"In the afternoon," he continued, "I went to meeting, and, when the ordinance was to be administered, I took a seat in a pew alone. I watched to see which aisle the good deacon would serve, and concluded to sit there, so as not to seem clandestinely seeking from another deacon, who would not know me, my inhibited bread; for I wished to be honorable in the transaction, and, besides, I desired that my friend should see me, and, if he had changed his mind, give me the symbols. So I sat where he would pass, in a pew by myself, but he did not look at me."
"How did it make you feel?" said I.
"In some respects," said he, "I never enjoyed my thoughts more at the administration of the Supper. I had no feeling of resentment or ill-will. The exclusion of four fifths of the Christian family from the Lord's table by one portion of it, for such a reason, seemed to leave me in such good company, that I said to myself, 'They that be with us are more than they that be with them.' I rejoiced in Robert Hall, John Bunyan, and others like them. I thought of that interesting piece in Bunyan's works, 'Water Baptism no Bar to Communion.' I questioned whether this church and its sister churches would not hear a mild reproof from the lips of Christ,—'I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.' Certainly they could not say with Job, 'If I have eaten my morsel alone.' Using the table of Christ for a wall or bars against acknowledged Christians,—that table, that Supper, which, of all places and scenes, is most suggestive of communion and fellowship,—seemed to me so great a mistake, that I could not in charity regard it as a sin, because, as such, it would be so criminal. I always believed, before, that the mode of baptism was not essential to Christian fellowship; but that afternoon I saw it, I felt it; I worked out the sum myself, and saw the demonstration, I felt very happy in belonging to the great host of God's people who can commune together, however much they differ."
"While I was sitting there alone, put aside, one might say, by my brothers and sisters, whom I had, as it were, run in so cordially to meet, one thought came over me, as they were feasting with Christ, which made me weep. I thought of the possibility of being set aside in the great day. I said, to myself:
'I love to meet thy people now,
Before thy face with them to bow,
Though vilest of them all;
But, can I bear the dreadful thought,
What if my name should be left out
When thou for them dost call?'"
"This did me good. Yet, while I was sitting there, I seemed to see the Saviour approach me, with a smile. His look seemed very significant, as though he would say, 'I understand it.' Those words came to my mind: 'Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and, when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.' I surely said and did this."
"Never before," said he, "had I such views of the condescension and gentleness of Christ toward us, erring creatures. Here was a church erring, it seemed to me, in a point which must peculiarly wound the heart of the Redeemer, whose last discourse with his disciples had this for its burden, that ye love one another. And yet there were, in that church, many with whom Christ was communing with a love that seemed to them unqualified. So he treats us all. I never had a greater flow of charity toward all my fellow-Christians than on that occasion. I resolved that I never would be a sectarian in anything, while I also felt more strongly than ever attached to my own views, and confident of their truthfulness, and in love with their beauty."
When he had finished his narration, his wife asked me what I thought with regard to her husband's proceedings. I asked her to state particularly what she had in mind. She then expressed a doubt whether it were proper for us to intrude upon fellow-Christians, when we know that their principles forbid their communing with us. She said that she remonstrated with her husband, as soon as he told her that the ordinance was not free to all evangelical Christians, and that she tried to dissuade him from appearing to obtrude himself. She did not view it as uncharitableness, but only as a denominational rule.
I asked her what her husband said in self-defence;—for we loved to hear her conversation.
She said that he turned it off by saying, "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry."