FINANCES AND FASHIONS
It is curious what things are revealed to us as we go along. I used to
wonder, because William wondered, where, in what year, Paul did this or
that which is recorded in Acts. I remember how William used to get
down his commentaries and squint everywhere along margins for dates to
discover exactly where he was in the spring, say, of 54 A. D. At the
time it was passing strange to me that no exact record of dates was
taken concerning the doings of a man who occasionally turned the world
upside down as he went through it. But now it is perfectly clear.
Those who wrote never specified whether it was the first or second
Sunday that Paul said thus and so at Antioch. The record was merely of
the timeless truth he uttered, because Paul and the rest of them
engaged in this Scripture-making and doing back there were already out
of time in their consciousness. They were figures in Eternity making
the great journey by another calendar than ours.
Since I have been writing this poor record of William, it is not time
that matters to me. I forget to tell of his years in each chapter, or
to describe the changes in his appearance. The things he did, the
prayers he prayed, the faith he exercised, these crowd the memory--all
so much alike, as one day resembles another day, and as one prayer
resembles another prayer. But the dates have long since faded from my
mind. I cannot recall, for example, when his shoulders first began to
stoop, nor when he ceased to go clean-shaven, nor the year it was that
his hair and beard whitened, nor when the hollows deepened to stay
beneath his eyes. All I remember for certain was the changeless spirit
of him, and the unconquerable courage he showed about getting ready to
put off his mortality and the definite curious vividness with which he
anticipated immortality.
And in other ways I have unusual difficulty in telling here what he
said and did. The activities of a minister's life differ so widely
from the activities of any other life that even to set them down
requires a peculiar vocabulary. One cannot find the right kind even in
church reports and statistics, but they must bear some great likeness
to the words used in the Acts of the Apostles. I do not know how to
describe them, but every man knows them when he hears them, for the
language of Christianity is the one language that never changes. It
gets a new translation now and then, but it is always informed with the
same spirit, the same lofty pilgrim-phrases and prayer-sounding verbs.
And the minister learns them because he needs them in the world where
he moves.
I make an exception here of those preachers who develop a gift for
church enterprise, for getting up funds for "improvements" of one sort
and another. The account they give of their stewardship is not very
different from that of any other business man. And they are needed.
They do the greater part towards keeping the church housed,
conspicuously steepled and visible to the world that passes by. They
are the preachers in every Conference who are sent to "works" where a
new church or a new parsonage is needed. And some of them have heroic
records in collecting for these purposes. I would not take a single
dollar from the sum of their renown. But this is a memorial to
William, and he was not one of these. He was really an excellent
preacher, a devoted pastor, but he had more spiritual intuitions than
common sense about managing the practical details of the pastorate. I
recognized this deficiency in him as we went along together in the
itinerancy, and feeling that it was important for the Presiding Elder
to have a good opinion of him in every way, I must have perjured myself
to every one of them year by year, singing William's praises as a
business man when I knew he was as innocent of business as the angels
in Heaven. If he had been the kind of man I represented him to be, he
would have been a sort of hallelujah cross and crisscross between
Daniel Webster, John D. Rockefeller and St. Paul. And I remember the
genial patience with which the gray-headed elders used to listen to my
Williamanic paeans. But they could not have believed me, for he was
never sent to a place where visible mortar and stone work had to be
accomplished for the advancement of the church. And now, when it is
all over, when the violets are blooming so much at home above his dear
dust, I feel at last that I can afford to confess his beautiful
limitations.
After you are dead it doesn't matter if you were not successful in a
business way. No one has yet had the courage to memorialize his wealth
on his tombstone. A dollar mark would not look well there. The best
epitaph proclaims simple old Scripture virtues, like honesty and
diligence and patience. And you will observe that when the meanest
skinflint or the most disgracefully avaricious millionaire dies, his
tombstone never refers to his most notorious characteristics. His
friends speak not of his scandalous speculations, but of his
benevolences. Thus some of the most conscienceless rogues in a
generation go down to posterity with expurgated tablets to their
memory, which of course is best for posterity.
So I do not mind now admitting that William was a poor money-getter,
but he actually did have the virtues that look well recorded on his
tombstone. I can even recall, with a sort of tearful humor, some of
his efforts at practical church thinking. He entertained with naïve
enthusiasm, for example, a certain proposition for regulating the
support of the ministry, and would have sent it as a memorial to the
General Conference, but for my interference. He had elaborated a plan
by which every Methodist preacher should receive his salary on the pro
rata basis as the superannuates do, according to the funds in hand, and
according to their needs. It would be taken like any other Conference
collection, turned in like any other to the treasury for this purpose.
But the preacher on a mountain circuit with a wife and eight children
would receive twenty-five hundred dollars, and the one with only a
wife, even though he might be the pastor of a rich city church, would
receive only a thousand dollars.
Such a distribution of income would have placed a premium upon
ministerial posterity and would have been as fatal as socialism to
competition for the best pulpits in the Church connection. But I did
not use this argument to William. He could not appreciate it. He was
even capable of claiming that it proved the virtue of his proposition.
"William," I exclaimed, when he confided in me, "promise me that you
will never mention this dreadful plan, not even to a steward or to the
Presiding Elder. It tends to Socialism, Communism and to Church
volcanics generally. Your reputation would be ruined if you were
suspected of entertaining such incendiary ideas!"
He was aghast, having always regarded the very terms I used to describe
his plan with righteous horror. And that was the last I ever heard of
his pro rata salary system.
Still, if all the preachers in the Church were as literally in earnest
about living just to preach the gospel as William was, it would have
been a good one. The fact is they are not. The very gifted, highly
educated pastor of a rich city church feels it down to his spiritual
bones that his gospel is worth more than that of the simple-minded
itinerant on a country circuit. And most of them would have to
experience something more illuminating and stringent even than the
"second blessing" before they could be made to see the matter
differently. And I do not blame them. We just can't get over being
human and greedy and covetous anywhere, it seems, especially in a rich
pulpit. William stood a better chance for developing the right
heavenly mind in his part of the vineyard. And I ought to have been
satisfied to see the way he grew in grace, and in that finer, sweeter
knowledge of the Lord and his ways, but I never was.
I used to think, too, that his gospel was worth more than some other
preacher's who received a better salary. But it comforts me now to
know that he never thought it. If William was covetous about anything
it was salvation. He was never satisfied with being as good as he was.
He was always longing and praying and going about in the effort just to
be a better man, more worthy of the message he had to deliver. These
were the kind of seraphic pleasures he took in living. And there was
no mortal power, no poverty or hardship that could do him out of them.
He would come back from feeding some vicious sinner with his gospel
substances exhilarated. It seemed to strengthen his spirit to drive
five miles through freezing winter weather to some country church to
preach to half a dozen men and women who may have only come on such a
bad day with the hope of finding that the preacher failed to come, a
shepherd unfaithful to his flock in a trying season. And of course, if
you are called to preach, this is the way to be, but if you are called
to be just the wife of a preacher, it is different. I do not say it
ought to be, but it is. I used to get tired of being poor in spirit.
There came days when I wanted to inherit the earth, the real earth, you
understand. The figure of speech might have been better for my soul,
but what I hankered after was something opulent and comfortable for
just the human me. And this brings to mind an incident that happened
when I was in one of these moods.
We were stationed that year at Celestial Bells, a place where, as I
have already intimated, the people had some kind of happy beam in their
eye. They were not only willing to be Christians, they were determined
to be. But they were equally determined to enjoy every other good
thing they saw in sight. This led to many social occasions, afternoon
teas, receptions, innocent entertainments, to no end of visiting and to
a fashionableness in everybody's appearance that was scandalously
fascinating to me.
Now and then I have heard some stupid stranger refer to Celestial Bells
as an ugly little town, but in my memory it is spread forever in the
sun, sweetly shining like a flower-garden wing of Paradise. It was
there after so many years that I came in contact again with simple
human gayety, with women prettily gowned, with the charming clatter of
light conversation and within the sound of music that was not always
hymnal. I do not say, mind you, that I did not listen always
reverently and gratefully to William's higher talk, nor that I have
ever ceased to enjoy good church music, but I am confessing that, in
spite of long training in experience-meeting monologues and organ
tunes, I was still ecstatically capable of this other kind of delight.
As the Minister's Wife I was asked everywhere. In all well-bred
communities the preacher's wife is given the free moral agent's
opportunity to draw her own line between the world and the church. If
she refuses a series of invitations to teas and clubs and receptions,
it is understood that she is not of the world, will have none of it,
and she is left to pursue her pious way to just the church services and
missionary meetings. But I refused to draw the spiritual line between
tea parties and the bible-class study evening. I accepted every
invitation with alacrity. There was nothing radically wrong, I
believe, with my heavenly mind, it simply extended further down and
around about than that of some others in my position.
One circumstance only interfered with my pleasures. This was the
curious sag and limpness, and color and style of my clothes. It is no
mystery to me why dress fashions for women connected with the
itinerancy tend to mourning shades. When you put the world out of your
life, you put the sweet vanity of color out. You eschew red and pink
and tender sky-blues and present your bodies living sacrifices in black
materials. I do not believe that God requires it. The Maker of the
heavens and the earth, of the green boughs and of the myriad-faced
flowers must be a lover of colors. But I cannot recall ever having
seen a Circuit Rider's Wife in my life whose few garments were not
pathetically dashed with this gloom of mourning darkness.
So, when we came to Celestial Bells, I say, I had a black sateen waist
and a gray cheviot skirt still worthy to be worn to church and prayer
meeting services, and a sadder blacker gown that had done service for
four years upon funeral occasions and others equally as solemn, like
weddings. These were all, except the calicos I wore at home. The
result was that I must have looked like some sort of sacrilegious crow
at every social function in Celestial Bells during the first few
months. But as the Spring advanced, I took my courage in my hands and
resolved to have a blue foulard silk. It was frightfully expensive,
seventy-five cents a yard, in fact, to say nothing of a white lace yoke
and a black panne velvet belt. But no bride ever contemplated her
"going away" gown with more satisfaction. I pictured myself in it
before I even purchased it attending Sister Z's tea party, _looking
like other women_! I do not recommend this as high ambition, but those
preachers' wives in the remote places who have worn drab and
sorrowfully cut clothes for years will know how I felt. I think there
is something pitiful in women just here. No matter how old and
consecrated they get, they do in their secret hearts often long to be
pretty, to look well dressed and--yes, light-hearted. The latter is so
becoming to them.
But it is in the itinerancy as it is in other walks of life. Just as
you think you are about to get your natural heart's desire somebody
slams the Bible down on it, or gets an answer to prayer that spoils
your pleasure in it. So it was in my case.
It was the first foreign missionary meeting of the new fiscal year, one
day in March. We met at Sister MacL's house. The jonquils were in
bloom, the world was fair, and out in the orchards we could see the
peach trees one mass of pink blossoms. I never felt more religious or
thankful in my life, there in the little green parlor listening to the
opening hymn. The roll was called, showing that we had an unusually
full meeting. The minutes were read, then came a discussion concerning
dues for the coming year. All this time Sister Shaller had been
presiding with her usual dignity. She was a beautiful woman,
childless, and much praised for her interest in church works. She was
rich and enjoyed the peculiar distinction of wearing very fashionable
gowns even to church. Upon this occasion something reserved, potential
and authoritative in her manner made me nervous. I had a premonition
that she was after somebody's dearest idol. And I was not left long in
suspense as to whose it was.
Fixing her wide brown eyes upon us with hypnotic intensity she said she
had felt moved, unaccountably moved, to tell the Auxiliary that we must
support a foreign female missionary this coming year. The silence that
met this announcement was sad and submissive. We were already paying
all the dues we could afford, this meant fifty dollars extra, and not a
single one of us wanted to send the missionary except Sister Shaller.
She went on to say, in her deep mezzo soprano voice, that she knew it
meant sacrifice for us, but that it was by just such sacrifices that we
grew in grace, and she desired to suggest the nature of the sacrifice,
one that we would probably feel the most, and would therefore be the
most beneficial.
"Suppose each of us resolves to do without our Spring gown for Easter.
Oh, my sisters! we could probably send two instead of one missionary
then. And we will have at the same time curbed the weakness and vanity
of our female natures!"
The rich plumes in her hat trembled with the depth of her emotions, her
pretty silk skirts rustled softly. But the silence continued. If she
had asked for the sacrifice of any but our Easter things, I reckon we
could have borne it better, but probably there was not a woman in the
room whose imagination had not already been cavorting under her
prospective Easter bonnet. As for me, I never felt so circumvented and
outraged in the whole course of my life as a preacher's wife. I had
the samples in my bag at that moment, and was only waiting for the
adjournment of the meeting to go to the store on my way home to
purchase my foulard.
There is one thing we have all noticed about a silence, especially in a
company of friends, if it lasts too long it gets sullen, and pregnant
with the animosity of unspoken thoughts. When the silence was
approaching this stage, Sister MacL, who had a sort of cradle heart for
soothing everyone, murmured in her crooning voice:
"Let us take it to the Lord in prayer!"
And we were about to rise and kneel like a set of angry children before
our smiling Heavenly Father, when something either moral or immoral
stiffened in me, and I startled even myself with these words, that
seemed to come of their own accord out of my mouth:
"I'll do nothing of the kind!"
I was oblivious to the horrified gaze of my companions. I felt some
spirit strengthen me and give me courage. I had a quick tear-blinded
vision of the years behind me, and of the figure I made walking always
down the aisle of some church by William in my dismal black dress, or
sitting at a funeral or even at a feast, always in that ugly black
garment.
"Sister Shaller," I said, looking steadily at her as a child looks at
another child who is trying to take some cherished plaything from it,
"you can do as you please about sending that missionary. You are
perfectly able to do without new Easter clothes. As for me, I have
promised the Lord to dress better, more like a human being and less
like a woman-raven, and I intend to do it. I am tired of sitting in
retired corners at parties and receptions because I look as if I
belonged to a funeral. It is a matter of conscience with me, just as
the missionary is with you."
I never told William what I had done. It was one of those good works
that he could not have measured or appreciated. And I never knew
whether Sister Shaller sent her missionary or not. She was a good
woman and perfectly capable of doing it. But the other women were as
grateful as if I had rescued their Easter things from a highwayman.
This was the only place William ever served where the people of the
world flocked in and filled his church. I used to think maybe it was a
way they had of returning my social friendliness to them. I accepted
all of their invitations I dared to accept, and they accepted all of
William's. They not only crowded in to hear him preach, they were
singularly amiable about coming up to the altar if he extended an
invitation to penitents who were sorry for their sins. The trouble
with those people was the exceedingly small number of things they would
admit were sins. But it made no difference in William's exhortations
as sometimes he bent above the gayly flowered heads in his altar. It
was always
"Give up every thing and follow Christ."
And if he did them no good certainly he did them no harm.