THE MIDNIGHT LECTURE.
At eight o'clock precisely, on consecutive nights, we stepped on the
rostrum at Chicago, Zanesville. Indianapolis, Detroit, Jacksonville,
Cleveland and Buffalo. But it seemed that Dayton was to be a failure. We
telegraphed from Indianapolis, "Missed connection. Cannot possibly meet
engagement at Dayton." Telegram came back saying, "Take a locomotive and
come on!" We could not get a locomotive. Another telegram arrived: "Mr.
Gale, the superintendent of railroad, will send you in an extra train. Go
immediately to the depot!" We gathered up our traps from the hotel floor
and sofa, and hurled them at the satchel. They would not go in. We put a
collar in our hat, and the shaving apparatus in our coat pocket; got on the
satchel with both feet, and declared the thing should go shut if it split
everything between Indianapolis and Dayton. Arriving at the depot, the
train was ready. We had a locomotive and one car. There were six of us on
the train--namely, the engineer and stoker on the locomotive; while
following were the conductor, a brakeman at each end of the car, and the
pastor of a heap of ashes on Schermerhorn street, Brooklyn. "When shall we
get to Dayton?" we asked. "Half-past nine o'clock!" responded the
conductor. "Absurd!" we said; "no audience will wait till half-past nine at
night for a lecturer."
Away we flew. The car, having such a light load, frisked and kicked, and
made merry of a journey that to us was becoming very grave. Going round a
sharp curve at break-neck speed, we felt inclined to suggest to the
conductor that it would make no especial difference if we did not get to
Dayton till a quarter to ten. The night was cold, and the hard ground
thundered and cracked. The bridges, instead of roaring, as is their wont,
had no time to give any more than a grunt as we struck them and passed on.
At times it was so rough we were in doubt as to whether we were on the
track or taking a short cut across the field to get to our destination a
little sooner. The flagmen would hastily open their windows and look at the
screeching train. The whistle blew wildly, not so much to give the villages
warning as to let them know that something terrible had gone through.
Stopped to take in wood and water. A crusty old man crawled out of a depot,
and said to the engineer, "Jim, what on earth is the matter?" "Don't know,"
said Jim; "that fellow in the car yonder is bound to get to Dayton, and we
are putting things through." Brakes lifted, bell rung, and off again. Amid
the rush and pitch of the train there was no chance to prepare our toilet,
and no looking-glass, and it was quite certain that we would have to step
from the train immediately into the lecturing hall. We were unfit to be
seen. We were sure our hair was parted in five or six different places, and
that the cinders had put our face in mourning, and that something must be
done. What time we could spare from holding on to the bouncing seat we gave
to our toilet, and the arrangements we made, though far from satisfactory,
satisfied our conscience that we had done what we could. A button broke as
we were fastening our collar--indeed, a button always does break when you
are in a hurry and nobody to sew it on. "How long before we get there?" we
anxiously asked. "I have miscalculated," said the conductor; "we cannot
get there till five minutes of ten o'clock." "My dear man," I cried, "you
might as well turn round and go back; the audience will be gone long before
ten o'clock." "No!" said the conductor; "at the last depot I got a telegram
saying they are waiting patiently, and telling us to hurry on." The
locomotive seemed to feel it was on the home stretch. At times, what with
the whirling smoke and the showering sparks, and the din, and rush, and
bang, it seemed as if we were on our last ride, and that the brakes would
not fall till we stopped for ever.
At five minutes of ten o'clock we rolled into the Dayton depot, and before
the train came to a halt we were in a carriage with the lecturing
committee, going at the horse's full run toward the opera house. Without an
instant in which to slacken our pulses, the chairman rushed in upon the
stage, and introduced the lecturer of the evening. After in the quickest
way shedding overcoat and shawl, we confronted the audience, and with our
head yet swimming from the motion of the rail-train, we accosted the
people--many of whom had been waiting since seven o'clock'--with the words,
"Long-suffering but patient ladies and gentlemen, you are the best-natured
audience I ever saw." When we concluded what we had to say, it was about
midnight, and hence the title of this little sketch.
We would have felt it more worthy of the railroad chase if it had been a
sermon rather than a lecture. Why do not the Young Men's Christian
Associations of the country intersperse religious discourses with the
secular, the secular demanding an admission fee, the religious without
money or price? If such associations would take as fine a hall, and pay as
much for advertising, the audience to hear the sermon would be as large as
the audience to hear the lecture. What consecrated minister would not
rather tell the story of Christ and heaven free of charge than to get five
hundred dollars for a secular address? Wake up, Young Men's Christian
Associations, to your glorious opportunity, it would afford a pleasing
change. Let Wendell Phillips give in the course his great lecture on "The
Lost Arts;" and A.A. Willitts speak on "Sunshine," himself the best
illustration of his subject; and Mr. Milburn, by "What a Blind Man Saw in
England," almost prove that eyes are a superfluity; and W.H.H. Murray talk
of the "Adirondacks," till you can hear the rifle crack and the fall of the
antlers on the rock. But in the very midst of all this have a religious
discourse that shall show that holiness is the lost art, and that Christ is
the sunshine, and that the gospel helps a blind man to see, and that from
Pisgah and Mount Zion there is a better prospect than from the top of fifty
Adirondacks.
As for ourselves, save in rare and peculiar circumstances, good-bye to the
lecturing platform, while we try for the rest of our life to imitate the
minister who said, "This one thing I do!" There are exhilarations about
lecturing that one finds it hard to break from, and many a minister who
thought himself reformed of lecturing has, over-tempted, gone up to the
American Library or Boston Lyceum Bureau, and drank down raw, a hundred
lecturing engagements. Still, a man once in a while finds a new pair of
spectacles to look through.
Between Indianapolis and Dayton, on that wild, swift ride, we found a moral
which we close with--for the printer-boy with inky fingers is waiting for
this paragraph--Never take the last train when you can help it. Much of the
trouble in life is caused by the fact that people, in their engagements,
wait til' the last minute. The seven-o'clock train will take them to the
right place if everything goes straight, but in this world things are very
apt to go crooked. So you had better take the train that starts an hour
earlier. In everything we undertake let us leave a little margin. We tried,
jokingly, to persuade Captain Berry, when off Cape Hatteras, to go down and
get his breakfast, while we took his place and watched the course of the
steamer. He intimated to us that we were running too near the bar to allow
a greenhorn to manage matters just there. There is always danger in sailing
near a coast, whether in ship or in plans and morals. Do not calculate too
closely on possibilities. Better have room and time to spare. Do not take
the last train. Not heeding this counsel makes bad work for this world and
the next. There are many lines of communication between earth and heaven.
Men say they can start at any time. After a while, in great excitement,
they rush into the depot of mercy and find that the final opportunity has
left, and, behold! it is the last train!