Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories

by Sarah S. Baker

The pastor was a stout, sensible-looking man, with a plain, quiet face, and a modest, shy air. Indeed, he was hardly at ease anywhere, except in his home, or in the pulpit or chancel, where the sense of the sacredness of his official duties made him unmindful of earthly witnesses.

Now he thought it a stay to have his wife with him; for the informal nature of the meeting, and the beginning of something new, made the whole at first an effort for him.

Perhaps the pastor, in the presence of persons of high standing, found it impossible to forget his humble birth, and suspected that in some way there was always a lack of gentility about him; while with companions of more modest pretensions he must maintain the distant dignity which he fancied appertained to his profession.

He was a straightforward, matter-of-fact man, who intended in all things, temporal and spiritual, to do his duty. He believed fully in the inspiration of the Bible from cover to cover, and was possibly convinced that every word, and almost every letter, in the then authorized Swedish version had a sanction not to be disputed. In his view the sacraments, properly administered, were direct, undoubted channels of grace. The organization of his church was perfect, he was sure, to the least particular, and would have the approval of the apostles were they now on earth, though during their lives the circumstances of their surroundings might have made it impossible for them to have their ministrations conducted according to the admirable order so long established in Sweden. Martin Luther he looked upon as having a kind of supplemental apostleship, almost as incontestable as that of Peter himself. Luther's catechism was for him the best medium for imparting religious instruction to children, and for strengthening the Christian life of young people approaching maturity. With this sound, hearty belief in what he was called on to teach, and with the rules for his ministrations, his work was simple and most agreeable.

The pastor was not an emotional man. He had never been deeply stirred by religious feelings of any kind. He had had no agonies of penitence, no distressing doubts, no strong struggles with temper, no vivid thought of the possibility of his being excluded from eternal blessedness. His heavenly Father was to him rather a theological abstraction than a near and ever-loving friend. The Saviour was to him more an element in a perfect creed than the Deliverer—the hand stretched out to the drowning man—the one hope of poor tempted humanity.

The pastor was, in his way, a good man, a kind man, an unselfish, true, sincere man. Peaceful he lived, peaceful he ministered, and yet heart to heart he came with no human brother. With no human brother, we say; but there was one woman whose life interpenetrated his, if they did not in all things come heart to heart. Her presence gave him a sense of sunshine and quiet happiness that was the greatest joy of which his nature was capable.

Merry, impulsive, devoted, self-sacrificing by nature, the whole existence of the pastor's wife was pervaded by a Christian life that exalted her naturally lovely traits, and made her shortcomings the source of a sweet, childlike penitence that was almost as lovely and attractive as her virtues. She had soon found that the deep language of her inner soul was to her husband an unknown tongue. Of her spiritual struggles and joys and exaltations she did not speak to him or to any other human being. They were her secret with her God and Saviour. Yet her husband stood to her on a pinnacle, as rounded in character, blameless in life, and perfect in his ministrations. Almost angelic he seemed to her when he stood in the chancel, and in his deep, melodious voice sang all the parts of the service that the church rules allowed to be so given.

The pastor's sermons were excellent compositions. Compositions they were in the strictest sense of the word. The epistles and gospels for the ecclesiastical year were the authorized and usual subjects for the sermons, being called even in common parlance "the text for the day." These texts had been so elaborated and expounded by wise divines whose works were to be had in print, that when a sermon was to be written, our pastor but got out his books of sermons, studied, compared, compiled, extracted, transformed, and rewrote, until on Friday his sermon for the coming Sunday was always ready. He had made it his own by hard, conscientious work, and not without a deep sense that he was, in his way, to deliver a divine message as an authorized ambassador of the King of kings, accredited and appointed in an unimpeachable manner.

With his confirmation class the pastor was different. He was fond of young people. He had been young himself, and had not forgotten the circumstance.

He was getting a little impatient to see the fresh faces he was expecting at the first meeting of the class, when Johanson made his appearance, bowed distantly, and took the seat nearest the door. He had passed through a knot of young people without, who were, with some cuffing and shoving, contending who should go in first on this to them august occasion. Johanson had left the door slightly ajar, and little Elsa, the pastor's child, having caught a glimpse of a familiar face, ran out, to come back immediately leading triumphantly a rosy-cheeked girl, who was all blushes as she was brought into the dining-room, made to her for the time sacred ground. Of course, the whole troop from without, boys and girls, followed, taking opposite sides of the room.