Sunday was "some" day! Early service at 8 o'clock, a hurried
breakfast at 8.45, and then we started for the mission chapel, where
the archdeacon was to preach. I was curious to see how this scholar
would adapt himself to the sort of congregation I knew he would meet
there. Nothing could have been better. He did not "condescend to
men of low estate," but gave them as thoughtful a message as he would
have delivered at the university, yet clothed in such simple language
as the most unlearned could understand.
"Truly," I said to myself, "here is a scribe who bringeth out of his
treasure things new as well as old."
The archdeacon has, of course, besides his duty as vicar, many calls
for work outside the parish. I was told that this day he was to
preach at a church some twelve miles distant, and, therefore, there
would be no time for dinner! However, Mrs. Williams made us a
package of sandwiches, which we munched as we drove to the church
where he was to preach the annual sermon on education.
The church was a barn of a place, and the atmosphere decidedly
"evangelical." There were the old square pews which one sees in
pictures of the eighteenth century; and when we knelt down my legs
were covered by the voluminous folds of a bright-blue silk dress,
worn by a farmer's wife, so that I was not quite sure of my identity,
till a pair of stout white stockings, encasing most solid ankles,
showed me that my own legs had not yet emerged!
The sermon was a plea for parochial schools, which would have left me
cold had it not been for the interpretation of the Parable of the
Sower, from which the text was taken. "The soil," said the preacher,
"is human nature. At the first glance it might seem as if man was no
more responsible for his character than is a field for the different
conditions of its soil. But there would have been no 'gospel,' that
is, 'good news,' in that. No, what it means, every farmer will
understand. There is no soil that is hopeless, and none that does
not need to be cultivated. Our schools are to make poor soil good,
and good soil better." And so on.
On the way home the subject of education could not be ignored. The
archdeacon was none too pleased to learn that I did not think well of
parochial schools, and insisted that "godless" schools were worse
than none. He would not agree that dogmatic teaching might be
dispensed with and yet character be built up. When I pointed out
that Jews and Catholics made up a large part of our urban population,
and, not unnaturally, the one objected to Christian and the other to
Protestant teaching, he could only see how unfortunate it was that we
had no Established Church! Once more I was impressed by the fact
that no man is liberal all through! Though he had been in the
"States," his journey had led him only to the South--and that, too,
in the days of Reconstruction. He had never seen New York or Ohio or
New England, so that I could not feel that he was to be blamed for
thinking poorly of our school system. But he made one remark worth
remembering, to see if he is a "seer" as well as a prophet, which
latter he assuredly is.
"You are doing the thing on the 'cheap.' You do not pay your
teachers enough to make it worth while for men to make teaching a
profession, and, as a result, not only the girls but the boys as well
are for years under the influence of women. This is bad and cannot
fail to affect the national character--as you will find if a great
crisis were to come. It may, as I have heard it said, tend to
'refinement' of speech and manners, but the price is too high. It
will make them effeminate, that is, sentimental, and sometimes
hysterical. It is the manly virtues of endurance and disregard of
trifles, which men alone can inculcate, which have made England what
she is. Should a great war come--and I fear that cannot be long
delayed--you will find your boys cannot bear the strain."
I hope that, as Nehemiah liked to say, "It may be counted to me for
righteousness" that I refrained from mentioning 1776, or 1812, or
even the Civil War--the "Bloody Angle," and Pickett's charge at
Gettysburg--for that might have raised the _Alabama_!
In the evening I preached in the parish church--"the noblest parish
church in England," I was told Ruskin called it. Well, the sermon
was not worthy of the church. I don't know what was the matter. You
know how such things go! One trouble was that, all the time I was
speaking, I wished to say something else! Ruth haunted me! I could
hear her whispering: "Better be dull and decent than 'start
something'!" So I was dull!
At nine o'clock we sat down to a supper of cold beef and bread and
cheese, and mighty good they tasted. Now was not that a day? I
asked the archdeacon if it had been an exceptional day. "Oh, no," he
said, "I should say an average day. I often go to the town hall
after evening service and speak to the men who do not care to come to
church. 'Securalists,' they call themselves, and as they are almost
sure to heckle one, it is generally interesting, and sometimes
exhausting."
There is no doubt that the English clergy work harder than we
do--that is, those who pretend to work. While Americans find the
climate trying, I am inclined to think one can accomplish more in a
climate like this than in ours, which alternately exhilarates and
depresses one. But I suspect there is a deeper reason which we do
not like to admit, which is that they are better educated than we
are! With us there is too much "cramming" for the occasion, whereas
they have a treasury from which they can draw as they have need. It
is possible also that there is an advantage in an established church
which has not been recognized. While the "dumb dogs" take advantage
of the "vested interest" to do as little as possible, the best men
work in an atmosphere of leisure almost unknown to us. Unconsciously
we are influenced by the competition which is the "life of trade." I
do not mean that we do this in any unworthy manner, but with the
subconscious feeling that we are expected to "make good," and this
leads to "pressing," which is as fatal to the best work as it is to
the best golf! Men like Williams seem to me to work without haste
and without rest.
It was no "Blue Monday" to which I awoke. All was healthy activity,
as if Sunday had been indeed a day of rest. The children were shooed
into the schoolroom, for though it was the holidays, there were tasks
which must be done before the next term. Mrs. Williams had a meeting
of women, for some good work, and the archdeacon had gone to his
study as soon as breakfast was finished to talk over and arrange with
his curates the work of the new week.
So I drove to the station in a "fly," and bought a third-class
ticket. But as I was about to take my place, the guard appeared and,
touching his cap, asked if I was from the vicarage. When I said,
"Yes," he said, "This way, please," and showed me into a first-class
carriage, the door of which he promptly locked, when he had again
touched his cap and said: "Thank you, sir."
"But," you will say, "this was 'graft'!" How crude you are! Do you
not know that "graft" is confined to Tammany Hall? This was proper
respect to persons of importance!
"Convey, the wise it call. Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase."