CHAPTER IV In the Old Paths
Does one ever outgrow one’s early religious training? Though he outgrow his credulity, his faith, his observance of rite and ceremony, and though he wander far from the paths he followed when being trained “in the way he should go,” still must the religious influences shed round him in those early, plastic years have their permanent bearing upon his after life, even though sometimes so transformed as to be traceable only to the keen student of personality.
“Back to the Old Paths” was a gospel hymn I heard in the days when those paths were traversed by my childish feet; and back to the old paths I now turn, seeking to retrace the steps which time and disuse have almost obliterated.
Being Methodists, we children had been baptized in infancy, and our childhood and youth had been divided into three-year periods, diminutive dynasties, marked by the reigns of the different ministers, events being referred to as “during Brother Gregg’s stay,” “in Brother Carrier’s time,” “when Brother Browne was here.” What excitement toward the close of one of those “dynasties” to see what the new minister would be like!
Father was one of the church trustees, Mother had a class in Sunday School. Although we children regularly attended church and Sunday School, and often prayer-meeting and class-meeting, we showed little of the early piety which our Sunday-school books set forth. When there was no one to leave us with at home, Mother usually took us to prayer-meeting. All would kneel during the seasons of prayer—each consisting of about three prayers—then would rise and sing; then kneel for another season, and so on. I remember once awaking in shame and confusion, still on my knees while the others stood round me singing. Crouching there, a miserable heap on the floor, I waited for them to kneel again, hoping no one but Mother had noticed me. But as it proved the last season that evening, when the hymn ended and all took their seats, the little heap on the floor had to creep up and seat itself shamefacedly by its mother, its discomfiture unrelieved until they rose and sang “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” and the meeting closed.
Sometimes Mother put us to bed when she went to evening meetings. It was a hardship to be locked in the house those spring twilights with the church bells tolling and the boys and girls calling us to come out and play “I-Spy.” Everything called us out of doors. What was there about that time of day that seemed made for frolic? How we pitied ourselves when the “All free” of our playmates floated to us on the twilight air! Once we climbed out of the window and played in the street—bare-footed, too! Oh, the delight of our bare feet on the soft, cool grass! But we had to climb in again soon, gloating guiltily over the stolen liberty. We thought Mother unfeeling to leave us locked in the house, but if we objected to the prayer-meetings she sometimes had no alternative. We rather liked the class-meetings; there were only two or three prayers then, and all gave their “experiences.” We knew by heart some of the stereotyped speeches. Sometimes we would signal to one another when it was about time for certain expressions that amused us; and again would giggle if the good brethren and sisters varied their remarks and failed to repeat the queer things we expected.
One man at a certain stage in his prayer always rubbed his palms together, then as his voice got louder, he would rub faster and faster; his straggling hair would fall over his face; the veins would swell in his forehead; and he would reach a climax of frenzied petition from which he would gradually subside, tapering to a breathless “Amen!” Sister could repeat this prayer and his manœuvres to perfection: “Oh, Lord-ah, we have come here to night-ah, to crave thy mercy-ah”—thus regaling us with reproductions of “Brother Aaron” and other eccentric ones—when Mother was not near. Mother herself, though quiet in testimony and prayer, would not let us ridicule those who were not. There were three or four of the brethren and sisters of the old-fashioned kind of Methodists, who were a boon to sleepy children; but as I grew older I wearied of their stereotyped speeches, and felt a repugnance to their emotional storms.
In the home, at seasons of special religious fervour, we had family prayers. There was something peculiarly satisfying to me in all of us kneeling together while Father prayed. His prayers were controlled and rational; I never felt uneasy when he prayed; while with Mother there was always the fear that her voice would tremble, as it did when she read touching passages in our Sunday-school books. I could not bear to hear the tears come in her voice, for it meant we would all ultimately break down and cry.
Mother loved the Bible. How well she knew it! It was history, poetry, and all literature to her. How interesting she made the stories when telling them in her own words—the story of Ruth, of Queen Esther, of Joseph and his coat of many colours—how inseparably these are linked with Mother’s interpretations!
She loved music, too, but none of her family could carry a tune, except one brother who died in his youth. She would try so hard to sing, “Hush, My Dear, Lie Still and Slumber,” usually getting the first two lines pretty well, then would flounder around, unable to get the rest. In church she would start out bravely to sing the “Doxology,” or “By Cool Siloam’s Shady Rill,” or “There is a Land of Pure Delight,” but would falter and have to stop entirely before the end of the first stanza. I have seen her almost weep because she wanted so much to sing. At first we laughed at her—it seemed so funny, and so easy to catch a tune—but with her it was so serious a matter that I learned to pity her.
Unless Sister was watched throughout the church service, she would excite the risibilities of all around by her antics and imitation of the minister. Quick as a flash she would jump up on the seat, tiny mite that she was, and flourish her arms as the speaker was doing. Mrs. R——, the wife of a certain pastor who made very awkward gestures, used to say it was bad enough to see the gestures themselves, but to see them so perfectly reproduced was much too much; still she would laugh about it till the tears ran down her cheeks. Kate would imitate the twisting gait and fidgety manner of a sister of Father’s so well that a neighbour seeing her would say, “There goes your Aunt Lucinda, boiled down.”
I learned early to while away the long sermons by reading Sunday-school books, Mother remonstrating, but often ignoring the practice, for it lightened her duties—she was thus sure of one of us being quiet during services. If not reading, Arthur and I were bound to titter at Kate’s pranks.
“Who is this?” she would whisper, then pull down her face like old Aaron Wilson in the side pew, or again like Brother Schermerhorn, or saintly Sister Brown, or lugubrious Sister Stiles. She could look like any of them in a jiffy, and we would nearly explode, while she was tickled to get us in such an uncomfortable plight. Mother was often on pins and needles lest we laugh outright in church.
Sometimes it would please the minx to assume a demure, reverential air throughout the entire service. Then we almost went into spasms. She would turn the leaves of the Bible, rise, bow her head, and sing; would place a hymn-book behind her, as the good sister in front of us did, halfway through the sermon, to ease her back; would use her handkerchief in a grown-up way—all apparently unaware of her giggling brother and sister, except when she would turn upon us a pained, reproving glance—usually the last straw for the poor camels.
I kept up the habit of reading during services till the pastor mentioned it so pointedly in Sunday School that I had to stop. When the sermons interested me, I no longer cared to read. I recall three of our ministers who were liberally educated for pastors in small churches. One, in particular, a Scotch-Irishman, was an original thinker, emotional, with a tumultuous Carlylean eloquence. He preached remarkable sermons. Father and I followed his thought, I think, more closely than any one else in the congregation. He seemed to feel this, too, addressing us almost personally, sure of sympathetic attention. Many of his stolid hearers had no idea “what he was driving at.” Sometimes he would labour so to bring forth his thought that it was painful to watch him—it was as though his mind was laid bare. Carried away with the grandeur of a conception, he would wrestle with it, conquer it, and finally unfold it. His influence on my mental and religious nature (I was seventeen then) was unquestionable, but unsettling, seeming to increase the chaotic state of my mind; at least, it was during his “dynasty” that I became so unsettled—doubting and trying to think a way out of the inconsistencies I was continually coming upon.
But earlier wanderings in the old paths claim their share in this backward glance. Tenting at camp-meeting (Auburndale), perhaps four times in all—not four years in succession, for that would have been too great a boon—was a keen pleasure of our childhood. How we felt the deprivation of the blank years! What a homesick longing for our tent in the woods when the August days came round! The woods were perhaps five miles away. It seemed a long journey. What fun to see the wagon piled with bedding, furniture, and tinware; to see kettles dangling below; to hear the rattle as we sat a-top of the heterogeneous array! Then the ride along the sunny country road to the camp-grounds! I wonder if a part of my fascination for gypsy wagons and the life of the Romanys isn’t due to our own gypsying in the camp-meeting woods.
Mother usually shared a tent with a certain good sister, an old-fashioned fat countrywoman who was very devout and who made good cookies. We liked her best for the last quality.
How our hearts swelled as we neared the grounds and saw the high board fence enclosing the sacred woods! Going nearer, we heard the singing as the sound rose through the trees. The preacher’s stand, and the tents, were down a steep hill from the road along which we came. Jumping from the wagon, we would go in at the little gate, for the team had to go a long way farther to enter the big gate. Wild with delight we bounded down the hill, shouting a greeting to the lame gatekeeper and taking care not to trip on the long roots extending into the path. Our exuberance was always checked, partly by admonitions from our elders, partly by the spirit of the place—there was something in the sight of those white tents among the trees and the voices of song and prayer floating up to us that in themselves held us in check—but ah, the smell of the woods, and the realization that we were to dwell there for ten blissful days! Did ever children have a more beautiful experience?
Then the hunting for our tent-site, the scrutiny of its surroundings—its relation to the various places of interest; the fun of getting settled; of seeing the stove put up; the tent raised on its wooden platform; Mrs. Van Aiken’s queer little cord-bedstead set up; and the funny makeshifts of housekeeping that Mother and her tent-mate would devise. The mere sight of a familiar kettle or a “spider” hung on a tree at the back door, the improvised wash-bench with leaves from the beech trees falling on the soap-dish and into the water as we washed—these simple things provoked the most delightful sensations and made us so happy, so happy! It is a delight just to stop and think how happy we were.
In the morning there were the walks after milk to a neighbouring farmhouse, and the smell of the breakfast cooking under the trees as we returned. Mrs. Van Aiken’s fried pork and warmed-up potatoes made our mouths water; we liked her best when she was doing these things. As the day wore on she got absorbed in sermons and religious experiences, and became “teary” and lugubrious, making us feel our unregeneracy at the bubbling of our spirits; it was bad enough at dinner time, but at supper—Whew!!! At breakfast, however, she was livable and human. Mother was sufficiently zealous, often uncomfortably so, but not unbearably so, as was Mrs. Van Aiken when the religious leaven leavened the whole lump (and she weighed near two hundred). But she did make good fat cookies, bless her heart! She scowled if we lingered on the way with the milk, and there was so much to make us linger, even with breakfast at the end! Ah! the smell of the woods in the early morning! There were the places deep in the woods where we were not supposed to wander, but where we did sometimes wander later in the day in quest of mandrakes (they made us sick, but we never ceased to seek them, the sickish yellow things!). There were the yellow-jackets’ nests, our especial bane—one year a troop of us, Sister in the lead, while exploring forbidden territory, suddenly plunged into one of those miniature hells and were beset by those flying fiends. Such howling as arose from our savage breasts—the Methodist shouting was for once in the shade! Six tortured little beings ran screaming to their tents, half-blinded from swelling faces. Pandemonium reigned. Sister and the Presiding Elder’s boy were stung the worst; her eyes were swollen shut; her face was unrecognizable; she was frightful to behold, and her hands looked like Mrs. Van Aiken’s fattest cookies. I was stung only a little, but enough to know why the others howled so.
We liked to jump from bench to bench in the large circle in front of the preachers’ stand, when it was not sermon time, but some pious brother or sister would usually come along and tell us to stop. Sometimes Willie Ives, the Presiding Elder’s son, would creep up to the pulpit and exhort us eloquently, but such pleasures were quickly curtailed, and we were made to feel the meaning of the formidable word “sacrilege.”
It was the custom of some to sing the blessing at breakfast. Hurrying along with our milk-pail past the tents, we would hear men’s, women’s, and children’s voices mingled as the family gathered around their tables singing to the tune of “Doxology”:
We thank thee, Lord, for this our food,
But more because of Jesus’ blood;
Let manna to our souls be given—
The Bread of Life sent down from heaven.
This usually had a subduing effect, as did the voices at family devotions which issued through the tent-openings. But we were little pagans after all, and many a time did not resist the temptation to pluck at a woman’s skirt, or punch a foot, as we caught sight of them under the half-rolled tent folds, while the occupants knelt in prayer.
Not compelled to listen to the long morning and afternoon sermons, except on Sundays, we had to attend evening services or go to bed. But there was much to make them endurable, especially if a certain woman “got the power.” And, anyhow, the scene was impressive out there in the night, the tents gleaming in the distance, and the hymns and petitions echoing under the trees.
We went willingly to the Children’s Meetings, held after dinner in a huge tent with its carpet of straw. Certain brethren and sisters would address the children. Many an infant convert would “go forward” amid great rejoicing. The singing and childish “experiences” were interesting, though then our religious natures were fortunately but slightly aroused. I would choke up and cry softly sometimes, but was not deeply moved—the woods being a powerful rival at that early age.
But one dear old lady (she seemed old even then) I always loved to hear. She would come in at the side of the tent, Bible and camp-chair in hand, stoop under the tentfolds, wade through the straw, which would cling to her black skirt (the smell of straw always reproduces this scene), place her blue Brussels camp-chair in front of us, and open the meeting with, “Now, Children.” I can’t remember what else she used to say, but that “Now, Children” was so intimate and confidential—not sanctimonious like many who addressed us. Her voice was rich with emotion, but controlled, so as not to make her listeners uncomfortable. (Those good sisters whose voices were on the ragged edge of tears used to irritate me; it seemed indecent; even in my most devout days I never overcame my repugnance toward those who “went to pieces” when giving testimony.) What she said to us day after day I forgot years ago, but her face, her kindly comprehensive glance, and the inflections of her voice became a part of my consciousness, deeply fixed in memory.
Years later, soon after entering the hospital where my work has since been, the poor soul was brought here as a patient. Going on the wards one morning, note-book in hand, eager to take the history of the patient admitted the previous night, I found dear old Sister Mifflin, the same who had exhorted us at Children’s Meetings years before—no older, it seemed to me, only more broken, pitiably broken.
How the scene at Auburndale came back at the sight of her face, the sound of her voice! She was just a feeble, whimpering old woman to the others, but to me she was those dear, dark woods with the white tents, the holy songs, Mother, Sister, Brother—Childhood! Such a flood of recollections surged through me that I could only attempt a few words of consolation and postpone my case-taking till under better control. But I told her where I used to know her, and she brightened pathetically at the word “Auburndale.” And here she was now, a child among other gray-haired children who had lost their way, while the Drumlin Child, whose feet she had tried to lead in the old paths, was henceforth to guide her faltering steps to the journey’s end!
I remember the last time we tented at Auburndale an instance of Mother’s watchful care that humiliated and incensed us then, but for which I am grateful now: We were probably fourteen and fifteen years old when, one evening, Sister and I and some other girls and boys stole up through the little gate and outside the grounds to some willows a short distance away. We knew it was wrong; the boys were new acquaintances, unknown to Mother (sons of a man who later became our pastor); besides, we were not supposed to go beyond the grounds without permission. But with many misgivings we set out, feeling quite like young ladies walking out with young men—a very delectable stolen sweet we were nibbling! Sitting under the trees while the boys made willow canes for us, tracing fantastic designs on them, we enjoyed ourselves for a brief period. Presently an uncle of ours went by and, greeting us, passed on to the camp-ground. The chatting and cane-making continued. Twilight deepened, but it was still light enough to see that which filled Sister and me with consternation and chagrin—Mother coming down the road, bare-headed (in those days betokening great haste) coming rapidly toward us, and—with whips in her hand!
With one accord we all arose and meekly followed her back to the camp-ground. Something very like hatred stirred within us at the course she had taken to show us before our new acquaintances that we were still children and subject to her authority. Not that we questioned her right to require us to return, but it seemed needlessly humiliating to come after us with whips. I think we rebelled at her carrying the whips, and that she finally dropped them.
How crestfallen we all looked, the boys whittling the canes, and the other girls probably seeing in ours a fate similar to their own! We got a vigorous talking-to before we were sent to bed. Our uncle, it seems, had alarmed Mother by saying that we were lounging under the willows with a “lot of strange fellows.” This was a favourite trysting-place for the young people whose devotion led them into these by-paths rather than to the evening meetings. I can laugh now at our discomfiture and at Mother’s wrath, but it was no laughing matter that August night so long ago.
I don’t know how old I was when I “experienced religion.” Reared from infancy “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” there had been, during childhood, a period of apparent indifference to such matters; later one of acute interest; then the lull and reaction from the excitement of a revival; then one of renewed and deepened interest, followed by a gradual decline in religious observances, a creeping in of doubt and unbelief; a period of acute suffering, extending probably over three or four years (because I could no longer walk in the old paths); then one of lonely wanderings in strange paths, till I finally settled down to where I now find myself, though that state would be hard to define. Of the length of these various periods, and the age at which some of them occurred, I am uncertain.
I was perhaps fifteen When I first became “converted.” There had been premonitory symptoms a year or two before, at Auburndale, but the real attack came one winter during a prolonged revival. Many of the boys and girls “went forward” long before I did. Steeling my heart I stayed at home and applied myself to my studies with increased zeal, for Professor Durland, a Baptist, less carried away by the revival than many others, although attending the meetings occasionally, had talked wisely in school about religion, urging us to be temperate in frequenting the meetings. He reminded us that all this emotion was not religion, and that it was our duty as students to let nothing interfere with our studies. I was impressed by what he said, but this religious wave was sweeping over the town, and was hard to withstand. Two young evangelists were there with gospel hymns, moving prayers, and engaging ways of leading souls to the Lord. Every night witnessed the conversion of sinners who, having groaned under the burden of the conviction of sin, finally sought salvation.
Night after night I studied at home when most of the young people were thronging to the meetings; but finally I succumbed and went forward, to the great joy of associates, parents, and friends. But our principal’s admonitions still acted as a restraining force, and kept me from yielding to the extreme emotionalism influencing so many, young and old. Why, the girls got so they held prayer-meetings at noon in an old stage-coach in the lumber-yard near the Academy! I went once, but the incongruity so overcame my religious ardour that I never went again. Still I was devout and had a pretty severe and long-continued attack. My diaries at that time, were full of religious yearnings and strivings. I read the Bible diligently, taking a “verse” for guidance each day. I was religious in season and out of season. After the revival had died down, many converts backslid, but with me this religious experience was a steady thing, of varying phases, it is true, but of tremendous importance for perhaps three years.
During the height of the revival, when the other converts joined the church, Sister and I, having been baptized in infancy, felt ourselves defrauded of a part of the ceremony. So intent were we on being baptized, we prevailed upon our parents, much against their wishes, to consent to a repetition of the sacrament. Little sophists that we were, we made it a point of conscience, our argument being the Biblical injunction, “Repent and be baptized.” Baptized in infancy, before we had anything to repent of, the cart had been put before the horse, and we were not following the Scriptures. This view grieved our parents who had given us to the Lord in holy baptism when we were babies. To them it seemed wrong to set aside that sacrament for a later one, but the strenuous converts, thinking they were acting from conscientious motives, overruled parents and pastor.
Of course “sprinkling” had been the form of baptism in infancy. Now most of the converts were being immersed. Sister chose “immersion.” There was still another form sanctioned by the Discipline, though seldom used—“pouring.” This was to go down into the water and kneel while the minister, dipping water from the stream, poured it upon the convert’s head. As usual, seeking something distinctive, therefore conspicuous (though quietly so), I chose to be “poured.” Not that I was conscious of it then, but I see now that the desire to be different from the herd was largely what influenced me in choosing that mode of baptism. Moreover, I abhorred “immersion.” The sight of it outraged my esthetic sense. It was such a sudden transition that I, as onlooker, experienced: the gathering of the congregation at the water-side was beautiful; the holy songs seemed more holy there; the black-gowned pastor and the convert wading out in the stream while the hymn was being sung; the pause, the solemn words; the yielding body as the minister started to immerse the convert—up to this point the scene filled me with religious awe; but from that point onward it was most repellent—the convert’s rigidity and the struggle at contact with water; the determined push of the minister, as he forced the resisting head under water; and the gasping, snorting, drowned-rat appearance of the victim when pulled out—all this was hideous. So I was “poured,” and it was a beautiful ceremony. But many a time since I have regretted setting aside the earlier sacrament so revered by my parents. And yet, how can I regret it when I remember the strange, beatific mood induced that day by the sacred rite? It lasted several hours. I have never experienced anything like it before or since. It was hard to come down to practical matters on reaching home. I went about helping to get dinner in a kind of dream-state, eager to have the work out of the way, so I could be alone and think over the beautiful solemnity of it all. It was a real uplift of my introspective little soul, and very beautiful while it lasted.
Dressing myself that afternoon with great care, Bible in hand, I visited a sick neighbour. She had a bad-smelling, untidy house which I always disliked to enter, though often sent there by Mother with delicacies. I think it was in a spirit of real self-sacrifice that I required this of myself that day. Probably nowadays, under a similar beneficent impulse, I should put on a suitable gown and go and clean her house; but then I was under the spell of stories of pious maidens who read the Bible to sick people. I can’t recall whether I actually read to her that day, but do recall how the dingy house smelled. In the door-yard was a bush of dainty pink roses, and, as she sometimes told me to pick one, I hope she did then. It seemed queer that the only place in town where those exquisite roses grew was in that unlovely yard, amid those sordid surroundings.
Religion was for a long time thereafter the guiding influence of my life. Conscientious and devout, I was consumed with the desire to be useful. Out of school I helped with the housework at home and at Grandma’s, and helped Father in the Post Office. I do not recall much recreation. Though sentimental, most of my sentiment took a religious turn.
The Presiding Elder and other clergymen were entertained in our home during those years, and the silver Communion service was kept with us. To polish this before Quarterly meetings was one of my duties; and to prepare the bread in long strips for Communion, and in the little cubes for Love Feast. One Communion Sunday, being indisposed and staying at home alone, when the time came for the sacrament to be administered, I read aloud the solemn service from the Discipline, sang, then knelt, devoutly partaking of the bread and water (in place of wine). The hour was a real means of grace to me. I have never divulged this before. Much as it meant to me then, I find in myself now a tendency to ridicule that strange little creature, and to wonder if it was not a partial pose, albeit at the time she thought herself sincere.
I recall that during the revival at which I was converted Father took an active part, though in a more moderate way than many of the brethren and sisters. During the singing of gospel hymns, the workers would go up and down the aisles and, by a sort of intuitive knowledge, seek out those “under conviction,” urging the obdurate ones to go forward and confess Christ. One night after they had sung the hymn that begins tenderly: “Why do you wait, dear brother? Why do you tarry so long?” the refrain being, “Why not, why not, why not come to Him now?” the workers sought to lead the penitents to the Throne of Grace. The crowded house, vibrant with religious fervour, the reiterated invitation, the contrite sinners making their way forward, were powerful appeals to others with whom the Holy Spirit was striving. As the last words of the hymn died away, Father, stepping up to a certain townsman, and putting his hand on his shoulder, looked in his face appealingly and asked, “Why not, Wilbur?” I recall the man’s stern look as he struggled for further resistance, Father’s quiet, persuasive tones, and, at length, the actual yielding of the man’s body as the tension relaxed, and they came down the aisle together, the man shaking with sobs, while the happy tears streamed down Father’s face.
One particular Love Feast stands out in memory. In fact I never went to many; they were held too early in the morning. At this one a loud-mouthed local preacher (whose reputed private life was much at variance with his professed religion) held forth at great length about the wrath of God, the fear of God, and the unending punishment God would visit upon those who kept not his Commandments. He was a burly, blustering man who worked himself up into a state of tremendous physical excitement during exhortations. As he sat down, breathless, with red, sweaty face and tumbled hair, Father arose and in a few quiet words said that the God he worshipped was a God of love; that he liked to think of the love, not the fear, of God. Beautiful and memorable this recollection, and all the more so that Father so seldom expressed his religious feelings in public, although he frequently addressed the congregation at the close of the sermon, on financial matters. It fell to him to stir up the people when there were extra expenses to be met, church repairs to be made, and the minister’s salary raised. Generous of time and money, he accepted the trusteeship with the zeal that characterized him in whatever he undertook. Stating concisely the needs, he would so plead with the congregation as to stir up the apathetic members, sometimes fairly talking the money out of the pockets of those whose purse-strings were tightly drawn. It was a study to see him play upon the different ones by earnest appeal, by gleams of humour, by eloquent pauses—his own enthusiasm, as he announced the sums subscribed, egging others, and still others, on to announce their grudging subscriptions. He should have been a lawyer. What a special pleader he would have made! If he had been able to exercise the same gifts in his own business interests, he would not always have had to contend with the ogre, Economy. But there seemed little self-seeking in him; his commercial spirit was never strong; his zeal could not be aroused for personal gain, only for some Cause into which he could throw heart and soul. I remember well his weary looks after such sessions were over, especially if the needed amount had not been raised. On reaching home he would unburden himself of scorn and indignation at the parsimonious ones who had sat unmoved when the needs of the Church were so urgent.
Against the obnoxious local preacher before mentioned, Sister and I had a special grievance: While standing one day on the creek bridge, when he and some boys were below, fishing, we had heard him say an obscene word as a fish got off his hook. Indignant to our finger tips, we walked on, harbouring this in righteous wrath. And shortly after that, when he was assisting the pastor at Communion, Sister and I tacitly agreed to stay away from the altar rather than be ministered unto by him. Noting our failure to commune, and meeting us on the street later, he questioned us. Kate took the initiative but we were both terrible in our wrath. We told him we did not care to take the bread and wine from one who talked as he did on week-days. Astonished, he inquired what we meant; concerned and uncomfortable, he seemed divided between wanting to know and dreading to hear. Kate said she would not repeat such talk, but that she heard it herself on the creek bridge when he was fishing. He looked very cheap. Having reproved this whited sepulchre, the offended misses went disdainfully on their way. I suppose that was the least of his sins. I fancy he felt relieved that it was nothing worse we knew about him. Later his conduct became notorious, but he never had more inflexible accusers than those stern maidens who upbraided him that Sunday.
Another Communion service, probably before this, stands out vividly. It was when I was having doubts and waverings about acceptance as a child of God, when, in Methodist parlance, I was “falling from grace.” That day, sitting through the service, seeing altar-full after altar-full kneel, commune, rise, and “go in peace,” I had said to myself, “I will not go.” Steeling my heart, I sat upright, conscious of Mother’s questioning glances, but apparently unmoved. After the congregation had communed, the choir-members went to the altar-rail, and as the sparse gathering knelt there, and the last notes of the hymn died away, instead of immediately passing the bread and wine, the minister and the young evangelist paused to see if others would come. Although the evangelist made a moving appeal, still was I determined not to go and, anyhow, having waited so long, I was too embarrassed to go. The choir communed and left the altar. It was the last chance. No, the evangelist still stood there, and in a few earnest words besought any who were hanging back to come. I knew he meant me, still I tried to withstand. In conclusion he said, “While the choir is singing the next hymn, I know God will soften your heart and you will come”:
“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd’st me come to thee,
Oh, Lamb of God, I come, I come!”
Melted by the singing, broken and contrite, alone I went and knelt at the altar-rail. I can remember just how glad and gentle his voice sounded; and how soothing it was as the evangelist placed his hand upon my bowed head and prayed for the young sister who had tried in vain to turn away the Holy Spirit. One other girl, moved by my example, came sobbing to the altar, too—one who always followed my lead.
In justice to myself I must say that there was no pose this time. I did not want to be singled out in this way, for I abhorred betrayal of emotion in public; to be the centre of a scene like this was painful to me. Nevertheless, there was a great peace in my heart as I arose and returned to our pew.
When zealous young converts join the Methodist Church and “renounce the Devil and all his works,” they give little heed to such renunciation, only to learn later, as their religious fervour subsides, and their social needs assert themselves, that the Discipline regards card-playing and dancing as the works of his Satanic Majesty. I remember when my sister was inveigled by some unconverted boys and girls into playing cards, how I laboured with her with but poor results. She refrained for a time, but soon again succumbed to the pastime. It makes me smile to recall how long it took me to regard those wicked-looking cards as an innocent amusement. Not caring for them, however, they were never a temptation to me, and I found myself distinctly bored when by the occasional playing of Hearts I declared my independence. I never could learn Whist or Euchre. But dancing, because more pleasurable, seemed more wicked; and, little by little, I yielded to the seductions of the violin and the quadrille when, at an evening party, dancing would form the wind-up. But I never learned to dance well. Too self-conscious, the few times that I indulged in it in those days I suffered so from remorse that it was a questionable pleasure.
Toward spring, after the revival at which we had been converted, we attended a party given by a boy whose father owned the Masonic Hall. It was an innocent affair with dancing and light refreshments. I imagine we were home in our beds before midnight. But a few nights later, at a church sociable, one of the good sisters of the church, attacking a group of us, berated us soundly for attending a dance in a public hall, thus forsaking Christ and espousing the Devil and all his works. Her unjust, intemperate, and tactless accusations made me regard the whole matter more rationally than I had theretofore. Through gossip our little party had grown beyond all recognition. It was characterized as a public dance. Without any foundation whatever it had been asserted that we had had supper at the hotel—a thing reprehensible in itself; that wine had been passed; that Sister had tasted it, but that I had refused it. Whoever had so falsified had done it skilfully, as Kate was then more inclined to dip into the untried than I. But we had been near no hotel, and did not know the taste or sight of wine, except the unfermented “wine” used at Communion.
This rigour of our church discipline concerning amusements which I had come to regard as innocent pleasures, made me loth to continue belonging to a body placing such strictures upon its members. Many church members danced and played cards without compunction, but I was strenuously opposed to belonging to anything to which I could not heartily subscribe and obey to the letter. So when, a year or more later, I left home, I requested that my name be taken from the church books. Reluctant to accede to this request, the pastor urged me to take a church letter, but I refused, determined not to begin my new life by professing what I no longer believed or practised; I wanted to start with a clean slate, since I no longer conformed to the rulings of the church.
Emancipation from the old teachings and beliefs came about gradually and painfully. When first assailed by doubts as to teachings and traditions formerly accepted unquestioningly, I had tried to talk them over with Mother, but her unreasoning faith irritated me. Unable to command my temper, I was narrowly and harshly critical; her devoutness, her intuitions, her faith all irritated me, counting for almost nothing with me then, when I wanted something to satisfy my reason; wanted to reconcile the conflict between orthodox teachings, and the truths of science as I was coming upon them in my studies. Moreover, I was tenderly attached to the Old Paths, and Mother’s manifestations of feelings I was trying to stifle only increased my intolerance.
The church members no longer rent the same pews year after year. Now when I go home I look in vain for the old families, or their representatives, in their accustomed places. Scattered here and there throughout the congregation, like lost sheep, I see a few of the brethren and sisters who in the early days sat with us “under the droppings of the sanctuary.” I would like to see them once again in the places that knew them in those long-gone days; would like to sit with Father and Mother in our own pew; join in the hymns, and once again feel at home in the old church; for, however far I have wandered from the old paths, they must always be sacred to me.