THE SOCIAL SCIENCE MEETING.
One day Josiah and me went into a meetin’ where they wuz kinder fixin’
over the world, sort a repairin’ of it, as you may say. Some of the
deepest, smartest speeches I ever hearn in my life, I hearn there.
You know it is a middlin’ deep subject. But they rose to it. They rose
nobly to it. Some wuz for repairin’ it one way, and some another—some
wanted to kinder tinker it up, and make it over like. Some wanted to
tear it to pieces, and build it over new. But they all meant well by
the world, and nobody could help respectin’ ’em.
I enjoyed them hours there with ’em, jest about as well as it is in my
power to enjoy anything. They wuz all on ’em civilized Christian folks
and philanthropists of different shades and degrees, all but one. There
wuz one heathen there. A Hindoo right from Hindoostan, and I felt
kinder sorry for him. A heathen sot right in the midst of them folks of
refinement, and culture, who had spent their hull lives a tryin’ to fix
over the world, and make it good.
This poor little heathen, with a white piller case, or sunthin’ wound
round his head (I s’pose he hadn’t money to buy a hat), and his small
black eyes lookin’ out kinder side ways from his dark hombly little
face, rousted up my pity, and my sympathy. There had been quite a firm
speech made against allowin’ foreigners on our shores. And this little
heathen, in his broken speech, said, It all seemed so funny to him,
when everybody wuz foreigners in this country, to think that them that
got here first should say they owned it, and send everybody else back.
And he said, It seemed funny to him, that the missionarys we sent over
to his land to teach them the truth, told them all about this land of
Liberty, where everybody wuz free, and everybody could earn a home for
themselves, and urged ’em all to come over here, and then when they
broke away from all that held ’em in their own land, and came thousands
and thousands of milds, to get to this land of freedom and
religion,then they wuz sent back agin, and wuzn’t allowed to land. It
seemed so funny.
And so it did to me. And I said to myself, I wonder if they don’t lose
all faith in the missionarys, and what they tell them. I wonder if they
don’t have doubts about the other free country they tell ’em about. The
other home they have urged ’em to prepare for, and go to. I wonder if
they haint afraid, that when they have left their own country and
sailed away for that home of Everlastin’ freedom, they will be sent
back agin, and not allowed to land.
But it comferted me quite a good deal to meditate on’t, that that land
didn’t have no laws aginst foreign emigration. That its ruler wuz one
who held the rights of the lowest, and poorest, and most ignerent of
His children, of jest as much account as he did the rights of a king.
Thinkses I that poor little head with the piller case on it will be
jest as much looked up to, as if it wuz white and had a crown on it.
And I felt real glad to think it wuz so.
But I went to every meetin’ of ’em, and enjoyed every one of ’em with a
deep enjoyment. And I said then, and I say now, for folks that had took
such a hefty job as they had, they done well, nobody could do better,
and if the world wuzn’t improved by their talk it wuz the fault of the
world, and not their’n.
And we went to meetin’ on Sunday mornin’ and night, and hearn good
sermons. There’s several high big churches at Saratoga, of every
denomination, and likely folks belong to the hull on ’em: There is no
danger of folks losin’ their way to Heaven unless they want to, and
they can go on their own favorite paths too, be they blue Presbyterian
paths, or Methodist pasters, or by the Baptist boat, or the
Episcopalian high way, or the Catholic covered way, or the Unitarian
Broadway, or the Shadow road of Spiritualism.
No danger of their losin’ their way unless they want to. And I thought
to myself as I looked pensively at the different steeples, “What though
there might be a good deal of’wranglin’, and screechin’, and puffin’
off steam, at the different stations, as there must always be where so
many different routes are a layin’ side by side, each with its own
different runners, and conductors, and porters, and managers, and
blowers, still it must be, that the separate high ways would all end at
last in a serener road, where the true wayfarers and the earnest
pilgrims would all walk side by side, and forget the very name of the
station they sot out from.
I sez as much to my companion, as we wended our way home from one of
the meetin’s, and he sez, “There haint but one right way, and it is a
pity folks can’t see it.” Sez he a sithin’ deep, “Why can’t everybody
be Methodists?”
We wuz a goin’ by the ’Piscopal church then, and he sez a lookin’ at
it, as if he wuz sorry for it, “What a pity that such likely folks as
they be, should believe in such eronious doctrines. Why,” sez he, “I
have hearn that they believe that the bread at communion is changed
into sunthin’ else. What a pity that they should believe anything so
strange as that is, when there is a good, plain, practical, Christian
belief that they might believe in, when they might be Methodists. And
the Baptists now,” sez he, a glancin’ back at their steeple, “why can’t
they believe that a drop is as good as a fountain? Why do they want to
believe in so _much_ water? There haint no need on’t. They might be
Methodists jest as well as not, and be somebody.”
And he walked along pensively and in deep thought, and I a feelin’
somewhat tuckered didn’t argue with him, and silence rained about us
till we got in front of the hall where the Spiritualists hold their
meetin’s, and we met a few a comin’ out on it and then he broke out and
acted mad, awful mad and skernful, and sez he angrily, “Them dumb fools
believe in supernatural things. They don’t have a shadow of reason or
common sense to stand on. A man is a fool to gin the least attention to
them, or their doin’s. Why can’t they believe sunthin’ sensible? Why
can’t they jine a church that don’t have anything curius in it? Nothin’
but plain, common sense facts in it: Why can’t they be Methodists?”
“The idee!” sez he, a breakin’ out fresh. “The idee of believin’ that
folks that have gone to the other world can come back agin and appear.
Shaw!” sez he, dretful loud and bold. I don’t believe I ever heard a
louder shaw in my life than that wuz, or more kinder haughty and
highheaded.
And then I spoke up, and sez, “Josiah, it is always well, to shaw in
the right place, and I am afraid you haint studied on it as much as you
ort. I am afraid you haint a shawin’ where you ort to.”
“Where should I shaw?” sez he, kinder snappish.
“Wall,” sez I, “when you condemn other folkses beliefs, you ort to be
careful that you haint a condemin’ your own belief at the same time.
Now my belief is grounded in the Methodist meetin’ house like a rock;
my faith has cast its ancher there inside of her beliefs and can’t be
washed round by any waves of opposin’ doctrines. But I am one who can’t
now, nor never could, abide bigotry and intolerance either in a Pope,
or a Josiah Allen.
“And when you condemn a belief simply on the ground of its bein’
miraculous and beyond your comprehension, Josiah Allen, you had better
pause and consider on what the Methodist faith is founded.
“All our orthodox meetin’ houses, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist,
Episcopalian, every one on ’em, Josiah Allen, are sot down on a belief,
a deathless faith in a miraculous birth, a life of supernatural events,
the resurrection of the dead, His appearance after death, a belief in
the graves openin’ and the dead comin’ forth, a belief in three persons
inhabitin’ one soul, the constant presence and control of spiritual
influences, the Holy Ghost, and the spirits of just men. And while you
are a leanin’ up against that belief, Josiah Allen, and a leanin’
heavy, don’t shaw at any other belief for the qualities you hold sacred
in your own.”
He quailed a very little, and I went on.
“If you want to shaw at it, shaw for sunthin’ else in it, or else let
it entirely alone. If you think it lacks active Christian force, if you
think it is not aggressive in its assaults at Sin, if you think it
lacks faith in the Divine Head of the church, say so, do; but for
mercy’s sake _try_ to shaw in the right place.”
“Wall,” sez he, “they are a low set that follers it up mostly, and you
know it.” And his head was right up in the air, and he looked _very_
skernful.
But I sez, “Josiah Allen, you are a shawin’ agin in the wrong place,”
sez I. “If what you say is true, remember that 1800 years ago, the same
cry wuz riz up by Pharisees, ‘He eats with Publicans and sinners.’ They
would not have a king who came in the guise of the poor, they scerned a
spiritual truth that did not sparkle with worldly lustre.
“But it shone on; it lights the souls of humanity to-day. Let us not be
afraid, Josiah Allen. Truth is a jewel that _cannot_ be harmed by
deepest investigation, by roughest handlin’. It can’t be buried, it
will shine out of the deepest darkness. What is false will be washed
away, what is true will remain. For all this frettin’, and chafing, all
this turbelence of conflectin’ beliefs, opposin’ wills, will only
polish this jewel. Truth, calm and serene, will endure, will shine,
will light up the world.”
He begun to look considerable softer in mean, and I continued on:
“Josiah Allen, you and I know what we believe the beautiful religion
(Methodist Episcopal) that we both love, makes a light in our two
souls. But don’t let us stand in that light and yell out, that
everybody else’s light is darkness; that our light is the only one. No,
the heavens are over all the earth; the twelve gates of heaven are open
and a shinin’ down on all sides of us.
“Jonesville meetin’ house (Methodist Episcopal) haint the only medium
through which the light streams. It is dear to us, Josiah Allen, but
let us not think that we must coller everybody and drag ’em into it.
And let us not cry out too much at other folkses superstitions, when
the rock of our own faith, that comforts us in joy and sorrow, is sot
in a sea of supernaturalism.
“You know how that faith comforts our two souls, how it is to us, like
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, but they say, their belief
is the same to them, let us not judge them too hardly. No, the twelve
gates of heaven are open, Josiah Allen, and a shinin’ down onto the
earth. We know the light that has streamed into our own souls, but we
do not know exactly what rays of radience may have been reflected down
into some other lives through some one of those many gates.
“The plate below has to be prepared, before it can ketch the picture
and hold it. The light does not strike back the same reflection from
every earthly thing. The serene lake mirrors back the light, in a calm
flood of glory, the flashin’ waterfall breaks it into a thousand
dazzlin’ sparkles. The dewy petal of the yellow field lily, reflects
its own ray of golden light back, so does the dark cone of the pine
tree, and the diamond, the opal, the ruby, each tinges the light with
its own coloring, but the light is all from above. And they all reflect
the light, in their own way for which the Divine skill has prepared
them.
“Let us not try to compel the deep blue Ocean waves and the shinin’
waterfall, and the lily blow, to reflect back the light, in the same
identical manner. No, let the light stream down into high places, and
low ones, let the truth shine into dark hearts, and into pure souls.
God is light. God is Love. It is His light that shines down out of the
twelve gates, and though the ruby, or the amethyst, may color it by
their own medium, the light that is reflected, back is the light of
Heaven. And Josiah Allen,” sez I in a deeper, earnester tone, “let us
who know so little ourselves, be patient with other ignerent ones. Let
us not be too intolerent, for no intolerence, Josiah Allen is so cruel
as that of ignerence, an’ stupidity.”
Sez Josiah, “I won’t believe in anything I can’t _see_, Samantha
Allen.”
I jest looked round at him witheringly, and sez I, “What _have_ you
ever seen, Josiah Allen, I mean that is worth sein’? Haint everything
that is worth havin’ in life, amongst the unseen? The deathless loves,
the aspirations, the deep hopes, and faiths, that live in us and
through us, and animate us and keep us alive,—Whose spectacles has ever
seen ’em? What are we, all of us human creeters, any way, but little
atoms dropped here, Heaven knows why, or how, into the midst of a
perfect sea of mystery, and unseen influences. What hand shoved us
forwards out of the shadows, and what hand will reach out to us from
the shadows and draw us back agin? Have you seen it Josiah Allen? You
have felt this great onseen force a movin’ you along, but you haint sot
your eyes on it.
“What is there above us, below us, about us, but a waste of mystery, a
power of onseen influences?.
“You won’t believe anything you can’t see:—Did you ever see old
Gravity, Josiah Allen, or get acquainted with him? Yet his hands hold
the worlds together. Who ever see the mysterious sunthin’ in the North
that draws the ship’s compass round? Who ever see that great mysterious
hand that is dropped down in the water, sweepin’ it back and forth,
makin’ the tides come in, and the tides go out? Who ever has ketched a
glimpse of them majestic fingers, Josiah Allen? Or the lips touched
with lightnin’, whose whispers reach round the world, and through the
Ocean? You haint see ’em, nor I haint, No, Josiah Allen, we don’t know
much of anything, and we don’t know that for certain. We are all on us
only poor pupils down in the Earth’s school-room, learnin’ with
difficulty and heart ache the lessons God sets for us.
Tough old Experience gives us many a hard floggin’, before we learn the
day’s lessons. And we find the benches hard, long before sundown. And
it makes our hearts ache to see the mates we love droop their too tired
heads in sleep, all round us before school is out. But we grind on at
our lessons, as best we may. Learnin’ a little maybe. Havin’ to onlearn
a sight, as the pinters move on towards four. Clasping hands with
fellow toilers and (hard task) onclaspin’ ’em, as they go up above us,
or down nearer the foot. Havin’ little ‘intermissions’ of enjoyment,
soon over. But we plod on, on, and bimeby—and sometimes we think we do
not care how soon—the teacher will say to us, that we can be
‘dismissed.’ And then we shall drop out of the rank of learners, and
the school will go without us, jest as busily, jest as cheerfully, jest
as laboriously, jest as sadly. Poor learners at the hard lessons of
life. Learnin’ out of a book that is held out to us from the shadows by
an onseen, inexorable hand. Settin’ on hard benches that may fall out
from under us at any time. Poor ignerent creeters that we are, would it
not be a too arrant folly for us to judge each other hardly, we, all on
us, so deplorably ignerent, so weakly helpless?”
Sez Josiah, in earnest axcents, “Le’s walk a little faster.”
And, in lookin’ up, I see that he wuz readin’ a advertisement. I
ketched sight of a picture ornamentin’ of it. It wuz Lydia Pinkham. And
as I see that benine face, I found and recovered myself. Truly, I had
been a soarin’ up, up, fur above Saratoga, Patent Medicines, Josiah
Allen, etc., etc.
But when I found myself by the side of Josiah Allen once more, I moved
onwards in silence, and soon we found ourselves right by the haven
where I desired to be,—our own tried and true boardin’ house.
Truly eloquence is tuckerin’, very, especially when you are a soarin’
and a walkin’ at the same time.
Josiah