CHAPTER XLI.
I Mount the Pulpit, and Preach on the Sabbath, in the State of Wisconsin—The Audience is Large and Appreciative; but I probably Fail to Please One of the Congregation.
Milwaukee, April 21.
To a certain extent I am a believer in climatic influence, and am inclined to think that Sabbath reformers reckon without the British climate when they hope to ever see a Britain full of cheerful Christians. M. Taine, in his “History of English Literature,” ascribes the unlovable morality of Puritanism to the influence of the British climate. “Pleasure being out of question,” he says, “under such a sky, the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness.” In other words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not altogether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don’t look it, many Britons are not moral who look it.
But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic “morality” which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of America? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of America, the same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh day.
Yet Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with Protestantism; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant than Martin Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ.
| PURITAN LACK OF CHEERFULNESS. |
Luther taught that the Sabbath was to be kept, not because Moses commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh day’s rest. He says “If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day’s sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do anything that will reprove this encroachment on Christian spirit and liberty.”
The old Scotch woman, who “did nae think the betterer on” the Lord for that Sabbath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of Anglo-Saxon Christian. But it is when these Puritans judge other nations that they are truly great.
Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday. Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion to find out during my second visit to America.
I had been lecturing last Saturday evening in the pretty little town of Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and received an invitation from a minister to address a meeting that was to be held yesterday, Sunday, in the largest church of the place to discuss the question, “How Sunday should be spent.” I at first declined, on the ground that it might not be exactly in good taste for a foreigner to advise his hosts how to spend Sunday. However, when it was suggested that I might simply go and tell them how Sunday was spent in France, I accepted the task.
The proceedings opened with prayer and an anthem; and a hymn in praise of the Jewish Sabbath having been chosen by the moderator, I thought the case looked bad for us French people, and that I was going to cut a poor figure.
The first speaker unwittingly came to my rescue by making an onslaught upon the French mode of spending the seventh day. “With all due respect to the native country of our visitor,” said he, “I am bound to say that on the one Sunday which I spent in Paris, I saw a great deal of low immorality, and I could not help coming to the conclusion that this was due to the fact of the French not being a Sabbath-keeping people.” He wound up with a strong appeal to his townsmen to beware of any temptation to relax in their observance of the fourth commandment as given by Moses.
I was called upon to speak next. I rose in my pew, but was requested to go into the rostrum.
With alacrity I stepped forward, a little staggered, perhaps, at finding myself for the first time in a pulpit, but quite ready for the fray.
“I am sorry,” said I, “to hear the remarks made by the speaker who has just sat down. I cannot, however, help thinking that if our friend had spent that Sunday in Paris in respectable places, he would have been spared the sight of any low immorality. No doubt Paris, like every large city in the world, has its black spots, and you can easily discover them, if you make proper inquiries as to where they are, and if you are properly directed. Now, let me ask, where did he go? I should very much like to know. Being an old Parisian, I have still in my mind’s eye the numerous museums that are open free to the people on Sundays. One of the most edifying sights in the city is that of our peasants and workmen in their clean Sunday blouses enjoying themselves with their families, and elevating their tastes among our art treasures. Did our friend go there? I know there are places where for little money the symphonies of Beethoven and other great masters may be and are enjoyed by thousands every Sunday. Did our friend go there? Within easy reach of the people are such places as the Bois de Boulogne, the Garden of Acclimation, where for fifty centimes a delightful day may be spent among the lawns and flower-beds of that Parisian “Zoo.” Its goat cars, ostrich cars, its camel and elephant drives make it a paradise for children, and one might see whole families there on Sunday afternoons in the summer, the parents refreshing their bodies with this contact with nature and their hearts with the sight of the children’s glee. Did our friend go there? We even have churches in Paris, churches that are crammed from six o’clock in the morning till one in the afternoon with worshipers who go on their knees to God. Now, did our friend go to church on that Sunday? Well, where did he go? I am quitting Whitewater to-morrow, and I leave it to his townspeople to investigate the matter. When I first visited New York, stories were told me of strange things to be seen there even on a Sunday. Who doubts, I repeat, that every great city has its black spots? I had no desire to see those of New York, there was so much that was better worth my time and attention. If our friend, our observing friend, would only have done in Paris as I did in New York, he would have seen very little low immorality.”
The little encounter at Whitewater was only one more illustration of the strange fact that the Anglo-Saxon, who is so good in his own country, so constant in his attendance at church, is seldom to be seen in a sacred edifice abroad, unless, indeed, he has been led there by Baedeker.
And last night, at Whitewater, I went to bed pleased with myself, like a man who has fought for his country.
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When I am in France, I often bore my friends with advice, and find, as usual, that advice is a luxurious gift thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it.
“You don’t know how to do these things,” I say to them; “in England or in America, they are much more intelligent; they do like this and like that.” And my friends generally advise me to return to England or America, where things are so beautifully managed.
But, when I am out of France, the old Frenchman is all there, and if you pitch into my mother country, I stand up ready to fight at a minute’s notice.
