THE PARABLE PREACHES IN THE WILDERNESS.
The house in which young Abraham Lincoln attended church was simple and curious, as were the old forest Baptist preachers who conducted the services there. It was called simply the "meeting-house." It stood in the timber, whose columns and aisles opened around it like a vast cathedral, where the rocks were altars and the birds were choirs. It was built of rude logs, and had hard benches, but the plain people had done more skillful work on this forest sanctuary than on the school-house. The log meeting-house stood near the log school-house, and both revealed the heart of the people who built them. It was the Prussian school-master, trained in the moral education of Pestalozzi, that made the German army victorious over France in the late war. And it was the New England school-master that built the great West, and made Plymouth Rock the crown-stone of our own nation. The world owes to humble Pestalozzi what it never could have secured from a Napoleon. It is right ideas that march to the conquest, that lift mankind, and live.
It had been announced in the school-house that Jasper the Parable would preach in the log church on Sunday. The school-master called the wandering teacher "Jasper the Parable," but the visitor became commonly known as the "Old Tunker" in the community. The news flew for miles that "an old Tunker" was to preach. No event had awakened a greater interest since Elder Elkins, from Kentucky, had come to the settlement to preach Nancy Lincoln's funeral sermon under the great trees. On that occasion all the people gathered from the forest homes of the vast region. Every one now was eager to visit the same place in the beautiful spring weather, and to "hear what the old Tunker would have to say."
Among the preachers who used to speak in the log meeting-house and in Thomas Lincoln's cabin were one Jeremiah Cash, and John Richardson, and young Lamar. The two latter preachers lived some ten miles distant from the church; but ten miles was not regarded as a long Sabbath-day journey in those days in Indiana. When the log meeting-house was found too small to hold the people, such preachers would exhort under the trees. There used to be held religious meetings in the cabins, after the manner of the present English cottage prayer-meetings. These used to be appointed to take place at "early candle-lighting," and many of the women who attended used to bring tallow dips with them, and were looked upon as the "wise virgins" who took oil in their lamps.
It was a lovely Sunday in April. The warm sunlight filled the air and bird-songs the trees. The notes of the lark, the sparrow, and the prairie plover were bells—
"To call me to duty, while birds in the air
Sang anthems of praise as I went forth to prayer,"
as one of the old hymns used to run. The buds on the trees were swelling. There was an odor of walnut and "sassafrax" in the tides of the sunny air. Cowslips and violets margined the streams, and the sky over all was serene and blue, and bright with the promise of the summer days.
The people began to gather about the meeting-house at an early hour. The women came first, in corn-field bonnets which were scoop-shaped and flaring in front, and that ran out like horns behind. On these funnel-shaped, cornucopia-like head-gears there might now and then be seen the vanity of a ribbon. The girls carried their shoes in their hands until they came in sight of the meeting-house, when they would sit down on some mossy plat under an old tree, "bein' careful of the snakes," and put them on. All wore linsey-woolsey dresses, of which four or five yards of cloth were an ample pattern for a single garment, as they had no use for any superfluous polonaises in those times.
Long before the time for the service the log meeting-house was full of women, and the yard full of men and horses. Some of the people had come from twenty miles away. Those who came from the longest distances were the first to arrive—as is usual, for in all matters in life promptness is proportioned to exertion.
When the Parable came, Thomas Lincoln met him.
"You can't preach here," said he. "Half the people couldn't hear you. You have a small voice. You don't holler and pound like the rest of 'em, I take it. Suppose you preach out under the trees, where all the people can hear ye. It looks mighty pleasant there. With our old sing-song preachers it don't make so much difference. We could hear one of them if you were to shut him up in jail. But with you it is different. You have been brought up different among those big churches over there. What do you say, preacher?"
"I would rather preach under the trees. I love the trees. They are the meeting-house of God."
"Say, preacher, would you mind goin' over and preachin' at Nancy's grave? Elder Elkins preached there, and the other travelin' ministers. Seems kind o' holy over there. Nancy was a good woman, and all the people liked her. She was Abraham's mother. The trees around her grave are beautiful."
"I would like to preach there, by that lonely grave in the wilderness."
"The Tunker will preach at Nancy's grave," said Thomas Lincoln in a loud voice. He led the way to the great cathedral of giant trees, which were clouded with swelling buds and old moss, and a long procession of people followed him there.
Among them was Aunt Olive, with a corn-field bonnet of immense proportions, and her hymn-book. She was a lively worshiper. At all the meetings she sang, and at the Methodist meetings she shouted; and after all religious occasions she "tarried behind," to discuss the sermon with the minister. She usually led the singing. Her favorite hymns were, "Am I a soldier of the Cross," "Come, thou Fount of every blessing," and "My Bible leads to glory." The last hymn and tune suited her emotional nature, and she would pitch it upon a high key, and make the woods ring with the curious musical exhortation of the chorus:
"Sing on, pray on,
Ye followers of Emmanuel."
At the early candle-meetings at Thomas Lincoln's cabin and other cabins, she sang hymns of a more persuasive character. These were oddly appropriate to the hard-working, weary, yet hopeful community. One of these began thus:
"Come, my brethren, let us try,
For a little season,
Every burden to lay by—
Come, and let us reason.
What is this that casts you down?
What is this that grieves you?
Speak, and let the worst be known—
Speaking may relieve you."
The music was weird and in a minor key. It was sung often with a peculiar motion of the body, a forward-and-backward movement, with clasped hands and closed eyes. Another of the pioneer hymns began:
"Brethren, we have met for worship,
And to adore the Lord our God:
Will you pray with all your power,
While we wait upon the Lord?
All is vain unless the Spirit
Of the Holy One comes down;
Brethren, pray, and heavenly manna
Will be showered all around.
"Sisters, will you join and help us?
Moses' sister help-ed him," etc.
The full glory of a spring day in Indiana shone over the vast forests, as the Tunker rose to speak under the great trees. It was like an Easter, and, indeed, the hymn sung at the opening of the service was much like an Easter hymn. It related how—
"On this lovely morning my Saviour was rising,
The chains of mortality fully despising;
His sufferings are over, he's done agonizing—
This morning my Saviour will think upon me."
The individuality of the last line seemed especially comforting to many of the toiling people, and caused Aunt Olive to uplift her voice in a great shout.
"Come with me," said Jasper; "come with me this morning, and we will walk beside the Sea of Galilee together. Galilee! I love to think of Galilee—far, far away. The words spoken on the shores of Galilee, and on the mountains over-looking Galilee, are the hope of the world. They are the final words of our all-loving Father to his children. Times may change, but these words will never be exceeded or superseded; nothing can ever go beyond these teachings of the brotherhood of man, and the way that the heart may find God, and become conscious of the presence of God, and know its immortality, and the everlasting truth. What did the great Teacher say on Galilee?"
The Parable began to repeat from memory the Sermon on the Mount and the Galilean teachings. The birds came and sang in the trees during the long recitations, and the people sank down on the grass. Once or twice Aunt Olive's corn-field bonnet rose up, and out of it came a shout of "Glory!" One enthusiastic brother shouted, at one point of the quotations: "That's right, elder; pitch into 'em, and give it 'em—they need it. We're all sinners here; a good field to improve upon! Go on!"
It was past high noon when Jasper finished his quotations from the Gospels. He then paused, and said:
"Do you want to know who I am, and why I am here, and what has sent me forth among the speckled birds of the forest? I will tell you. A true life has no secrets—it needs none; it is open to all like the revelations of the skies, and the sea, and the heart of Nature—what is concealed in the heart is what should not be.
"I had a teacher. He is living now—an old, broken man—a name that will sound strange to your ears. He gave up his life to teach the orphans made by the war. He studied with them, learned with them, ate with them; he saw with their eyes and felt with their hearts. He taught after the school of Nature; as Nature teaches the child within, so he taught, using outward objects.
"He once said to me:
"'For thirty years my life has been a struggle against poverty. For thirty years I have had to forego many of the barest necessities of life, and have had to shun the society of my fellow-men for want of decent clothes. Many and many times I have gone without a dinner, and eaten in bitterness a dry crust of bread on the road, at a time when even the poorest were seated around a table. All this I have suffered, and am suffering still to-day, and with no other object than to realize my plan for helping the poor.'
"When I heard him say that, I loved him. It made me ashamed of my selfish life. Then I heard the Dunkards preach, and tell of America over the sea. I began to study the words of the Teacher of Galilee. I, too, longed to teach. My wife died, and my two children. Then I said: 'I will live for the soul. That is all that has any lasting worth. I will give up everything for the good of others, and go over the sea, and teach the children of the forest.' I am now on my way to see Black Hawk, who has promised to send out with me an interpreter and guide. I have given up my will, my property, and my name, and I am happy. Good-by, my friends. I have nothing, and am happy."
At this point Aunt Olive's corn-field bonnet rose up, and her voice rang out on the air:
"My brother, I wish you well!
My brother, I wish you well!
When my Lord calls, I hope I shall
Be mentioned in the promised land.
"My sister, I wish you well!" etc.
"Poor sinners, I wish you well!" etc.
Galilee! There was one merry, fun-making boy in that sacred place, to whom, according to tradition, that word had a charm. He used to love to mimic the old backwoods preachers, and he became very skeptical in matters of Christian faith and doctrine, but he never forgot the teachings of the Teacher of Galilee. In the terrible duties that fell to his lot the principles of the Galilean teachings came home to his heart, and he came to know in experience what he had not accepted from the mouths of men. He is said to have said, just before his death, which bowed the nation: "When the cares of state are over, I want to go to Galilee," or words of like meaning. The legend is so beautiful that we could wish it to be true.