SINK OR SWIM.
We entered the ministry with a mortal horror of extemporaneous speaking.
Each week we wrote two sermons and a lecture all out, from the text to the
amen. We did not dare to give out the notice of a prayer-meeting unless it
was on paper. We were a slave to manuscript, and the chains were galling;
and three months more of such work would have put us in the graveyard. We
resolved on emancipation. The Sunday night was approaching when we expected
to make violent rebellion against this bondage of pen and paper. We had an
essay about ten minutes long on some Christian subject, which we proposed
to preach as an introduction to the sermon, resolved, at the close of that
brief composition, to launch out on the great sea of extemporaneousness.
It so happened that the coming Sabbath night Was to be eventful in the
village. The trustees of the church had been building a gasometer back of
the church, and the night I speak of the building was for the first time to
be lighted in the modern way. The church was, of course, crowded--not so
much to hear the preacher as to see how the gas would burn. Many were
unbelieving, and said that there would be an explosion, or a big fire, or
that in the midst of the service the lights would go out. Several brethren
disposed to hang on to old customs declared that candles and oil were the
only fit material for lighting a church, and they denounced the innovation
as indicative of vanity on the part of the new-comers. They used oil in the
ancient temple, and it was that which ran down on Aaron's beard, and
anything that was good enough for the whiskers of an old-time priest was
good enough for a country meeting-house. These sticklers for the oil were
present that night, hoping--and I think some of them secretly praying--that
the gas might go out.
With our ten-minute manuscript we went into the pulpit, all in a tremor.
Although the gas did not burn as brightly as its friends had hoped, still
it was bright enough to show the people the perspiration that stood in
beads on our forehead. We began our discourse, and every sentence gave us
the feeling that we were one step nearer the gallows. We spoke very slowly,
so as to make the ten-minute notes last fifteen minutes. During the
preachment of the brief manuscript we concluded that we had never been
called to the ministry. We were in a hot bath of excitement. People noticed
our trepidation, and supposed it was because we were afraid the gas would
go out. Alas! our fear was that it would not go out. As we came toward the
close of our brief we joined the anti-gas party, and prayed that before we
came to the last written line something would burst, and leave us in the
darkness. Indeed, we discovered an encouraging flicker amid the burners,
which gave us the hope that the brief which lay before us would be long
enough for all practical purposes, and that the hour of execution might be
postponed to some other night. As we came to the sentence next to the last
the lights fell down to half their size, and we could just manage to see
the audience as they were floating away from our vision. We said to
ourselves, "Why can't these lights be obliging, and go out entirely?" The
wish was gratified. As we finished the last line of our brief, and stood on
the verge of rhetorical destruction, the last glimmer of light was
extinguished. "It is impossible to proceed," we cried out; "receive the
benediction!"
We crawled down the pulpit in a state of exhilaration; we never before saw
such handsome darkness. The odor of the escaping gas was to us like "gales
from Araby." Did a frightened young man ever have such fortunate
deliverance? The providence was probably intended to humble the trustees,
yet the scared preacher took advantage of it.
But after we got home we saw the wickedness of being in such dread. As the
Lord got us out of that predicament, we resolved never again to be cornered
in one similar. Forthwith the thralldom was broken, we hope never again to
be felt. How demeaning that a man with a message from the Lord Almighty
should be dependent upon paper-mills and gasometers! Paper is a
non-conductor of gospel electricity. If a man have a five-thousand-dollar
bill of goods to sell a customer, he does not go up to the purchaser and
say, "I have some remarks to make to you about these goods, but just wait
till I get out my manuscript." Before he got through reading the argument
the customer would be in the next door, making purchases from another
house.
What cowardice! Because a few critical hearers sit with lead-pencils out to
mark down the inaccuracies of extemporaneousness, shall the pulpit cower?
If these critics do not repent, they will go to hell, and take their
lead-pencils with them. While the great congregation are ready to take the
bread hot out of the oven shall the minister be crippled in his work
because the village doctor or lawyer sits carping before him? To please a
few learned ninnies a thousand ministers sit writing sermons on Saturday
night till near the break of day, their heads hot, their feet cold, and
their nerves a-twitch. Sermons born on Saturday night are apt to have the
rickets. Instead of cramping our chests over writing-desks, and being the
slaves of the pen, let us attend to our physical health, that we may have
more pulpit independence.
It would be a grand thing if every minister felt strong enough in body to
thrash any man in his audience improperly behaving, but always kept back
from such assault by the fact that it would be wrong to do so. There is a
good deal of heart and head in our theology, but not enough liver and
backbone. We need a more stalwart Christian character, more roast beef
rare, and less calf's-foot jelly. This will make the pulpit more bold and
the pew more manly.
Which thoughts came to us this week as we visited again the village church
aforesaid, and preached out of the same old Bible in which, years ago, we
laid the ten-minute manuscript, and we looked upon the same lights that
once behaved so badly. But we found it had been snowing since the time we
lived there, and heads that then were black are white now, and some of the
eyes which looked up to us that memorable night when the gasometer failed
us, thirteen years ago, are closed now, and for them all earthly lights
have gone out for ever.