I don't believe in a person's eyes being so fixed on heaven, that he goes blundering over everybody's corns on the way there. If that's his Christianity, the sooner he gets tripped up the better. I saw "a Christian" the other day. It was a workingman, who, noticing across the street a little girl of seven years, trying to lift with her little cold fingers a bundle, and poise it on her head, put down his box of tools, went across the street and lifted it up for her, and with a cheery "there now, my dear," went smiling on his way.
Oh, if clergymen would only study their fellow men more. If they would less often try to unravel some double-twisted theological knot, which, if pulled out straight, would never carry one drop of balm to a suffering fellow-being, or teach him how to bear bravely and patiently the trials, under which soul and body are ready to faint. If, looking into some yearning face before them on a Sunday, they would preach only to its wistful asking for spiritual help, in words easy to be understood—in heart-tones not to be mistaken—how different would Sundays seem, to many women, at least, whose heart-aches, and unshared burdens, none but their Maker knows. "Heavy laden!" Let our clergymen never forget that phrase in their abstruse examination of text and context. Let them not forget that as Lazarus watched for the falling crumbs from Dives' table, so some poor harassed soul before them may be sitting with expectant ear, for the hopeful words, that shall give courage to shoulder again the weary burden. I sometimes wonder, were I a clergyman, could I preach in this way to nodding plumes, and flashing jewels, and rustling silks? Would not my very soul be paralyzed within me, as theirs seems to be? And then I wish that nobody could own a velvet cushioned pew in church; that the doors of all churches were open to every man and woman, in whatsoever garb they might chance to wear in passing, and not parcelled and divided off for the reception of certain classes, and the exclusion (for it amounts to that) of those who most need spiritual help and teaching. You tell me that there are places provided for such people. So there are cars for colored people to ride in. My Christianity, if I have any, builds up no such walls of separation. How often have I seen a face loitering at a church threshold, listening to the swelling notes of the organ, and longing to go in, were it not for the wide social gulf between itself and those who assembled—I will not say worshipped—there, and I know if that clergyman, inside that church, spoke as his Master spake when on earth, that he would soon preach to empty walls. They want husks; they pay handsomely for husks, and they get them, I say in my vexation, as the door swings on its hinges in some poor creature's face, and he wanders forth to struggle unaided as best he may with a poor man's temptations. Our Roman Catholic brethren are wiser. Their creed is not my creed, save this part of it: "That the rich and the poor meet here together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all." I often go there to see it. I am glad when the poor servant drops on her knees in the aisle, and makes the sign of the cross, that nobody bids her rise, to make way for a silken robe that may be waiting behind her. I am glad the mother of many little children may drop in for a brief moment, before the altar, to recognize her spiritual needs, and then pass out to the cares she may not longer lose sight of. I do not believe as they do, but it gladdens my heart all the same, that one man is as good as his neighbor at least there—before God. I breathe freer at the thought. I can sit in a corner and watch them pass in and out, and rejoice that every one, how humble soever, feels that he or she is that church, just as much as the richest foreigner from the cathedrals of the old world, whom they may jostle in passing out. Said one poor girl to me—"I don't care what happens to me, or how hard I work through the week, if I can get away to my Sunday morning mass." She was a woman to be sure, and women, high and low, have more spirituality than men. They can't do without their church—sometimes, I am sorry to say, not even with it; for, as the same servant solemnly and truthfully remarked to me, "Even then the devil is sometimes too strong for 'em!"
A fashionable church is more distasteful to me because memory always conjures up certain pleasant country Sundays of long ago. Ah! that walk through the shady sweet-briar roads, full of perfume, and song, and dew, to the village church, in whose ample shed were tied Dobbins of every shape and color, switching the flies with their long tails, and neighing friendly acquaintance with each other. Oh! the wide open windows of the church, guiltless of painted apostles and dropsical cherubs, where the breeze played through, bringing with it the sweet odor of clover and honeysuckle and new-mown hay, and the drowsy hum of happy insect life, and now and then a little bird, who sang his little song without pay, and flitted out again. Oh! the good old snow-haired patriarchs—who didn't dye their hair or whiskers—leaning on their sticks, followed by chubby little grandchildren, whose cheeks rivalled the reddest apples in their orchards. Then the farmers' wives, with belts they could breathe under, with ample chests and sunny glances of content at Susan, and Nancy, and Tommy, in their best Sunday clothes. Then the good old-fashioned singing, with which nobody found fault, though a crack-voiced old deacon did join in, because he was too happy to keep silent about "Jordan." Then the hand-shaking after service, and the hearty good-will to "the minister and his folks." Then the adjournment to the grove near by, to pass the intermission till the afternoon service, and the selection of the sweetest and shadiest spot to unpack the lunch baskets. The shifting light through the branches, upon the pretty heads of the country girls, with their fresh cheeks and shining hair and blue ribbons. And after doughnuts and cheese and apple-pie, were shared and eaten, the ramble after wild-flowers round the roots of the mossy old trees, or the selection of the prettiest oak leaves to make wreaths for pretty heads, and the shy looks of admiration of the rustic beaux as they were severally adjusted. Then the little group under the trees, singing psalm tunes, as the matrons wandered over to the grave-yard to read for the hundredth time the little word "Anna," or "Joseph," or "Samuel," inscribed on some headstone, from which they pulled away the intrusive grass or clover, plucking a little leaf as they left, and hiding it in their ample, motherly bosoms.
All this came to me as I sat in that hot, stifled, painted-window, fashionable church, listening to the dull monotone about the Hittites, from which I reaped nothing but irritation; and I wished I was a school-girl again, back in that lovely village in New Hampshire, where Sundays were not opening days for millinery; where people went to church because they loved it, and not because it was "respectable" to be seen there once a day; where heaven's light was not excluded for any dim taper of man's lighting, and one could sing though he had not performed during the week at the opera; and the doxology rang out as only farmers' lungs can make it. I am glad I had this school-girl experience of lovely, balmy, country Sundays, though it spoils me for the formal, city Sunday. Every summer, when I go to the country, I hunt up some old church like this, which all the winter I have longed for. Though, truth to tell, what with city boarders who infest them, with their perfume and point-lace, and rustling silks, my country church is getting more difficult every year to find. How it spoils it all, when some grand city dame comes sailing in, with her astounding millinery devices, to profane my simple country church and astonish its simple worshippers! My dear madam, for my sake, please this summer "say your prayers" on the piazza of the grand hotel, afflicted by yourself and your seven mammoth travelling trunks.
I strayed into a strange church not long since, chose my seat, and sat down. Sextons are polite; but they have a way of marching one up, through a long aisle, under the very shadow of the pulpit, and under the noses of an expectant congregation, when unfortunately I have a fancy for a quiet, out of the way corner. The church was plain and neat, and nicely dressed, with its shining bunches of holly, and its stars, and its green wreathed-pillars. The temperature of the place was pleasant, and the bright lights, and the sweet tones of the organ, were all promotive of serenity and cheerfulness. The congregation dropped in, in groups and families, and took their places. They were not fashionable people; evidently they were workers on week-days. The men and the women, and even the children, had that look, in spite of their Sunday clothes. So much the more glad was I that they had such a bright, cheerful church to come to. By and by the minister came in. Now, thought I, God grant his sermon be cheerful too; for these are people who lead no holiday lives, and all the more need a lift out of it on Sunday. The burden of the first hymn he chose was "death's cold arms;" read in a tone studiedly corresponding to its cheerful sentiment. A wail from the organ preceded the singing, whose dolor affected me like a toss-out into a snow-drift. Then the minister rose. His first salutation was "My dying friends." Then he proceeded to inform them that the old year was dying. That there it lay, with its great hands crossed over its mighty heart, and the sepulchre yawning for its last pulsation. Then he reminded them that very likely many of those present would be in that very condition before the close of the new year. Then he told the young folks a frightful story about a dying young man whose friends sent for him (the speaker.) A young man who hadn't joined the church. When he got there, he said, "reason had deserted its throne;" which was his way of saying that the young man was crazy, and his way of inferring that it was a judgment on him for not "having joined the church." Then he said, that though they waited and waited for his reason to come back, his soul fled away without, and the inference was that it fled to hell. He didn't recognize any charitable possibility that much might have passed between that young man's soul and its Maker, though not expressed either to friends or pastor, which might savor of heaven instead of hell, and that—although he had not joined the church;—not a clue was left for the faintest hope for any of his friends that might happen to be present, that this young man's soul was not eternally dammed.
What right, indeed, had the Almighty to know more of one of his congregation than he himself? What right had He to pardon a fleeting soul, with no shriving from its pastoral keeper? I say this in no spirit of irreverence. But, oh! why will clergymen persist in scaring people to heaven? Why darken lives heavily laden with toil, discouragement, and care through the six days of the week, by adding to its depressing weight on Sunday? Has "Come unto me ye heavy laden" no place in their Bible? Is "God is Love" blotted from out its pages? Is the human heart—especially the youthful heart—untouchable by any appeal save the cowardly one of fear? Would those young people, when out of leading-strings, continue to look upon life through the charnel-house spectacles of this spiritual teacher? Would there come no dreadful rebound to those young men and young women, from this perpetual gloom? These were questions I there asked myself; wisely, or unwisely, you shall be the judge.
"Like as a father pitieth his children," I talismanically murmured to myself, as I left the church, with the last dolorous hymn ringing in my ear—