SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
Let me introduce to you the Harrison dinner-table, and the people
gathered there on the afternoon of that Sabbath day. Miss Lily had
brought home with her her cousin Jim; he was privileged on the score
of relationship. Miss Helen, another daughter of the house, had
invited Mr. Harvey Latimer; he was second cousin to Kate's husband,
and Kate was a niece of Mrs. Harrison; relationship again. Also, Miss
Fannie and Miss Cecilia Lawrence were there, because they were
schoolgirls, and so lonely in boarding-school on Sunday, and their
mother was an old friend of Mrs. Harrison; there are always reasons
for things.
The dinner-table was a marvel of culinary skill. Clearly Mrs.
Harrison's cook was _not_ a church-goer. Roast turkey, and
chicken-pie, and all the side dishes attendant upon both, to say
nothing of the rich and carefully prepared dessert, of the nature
that indicated that its flankiness was _not_ developed on Saturday,
and left to wait for Sunday. Also, there was wine on Mrs. Harrison's
table; just a little home-made wine, the rare juice of the grape
prepared by Mrs. Harrison's own cook--not at all the sort of wine
that others indulged in--the Harrisons were temperance people.
"I invited Dr. Selmser down to dinner," remarked Mrs. Harrison, as
she sipped her coffee. "I thought since his wife was gone, it would
be only common courtesy to invite him in to get a warm dinner, but he
declined; he said his Sunday dinners were always very simple."
Be it known to you that Dr. Selmser was Mrs. Harrison's pastor, and
the preacher of the morning sermon.
Miss Lily arched her handsome eyebrows.
"Oh, mamma!" she said, "how could you be guilty of such a sin! The
_idea_ of Dr. Selmser going out to dinner on Sunday! I wonder he did
not drop down in a faint! Papa, did you ever hear such a sermon?"
"It slashed right and left, that is a fact," said Mr. Harrison,
between the mouthfuls of chicken salad and oyster pickle.
"A little too sweeping in its scope to be wise for one in his
position. Have another piece of the turkey, James? He is running into
that style a little too much. Some person whose opinion has weight
ought to warn him. A minister loses influence pretty rapidly who
meddles with everything."
"Well, there was _everything_ in that sermon," said Miss Cecilia. "I
just trembled in my shoes at one time. I expected our last escapade
in the school hall would be produced to point one of his morals."
"You admit that it would have pointed it?" said the cousin Jim, with
a meaning laugh.
"Oh, yes; it was _awfully_ wicked; I'll admit that. But one didn't
care to hear it rehearsed in a church."
"That is the trouble," mamma Harrison said. "Little nonsenses that do
very well among schoolgirls, or in the way of a frolic, are not
suited to illustrate a sermon with. I think Dr. Selmser is rather apt
to forget the dignity of the pulpit in his illustrations."
"Lorena says he utterly spoiled the closing anthem by that
doleful hymn he gave out," said Miss Lily. "They were going to give
that exquisite bit from the last sacred opera, but the organist
positively refused to play it after such woe-begone music. I wish we
had a new hymn-book, without any of those horrid, old-fashioned hymns
in it, anyhow."
It was Mr. Harvey Latimer's turn to speak:
"Oh, well now, say what you please, Selmser can _preach_. He may not
suit one's taste always, Especially when you get hit; but he has a
tremendous way of putting things. Old Professor Marker says he has
more power over language than any preacher in the city."
"Yes," said Mr. Harrison, struggling with too large a mouthful of
turkey, "he is a _preacher_, whatever else may be said about him; and
yet of course it is unfortunate for a minister to be always pitching
into people; they get tired of it after a while."
"Jim, did you know that Mrs. Jamison was going to give a reception to
the bride next Wednesday evening?" This from Lily.
"No; _is_ she? That will be a grand crush, I suppose."
"I heard her giving informal invitations in church to-day," Helen
said, and one of the schoolgirls said:
"Oh, don't you think she said she was going to invite us? Celia told
her to send the invitation to you, Mrs. Harrison. We felt sure you
would ask us to your house to spend the evening; Madam Wilcox will
always allow that. But there is no use trying to get her permission
for a party. You _will_ ask us, _won't_ you?"
Whereupon Mrs. Harrison laughed, and shook her head at them, and told
them she was afraid they were naughty girls, and she would have to
think about it. All of which seemed to be entirely satisfactory to
them. The conversation suddenly changed.
"Wasn't Mrs. Marsh dressed in horrid taste today?" said Helen
Harrison. "Really I don't see the use in being worth a million in her
own right, if she has no better taste than _that_ to display. Her
camels'-hair shawl is positively the ugliest thing I ever saw, and
she had it folded horribly. She is round-shouldered, anyhow--ought
never to wear a shawl."
"I think her shawl was better than her hat," chimed in Miss Lily.
"The _idea_ of that hat costing fifty dollars! It isn't as becoming
as her old one; and, to make it look worse than it would have done,
she had her hair arranged in that frightful new twist!"
"Why, Lily Harrison! I heard you tell her you thought her hat was
lovely!" This from Lily's youngest sister.
"Oh, yes, of course," said Miss Lily. "One must say something to
people. It wouldn't do to tell her she looked horrid." And the
mother _laughed_.
"It is a good thing for Mrs. Marsh that she holds her million in her
own right," observed cousin Jim. "That husband of hers is getting a
little too fast for comfort."
"Is that so?" Mr. Harrison asked, looking up from his turkey bone.
"Yes, sir; his loss at cards was tremendously heavy last week; would
have broken a less solid man. He had been drinking when he played
last, and made horridly flat moves."
"Disgraceful!" murmured Mr. Harrison; and then he took another sip of
his home-made wine.
There were homes representing this same church that were not so
stylish, or fashionable, or wealthy. Mrs. Brower and her daughter
Jenny had to lay aside their best dresses, and all the array of
Sunday toilet, which represented their very best, and repair to the
kitchen to cook their own Sunday dinners. "Was it a thoughtful
dwelling upon such verses of Scripture as had been presented that
morning which made the Sunday dinner the most elaborate, the most
carefully prepared, and more general in its variety, than any other
dinner in the week? Their breakfast hour was late, and, by putting
the dinner hour at half-past three, it gave them time to be
elaborate, according to their definition of that word. Not being
cumbered with hired help, mother and daughter could have
confidential Sabbath conversations with each other as they worked.
So while Mrs. Brower carefully washed and stuffed the two plump
chickens, Jennie prepared squash, and turnip, and potatoes for
cooking, planning meanwhile for the hot apple sauce, and a side dish
or two for dessert, and the two talked.
"Well, did you get an invitation?" the mother asked, and the tone of
suppressed motherly anxiety showed that the subject was one of
importance. Did she mean an invitation to the great feast which is to
be held when they sit down to celebrate the marriage supper of the
Lamb, and which this holy Sabbath day was given to help one prepare
for? No, on second thought it could not have been that; for, after
listening to the morning sermon no thought of anxiety could have
mingled with that question. Assuredly Jennie was invited--nay,
_urged, entreated_; the only point of Anxiety could have
been--_would_ she accept? But it was another place that filled the
minds of both mother and daughter.
"Indeed I did." There was glee in Miss Jennie's voice. "I thought I
wasn't going to. She went right by me and asked people right and
left, never once looking at me. But she came away back after she had
gone into the hall, and came over to my seat and whispered that she
had been looking for me all the way out, but had missed me. She said
I must be sure to come, for she depended on us young people to help
make the affair less ceremonious. Don't you think, Emma wasn't
invited at all, and I don't believe she will be; almost everyone has
been now. Emma was so sure of her invitation, because she was such a
friend of Lu Jamison's. She thought she would get cards to the
wedding, you know; and when they didn't come she felt sure of the
reception. She has been holding her head wonderfully high all the
week about it, and now she is left out and I am in. Mother, isn't
that rich?"
Mrs. Brower plumped her chickens into the oven, and wiped the flour
from her cheek and sighed.
"There will be no end of fuss in getting you ready, and expense too.
What are you going to wear, anyway?"
"Mother," said Jennie, impressively, turning away from her squash to
get a view of her mother's face, "I ought to have a new dress for
this party. I haven't anything fit to be seen. It is months since I
have had a new one; and everybody is sick of my old blue dress; I'm
sure I am."
"It is entirely out of the question," Mrs. Brower said, irritably,
"and you know it is. I _wonder_ at your even thinking of such a
thing, and we so many bills to pay; and there's that pew-rent hasn't
been paid in so long that I'm ashamed to go to church."
"I wish the pew-rent was in Jericho, and the pew, too!" was Miss
Jennie's spirited answer. "I should think churches ought to be free,
if nothing else is. It is a great religion, selling pews so high that
poor people can't go to church. If I had thought I couldn't have a
new dress I should have declined the invitation at once. I did think
it was time for me to have something decent; and I make my own
clothes, too, which is more than most any other girls do. I saw a way
to make it this morning. I studied Miss Harvey's dress all the while
we were standing. I could make trimming precisely like hers, and put
it on and all. I could do every thing to it but cut and fit it."
"I tell you you haven't anything to cut and fit, and can't have.
What's the use in talking?"
And in her annoyance and motherly bitterness at having to disappoint
her daughter, Mrs. Brower let fall the glass jar she had been trying
to open, and it opened suddenly, disgorging and mingling its contents
with bits of glass on the kitchen floor. Does anyone, having
overheard thus much of the conversation, and having a fair knowledge
of human nature, need to be told that there were sharp words,
bitterly spoken, in that kitchen after that, and that presently the
speech settled down into silence and gloom, and preparations for the
Sunday dinner went on, with much slamming and banging, and quick
nervous movements, that but increased the ferment within and the
outside difficulties. And yet this mother and daughter had been to
church and heard that wonderful text, "Take heed what ye do; let the
fear of the Lord be upon you." Had listened while it was explained
and illustrated, going, you will remember, into the very kitchen for
details. They had heard that wonderful hymn:
"In vain my soul would try
To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee
The notice of thine eye."
Both mother and daughter had their names enrolled on the church
record. They were at times earnest and anxious to feel sure that
their names were written in the book kept before the throne. Yet the
invitation to Mrs. Jamison's reception, informally whispered to the
daughter as she moved down the church aisle, had enveloped the rest
of their Sabbath in gloom. "Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not
having on the wedding garment?" It was a wedding reception to which
Jennie had been invited. Did neither mother nor daughter think of
that other wedding, and have a desire to be clothed in the right
garment?