It was not easy in that day to bring together the opinions of a
Connecticut parish that had been jostled apart by a parochial quarrel,
and where old grievances were festering. Indeed, it is never easy to do
this, and unite opinions upon a new comer, unless he have some rare gift
of eloquence, which so dazes the good people that they can no longer
remember their petty griefs, or unless he manage with rare tact to pass
lightly over the sore points, and to anoint them by a careful hand with
such healing salves as he can concoct out of his pastoral charities. Mr.
Johns had neither art nor eloquence, as commonly understood; yet he
effected a blending of all interests by the simple, earnest gravity of
his character. He ignored all angry disputation; he ignored its results.
He came as a shepherd to a deserted sheepfold; he came to preach the
Bible doctrines in their literalness. He had no reproofs, save for those
who refused the offers of God's mercy,--no commendation, save for those
who sought His grace whose favor is life everlasting. There were no
metaphysical niceties in his discourses, athwart which keen disputants
might poise themselves for close and angry conflict; he recognized no
necessities but the great ones of repentance and faith; and all the
mysteries of the Will he was accustomed to solve by grand utterance of
that text which he loved above all others,--however much it may have
troubled him in his discussion of Election,--"whosoever _will_, let him
come and drink of the water of life freely."
Inheriting as he did all the religious affinities of his mother, these
were compacted and made sensitive by years of silent protest against the
proud worldly sufficiency of his father, the Major. Such qualities and
experience found repose in the unyielding dogmas of the Westminster
divines. At thirty the clergyman was as aged as most men of
forty-five,--seared by the severity of his opinions, and the unshaken
tenacity with which he held them. He was by nature a quiet, almost a
timid man; but over the old white desk and crimson cushion, with the
choir of singers in his front and the Bible under his hand, he grew into
wonderful boldness. He cherished an exalted idea of the dignity of his
office,--a dignity which he determined to maintain to the utmost of his
power; but in the pulpit only did the full measure of this exaltation
come over him. Thence he looked down serenely upon the flock of which he
was the appointed guide, and among whom his duty lay. The shepherd
leading his sheep was no figure of speech for him; he was commissioned
to their care, and was conducting them--old men and maidens, boys and
gray-haired women--athwart the dangers of the world, toward the great
fold. On one side always the fires of hell were gaping; and on the other
were blazing the great candlesticks around the throne.
But when, on some occasion, he had, under the full weight of his office,
inveighed against a damning evil, and, as he fondly hoped by the
stillness in the old meeting-house, wrought upon sinners effectually, it
was disheartening to be met by some hoary member of his flock, whom
perhaps he had borne particularly in mind, and to be greeted cheerfully
with, "Capital sermon, Mr. Johns! those are the sort that do the
business! I like those, parson!" The poor man, humiliated, would bow his
thanks. He lacked the art (if it be an art) to press the matter home,
when he met one of his parishioners thus. Indeed, his sense of the
importance of his calling and his extreme conscientiousness gave him an
air of timidity outside the pulpit, which offered great contrast to that
which he wore in the heat of his sermonizing. Not that he forgot the
dignity of his position for a moment, but he wore it too trenchantly; he
could never unbend to the free play of side-talk. Hence he could not
look upon the familiar spirit of badinage in which some of his brethren
of the profession indulged, without serious doubts of their complete
submission to the Heavenly King. Always the weight of his solemn duties
pressed sorely on him; always amid pitfalls he was conducting his little
flock toward the glories of the Great Court. There is many a man
narrowed and sharpened by metaphysical inquiry to such a degree as to
count the indirection and freedom of kindly chat irksome, and the
occasion of a needless blunting of that quick mental edger with which he
must scathe all he touches. But the stiffness of Mr. Johns was not that
of constant mental strain; he did not refine upon his dogmas; but he
gave them such hearty entertainment, and so inwrapped his spirit with
their ponderous gravity, that he could not disrobe in a moment, or
uncover to every chance comer.
It is quite possible that by reason of this grave taciturnity the
clergyman won more surely upon the respect of his people. "He is
engrossed," said they, "with greater matters; and in all secular affairs
he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his inaptitude in current
speech was construed by them into a delicate flattery. They greatly
relished his didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a
religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They
agonized toward the truth, if not by intense thinking, yet by what many
good people are apt to mistake for it,--immense endurance of the prolix
thought of others.
If the idea of universal depravity had been ignored,--as it sometimes is
in these latitudinarian days,--or the notion of any available or worthy
Christian culture, as distinct from a direct and clearly defined agency,
both as to time and force, of the Spirit, had been entertained, he would
have lost half of the elements by which his arguments gained logical
sequence. But, laboring his way from stake to stake of the old dogmas of
the Westminster divines, he fastened to them stoutly, and swept round
from each as a centre a great scathing circle of deductions, that beat
wofully upon the heads of unbelievers. And if a preacher attack only
unbelievers, he has the world with him, now as then; it is only he who
has the bad taste to meddle with the caprices of believers who gets the
raps and the orders of dismissal.
Thus it happened that good Mr. Johns came to win the good-will of all
the parish of Ashfield, while he challenged their respect by his
uniform gravity. It is even possible that a consciousness of a certain
stateliness and stiffness of manner became in some measure a source of
pride to him, and that he enjoyed, in his subdued way, the disposition
of the lads of the town to give him a wide pass, instead of brushing
brusquely against him, as if he were some other than the parson.