THE BATTLE OF PEW AND PULPIT.
Two more sermons unloaded, and Monday morning I went sauntering down town,
ready for almost anything. I met several of my clerical friends going to a
ministers' meeting. I do not often go there, for I have found that some of
the clerical meetings are gridirons where they roast clergymen who do not
do things just as we do them. I like a Presbyterian gridiron no better than
a Methodist one, and prefer to either of them an old-fashioned spit, such
as I saw one summer in Oxford, England, where the rabbit is kept turning
round before a slow fire, in blessed state of itinerancy, the rabbit
thinking he is merely taking a ride, while he is actually roasting.
As on the Monday morning I spoke of I was passing down the street, I heard
high words in a church. What could it be? Was it the minister, and the
sexton, and the trustees fighting? I went in to see, when, lo! I found that
the Pew and the Pulpit were bantering each other at a great rate, and
seemed determined to tell each one the other's faults. I stood still as a
mouse that I might hear all that was said, and my presence not be noticed.
The Pew was speaking as I went in, and said to the Pulpit, in anything but
a reverential tone: "Why don't you speak out on other days as well as you
do to-day? The fact is, I never knew a Pulpit that could not be heard when
it was thoroughly mad. But when you give out the hymn on Sabbaths, I cannot
tell whether it is the seventieth or the hundredth. When you read the
chapter, you are half through with it before I know whether it is Exodus or
Deuteronomy. Why do you begin your sermon in so low a key? If the
introduction is not worth hearing, it is not worth delivering. Are you
explaining the text? If so, the Lord's meaning is as important as anything
you will have in your sermon. Throw back your shoulders, open your mouth!
Make your voice strike against the opposite wall! Pray not only for a clean
heart, but for stout lungs. I have nearly worn out my ears trying to catch
your utterances. When a captain on a battlefield gives an order, the
company all hear; and if you want to be an officer in the Lord's army, do
not mumble your words. The elocution of Christ's sermon is described when
we are told he opened his mouth and taught them--that is, spoke distinctly,
as those cannot who keep their lips half closed. Do you think it a sign of
modesty to speak so low? I think the most presuming thing on earth for a
Pulpit to do is to demand that an audience sit quiet when they cannot hear,
simply looking. The handsomest minister I ever saw is not worth looking at
for an hour and a half at a stretch. The truth is that I have often been so
provoked with your inarticulate speech, that I would have got up and left
the church, had it not been for the fact that I am nailed fast, and my
appearance on the outside on a Sabbath-day, walking up and down, would have
brought around me a crowd of unsanctified boys to gaze at me, a poor church
pew on its travels."
The Pulpit responded in anything but a pious tone: "The reason you do not
hear is that your mind on Sundays is full of everything but the gospel. You
work so hard during the week that you rob the Lord of his twenty-four
hours. The man who works on Sunday as well as the rest of the week is no
worse than you who abstain on that day, because your excessive devotion to
business during the week kills your Sunday; and a dead Sunday is no Sunday
at all. You throw yourself into church as much as to say, 'Here, Lord, I am
too tired to work any more for myself; you can have the use of me while I
am resting!' Besides that, O Pew! you have a miserable habit. Even when you
can hear my voice on the Sabbath and are wide awake, you have a way of
putting your head down or shutting your eyes, and looking as if your soul
had vacated the premises for six weeks. You are one of those hearers who
think it is pious to look dull; and you think that the Pew on the other
side the aisle is an old sinner because he hunches the Pew behind him, and
smiles when the truth hits the mark. If you want me to speak out, it is
your duty not only to be wide awake, but to look so. Give us the benefit of
your two eyes. There is one of the elders whose eyes I have never caught
while speaking, save once, and that was when I was preaching from Psalm
cxiii. 12, 'They compassed me about like bees,' and by a strange
coincidence a bumble-bee got into church, and I had my attention divided
between my text and the annoying insect, which flew about like an
illustration I could not catch. A dull Pew is often responsible for a dull
Pulpit. Do not put your head down on the back of the seat in front,
pretending you are very much affected with the sermon, for we all know you
are napping."
The Pew: "If you want me to be alert, give me something fresh and
startling. Your sermons all sound alike. It don't make any difference where
you throw the net, you never fish up anything but moss-bunkers. You are
always talking about stale things. Why don't you give us a touch, of
learned discussion, such as the people hear every Sunday in the church of
Reverend Doctor Heavyasbricks, when, with one eye on heaven and the other
on the old man in the gallery, he speaks of the Tridentine theory of
original sin, and Patristic Soteriology, Mediæval Trinitarianism, and
Antiochian Anthropology? Why do you not give us some uncommon words, and
instead of 'looking back upon your subject,' sometimes 'recapitulate,' and
instead of talking about a man's 'peculiarities,' mention his
'idiot-sin-crasies,' and describe the hair as the capillary adornment; and
instead of speaking of a thing as tied together, say it was 'inosculated.'"
The Pulpit: "You keep me so poor I cannot buy the books necessary to keep
me fresh. After the babies are clothed, and the table is provided for, and
the wardrobe supplied, my purse is empty, and you know the best carpenter
cannot make good shingles without tools. Better pay up your back salary
instead of sitting there howling at me. You eased your conscience by
subscribing for the support of the gospel, but the Lord makes no record of
what a man subscribes; he waits to see whether he pays. The poor widow with
the two mites is applauded in Scripture because she paid cash down. I have
always noticed that you Pews make a big noise about Pulpit deficiencies,
just in proportion to the little you do. The fifty cents you pay is only
premium on your policy of five dollars' worth of grumbling. O critical Pew!
you had better scour the brass number on your own door before you begin to
polish the silver knob on mine."
The Pew: "I think it is time for you to go away. I am glad that conference
is coming. I shall see the bishop, and have you removed to some other part
of the Lord's vineyard. You are too plain a Pulpit for such an elegant
Pew. Just look at your big hands and feet. We want a spiritual guide whose
fingers taper to a fine point, and one who could wear, if need be, a lady's
shoe. Get out, with your great paws and clodhoppers! We want in this church
a Pulpit that will talk about heaven, and make no allusion to the other
place. I have a highly educated nose, and can stand the smell of garlic and
assafoetida better than brimstone. We want an oleaginous minister, commonly
called oily. We want him distinguished for his unctuosity. We want an
ecclesiastical scent-bag, or, as you might call him, a heavenly nosegay,
perfect in every respect, his ordinary sneeze as good as a doxology. If he
cry during some emotional part of his discourse, let it not be an
old-fashioned cry, with big hands or coat sleeve sopping up the tears, but
let there be just two elegant tears, one from each eye, rolling down
parallel into a pocket-handkerchief richly embroidered by the sewing
society, and inscribed with the names of all the young ladies' Bible class.
If he kneel before sermon, let it not be a coming down like a soul in want,
but on one knee, so artistically done that the foot shall show the
twelve-dollar patent leather shoe, while the aforesaid pocket-handkerchief
is just peeping from the coat pocket, to see if the ladies who made it are
all there--the whole scene a religious tableau. We want a Pulpit that will
not get us into a tearing-down revival, where the people go shouting and
twisting about, regardless of carpets and fine effects, but a revival that
shall be born in a band-box, and wrapped in ruffles, and lie on a church
rug, so still that nobody will know it is there. If we could have such a
Pulpit as that, all my fellow-Pews would join me, and we would give it a
handsome support; yes, we would pay him; if we got just what we want, we
could afford to give, in case he were thoroughly eloquent, Demosthenic and
bewitching--I am quite certain we could, although I should not want myself
to be held responsible; yes, he should have eight hundred dollars a year,
and that is seven hundred and sixty dollars more than Milton got for his
'Paradise Lost,' about which one of his learned contemporaries wrote: 'The
old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath published a tedious poem on the
fall of man; if its length be not considered a merit, it has no other.'
Nothing spoils ministers like too big a salary. Jeshurun waxed fat and
kicked; if it had not been for the wax and the fat, he would not have
kicked. Sirloin steaks and mince pies are too rich for ministers. Put these
men down on catfish and flounders, as were the fishermen apostles. Too much
oats makes horses frisky, and a minister high-fed is sure to get his foot
over the shaft. If we want to keep our pulpits spiritual, we must keep them
poor. Blessed are the poor!"
"Stop! stop!" cried the Pulpit; and it seemed to rise higher than before,
and to tremble from head to foot with excitement, and the banisters to
twist as if to fly in indignation at the Pew, and the plush on the
book-board to look red as fire; and seeing there was going to be a
collision between Pulpit and Pew, I ran up the aisle and got between them
(they were wide enough apart to allow me to get in), and I cried, "Silence!
This is great talk for a church. Pulpits ought not to scold, and Pews ought
not to grumble. As far as I can see, you are both to blame. Better shake
hands and pray for a better spirit. It wants more than a bishop to settle
this difficulty. The Lord Almighty alone can make Pulpit and Pew what they
ought to be. You both need to be baptized over again!" Then, taking up a
silver bowl that stood on the communion table, half full of the water
yesterday used at a babe's christening, I stood between the belligerents,
and sprinkled Pew and Pulpit with a Christian baptism, in the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And when I got through, I could
not tell whether Pew or Pulpit said Amen the louder.