THIS CHAPTER SHOWETH, IN A METHODICAL MANNER, HOW TO FIND A FAITH AND
LOSE A RELIGION; ALSO, TO PROCURE A CALL FOR PERSONS OF ALL MANNER OF
CALLINGS.
I had, as I have related, been encouraged in fits of passion, and had
been taught to be pugnacious; my mind was now to be opened to loftier
speculations; and religious dread, with all the phantoms of superstition
in its train, came like a band of bravoes, and first chaining down my
soul in the awe of stupefaction, ultimately loosened its bonds, and sent
it to wander in all its childish wildness in the direful realms of
horrible dreams, and of waking visions hardly less so. I was fashioning
for a poet.
My nurse was always a little devotional. She went to the nearest chapel
or church, and, satisfied that she heard the word of God, without
troubling herself with the niceties of any peculiar dogma, which she
could not have understood if she had, and finding herself on the
threshold of Divine grace, she knelt down in all humility, prayed, and
was comforted. Old Ford was a furious Methodist: he owned that he never
could reform; and, as he daily drained the cup of sin to the very dregs,
he tried, as an antidote, long prayer and superabounding faith. The
unction with which he struck his breast, and exclaimed, "Miserable
sinner that I am!" could only be exceeded by the veracity of the
assertion. Mrs Brandon only joined in the prayer-meetings that he held
at our house, when Ford himself was perfectly sober--thus she did not
often attend--Brandon never. Whilst he wore the top-boots, he was an
optimist, and perfectly epicurean in his philosophy--I use the term in
the modern sense. When he had eighty pounds odd a year, with no family
of his own, no man was more jovial or happy. He had the most perfect
reliance on Providence. He boasted that he belonged to the Established
Church, because it was so respectable--and he loved the organ. However,
he never went in the forenoon, because he was never shaved in time; in
the afternoon he never went, because he could not dispense with his nap
after dinner; and, in the evening, none but the serving classes were to
be seen there. He ridiculed the humble piety of his wife, and the
fanatical fervour of his lodger. He was a High Churchman, and
satisfied. But when he was obliged, with an increasing family and a
decreased income, to work from morning till night, he grew morose and
very unsettled in his faith.
The French Revolution was then at its wildest excess: equality was
universally advocated in religious, as well as political establishments.
The excitement of the times reached even to the sawpit. Brandon got
tipsy one Saturday night with a parcel of demagogues, and when he awoke
early next Sunday morning--it was a beautiful summer day--he made the
sudden discovery that he had still his faith to seek for. Then began
his dominical pilgrimages: with his son Ralph in his hand, he roved from
one congregation to another over the vast metropolis, and through its
extensive environs: I do not think that we left a single place dedicated
to devotion unvisited. I well remember that he was much struck with the
Roman Catholic worship. We repeated our visits three or four times to
the Catholic chapel, a deference we paid to no other. The result of
this may be easily imagined: when an excited mind searches for food, it
will be satisfied with the veriest trash, provided only that it
intoxicates. We at length stumbled upon a small set of mad Methodists,
more dismal and more excluding than even Ford's sect: the congregation
were all of the very lowest class, with about twelve or thirteen
exceptions, and those were decidedly mad. The pastor was an arch rogue,
that fattened upon the delusion of his communicants. They held the
doctrine of visible election, which election was made by having a call--
that is, a direct visitation of the Holy Ghost, which was testified by
falling down in a fit--the testification being the more authentic, if it
happened in full congregation. The elected could never again fall: the
sins that were afterwards committed in their persons were not theirs--it
was the evil spirit within them, that they could cast out when they
would, and be equally as pure as before. All the rest of the world, who
had not had their call, were in a state of reprobation, and on the
highroad to damnation.
All this, of course, I did not understand till long afterwards, but I
too unhappily understood, or at least fancied I did, the dreadful images
of eternal torments, and the certainty that they would soon be mine.
First of all, either from inattention, or from want of comprehension,
these denunciations made but a faint impression upon me. But the
frightful descriptions took, gradually, a more visible and sterner
shape, till they produced effects that proved all but fatal.
The doctrines of these Caterians just suited the intellect and the
strong passions of Brandon. The sect was called Caterians, after the
Reverend Mr Cate, their minister. My foster-father went home, after
the second Sunday, and put his house in order. As far as regarded the
household, the regulations would have pleased Sir Andrew Agnew: the hot
joint was dismissed--the country walk discontinued--at meeting four
times a day. Even Ford did not like it. Brandon was labouring hard for
his call: he strove vehemently for the privilege of sinning with
impunity. He was told by Mr Cate that he was in a desperate way.
Brandon did all he could, but the call would not come for the calling.
Mrs Brandon got it very soon, though she strenuously denied the honour.
My good nurse was in the family-way, and Mr Cate had frightened her
into fits, with a vivid delineation of the agonies of a new-born infant,
under the torture of eternal fire, because it had died unelected.
However, Brandon began a little to weary of waiting and long prayer, and
perhaps of the now too frequent visits of Mr Cate. He commenced to
have his fits of alternate intemperate recklessness, and religious
despondency. One Sunday morning--well do I recollect it--he called me
up early, before seven; and I supposed, as usual, that we were going to
early meeting: we walked towards the large room that was used as a
chapel. We had nearly reached it, when the half-open door of an
adjacent ale-house let out its vile compound of disgusting odours upon
the balmy Sabbath air. My conductor hesitated--he moved towards the
meeting-house, but his head was turned the other way--he stopped.
"Ralph," said he, "did you not see Mr Ford go into the public-house?"
"No, father," said I; "don't think he's up."
"At all bounds, we had better go and see; for I must not allow him to
shame a decent house by tippling, on a Sunday morning, in a dram-shop."
We entered. He found there some of his mates. Pint after pint of purl
was called for; at length, a gallon of strong ale was placed upon the
table, a quart of gin was dashed into it, and the whole warmed with a
red-hot poker. I was instructed to lie. I promised to tell mother that
we had gone into a strange chapel; but I made my conditions, that mother
should not be any more beaten. It was almost church-time when the
landlord put us all out by the back way. The drunken fellows sneaked
home--whilst Brandon, taking me by the hand, made violent, and nearly
successful, efforts to appear sober.
After a hasty breakfast, we went to meeting. My foster-father looked
excessively wild. Mr Cate was raving in the midst of an extempore
prayer, when a heavy fall was heard in the chapel. The minister
descended from his desk, and came and prayed over the prostrate victim
of intoxication, and, perhaps, of epilepsy, and he pronounced that
brother Brandon had got his call, and was now indisputably one of the
elect. He did not revive so soon as was expected--his groans were
looked upon as indications of the workings of the Spirit; and when, at
length, he was so far recovered as to be led home by two of the
congregation, the conversion of the sawyer was dwelt upon by the
preacher, from a text preached upon the chapter that relates to the
conversion of Saul, and the cases were cited as parallel. Let the
opponents of the Established Church rail at it as they will, scenes of
such wickedness and impiety could never have happened within its
time-honoured walls.
When we returned to dinner, we found that Brandon had so far recovered
as to become very hungry, very proud, and very pharisaically pious. Mr
Cate dined with us. He was full of holy congratulations on the
miraculous event. The sawyer received all this with a humble
self-consequence, as the infallible dicta of truth, and, apparently,
with the utter oblivion of any such things existing as purl and red-hot
pokers. Was he a deep hypocrite, or only a self-deceiver? Who can know
the heart of man? However, "this call" had the effect of making the
"called one" a finished sinner, and of filling up the measure of
wretchedness to his wife.