“‘But,’ says I, ‘what if my preachin’ his wickedness into him, and readin’ tracts at him had the effect of makin’ him hate religion, and drivin’ him away from home to the tarven and wickedness? After Tom was ruined, my makin’ a pattern of myself, and feelin’ innocent, wouldn’t bring Tom back. And,’ says I, ‘if I kep’ Tom from goin’ to ruin, by keepin’ him to home, and playin’ dominoes with him—and didn’t feel innocent—lemme see—where be I—’”
“And I scratched my head till every hair stood up on end, I was so puzzled, and kinder worked up, a thinkin’ how I would go to work to be innocent in the matter, and whether after I had lost Tom, my bein’ a pattern would be much of a comfort to me or his ma; but though I scratched my head powerful, I couldn’t scratch a clear idee of the matter out of it. But I tell you, the Deacon made me feel small, so small that when I got home, I was most tempted to go in through the key-hole; and mean—I knew I was the meanest man in North America, I could have took my oath on it with a clear conscience.
“But Tom’s ma felt different about it when I talked it over with her; and she went on and give her views on bringin’ up childern and religion, and things, for about the first time I ever heerd her in my life—she bein’ one of the kind that believes in doin’ more and sayin’ less; though, if there is anybody livin’ that can beat her in piety, I’d love to see ’em. As I say, I never see her talk so earnest and sort of inspired like, as she did then; it went to my heart so, took me so ‘right where I lived’—as the poet says—and I have thought it over so many times sense, that I can remember every word on it, though there was powerful long words in it. But good land! long words haint nothin’ for Tom’s ma to handle; she’s dretful high learnt, teached a deestrick school for years; I never shall forget how she looked when she was a talkin’ it to me; how her eyes shone; she has got big brown eyes jest like Tom’s, and they sort o’ lit up, jest as if there was a kerosine lamp a burnin’ inside of her face, or several candles; she talked powerful. She said she didn’t think we need feel condemned; says she:
“‘We have always taught our boy to love God, and taught him that He was the one reality in an unreal world.’ Says she, ‘I have tried from his childhood to make Him who is invisible, a real presence to him, not an abstract idee; taught him that unseen things were more real than the seen; that love—even his mother’s love for him, which was as intangible as a breath of air—yet was still so much more imperishable than the form that enshrined it—stronger than life or death—was but a faint symbol of that greater love that so far transcended mine. That this love was the one rock of safety standin’ for evermore the same amid the ebb and flow of this changeful earthly life; and that safe in that love he could not by any possibility be harmed by life or death or any other creature; and if he was lost, it would not be because God desired it;’ says she, ‘I could not teach our boy to love God with a slave’s love for a tyrant, made up of fear and doubt; to think of Him as a far-off unapproachable bein’, in a remote inaccessible heaven; lookin’ down from a height of gloomy grandeur with a stern composure, a calm indifference, on the strugglin’ souls below, he had created; indifferent to their sufferin’s, their gropin’s after light and truth, their temptations, their blind mistakes; ready and anxious to condemn; angry with their innocent happiness.’ Says she, ‘It would be as impossible for me to worship the God of some Christians, as to worship a heathen God; and I have not taught our boy to worship such a bein’, but I have learned him from a child, to look upon Him as his nearest and dearest friend, the truest, and the tenderest; the one always near him, ready to help him when all other help was vain; grieved with his wrong doin’; rejoicin’ in his efforts to do right; helpin’ him in his struggles with his small temptations; drawin’ his soul upward with his divine love and tenderness. We have tried to teach him by our lives—which is the loudest preachin’—that the best way to show our love to God, is by bein’ helpful and compassionate to a sorrowful humanity.’”
THE DEACON.
Says I, “‘The old Deacon don’t look on religion in that light at all; he don’t seem to want to do any good, but jest gives his whole mind to bein’ wretched himself, and condemnin’ other folks’es sins, and makin’ them wretched. He seems to think if he can only do that, and keep himself from bein’ amused in any way, he is travelin’ the straight road to heaven; that truly is his strong pint.’”
“Well, she said she thought of the Saviour’s last charge to his disciples after his death and resurrection, when his words might well contain all earthly experience, and heavenly wisdom. Three times he asked that disciple, ‘Lovest thou me?’ And each separate time he bade him prove that love, not by bein’ gloomy faced and morose, not by loud preachin’ and condemnation of others, and long prayers and vows to Him, but in carin’ for the flock He had left. And when he pronounced the doom of the condemned, it was not because they had been happy and cheerful; not because they had neglected the creeds and forms of religion, but because they had seen Him in the form of a sufferin’ humanity, naked, athirst, and faint, and had not ministered unto Him.
“She talked like a little female preacher, Tom’s ma did; it was the first speech she had made sense I knew her, and that was goin’ on forty years, countin’ in seven years of stiddy courtin’. And says she in windin’ up—you know preachers always wind up, and Tom’s ma did—says she:
“‘I guess we won’t begin to be stern and dignified with Tom now, for we don’t care in particular about gainin’ the admiration of an awe-struck world, or awakenin’ Tom’s fears by makin’ patterns of ourselves;’ and says she, ‘I have always found, that people who set themselves up for patterns are very disagreeable as companions.’ Says she, ‘What we want is to save our boy, make him good and happy, and I am not a bit afraid of makin’ him too happy in an innocent way;’ says she, ‘for goodness is the own child of happiness on its mother’s side.’