WILLIAM ENTERS HIS WORLDLY MIND
This is the wonderful thing about the pure in heart--they do see God.
And that was William's distinction. In spite of his own faults and of
ethical errors in some of his preaching, he outstripped all these and
did actually see God; and it made him different from other men who,
however wise, do not see God. On this account I have no doubt that he
fumbled more souls into the Kingdom of Heaven than some of the most
popular tabernacle preachers of modern times.
Nevertheless, William had his worldly mind. There was an ancient
Antaeus in him whose heel occasionally touched the strengthening earth,
and he was as unconscious of it as a baby is of its expression. But,
once he entered his worldly mind, he became as naïvely unscrupulous as
any other man of the world. Never, in all the years we lived together,
did he repent of these particular deeds done in the body. He could be
brought to the very sackcloth and ashes for a supposititious sin that
he had not really committed; but no man could make him repent of a
horse trade, and I never knew but one who had the best of him in one.
In common with all circuit riders he had a passion for horses, and a
knowledge of them that would have made his fortune on the race track.
This brings me to relate an incident which will serve to indicate the
shrewdness and unscrupulousness of William once he took the spiritual
bit in his teeth.
We were on the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse--a
horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome,
race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at
Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the
big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William
tightened the reins, took on a scandalous expression of Coliseum
delight and let the horse out. Instantly the thin flanks of the
creature tautened, he laid his tail over the dashboard, stretched his
neck, flattened his ears and settled himself close to the ground in
action that showed sinful training. William's expression developed
into one of ecstasy that was far from spiritual, and I had much ado to
keep my hat on. Presently we heard the clatter of another horse's feet
behind us, and the next moment the bay was neck and neck with Charlie
Weaver's black mare. Charlie was one of the younger goats in the
Beaverdam congregation, whose chief distinction was that he was an
outbreaking sinner and owned the fastest horse in the county.
Instantly William's whole nature changed; he was no more a minister
than the florid young man in the buggy that was whirling giddily beside
us. He tightened his reins and touched the bay with his whip. The
effect was miraculous; the horse leaped forward in a splendid burst of
speed, the mare showed signs of irritation and broke her gait, and the
two jockeys exchanged challenging glances. At that moment we rounded a
curve in the road, and in the hot dust ahead there came to view a
heavy, old-fashioned rockaway drawn slowly by a pair of sunburned
plow-horses.
"Oh, William," I gasped, "do stop! That is the Brock carriage and this
is a horse race!"
Brother Brock was a rich Methodist steward who not only owned most of
the property in Beaverdam neighborhood, but the church as well. He was
a sharp-faced man who gave you the impression that his immortal soul
had cat whiskers. He fattened his tyrannical faculties upon the
meekness of the preacher and the helplessness of a congregation largely
dependent upon him to pay the pastor's salary and the church
assessments. Any preacher who offended him was destined to be deprived
of his subscriptions. Knowing this I took an anxious, economical view
of the old rockaway heaving forward in the road ahead and vainly
implored William to slacken his speed to a moral, ministerial gait.
In another moment it was over. The mare crashed into the rockaway on
one side and the bay shattered the swingletree on the other with the
forewheel of our buggy. The old plow-horses plunged feebly, then
lowered their heads in native dejection, while the Brocks shrieked,
root and branch. Never have I seen such a look of feline ferocity upon
the human countenance as when Brother Brock scrambled down from his
seat into the road and, with his mouse-catching eyes, added William
Asbury Thompson, preacher, to Charles Jason Weaver, loafer, drunkard
and horse racer, and placed the sum of them on the blackboard of his
outer darkness. I sat in the buggy, holding the reins over the
trembling, wild-eyed bay, while William descended and, with great
dignity, tied up the disabled swingletree. There was not the slightest
evidence of moral repentance in his manner, although he expressed a
polite, man-of-the-world regret at the accident.
When Brother Brock resumed his place on the driver's seat and Sister
Brock had ascended to hers with the cacklings of a hen who had been
rudely snatched from her nest, and all the medium-sized and little
Brocks were safely bestowed beside her, we drove on at a funeral's pace
behind them. The bay was grossly insulted, but it was the only mark of
humility left within our reach.
Three days later the Presiding Elder appeared at the parsonage door.
He was a big man, riding a handsome gray horse and wearing a look of
executive severity. I trembled with apprehension, for we had heard, of
course, that Brother Brock had written to him preferring charges
against William for horse racing. But now I had an astonishing and
unexpected view of William's character. His worldly mood was still
upon him, his Antaeus heel still upon the earth. He hurried out to
meet Doctor Betterled, the elder, and, having thrown the saddlebags of
his guest across his shoulder, stood apparently transfixed with
admiration before the gray horse.
"I'd almost be willing to swap my bay for him!" I heard him say.
"Let's see the bay," replied Doctor Betterled guardedly.
Five minutes later, peeping through the kitchen window, I saw the
mettlesome bay standing beside the big-headed, thick-necked gray, and
the two men, each with one foot planted far forward after the manner of
traders, facing one another with concert eloquence concerning the
respective merits of the two animals. Presently they entered the house
together, Doctor Betterled evidently in a cheerful frame of mind and
William wearing his chastened look.
Late in the afternoon, when our guest rode away, he was mounted on the
bay; but he had not mentioned the horse race of the previous Saturday.
William stood, the genial host, bareheaded at the gate till the rider's
back was turned; then he came into the house, dropped into a chair at
the open window and fixed his eyes, with a deep frown above them, upon
the gray horse asleep in his dotage under the apple tree in the
barnyard.
"That horse has three windgalls, he is swinneyed in both shoulders, and
I think he has a gravel in one of his forefeet!" he remarked in a tone
of deep dejection.
I laughed and felt more nearly kin to him morally than I had ever felt
before. There was a squint-eyed shrewdness in the way he involved and
disposed of the Presiding Elder that was wittily familiar to me, and
all the more diverting because William never suspected the
Machiavellian character of his conduct. He kept his eye on God, as
usual, letting not his soul's right hand know what his left one was
doing.
But, going back to Brother Brock and the subject of Methodist stewards
in general. The preacher soon discovers that the rich ones are the
most obstreperous. And besides the good ones, the rich, obstreperous
ones are divided into two classes. The first class consists of those
who threaten to resign if everything is not done according to their
desires, which they hide and compel you to find out the best way you
can. Occasionally a preacher gets into a community where everybody in
the church--from the janitor to the steward and treasurer--has this
mania for threatening to resign.
I shall never forget William's first experience with such a church. It
was in a little village where human interest consisted in everybody
hating, suspecting or despising everyone else. He went about like a
damned soul, trying to restore peace and brotherly love. But they
would have none of either. Each steward approached him privately and
tendered his resignation, giving reasons that reflected upon the
character of some other steward. Then the organist tendered her
resignation because the Sunday-school superintendent had reflected upon
her playing, and she retaliated by reflecting upon his unmarried
morals. When the superintendent heard of her complaint and withdrawal
he at once sent in his resignation, because he did not wish to cause
contention in the church.
William afterward discovered that they treated every new preacher the
same way, taking advantage of the opportunity to damage each other as
much as possible and to try his faith to the limit. But the delightful
thing about William was that where his patience and faith gave out his
natural human blood began to boil, and when that started he could
preach some of the finest, fiercest, most truthful Gospel I have ever
heard from any preacher. So it happened in this church.
When he was in certain spiritual--or, to be more precise,
unspiritual--moods he refused to shave, but wore the stubble on his
chin, either by way of mourning or defiance, as the case might be. On
this Sabbath he presented a ferocious chin to the congregation, after
having waited patiently for all of the resigners to take their
respective prominent places in it. He preached a short sermon with the
air of a plagued, unkempt angel; then he took up the resignations and
read them out exactly as he read the church letters of new members,
accepting each one and giving the reasons why. It was the most
sensational service ever held in that church. In the first place, to
accept their resignations was an unprecedented proceeding and the last
thing they had expected him to do. The custom had been for the
preacher to persuade them to keep their offices, which they had done
from year to year with an air of proud reluctance. But the sensation
was when he stated, literally, what each had said of the other--calling
no names, of course--and saying that he was glad that these sinners had
had the humility to give up positions of trust and honor in the church
which they were evidently unfit to fill. He hoped before the end of
the year they would be restored spiritually and worthy to perform the
services they had formerly performed. Meanwhile, there was nothing
left for him to do but to appoint a committee of sinners to attend to
the stewards' duties until these should be reclaimed from their
backslidden state. He named half a dozen young men who roosted on the
back benches after the manner of happy, young lost souls, and I do not
know whether it was astonishment or mischief that led them to accept
with such alacrity the obligations imposed upon them. But William has
always claimed since that they were the most active and effective
stewards he ever had, that it was the first year he had ever received
his salary in full, and the congregation was thoroughly cured of the
resignation habit.
The second class of obstreperous stewards is easier to manage. The
quality of their perversity is exactly that of the mule's. William
never had to move a church, get a new roof on one or an organ for it,
or even a communion table, that some well-to-do steward did not lie
back in the traces, back his official ears and begin to balk and kick
mule fashion. Often they were good men in every other particular, but
they were simply queer reversions to type--which indicates that at one
time, not so far back in the history of evolution, all men were mules.
The only way to manage them is to wait till they change their minds,
just as the driver must wait upon his stubborn donkey. For you can
never move one by reason or by threats. He would die and go to the
wrong place rather than give up his point. This is why you will see
some churches going to rack, antiquated and out of touch with the life
about them. Look inside and you will find some old mule steward
stalled in the amen corner, with his ears laid back at the pulpit or at
the other stewards.
I pass, without giving details, over several years; they were much like
these first ones. I soon learned, however, that life in the Methodist
Church was all uphill or downhill at a smart spiritual canter. In
these days it is nearly as easy to be a Methodist as it is to be an
Episcopalian.
One rarely sees now the hallelujah end of a human emotion in a
Methodist church. Recently, when an old-fashioned saint gave way and
scandalized the preacher by shouting in one of our fashionable city
churches, the stewards took her out, put her in an ambulance and sent
her to the hospital. And I am not saying that the dear old soul didn't
need a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia; but if every man who
shouts at a political rally were sent to the hospital for treatment the
real sick would be obliged to move out to give them room. As for me, I
contend that a little shouting is good for the soul; it is the human
hysteria of a very high form of happiness, more edifying to unhappy
sinners than the refrigerated manners of some modern saints.
Anyhow, I say there were no level grounds in Methodist experience in
William's and my early days in the itinerancy. No matter how young or
old or respectable they might be, those received into membership were
expected to show signs of awful conviction for sin, to repent
definitely--preferably in solemn abasement at the church altar--and to
experience a sky-blue conversion. There were no such things as we see
now--boys and girls simply graduating into church membership from the
Sunday-school senior or junior class. I am not saying it is wrong, you
understand; on the contrary, it would be much better for the church if
it did more spiritual hospital work among the kind of people who are
too bad even to go to Sunday-school. I think they all ought to be
taken into the church and kept there till they get well spiritually and
decent morally. Then they might be discharged as other cured people
are, to go back into the world to do the world's work properly instead
of improperly.
As it is, one trouble with all the churches is that they have too many
incurable saints in them, men and women who pray too much and do too
little, who cannot forget their own selfish salvation enough to look
after other people's without feeling their own spiritual pulse all the
time they are doing it. Of late I've sometimes suspected that it is
nearly as debilitating to stay in the church all the time as it would
be to stay in a hospital all the time.
But I am telling now how things were twenty-five and thirty years ago.
After conversion an honest Methodist's life was divided into two
parts--the seasons when he was "in grace" and the seasons when he was
out of it. Naturally, the preacher had his hands full looking after
such members instead of having his hands full, as he does now,
attending committee meetings and mission classes and what not, for the
ethical uplifting of the native poor and the foreign heathen. For, if
old Brother Settles, of Raburn Gap Church, was up and coming, resisting
temptation and growing like Jonah's gourd spiritually, apt as not young
Brother Jimmy Trotter, of Bee Creek Church, had backslid and gone on a
spree.
There was never a night when William's family-prayer instinct did not
include both of them with equal anxiety, and often he would reach back
into past circuits for some especially dear sinner and remind the Lord
to have mercy on him also, while He was at His mercies. He could
forget the saints he had known, easy enough, but he clung year after
year to the sinners he had found, name by name.
If the redeemed really do wear crowns in Heaven, with jewels in them to
represent the souls they have helped to save, I know William's will not
look very handsome. There will be no flashing diamonds or emeralds in
it, but he will have it set with very common stones to symbolize the
kind of souls that were most dear to him. There will be a dull jade
for the young country woman that he brought back home from the city and
saved from a life of sin, and, maybe, a bit of red glass for Sammy
Peters, the young man with whom he was wont to go through such orgies
of repentance on account of Sammy's many scandalous transgressions.
And he will have a piece of granite beaten down into fine gold for the
old man who repented before it was too late. And I reckon he will be
sitting somewhere upon the dimmer outskirts of Paradise most of the
time, with grandly-folded wings, holding the thing in his hands instead
of wearing it on his head; and he will be recalling those for whom the
stones stand, with a tender homesickness for them. For even in Heaven
he will be lonely without them, his dear, straying sheep.
Always the people we served were poor, and, of course, we were a trifle
poorer. The circuit rider is not only a priest to his people, but he
is a good deal of a mendicant besides. William rarely returned from an
appointment or from visiting among his flock that he did not bring with
him some largess of their kindness. This made pastoral visiting an
amiable form of foraging and had its effect on character. We were
continually struggling against the beggar instinct that is dormant in
every hopelessly poor man. We were tempted within and without.
Sometimes we could not live on the salary paid, neither could we refuse
the gifts offered without giving offense. If it was winter he would
come back with the pockets of his great-coat stuffed with sausage, or
there would be a tray of backbone, souse and spareribs under the buggy
seat. If it was summer the wide back would be filled with fruit. One
old lady on the Raburn Gap Circuit, famous for her stinginess, never
varied her gift with the seasons. It was always dried peaches with the
skins on them. But, as a rule, we received the very best they had to
give, and with a fragrant openheartedness that sweetens memory. This
is the glory of the itinerancy: if the preacher sees the worst of the
people, knows their faults and weaknesses better than any other man, he
also knows their virtues better.
Once, when we were far up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
where the people had no money at all except that which they received
for a few loads of tanbark and with which they paid their taxes, we
came to desperate straits. Now, it so happened that year that the
women in a rich city church sent out Christmas boxes containing
clothing and other necessities. We were fortunate enough to receive
one of these, and I flourished forth in singularly fashionable garments
for a season, while William made a splendid appearance in the cast-off
dinner suit of a certain rich but wicked Congressman. The swaggering
cut of the coat, however, gave almost a sacrilegious grace to his
gestures in the pulpit.