this life." Oh, how my heart echoed these words – not for men, but for my own sex, of whose routine life the clergyman said nothing. I wanted to get up and say to him, "My dear sir, your address is eloquent, and true, scholarly, and sound, so far as it goes. It is the only hope for this life that these men of business should not become mere tools." But I wanted to ask him if men, with their freedom of action – men who, out in the world, inevitably come into collision with stirring, not stagnant life – find this difficult, what of their wives? With twenty nerves where men have one to be jarred and agonized, with the pin and needle fret, of every minute, which they may never hope to escape or get away from; tied hand and foot, day and night, week after week, with the ten thousand cords, invisible often to the dull eye of husband and father, who accepts at evening the neat and pleasant result, without a thought of how it was accomplished – without a thought of the weariness of that inexorable grind of detail necessary to it – without a thought that a change of scene is either necessary or desirable for the wife and mother who is surely under its benumbing influence, merging her "soul" till she is a mere machine.
I wanted to hear this clergyman say something about that. I wanted to know of him whether these women were doing God and their husbands service, by so sinking the spiritual part of them that one could hardly tell that it had existence. I wanted to ask him whether, if their husbands, through indifference or selfishness, or both, gave no thought to this matter, if he – set in a high place to teach the people – had no word of advice to such men, that they look as well to the spiritual deterioration of the mothers of their children as to their own – the fathers. Nay, I insist that for the mother it is of more consequence, as having infinitely more to do with the forming years of these children. And what time, pray, have many of these "routine" mothers for "thought," properly so called? What time for reading even the daily papers, to keep up intelligently with the great issues of the day, of which it is a shame and disgrace for any American wife and mother to be ignorant? How can they in this way be fit companions for their children's future? How can they answer their questions, on this subject and on that, while their vision is for ever bounded by the horizon of the physical wants of the household? You may preach "woman's duty" to me till you are hoarse; and I will preach to you the lust and the selfishness, which is ever repeating the dilemma of "the old woman in the shoe," till she has not an interval to think whether she or her brood have souls. "Routine life" of men! Men can and do get out of it – "business takes them away from home on journeys." "Business" takes him out pleasant evenings; on rainy ones, he never has "business;" then he goes early to bed, to prepare for a long evening of "business" when the sky clears.
His wife – well, "she don't seem to need it; or if she does, she don't say so;" and I might add, in the language of Dickens's nurse, Sary Gamp, "it is little she needs, and that little she don't get," at least from him.
Routine men! Oh, bah! "Routine men" have a result to show for their "routine." They have clerks – not from Intelligence-offices either – who have to do as they bid them. They also lock up shop at dark. They also walk or ride home in the fresh air, and talk with their male friends while doing it. They also are not dependent on the whim or caprice of any man to take them out for a breath of fresh air at night, after an exhaustive day of indoor stifling detail. And so, though the sermon to which I listened was excellent from a man to men, I made up my mind to add this little Appendix to women, from a woman, on the routine-woman's side of the question. You may talk of the selfishness of women till your head is white; there never lived that selfish woman so execrably selfish as a selfish man can be. I don't say you are so, sir: though at this distance, I venture to inquire whether, were you in your wife's place, you wouldn't occasionally like to climb up on the edge of the peck-measure in which she daily revolves, and look about outside, even if it should tip over on the whole brood of young ones in the process?
JUSTICE FOR CLERGYMEN
CAN anybody tell why clergymen should not receive fees for attending funerals? They receive fees, and generous ones often, for performing the marriage-ceremony, which is very unnecessary in comparison; a wedding being a joyful, happy, inspiriting occasion, with its bright faces, sweet flowers, and happy congratulations of friends; the exceptions to which are so few as not to need enumerating; and it must needs rest a man instead of wearying him, cobwebbed all over with theological tangles as he is, to witness all this; for no matter what vicissitudes fate and the future have in store for the two he has made one, at least for that hour they are supremely blessed, and he has made them so. But a funeral! with all its present unnecessary and dreadful accumulation of horrors; with its closed blinds, its piling up of sable garments, its pale dead face, which needs no such auxiliaries of gloom. Imagine a clergyman, already worn out, mentally and physically, entering such a room, filled with mourning friends, to whom even the Saviour's own sweet words would seem cold, who must each for himself tread the wine-press alone, till such time as they can find Him. Imagine this minister trying, by prayer and exhortation, to lift that heavy load of sorrow which all who have grieved know, that time and faith alone can lighten. Then he goes and looks into the face of the dead – oh! how many dead faces has he looked at, through the eyes of others, in the same way! – then he offers a friendly hand to the widow, or the orphan, as the case may be, and then with this immense draft on his sympathies, with those heart-rending sobs still sounding in his ears, perhaps within that very hour, he is called to a repetition of the sad scene. I am very sure that any clergymen of experience and sensibility will say, that I have not overstated this wear and tear of feeling in the delicate endeavor to say just the right thing, to the differing faiths of the craving, sorrowing hearts present.
Now why, I ask, should clergymen, in addition to their other exhaustive duties, be expected to go through this most exhaustive service of all, without remuneration? More especially, when one considers the often danger of contagious atmospheric influences, at such times and places, upon his tired frame.
I have often pondered, without yet being able to find a shadow of a reason for this unjust demand upon clerical strength. If you say it is the custom, I only say it is time that, with other bad customs, it were reformed; and more – since clergymen themselves have their lips delicately closed on this especial subject, while on others they might be considered at liberty to speak. That's why I have spoken for them.
I like ministers. I was brought up with them. My father's house was a minister's tavern, lacking the sign swinging before the door. I was a wild slip in those days; that's why they always "wanted a little conversation with Sarah." It was philanthropic, but thrown away. I had been told so often that I was "a child of wrath," that I had it at my fingers' ends – I might have said, at my toes' ends, for it was they who helped me out the nearest door after meals, lest I should hear the stale announcement again. I persisted I "loved God," when I was asked. Why shouldn't I? for no bugaboo of anybody's raising could have made me believe I was born by him to be tormented. The flowers, the clouds, the ocean, the sun, moon, and stars – what priceless gifts were they! No "doctrine" or "creed" could rob me of them; and didn't he make them, and give me a soul to enjoy them? It was of no use telling me I was a "child of wrath" under circumstances like these! One soft sweet breath from my flower-garden knocked that idea "all to smithereens."
Now I didn't hate those ministers for trying to darken what should have been, and what was, in spite of them, youth's festival hour. I knew they thought they were right, and I believe them to be truly good, though mistaken, men. They didn't know that, child as I was, if I ever went to Heaven, it would be taking hold of my Heavenly Father's hand, not cowering before him through fear of "hell." So they fired over my curls, when they got me in a corner, and talked to me that way. They didn't make me hate "meetin'" either; though I was driven there to hear so many "seventeenth-lies" at the point of the bayonet; and when skewered up on the seat between rows of big folks, I felt as if little ants were creeping out from under my finger-nails, so fidgety did I get for the blessed outdoors.
But I have not outgrown "meetin'" yet, and I count no Sunday a Sunday when I don't go there some part of the day. Oh, had they only known how to talk to me, instead of driving me within myself, and making me put my worst religious foot foremost. But clergymen have found a better way since, thank God! Still I often smile at the bits of the old leaven in the ministerial make up. How they will wonder at it all, when eternity's light shines down on their life-path, and shows them these mistakes. For I make no apology here for boldly asserting that a minister can, and does, and always will, make an occasional mistake; although I was once pounced down upon by an evangelical critic, who talked to me about "wounding the Lord in the house of his friends," when I said so. It is just such stuff as that, that drives everybody from the "Lord." Better face the music, and own up, that even ministers are human. For my part, were I a minister, and fenced in, and badgered about, and cross-questioned and interfered with, and expected to be a sound, rounded, well-disposed human being, morally, mentally, and physically, all the same as if a coroner's inquest wasn't squatting on my free-agency every hour in the day, I'll warrant you I should make a great many more mistakes than they do. Old Adam in me, would soon see that they didn't want material for a verdict to suit their narrowness.
And now I hope I have shown you that I am a friend to ministers. So that without getting a boxed ear, I must tell you here, what a laugh I got out of a lot of them yesterday. You see, I was in an omnibus alone, save one lady, when a meeting of some sort in one of our churches "bust up," – excuse the expression – "bust up." Five ministers emerging from the church porch, hailed the omnibus and got in, and decorously seated themselves. Now, some ministers look jolly, and as if they were alive. These were thin, cavernous, and had the ten commandments written all over them. They had heard of New York Delilahs evidently, for they wouldn't see the fare of the lady or myself between our gloved fingers waiting for the driver – not a bit of it! Catch them at it! They looked straight past us both, safely out the window at an innocent brick wall. Oh, heavens! how I laughed! It carried me back to the days I was a curly-headed little sinner, rebelling at being called "a child of wrath." I wanted to say, "Brethren, I too am a Christian" – and I will persist that I am; so don't be afraid of my innocent female pennies, nor "cross" yourselves because your foot accidentally touched the hem of my robe when you got in; for though I believe in ministers, I don't like to have the devil laugh in his sleeve at their queer, poky, solemn ways, and say to himself, "Aha! so would I have it."
May clergymen sneeze? Well – not exactly that; but a question quite as foolish, I saw gravely propounded and treated, the other day, in a religious paper. The debate was upon this highly important point: "Whether it was right for ministers to play croquet." Now I really had hoped that the day had gone by when the only amusement allowed to ministers was counting the scores of little heads that surrounded their table. I did hope that they might wash their faces on a towel, though it had not a funereal urn embroidered in the corners. And that they need not of necessity plant a cypress, or weeping willow, at their front door, to designate their raven-like calling; or banish every plant from their garden save the funereal rue and rosemary. It seems I was mistaken; more's the pity. Now if there is anything the devil likes, it is fine-spun, wire-drawn distinctions, on unimportant questions like these. If there is anything he likes, it is this ascetic rendering of religious things, to disgust the young, and throw a pall over that which should attract them by a wise recognition of their human needs. When we place a young plant down cellar and shut out light and sunshine, though it may put out shoots, we all know that they are white, sickly, and destined early to perish; just so with this misnamed "godliness" which the well-meaning but over-zealous religionist would thrust upon us and persuade us was doing God-service. I tell you it is not. I tell you that a minister, above all others, needs innocent and proper recreation, like croquet. Every summer, in my travels to and fro, I meet "ministers" enjoying their brief respite of a summer-vacation; most of them bearing unmistakable evidence in their pale faces and narrow chests, of their great necessity for it. I have watched them, sympathetically, as they sat on the piazzas of the hotels and boarding-houses where we were thrown together. I have seen them commit this unpardonable sin of "playing croquet" on a nice green lawn, while the fresh mountain air tinged their pale cheeks, and their eyes grew brighter, and their tones grew cheerful, and I blessed God for the sight. I said to myself, that's the way to foil the devil, when the young people found, day after day, that even a "minister" could be cheerful himself and promote cheerfulness; and that religion, after all, was not death to innocent happiness. I have been with ministers to the ten-pin alley, in company with their wives, children, and friends; I have climbed mountains with them, when I had a better frolic than I ever had with any of the laymen; and after a three-hours climb, and we all sat upon the top and enjoyed the view of the surrounding country, and, seated upon the grass, ate our luncheon, I never perceived that religion suffered by it. I have often, on the contrary, heard young people of the party say, "Well, this is the first time I ever really liked a minister. I thought they were all stiff and solemn, and – to use a juvenile but expressive epithet – 'poky'"! Nor when the following Sunday, sweet as Sunday always dawns on the hills and valleys, dawned on us, in some such lovely spot, and these same clergymen were requested to preach, sometimes in the parlor of the hotel, sometimes, which was better, in a grove near the house, did I for one perceive anything incongruous in his doing so, though the audience was the very same merry party of the day before. And when they have joined in the sweet hymn under the trees, where he stood with uncovered head, as in God's best temple, I confess to much more devotion than I am apt to feel, when surrounded and hedged in, and, allow me to say, sometimes stifled with all the clerical city paraphernalia, whose husk often seems to me so to shut in and compress the kernel, that one almost doubts if it has existence.
Ministers play croquet? I wish every minister had a violin and a brisk saddle-horse. Away with this bogus sanctity. Take a lesson from our Roman Catholic friends in the virtue of cheerfulness. Drive not from you, but draw soothingly, caressingly to you the lambs of the flock. Terror never yet made a true Christian. Frigidity never yet glorified God. The world is not a charnel-house. Else the blue sky would have been as black as some of these ascetics fain would make it. No! It is full of perfume and song and color, and you can never shut the eyes of young people to it with your distorted views of life. Oh, be wiser, lest the sad rebound of the atheist come, and they find only at the end of a life misspent, that in their zeal to prove your detested "religion" a sham, they had overlooked the fact that the counterfeit presupposes the true coin.
How seldom, in judging of those who excite our anger or contempt, do we judge them, as the Almighty does, by the extenuating circumstances of birth and education, and the lack of spiritual light! "Nobody ever told me;" "I did not know it was wrong;" "Nobody cared whether I was good or bad." What pitiful words are these! The Saviour recognized these facts when he said, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more."