At that instant, the Injins had drawn themselves up around the building, close to its sides, and under the open windows, in a position that enabled them to hear all that passed. As I afterwards learned, this arrangement was made with an understanding with those within, one of the ministers having positively refused to address the throne of Grace so long as any of the tribe were present. Well has it been said, that man often strains at a gnat, and swallows a camel!
CHAPTER XV.
"I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier means to dress the commonwealth and turn it, and put a new nap upon it."
King Henry VI.
As I knew Mary must have communicated to her father my real name, I did not hesitate, as I ought to have done in my actual dress and in my assumed character, about following them, in order to inquire if I could be of any service. I never saw distress more strongly painted in any man's countenance than it was in that of Mr. Warren, when I approached. So very obvious, indeed, was his emotion, that I did not venture to obtrude myself on him, but followed in silence; and he and Mary slowly walked, side by side, across the street to the stoop of a house, of which all the usual inmates had probably gone in the other direction. Here, Mr. Warren took a seat, Mary still at his side, while I drew near, standing before him.
"I thank you, Mr. Littlepage," the divine at length said, with a smile so painful it was almost haggard, "for, so Mary tells me you should be called—I thank you for this attention, sir—but, it will be over in another minute—I feel better now, and shall be able to command myself."
No more was then said, concerning the reason of this distress; but Mary has since explained to me its cause. When her father went into the meeting-house, he had not the smallest idea that anything like a religious service would be dragged into the ceremonies of such a day. The two ministers on the stage first gave him the alarm; when a most painful struggle occurred in his mind, whether or not he should remain, and be a party to the mockery of addressing God in prayer, in an assembly collected to set at naught one of the plainest of his laws—nay, with banded felons drawn up around the building, as principal actors in the whole mummery. The alternative was for him, a minister, of the altar, to seem to quit those who were about to join in prayer, and to do this moreover under circumstances which might appear to others as if he rejected all worship but that which was in accordance with his own views of right, a notion that would be certain to spread far and near, greatly to the prejudice of his own people. But the first, as he viewed the matter, involved a species of blasphemy; and yielding to his feelings, he took the decided step he had, intending to remain out of the building, until the more regular business of the day commenced.
It is certain Mr. Warren, who acted under the best impulse of christian feeling, a reverence for God, and a profound wish not to be a party in offending him with the mockery of worship under such circumstances, has lost much influence, and made many enemies, by the step he then took. The very same feeling which has raised the cry of aristocracy against every gentleman who dwells in sufficiently near contact with the masses to distinguish his habits from those around him; which induces the eastern emigrant, who comes from a state of society where there are no landlords, to fancy those he finds here ought to be pulled down, because he is not a landlord himself; which enables the legislator to stand up in his place, and unblushingly talk about feudal usages, at the very instant he is demonstrating that equal rights are denied to those he would fain stigmatize as feudal lords, has extended to religion, and the church of which Mr. Warren was a minister, is very generally accused of being aristocratic, too! This charge is brought because it has claims which other churches affect to renounce and reject as forming no part of the faith; but the last cannot remain easy under their own decisions; and while they shout, and sing that they have found "a church without a bishop," they hate the church that has a bishop, because it has something they do not possess themselves, instead of pitying its deluded members, if they believe them wrong. This will not be admitted generally, but it is nevertheless true; and betrays itself in a hundred ways. It is seen in the attempt to call their own priests bishops, in the feeling so manifest whenever a cry can be raised against their existence, and in the general character of these theological rallies, whenever they do occur.
For one, I see a close analogy between my own church, as it exists in this country, and comparing it with that from which it sprung, and to those which surround it, and the true political circumstances of the two hemispheres. In discarding a vast amount of surplusage, in reducing the orders of the ministry, in practice, as well as in theory, to their primitive number ... three and in rejecting all connection with the State, the American branch of the Episcopal Church has assumed the position it was desirous to fill; restoring, as near as may be, the simplicity of the apostolical ages, while it does not disregard the precepts and practices of the apostles themselves. It has not set itself above antiquity and authority, but merely endeavoured to sustain them, without the encumbrances of more modern abuses. Thus, too, has it been in political things. No attempt has been made to create new organic social distinctions in this country, but solely to disencumber those that are inseparable from the existence of all civilized society, of the clumsy machinery with which the expedients of military oppressors had invested them. The real sages of this country, in founding its institutions, no more thought of getting rid of the landlords of the country, than the Church thought of getting rid of its bishops. The first knew that the gradations of property were an inevitable incident of civilization; that it would not be wise, if it were possible, to prevent the affluent from making large investments in the soil; and that this could not be done in practice, without leaving the relation of landlord and tenant. Because landlords, in other parts of the world, possessed privileges that were not necessary to the natural or simple existence of the character, was no reason for destroying the character itself; any more than the fact that the bishops of England possess an authority the apostles knew nothing of, rendered it proper for the American branch of the church to do away with an office that came from the apostles. But, envy and jealousy do not pause to reflect on such things; it is enough for them, in the one case that you and yours have estates, and occupy social positions, that I and mine do not, and cannot easily, occupy and possess; therefore I will oppose you, and join my voice to the cry of those who wish to get their farms for nothing; and in the other, that you have bishops when we can have none, without abandoning our present organization and doctrines.