THE SIN OF SANCTIMONY.
Just at this point arrived Mr. Hall, whom I have before described as the
good but callow Methodist preacher on the circuit. Some people think
that a minister of the gospel should be exempt from criticism, ridicule,
and military duty. But the manly minister takes his lot with the rest.
Nothing could be more pernicious than making the foibles of a minister
sacred. Doubtless Mr. Hall has long since come to laugh at his own early
follies, his official sanctimoniousness, and all that; and why should
not I, who have been a callow circuit-preacher myself in my day, laugh
at my Brother Hall, for the good of his kind?
He had come to visit Sister Cynthy Ann, whose name had long stood on the
class-book at Harden's Cross-Roads as a good and acceptable member of
the church in full connection. He was visiting formally and officially
each family in which there was a member. Had he visited informally and
unofficially, and like a man instead of like a minister, he would have
done more good. But he came to Samuel Anderson's, and informed Mrs.
Anderson that he was visiting his members, and that as one of her
household was a member, he would like to have a little religious
conversation and prayer with the family. Would she please gather
them together?
So Julia was called down-stairs, and Jonas was invited in from the
kitchen. The sight of him distressed Brother Hall. For was not this New
Light sent here by Satan to lead astray one of his flock? But, at least,
he would labor faithfully with him.
He began with Mr. Samuel Anderson. But that worthy, after looking at his
wife in vain for a cue, darted off about the trumpets of the Apocalypse.
"Mr. Anderson, as head of this family, your responsibility is very
great. Do you feel the full assurance, my brother?" asked Mr. Hall.
"Yes," said Mr. Anderson, "I am standing with my lamp trimmed and ready.
I am listening for the midnight shout. To-night the trumpet may sound. I
am afraid you don't do your duty, or you would lift up your voice. The
tune and times and a half are almost out."
Mr. Hall was a little dashed at this. A man whose religious conversation
is of a set and conventional type, is always shocked and jostled when he
is thrown from the track. And he himself, like everybody else, had felt
the Adventist infection, and did not want to commit himself. So he
turned to Mrs. Anderson. She answered like a seraph every question put
to her--the conventional questions never pierce the armor of a hypocrite
or startle the conscience of a self-deceiver. Mr. Hall congratulated her
in his most official tone (a compound of authority, awfulness, and
sanctity) on her deep experience of the things that made for her
everlasting peace. He told her that people of her high attainments
must beware of spiritual pride. And Mrs. Anderson took the warning with
beautiful meekness, sinking into forty fathoms of undisguised and rather
ostentatious humility, heaving solemn sighs in token of self-reproach--a
self-reproach that did not penetrate the cuticle.
[Illustration: A PASTORAL VISIT.]
"And you, Sister Cynthy Ann," he said, fighting shy of Jonas for the
present, "I trust you are trying to let your light shine. Do you feel
that you are pressing on?"
Poor Cynthy Ann sank into a despondency deeper than usual. She was
afeard not. Seemed like as ef her heart was cold and dead to God. Seemed
like as ef she couldn't no ways gin up the world. It weighed her down
like a rock, and many was the fight she had with the enemy. No, she
wuzn't getting on.
"My dear sister," said Mr. Hall, "let me warn you. Here is Mrs.
Anderson, who has given up the world entirely. I hope you'll follow so
good an example. Do not be led astray by worldly affections; they are
sure to entrap you. I am afraid you have not maintained your
steadfastness as you should." Here Mr. Hall's eye wandered doubtfully to
Jonas, of whom he felt a little afraid. Jonas, on his part, had no
reason to like Mr. Hall for his advice in Cynthy's love affair, and now
the minister's praises of Mrs. Anderson and condemnation of Cynthy Ann
had not put him in any mood to listen to exhortation.
"Well, Mr. Harrison," said the young minister solemnly, approaching
Jonas much as a dog does a hedgehog, "how do you feel to-day?"
"Middlin' peart, I thank you; how's yourself?"
This upset the good man not a little, and convinced him that Jonas was
in a state of extreme wickedness.
"Are you a Christian?"
"Wal, I 'low I am. How about yourself, Mr. Hall?"
"I believe you are a New Light. Now, do you believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ?" asked the minister in an annihilating tone.
"Yes, I do, my aged friend, a heap sight more'n I do in some of them
that purtends to hev a paytent right on all his blessins, and that put
on solemn airs and call other denominations hard names. My friend, I
don't believe in no religion that's made up of sighs and groans and high
temper" (with a glance at Mrs. Anderson), "and that thinks a good deal
more of its bein' sound in doctrine than of the danger of bein' rotten
in life. They's lots o' bad eggs got slick and shiny shells!"
Mr. Hall happened to think just here of the injunction against throwing
pearls before swine, and so turned to Humphreys, who made his heart glad
by witnessing a good confession, in soft and unctuous tones, and couched
in the regulation phrases which have worn smooth in long use.
Julia had slunk away in a corner. But now he appealed to her also.
"Blest with a praying mother, you, Miss Anderson, ought to repent of
your sins and flee from the wrath to come. You know the right way. You
have been pointed to it by the life of your parents from childhood.
Reared in the bosom of a Christian household, let me entreat you to seek
salvation immediately."
I do not like to repeat this talk here. But it is an unfortunate fact
that goodness and self-sacrificing piety do not always go with practical
wisdom. The novelist, like the historian, must set down things as he
finds them. A man who talks in consecrated phrases is yet in the
poll-parrot state of mental development.
"Do you feel a desire to flee from the wrath to come?" he asked.
Julia gave some sort of inaudible assent.
"My dear young sister, you have great reason to be thankful--very great
reason for gratitude to Almighty God." (Like many other pious young men,
Mr. Hall said _Gawd_.) "I met you the other night at your uncle's. The
young man whose life we then despaired of has recovered." And with more
of this, Mr. Hall told Julia's secret, while Mrs. Anderson, between her
anger and her rapt condition of mind, seemed to be petrifying.
I trust the reader does not expect me to describe the feelings of Julia
while Mr. Hall read a chapter and prayed. Nor the emotions of Mrs.
Anderson. I think if Mr. Hall could have heard her grind her teeth while
he in his prayer gave thanks for the recovery of August, he would not
have thought so highly of her piety. But she managed to control her
emotions until the minister was fairly out of the house. In bidding
good-by, Mr. Hall saw how pale and tremulous Julia was, and with his
characteristic lack of sagacity, he took her emotion to be a sign of
religious feelings and told her he was pleased to see that she was
awakened to a sense of her condition.
And then he left. And then came the deluge.