threadbare appearance and restricted travelling conveniences, was seen
carefully tying his horse at the outer enclosure of an elegant mansion
in the town of ----, in one of our Western States; which being done, he
eyed the house rather inquisitively, as people sometimes do when they
are doubtful as to the question of entering or not entering. The house
belonged to George Lennox, Esq., a lawyer reputed to be doing a more
extensive business than any other in the state, and the threadbare
gentleman who plies the knocker at the front door is the Reverend Mr.
Stanton, a name widely spread in the ecclesiastical circles of the land.
The door opens, and the old college acquaintances meet with a cordial
grasp of the hand, and Mr. Stanton soon finds himself pressed to the
most comfortable accommodations in the warm parlor of his friend; and
even the slight uneasiness which the wisest are not always exempt from,
when conscious of a little shabbiness in exterior, was entirely
dissipated by the evident cordiality of his reception. Since the
conversation we have alluded to, the two friends pursued their separate
courses with but few opportunities of personal intercourse. In the true
zeal of the missionary, James Stanton had thrown himself into the field,
where it seemed hardest and darkest, and where labor seemed most needed.
In neighborhoods without churches, without school houses, without
settled roads, among a population of disorganized and heterogeneous
material, he had exhorted from house to house, labored individually with
one after another, till he had, in place after place, brought together
the elements of a Christian church. Far from all ordinances, means of
grace, or Christian brotherhood, or cooeperation, he had seemed to
himself to be merely the lonely, solitary "_voice_ of one crying in the
wilderness," as unassisted, and, to human view, as powerless. With
poverty, and cold, and physical fatigue he had daily been familiar; and
where no vehicle could penetrate the miry depths of the forest, where it
was impracticable even to guide a horse, he had walked miles and miles,
through mud and rain, to preach. With a wife in delicate health, and a
young and growing family, he had more than once seen the year when fifty
dollars was the whole amount of money that had passed through his hands;
and the whole of the rest of his support had come in disconnected
contributions from one and another of his people. He had lived without
books, without newspapers, except as he had found them by chance
snatches here and there,[1] and felt, as one so circumstanced only can
feel, the difficulty of maintaining intellectual vigor and energy in
default of all those stimulants to which cultivated minds in more
favorable circumstances are so much indebted. At the time that he is now
introduced to the reader, he had been recently made pastor in one of the
most important settlements in the state, and among those who, so far as
worldly circumstances were concerned, were able to afford him a
competent support. But among communities like those at the west, settled
for expressly money-making purposes, and by those who have for years
been taught the lesson to save, and have scarcely begun to feel the duty
to give, a minister, however laborious, however eloquent and successful,
may often feel the most serious embarrassments of poverty. Too often is
his salary regarded as a charity which may be given or retrenched to
suit every emergency of the times, and his family expenditures watched
with a jealous and censorious eye.
[Footnote 1: Those particulars the writer heard stated personally as a
part of the experience of one of the most devoted ministers of Ohio.]
On the other hand, George Lennox, the lawyer, had by his talents and
efficiency placed himself at the head of his profession, and was
realizing an income which brought all the comforts and elegances of life
within his reach. He was a member of the Christian church in the place
where he lived, irreproachable in life and conduct. From natural
generosity of disposition, seconded by principle, he was a liberal
contributor to all religious and benevolent enterprises, and was often
quoted and referred to as an example in good works. Surrounded by an
affectionate and growing family, with ample means for providing in the
best manner both for their physical and mental development, he justly
regarded himself as a happy man, and was well satisfied with the world
he lived in.
Now, there is nothing more trying to the Christianity or the philosophy
which teaches the vanity of riches than a few hours' domestication in a
family where wealth is employed, not for purposes of ostentation, but
for the perfecting of home comfort and the gratification of refined
intellectual tastes; and as Mr. Stanton leaned back, slippered and
gowned, in one of the easiest of chairs, and began to look over
periodicals and valuable new books from which he had long been excluded,
he might be forgiven for giving a half sigh to the reflection that he
could never be a rich man. "Have you read this review?" said his
companion, handing him one of the leading periodicals of the day across
the table.
"I seldom see reviews," said Mr. Stanton, taking it.
"You lose a great deal," replied the other, "if you have not seen those
by this author--altogether the ablest series of literary efforts in our
time. You clerical gentlemen ought not to sacrifice your literary tastes
entirely to your professional cares. A moderate attention to current
literature liberalizes the mind, and gives influence that you could not
otherwise acquire."
"Literary taste is an expensive thing to a minister," said Mr. Stanton,
smiling: "for the mind, as well as the body, we must forego all
luxuries, and confine ourselves simply to necessaries."
"I would always indulge myself with books and periodicals, even if I had
to scrimp elsewhere," said Mr. Lennox; and he spoke of scrimping with
all the serious good faith with which people of two or three thousand a
year usually speak of these matters.
Mr. Stanton smiled, and waived the subject, wondering mentally where his
friend would find an elsewhere to scrimp, if he had the management of
_his_ concerns. The conversation gradually flowed back to college days
and scenes, and the friends amused themselves with tracing the history
of their various classmates.
"And so Alsop is in the Senate," said Mr. Stanton. "Strange! We did not
at all expect it of him. But do you know any thing of George Bush?"
"O, yes," replied the other; "he went into mercantile life, and the last
I heard he had turned a speculation worth thirty thousand--a shrewd
fellow. I always knew he would make his way in the world."
"But what has become of Langdon?"
"O, he is doing well; he is professor of languages in ---- College, and
I hear he has lately issued a Latin Grammar that promises to have quite
a run."
"And Smithson?"
"Smithson has an office at Washington, and was there living in great
style the last time I saw him."
It may be questioned whether the minister sank to sleep that night, amid
the many comfortable provisions of his friend's guest chamber, without
rebuking in his heart a certain rising of regret that he had turned his
back on all the honors, and distinctions, and comforts which lay around
the path of others, who had not, in the opening of the race, half the
advantages of himself. "See," said the insidious voice--"what have you
gained? See your early friends surrounded by riches and comfort, while
you are pinched and harassed by poverty. Have they not, many of them, as
good a hope of heaven as you have, and all this besides? Could you not
have lived easier, and been a good man after all?" The reflection was
only silenced by remembering that the only Being who ever had the
perfect power of choosing his worldly condition, chose, of his own
accord, a poverty deeper than that of any of his servants. Had Christ
consented to be rich, what check could there have been to the desire of
it among his followers? But he chose to stoop so low that none could be
lower; and that in extremest want none could ever say, "I am poorer than
was my Savior and God."
The friends at parting the next morning shook hands warmly, and promised
a frequent renewal of their resumed intercourse. Nor was the bill for
twenty dollars, which the minister found in his hand, at all an
unacceptable addition to the pleasures of his visit; and though the
November wind whistled keenly through a dull, comfortless sky, he turned
his horse's head homeward with a lightened heart.
* * * * *
"Mother's sick, and _I'm_ a-keeping house!" said a little flaxen-headed
girl, in all the importance of seven years, as her father entered the
dwelling.
"Your mother sick! what's the matter?" inquired Mr. Stanton.
"She caught cold washing, yesterday, while you were gone;" and when the
minister stood by the bedside of his sick wife, saw her flushed face,
and felt her feverish pulse, he felt seriously alarmed. She had scarcely
recovered from a dangerous fever when he left home, and with reason he
dreaded a relapse.
"My dear, why have you done so?" was the first expostulation; "why did
you not send for old Agnes to do your washing, as I told you."
"I felt so well, I thought I was quite able," was the reply; "and you
know it will take all the money we have now in hand to get the
children's shoes before cold weather comes, and nobody knows when we
shall have any more."
"Well, Mary, comfort your heart as to that. I have had a present to-day
of twenty dollars--that will last us some time. God always provides when
need is greatest." And so, after administering a little to the comfort
of his wife, the minister addressed himself to the business of cooking
something for dinner for himself and his little hungry flock.
"There is no bread in the house," he exclaimed, after a survey of the
ways and means at his disposal.
"I must try and sit up long enough to make some," said his wife faintly.
"You must try to be quiet," replied the husband. "We can do very well on
potatoes. But yet," he added, "I think if I bring the things to your
bedside, and you show me how to mix them, I could make some bread."
A burst of laughter from the young fry chorused his proposal;
nevertheless, as Mr. Stanton was a man of decided genius, by help of
much showing, and of strong arms and good will, the feat was at length
accomplished in no unworkmanlike manner; and while the bread was put
down to the fire to rise, and the potatoes were baking in the oven, Mr.
Stanton having enjoined silence on his noisy troop, sat down, pencil in
hand, by his wife's bed, to prepare a sermon.
We would that those ministers who feel that they cannot compose without
a study, and that the airiest and pleasantest room in the house, where
the floor is guarded by the thick carpet, the light carefully relieved
by curtains, where papers are filed and arranged neatly in conveniences
purposely adjusted, with books of reference standing invitingly around,
could once figure to themselves the process of composing a sermon in
circumstances such as we have painted. Mr. Stanton had written his text,
and jotted down something of an introduction, when a circumstance
occurred which is almost inevitable in situations where a person has any
thing else to attend to--_the baby woke_. The little interloper was to
be tied into a chair, while the flaxen-headed young housekeeper was now
installed into the office of waiter in ordinary to her majesty, and by
shaking a newspaper before her face, plying a rattle, or other arts
known only to the initiate, to prevent her from indulging in any
unpleasant demonstrations, while Mr. Stanton proceeded with his train of
thought.
"Papa, papa! the teakettle! only look!" cried all the younger ones, just
as he was again beginning to abstract his mind.
Mr. Stanton rose, and adapting part of his sermon paper to the handle of
the teakettle, poured the boiling water on some herb drink for his wife,
and then recommenced.
"I sha'n't have much of a sermon!" he soliloquized, as his youngest but
one, with the ingenuity common to children of her standing, had
contrived to tip herself over in her chair, and cut her under lip, which
for the time being threw the whole settlement into commotion; and this
conviction was strengthened by finding that it was now time to give the
children their dinner.
"I fear Mrs. Stanton is imprudent in exerting herself," said the medical
man to the husband, as he examined her symptoms.
"I know she is," replied her husband, "but I cannot keep her from it."
"It is absolutely indispensable that she should rest and keep her mind
easy," said the doctor.
"Rest and keep easy"--how easily the words are said! yet how they fall
on the ear of a mother, who knows that her whole flock have not yet a
garment prepared for winter, that hiring assistance is out of the
question, and that the work must all be done by herself--who sees that
while she is sick her husband is perplexed, and kept from his
appropriate duties, and her children, despite his well-meant efforts,
suffering for the want of those attentions that only a mother can give.
Will not any mother, so tried, rise from her sick bed before she feels
able, to be again prostrated by over-exertion, until the vigor of the
constitution year by year declines, and she sinks into an early grave?
Yet this is the true history of many a wife and mother, who, in
consenting to share the privations of a western minister, has as truly
sacrificed her life as did ever martyr on heathen shores. The graves of
Harriet Newell and Mrs. Judson are hallowed as the shrines of saints,
and their memory made as a watchword among Christians; yet the western
valley is full of green and nameless graves, where patient,
long-enduring wives and mothers have lain down, worn out by the
privations of as severe a missionary field, and "no man knoweth the
place of their sepulchre."
The crisp air of a November evening was enlivened by the fire that
blazed merrily in the bar room of the tavern in L., while a more than
usual number crowded about the hearth, owing to the session of the
county court in that place.
"Mr. Lennox is a pretty smart lawyer," began an old gentleman, who sat
in one of the corners, in the half interrogative tone which indicated a
wish to start conversation.
"Yes, sir, no mistake about that," was the reply; "does the largest
business in the state--very smart man, sir, and honest--a church member
too, and one of the tallest kinds of Christians they say--gives more
money for building meeting houses, and all sorts of religious concerns,
than any man around."
"Well, he can afford it," said a man with a thin, care-taking visage,
and a nervous, anxious twitch of the hand, as if it were his constant
effort to hold on to something--"he can afford it, for he makes money
hand over hand. It is not every body can afford to do as he does."
A sly look of intelligence pervaded the company; for the speaker, one of
the most substantial householders in the settlement, was always taken
with distressing symptoms of poverty and destitution when any allusion
to public or religious charity was made.
"Mr. C. is thinking about parish matters," said a wicked wag of the
company; "you see, sir, our minister urged pretty hard last Sunday to
have his salary paid up. He has had sickness in his family, and nothing
on hand for winter expenses."
"I don't think Mr. Stanton is judicious in making such public
statements," said the former speaker, nervously; "he ought to consult
his friends privately, and not bring temporalities into the pulpit."
"That is to say, starve decently, and make no fuss," replied the other.
"Nonsense! Who talks of starving, when provision is as plenty as
blackberries? I tell you I understand this matter, and know how little a
man can get along with. I've tried it myself. When I first set out in
life, my wife and I had not a pair of andirons or a shovel and tongs for
two or three years, and we never thought of complaining. The times are
hard. We are all losing, and must get along as we can; and Mr. Stanton
must bear some rubs as well as the rest of us."
"It appears to me, Mr. C," said the waggish gentleman aforesaid, "that
if you'd put Mr. Stanton into your good brick house, and give him your
furniture and income, he would be well satisfied to rub along as you
do."
"Mr. Stanton isn't so careful in his expenses as he might be," said Mr.
C., petulantly, disregarding the idea started by his neighbor; "he buys
things _I_ should not think of buying. Now, I was in his house the other
day, and he had just given three dollars for a single book."
"Perhaps it was a book he needed in his studies," suggested the old
gentleman who began the conversation.
"What's the use of book larnin' to a minister, if he's got the real
spirit in him?" chimed in a rough-looking man in the farthest corner;
"only wish you could have heard Elder North give it off--_there_ was a
real genuine preacher for you, couldn't even read his text in the Bible;
yet, sir, he would get up and reel it off as smooth and fast as the best
of them, that come out of the colleges. My notion is, it's the _spirit_
that's the thing, after all."
Several of the auditors seemed inclined to express their approbation of
this doctrine, though some remarked that Mr. Stanton was a smarter
preacher than Elder North, for all his book larnin'.
Some of the more intelligent of the circle here exchanged smiles, but
declined entering the lists in favor of "larnin'."
"O, for my part," resumed Mr. C., "I am for having a minister study, and
have books and all that, if he can afford it; but in hard times like
these, books are neither meat, drink, nor fire; and I know I can't
afford them. Now, I'm as willing to contribute my part to the minister's
salary, and every other charity, as any body, when I can get money to do
it; but in these times I _can't_ get it."
The elderly gentleman here interrupted the conversation by saying,
abruptly, "I am a townsman of Mr. Stanton's, and it is _my_ opinion that
_he_ has impoverished himself by giving in religious charity."
"Giving in charity!" exclaimed several voices; "where did he ever get
any thing to give?"
"Yet I think I speak within bounds," said the old gentleman, "when I say
that he has given more than the amount of two thousand dollars yearly to
the support of the gospel in this state; and I think I can show it to be
so."
The eyes of the auditors were now enlarged to their utmost limits, while
the old gentleman, after the fashion of shrewd old gentlemen generally,
screwed up his mouth in a very dry twist, and looked in the fire without
saying a word.
"Come now, pray tell us how this is," said several of the company.
"Well, sir," said the old man, addressing himself to Mr. C., "you are a
man of business, and will perhaps understand the case as I view it. You
were speaking this evening of lawyer Lennox. He and your minister were
both from my native place, and both there and in college your minister
was always reckoned the smartest of the two, and went ahead in every
thing they undertook. Now, you see Mr. Lennox, out of his talents and
education, makes say three thousand a year. Mr. Stanton had more talent,
and more education, and might have made even more; but by devoting
himself to the work of the ministry in your state, he gains, we will
say, about four hundred dollars. Does he not, therefore, in fact, give
all the difference between four hundred and three thousand to the cause
of religion in this state? If, during the business season of the year,
you, Mr. C., should devote your whole time to some benevolent
enterprise, would you not feel that you had virtually given to that
enterprise all the money you would otherwise have made? Instead,
therefore, of calling it a charity for you to subscribe to your
minister's support, you ought to consider it a very expensive charity
for him to devote his existence in preaching to you. To bring the gospel
to your state, he has given up a reasonable prospect of an income of two
or three thousand, and contents himself with the least sum which will
keep soul and body together, without the possibility of laying up a cent
for his family in case of his sickness and death. This, sir, is what _I_
call giving in charity."
THE ELDER'S FEAST.
A TRADITION OF LAODICEA.
At a certain time in the earlier ages there lived in the city of
Laodicea a Christian elder of some repute, named Onesiphorus. The world
had smiled on him, and though a Christian, he was rich and full of
honors. All men, even the heathen, spoke well of him, for he was a man
courteous of speech and mild of manner.
His wife, a fair Ionian lady but half reclaimed from idolatry, though
baptized and accredited as a member of the Christian church, still
lingered lovingly on the confines of old heathenism, and if she did not
believe, still cherished with pleasure the poetic legends of Apollo and
Venus, of Jove and Diana.
A large and fair family of sons and daughters had risen around these
parents; but their education had been much after the rudiments of this
world, and not after Christ. Though, according to the customs of the
church, they were brought to the font of baptism, and sealed in the name
of the Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost, and although daily, instead
of libations to the Penates, or flower offerings to Diana and Juno, the
name of Jesus was invoked, yet the _spirit_ of Jesus was wanting. The
chosen associates of all these children, as they grew older, were among
the heathen; and daily they urged their parents, by their entreaties, to
conform, in one thing after another, to heathen usage. "Why should we be
singular, mother?" said the dark-eyed Myrrah, as she bound her hair and
arranged her dress after the fashion of the girls in the temple of
Venus. "Why may we not wear the golden ornaments and images which have
been consecrated to heathen goddesses?" said the sprightly Thalia;
"surely none others are to be bought, and are we to do altogether
without?" "And why may we not be at feasts where libations are made to
Apollo or Jupiter?" said the sons; "so long as we do not consent to it
or believe in it, will our faith be shaken thereby?" "How are we ever to
reclaim the heathen, if we do not mingle among them?" said another son;
"did not our Master eat with publicans and sinners?"
It was, however, to be remarked, that no conversions of the heathen to
Christianity ever took place through the means of these complying sons
and daughters, or any of the number who followed their example. Instead
of withdrawing any from the confines of heathenism, they themselves were
drawn so nearly over, that in certain situations and circumstances they
would undoubtedly have been ranked among them by any but a most
scrutinizing observer. If any in the city of Laodicea were ever led to
unite themselves with Jesus, it was by means of a few who observed the
full simplicity of the ancient faith, and who, though honest, tender,
and courteous in all their dealings with the heathen, still went not a
step with them in conformity to any of their customs.
In time, though the family we speak of never broke off from the
Christian church, yet if you had been in it, you might have heard much
warm and earnest conversation about things that took place at the baths,
or in feasts to various divinities; but if any one spoke of Jesus, there
was immediately a cold silence, a decorous, chilling, respectful pause,
after which the conversation, with a bound, flew back into the old
channel again.
* * * * *
It was now night; and the house of Onesiphorus the Elder was blazing
with torches, alive with music, and all the hurry and stir of a
sumptuous banquet. All the wealth and fashion of Laodicea were there,
Christian and heathen; and all that the classic voluptuousness of
Oriental Greece could give to shed enchantment over the scene was there.
In ancient times the festivals of Christians in Laodicea had been
regulated in the spirit of the command of Jesus, as recorded by Luke,
whose classical Greek had made his the established version in Asia
Minor. "And thou, when thou makest a feast, call not thy friends and thy
kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee, and a
recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor,
and the maimed, and the lame, and the blind, and thou shalt be blessed;
for they cannot recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the
resurrection of the just."
That very day, before the entertainment, had this passage been quoted in
the ears of the family by Cleon, the youngest son, who, different from
all his family, had cherished in his bosom the simplicity of the old
belief.
"How ridiculous! how absurd!" had been the reply of the more thoughtless
members of the family, when Cleon cited the above passage as in point to
the evening's entertainment. The dark-eyed mother looked reproof on the
levity of the younger children, and decorously applauded the passage,
which she said had no application to the matter in hand.
"But, mother, even if the passage be not literally taken, it must mean
_something_. What did the Lord Jesus intend by it? If we Christians may
make entertainments with all the parade and expense of our heathen
neighbors, and thus spend the money that might be devoted to charity,
what does this passage mean?"
"Your father gives in charity as handsomely as any Christian in
Laodicea," said his mother warmly.
"Nay, mother, that may be; but I bethink me now of two or three times
when means have been wanting for the relieving of the poor, and the
ransoming of captives, and the support of apostles, when we have said
that we could give no more."
"My son," said his mother, "you do not understand the ways of the
world."
"Nay, how should he?" said Thalia, "shut up day and night with that old
papyrus of St. Luke and Paul's Epistles. One may have too much of a good
thing."
"But does not the holy Paul say, 'Be not conformed to this world'?"
"Certainly," said the elder; "that means that we should be baptized, and
not worship in the heathen temples."
"My dear son," said his mother, "you intend well, doubtless; but you
have not sufficient knowledge of life to estimate our relations to
society. Entertainments of this sort are absolutely necessary to sustain
our position in the world. If we accept, we must return them."