“John, do you know where Pulpit Rock is?”
“Indeed I do. It’s two or three miles into the Wilderness.”
“How near can you drive to it?”
“Perhaps within a quarter of a mile.
“There’s an old wood-road, which perhaps runs as near as that to Pulpit
Rock.
“The road is very rough, gullied out by water. There might be some
danger of breaking a carriage in it.”
“Never mind. I’ll run the risk. Be ready in fifteen minutes.”
It was black-eyed Eva Baldwin who gave the order, and within an hour
they had left the public highway, and were following the ancient and
unused wood-road through the Wilderness. The wheel of the buckboard
bounded high over stones that blocked the way, and then dropped as
suddenly into deep holes worn by the freshets. The riders often dodged
or bent low to avoid being brushed from their seats by branches of
trees. It was very far from being a pleasant ride, but never a word of
complaint from the lady.
She was anxious to secure the earliest blossoms of the fragrant
trailing arbutus, to grace the pulpit on the morrow.
She might send some rare and costly flowers from the greenhouse, but
every one of the Baldwin greenhouses would contribute to the decoration
of the church, and she, being fond of wild flowers and of nature at
first hand, wished to bring something direct from the Wilderness.
Eva Baldwin was a sister of David and Zechariah Baldwin, and was worth
a couple of millions easily, but she never realized how poor she was
until the eloquent young clergyman, the Reverend Ralph Cutter, came to
preach at the First Church.
“Many a poor girl,” she said to an intimate friend, “is richer than I
am, in the love of a good honest man.”
If the Reverend Ralph Cutter had made any advances in her direction,
he would have been met, frankly and honestly, by a good true woman.
She admired the new preacher the moment she first saw him, and that
admiration grew with every service of his which she attended, and with
every opportunity for becoming acquainted with him.
The coachman noticed the fire in the black eyes, as she alighted.
“You see that path?” he asked. “It leads through a hemlock grove, over
a flint ledge, and into a little valley beyond. Pulpit Rock is across
the valley from the ledge. The earliest arbutus is found across the
valley, on the slope below Pulpit Rock, among scattered bushes. Shall I
help you?”
“Oh, no; I’ll find it easily,” she replied, and taking the basket which
the coachman handed her, she followed the path, humming a favorite
song, and was soon out of sight in the hemlocks.
On that same Saturday morning the Reverend Ralph Cutter entered the
Wilderness from the opposite direction. Perhaps none of those who
listened to the impassioned and earnest appeals of the young minister,
knew that he helped to keep both his spiritual life and his oratorical
powers at white heat by this weekly journey to the Wilderness, where he
spent an hour in secret prayer and in speaking to the rocks and trees
from the text he was to use on the morrow.
Leaving the public road, he made his way through the Wilderness, along
a path not very well marked, through somber groves of pine and hemlock,
through other groves of red oak, rock-maple and beech, across brooks,
among large flint boulders, and through tracts where the wood had been
cut off, and the thorny blackberry canes had taken its place. Part of
the way the snow still covered the ground, and part of the way the
floor of the Wilderness was carpeted with the blooms of the hepatica,
or liverwort, with here and there an early blossom of the trailing
arbutus.
He made the same journey each Saturday, that he might be alone for
secret prayer, where he expected no interruption and also where he
might, in the freedom of the Wilderness, give the morrow’s sermon. I
do not mean that he would use the same words on Sunday that he hurled
at the white birch trees and flint boulders on Saturday. But the ideas
would be the same. He never used any written sermon.
One of his deacons once said of him:--“He seems to have everything
connected with his subject so completely under his control, that he has
only to reach out and grasp the idea that comes next, and hurl it at
you with the force and speed of a thunderbolt. We used to have sleepy
hearers. I have seen no one nodding under Ralph Cutter’s preaching. We
used to have complaints from people who were hard of hearing. Ralph
Cutter seems to think it is a part of his business to make the people
hear.”
How much of Ralph Cutter’s power on Sunday was due to his hour of
prayer in the Wilderness, and to his Saturday sermon to the crags and
bushes from Pulpit Rock, I cannot tell.
He was heavy-hearted to-day, and the first words which were echoed
back to him by the flint ledge across the valley were these:--
“This is my farewell to you. There are people in this church who
attempt to dictate what I shall say from this pulpit. Not only do they
attempt to dictate what I shall say here, but they attempt to dictate
my actions outside. They tell me that I must not exercise the right,
belonging to every citizen, of expressing my opinions in private or
public, on questions of public policy.
“There is no person on this earth rich enough, or powerful enough, to
dictate what I shall say, or what I shall not say, as a preacher of the
gospel. You may have this pulpit, and you may secure, to fill it, some
one who will be your slave; but I will wear no other bonds than those
of the Master, whether in the pulpit or out, and no man, even though he
be a thousand times a millionaire, will shape my words or actions, as a
minister of the gospel, or as a private citizen.”
There was much in Ralph Cutter’s mind that did not find expression
in words. He had been disgusted with the First Church in Papyrus, or
rather with its bosses, before he had been with it a fortnight. Only
the magical charm of a pair of black eyes, and the lovable personality
behind them, had made life in the Paper Town endurable to him. Recently
Zechariah Baldwin had given the young preacher plain notice that if he
continued to occupy the pulpit of the First Church, he must cut out
some of his pet hobbies from future sermons. He must cease to meddle
with the relations between labor and capital, both in the pulpit and
out--and, in short, he must omit everything which could possibly offend
the Honorable Zechariah. This dictation the young preacher positively
refused to submit to.
He tried to imagine the changed attitude of the people toward him at
the close of to-morrow’s sermon. There would be faces averted from him
which had always before been friendly. There would be hands withheld
which had always before sought his in friendly greeting.
There was one peculiarly sharp thorn in this thorny affair. How he
wished that those searching black eyes did not belong to a member of
the “Royal Family”, as the Baldwin family was sometimes called.
Nature was not disturbed by his eloquence. A hawk sailed with unmoved
wings, in mighty circles, high above him. The noisy blue jays were
mobbing an owl in the oak grove close by. The blossoms of the trailing
arbutus were as lavish of their fragrance as if no one in the world
were troubled, or perplexed, or in love.
All unconscious that any human being was within hearing, the preacher
continued:--
“When I first came to Papyrus I delivered a sermon against the
disfranchisement of negroes at the South. After the service a
workingman asked me why I did not ask a full and free ballot for
the white paper-maker of Massachusetts, as well as for the negro
cotton-planter of Mississippi? I was much surprised when the workman
told me that mill-hands in Papyrus, who are legal voters, do not have a
full vote in town-government, and cannot secure it.
“I have since investigated actual conditions here, and find that the
Papyrus mill-hand, even if he owns his home, cannot vote appropriations
for schools, highways, street-lights, sewers, and other public
improvements for which he is taxed. The mill-hand, it is claimed,
is given two hours in which to attend town-meeting. That period of
two hours always includes the dinner-hour. The trip to and from the
town-hall, in some cases, takes nearly the whole of the two hours.
“TWO HOURS for the rightful monarch of Papyrus to say how the town
shall be governed! A two-hour limit to prevent the real creator of all
your wealth from saying how that wealth shall be taxed! TWO HOURS limit
for a free citizen of the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts
on Town-Meeting-Day--the day that taught New England to be free! In
reality, not two hours, not one hour. Barely time for the rightful
monarch to mark a ballot for town-officers and return to the mill,
while the usurper remains and dictates what sums shall be spent by the
town for schools, highways and other needs.
“I have consulted one of the best lawyers in the state. He says: ‘The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not guarantee to its mill-hands,
who may be legal voters, the right to vote in town-affairs. The paltry
two-hour provision only makes a farce of free government in mill-towns.
It does not apply to town-meetings. In some towns the workman’s full
rights are secured by shutting down the mills on town-meeting day,
and in others by holding the business meeting, for appropriations,
in the evening. But where the town authorities and the employers, as
in Papyrus, are both opposed to allowing the mill-hands to vote on
appropriations, they have no legal remedy. The political leaders, or
bosses, of the State have been asked to correct the law, but they say
the matter is of no importance,--as if anything could possibly be more
important than the principle of equal rights, upon which our nation is
founded.’”
“And this,” shouted the speaker in the Wilderness, “this is the
boasted equal rights of Massachusetts. I do not wonder that you,
manufacturers of Papyrus, are ashamed,--so ashamed that you have
forbidden me to mention this subject in the pulpit,--so ashamed that
you have muzzled every newspaper within fifty miles, even the usually
independent Springdale _Democrat_. You ought to be ashamed. The State
of Massachusetts, which disfranchises its own workmen, while demanding
political equality for the Southern negro, ought to be ashamed.”
Soon after Miss Baldwin left the coachman heard a voice, and fearful
for her safety, hurried to the ledge, where he saw and heard the
speaker. He did not stay long, but long enough to learn that it was
the minister’s farewell, and a very unusual discourse.
“My last word to you,” rang out the powerful voice across the valley,
“shall be in favor of a pure church. Ask on the street, for the worst
libertines and adulterers in town, the wreckers of happy homes, the men
whose social life is a stench,--and members of this church, protected
by their wealth, will be pointed out to you. Search for the employers
most unjust to their workmen, and you will find them sheltered by this
church. My parting advice is, to purify your church,--to drive out
of it the thieves and adulterers, or to cease calling it a church of
Christ.”
The lady returned with a basket of arbutus, but there was no song on
her lips, and the fire had burned out of the black eyes.
“John,” she said, “drive me to the home of the Widow Fordyce. She is
sick and may be glad of these flowers.”
To an acquaintance, that evening, the coachman said:--“If you want to
hear Reverend Ralph Cutter’s farewell and the greatest sermon ever
preached in Papyrus, go to the First Church to-morrow.”
The news spread rapidly, and Ralph Cutter was surprised when he met a
congregation for which the building could not furnish standing-room.
But even those in the street heard him.