“Such a sentiment is far deeper in its tone than a mere murmur. Especially as Mr. Beecher’s farm at Fishkill is well known to be cultivated with reference to making money.”
Yes, we confess it. A “murmur” very imperfectly expresses our feelings as we dig at a Canada thistle, or squirt whale-oil soapsuds over a myriad of “Puritan’s” divine messengers, called aphides. A grumble would not be too strong a word to use on such occasions. Nay, the reverend gentleman has been known to say, in a paroxysm of horticultural impiety, “I wish every rose-bug on the place was dead!” which must seem to “Puritan” a piece of horrible depravity.
I did not before know that I had a farm in Fishkill. My experience with the farm at Peekskill, “which is well known to be cultivated with reference to making money,” is such, that if it be true that I own another farm at Fishkill, I shall consider myself on the straight road to the poor-house!
But there is more coming:—
“The charge of the reverend gentleman amounts to this,—that whenever he attempts to raise a crop of wheat, corn, flax, or grass, God sends beetles, bugs, aphides, heat, rain, and mildew, to blast his designs.
“This has the ring of Cain when his sacrifice was rejected. That primeval sinner vented his anger towards God on his holy brother. Mr. H. W. Beecher vents his anger towards the real cause of his
mildewed crops, by charging the innocent instruments in their Maker’s hand. If this is not blasphemy in one as well informed as Mr. Beecher is, we have read his words amiss.
“Puritan.”
I may have been mistaken, but it has seemed to me that every crop that I have ever attempted to raise has had swarms of “messengers” sent upon it. But, until now, I never suspected that God sent them, in any other sense than that in which he sends diseases, famines, tyrants, literary “Puritans,” and all other evils which afflict humanity.
But what is to be done about this matter? If it be “blasphemy” to speak against bugs, it can be little short of sacrilege to smash them. Here have I been, in the blindness of unrepented depravity, slaughtering millions of “the messengers of God” called aphides! I have ruthlessly slain those other angelic “messengers” called mosquitoes, who came singing to me with misplaced confidence. I have even railed at fleas, and spoken irreverently of gnats. I have gone further: on a sultry summer’s day, after dinner, I have turned out of my room every one of those “messengers of God” which wicked boys call flies—every one but one, I mean; and, just as the sounds grew faint and sight dim, and I was sinking into that entrancing experience, the first virgin moments of slumber, an affectionate fly settled on my nose, ran down to kiss my lips, and, like a traveler on a new continent, set about exploring my whole face. Instead of greeting this “messenger” divine as “Puritan” would, I confess to a lively vexation. And if speaking of flies in a very disrespectful manner is blasphemous, I must confess to the charge!