The Negro population of the little Southern town of Danvers was in a
state of excitement such as it seldom reached except at revivals,
baptisms, or on Emancipation Day. The cause of the commotion was the
anticipated return of the Rev. Abram Dixon's only son, Robert, who,
having taken up his father's life-work and graduated at one of the
schools, had been called to a city church.
When Robert's ambition to take a college course first became the subject
of the village gossip, some said that it was an attempt to force
Providence. If Robert were called to preach, they said, he would be
endowed with the power from on high, and no intervention of the schools
was necessary. Abram Dixon himself had at first rather leaned to this
side of the case. He had expressed his firm belief in the theory that if
you opened your mouth, the Lord would fill it. As for him, he had no
thought of what he should say to his people when he rose to speak. He
trusted to the inspiration of the moment, and dashed blindly into
speech, coherent or otherwise.
Himself a plantation exhorter of the ancient type, he had known no
school except the fields where he had ploughed and sowed, the woods and
the overhanging sky. He had sat under no teacher except the birds and
the trees and the winds of heaven. If he did not fail utterly, if his
labour was not without fruit, it was because he lived close to nature,
and so, near to nature's God. With him religion was a matter of emotion,
and he relied for his results more upon a command of feeling than upon
an appeal to reason. So it was not strange that he should look upon his
son's determination to learn to be a preacher as unjustified by the real
demands of the ministry.
But as the boy had a will of his own and his father a boundless pride in
him, the day came when, despite wagging heads, Robert Dixon went away to
be enrolled among the students of a growing college. Since then six
years had passed. Robert had spent his school vacations in teaching; and
now, for the first time, he was coming home, a full-fledged minister of
the gospel.
It was rather a shock to the old man's sensibilities that his son's
congregation should give him a vacation, and that the young minister
should accept; but he consented to regard it as of the new order of
things, and was glad that he was to have his boy with him again,
although he murmured to himself, as he read his son's letter through his
bone-bowed spectacles: "Vacation, vacation, an' I wonder ef he reckons
de devil's goin' to take one at de same time?"
It was a joyous meeting between father and son. The old man held his boy
off and looked at him with proud eyes.
"Why, Robbie," he said, "you--you's a man!"
"That's what I'm trying to be, father." The young man's voice was deep,
and comported well with his fine chest and broad shoulders.
"You's a bigger man den yo' father ever was!" said his mother
admiringly.
"Oh, well, father never had the advantage of playing football."
The father turned on him aghast. "Playin' football!" he exclaimed. "You
don't mean to tell me dat dey 'lowed men learnin' to be preachers to
play sich games?"
"Oh, yes, they believe in a sound mind in a sound body, and one seems to
be as necessary as the other in fighting evil."
Abram Dixon shook his head solemnly. The world was turning upside down
for him.
"Football!" he muttered, as they sat down to supper.
Robert was sorry that he had spoken of the game, because he saw that it
grieved his father. He had come intending to avoid rather than to combat
his parent's prejudices. There was no condescension in his thought of
them and their ways. They were different; that was all. He had learned
new ways. They had retained the old. Even to himself he did not say,
"But my way is the better one."
His father was very full of eager curiosity as to his son's conduct of
his church, and the son was equally glad to talk of his work, for his
whole soul was in it.
"We do a good deal in the way of charity work among the churchless and
almost homeless city children; and, father, it would do your heart good
if you could only see the little ones gathered together learning the
first principles of decent living."
"Mebbe so," replied the father doubtfully, "but what you doin' in de way
of teachin' dem to die decent?"
The son hesitated for a moment, and then he answered gently, "We think
that one is the companion of the other, and that the best way to prepare
them for the future is to keep them clean and good in the present."
"Do you give 'em good strong doctern, er do you give 'em milk and
water?"
"I try to tell them the truth as I see it and believe it. I try to hold
up before them the right and the good and the clean and beautiful."
"Humph!" exclaimed the old man, and a look of suspicion flashed across
his dusky face. "I want you to preach fer me Sunday."
It was as if he had said, "I have no faith in your style of preaching
the gospel. I am going to put you to the test."
Robert faltered. He knew his preaching would not please his father or
his people, and he shrank from the ordeal. It seemed like setting them
all at defiance and attempting to enforce his ideas over their own. Then
a perception of his cowardice struck him, and he threw off the feeling
that was possessing him. He looked up to find his father watching him
keenly, and he remembered that he had not yet answered.
"I had not thought of preaching here," he said, "but I will relieve you
if you wish it."
"De folks will want to hyeah you an' see what you kin do," pursued his
father tactlessly. "You know dey was a lot of 'em dat said I oughn't ha'
let you go away to school. I hope you'll silence 'em."
Robert thought of the opposition his father's friends had shown to his
ambitions, and his face grew hot at the memory. He felt his entire
inability to please them now.
"I don't know, father, that I can silence those who opposed my going
away or even please those who didn't, but I shall try to please One."
It was now Thursday evening, and he had until Saturday night to prepare
his sermon. He knew Danvers, and remembered what a chill fell on its
congregations, white or black, when a preacher appeared before them with
a manuscript or notes. So, out of concession to their prejudices, he
decided not to write his sermon, but to go through it carefully and get
it well in hand. His work was often interfered with by the frequent
summons to see old friends who stayed long, not talking much, but
looking at him with some awe and a good deal of contempt. His trial was
a little sorer than he had expected, but he bore it all with the
good-natured philosophy which his school life and work in a city had
taught him.
The Sunday dawned, a beautiful, Southern summer morning; the lazy hum of
the bees and the scent of wild honeysuckle were in the air; the Sabbath
was full of the quiet and peace of God; and yet the congregation which
filled the little chapel at Danvers came with restless and turbulent
hearts, and their faces said plainly: "Rob Dixon, we have not come here
to listen to God's word. We have come here to put you on trial. Do you
hear? On trial."
And the thought, "On trial," was ringing in the young minister's mind as
he rose to speak to them. His sermon was a very quiet, practical one; a
sermon that sought to bring religion before them as a matter of
every-day life. It was altogether different from the torrent of speech
that usually flowed from that pulpit. The people grew restless under
this spiritual reserve. They wanted something to sanction, something to
shout for, and here was this man talking to them as simply and quietly
as if he were not in church.
As Uncle Isham Jones said, "De man never fetched an amen"; and the
people resented his ineffectiveness. Even Robert's father sat with his
head bowed in his hands, broken and ashamed of his son; and when,
without a flourish, the preacher sat down, after talking twenty-two
minutes by the clock, a shiver of surprise ran over the whole church.
His father had never pounded the desk for less than an hour.
Disappointment, even disgust, was written on every face. The singing was
spiritless, and as the people filed out of church and gathered in knots
about the door, the old-time head-shaking was resumed, and the comments
were many and unfavourable.
"Dat's what his schoolin' done fo' him," said one.
"It wasn't nothin' mo'n a lecter," was another's criticism.
"Put him 'side o' his father," said one of the Rev. Abram Dixon's loyal
members, "and bless my soul, de ol' man would preach all roun' him, and
he ain't been to no college, neither!"
Robert and his father walked home in silence together. When they were in
the house, the old man turned to his son and said:
"Is dat de way dey teach you to preach at college?"
"I followed my instructions as nearly as possible, father."
"Well, Lawd he'p dey preachin', den! Why, befo' I'd ha' been in dat
pulpit five minutes, I'd ha' had dem people moanin' an' hollerin' all
over de church."
"And would they have lived any more cleanly the next day?"
The old man looked at his son sadly, and shook his head as at one of the
unenlightened.
Robert did not preach in his father's church again before his visit came
to a close; but before going he said, "I want you to promise me you'll
come up and visit me, father. I want you to see the work I am trying to
do. I don't say that my way is best or that my work is a higher work,
but I do want you to see that I am in earnest."
"I ain't doubtin' you mean well, Robbie," said his father, "but I guess
I'd be a good deal out o' place up thaih."
"No, you wouldn't, father. You come up and see me. Promise me."
And the old man promised.
It was not, however, until nearly a year later that the Rev. Abram Dixon
went up to visit his son's church. Robert met him at the station, and
took him to the little parsonage which the young clergyman's people had
provided for him. It was a very simple place, and an aged woman served
the young man as cook and caretaker; but Abram Dixon was astonished at
what seemed to him both vainglory and extravagance.
"Ain't you livin' kin' o' high fo' yo' raisin', Robbie?" he asked.
The young man laughed. "If you'd see how some of the people live here,
father, you'd hardly say so."
Abram looked at the chintz-covered sofa and shook his head at its
luxury, but Robert, on coming back after a brief absence, found his
father sound asleep upon the comfortable lounge.
On the next day they went out together to see something of the city. By
the habit of years, Abram Dixon was an early riser, and his son was
like him; so they were abroad somewhat before business was astir in the
town. They walked through the commercial portion and down along the
wharves and levees. On every side the same sight assailed their eyes:
black boys of all ages and sizes, the waifs and strays of the city, lay
stretched here and there on the wharves or curled on doorsills, stealing
what sleep they could before the relentless day should drive them forth
to beg a pittance for subsistence.
"Such as these we try to get into our flock and do something for," said
Robert.
His father looked on sympathetically, and yet hardly with full
understanding. There was poverty in his own little village, yes, even
squalour, but he had never seen anything just like this. At home almost
everyone found some open door, and rare was the wanderer who slept
out-of-doors except from choice.
At nine o'clock they went to the police court, and the old minister saw
many of his race appear as prisoners, receiving brief attention and long
sentences. Finally a boy was arraigned for theft. He was a little,
wobegone fellow hardly ten years of age. He was charged with stealing
cakes from a bakery. The judge was about to deal with him as quickly as
with the others, and Abram's heart bled for the child, when he saw a
negro call the judge's attention. He turned to find that Robert had left
his side. There was a whispered consultation, and then the old preacher
heard with joy, "As this is his first offence and a trustworthy person
comes forward to take charge of him, sentence upon the prisoner will be
suspended."
Robert came back to his father holding the boy by the hand, and together
they made their way from the crowded room.
"I'm so glad! I'm so glad!" said the old man brokenly.
"We often have to do this. We try to save them from the first contact
with the prison and all that it means. There is no reformatory for black
boys here, and they may not go to the institutions for the white; so for
the slightest offence they are sent to jail, where they are placed with
the most hardened criminals. When released they are branded forever, and
their course is usually downward."
He spoke in a low voice, that what he said might not reach the ears of
the little ragamuffin who trudged by his side.
Abram looked down on the child with a sympathetic heart.
"What made you steal dem cakes?" he asked kindly.
"I was hongry," was the simple reply.
The old man said no more until he had reached the parsonage, and then
when he saw how the little fellow ate and how tenderly his son
ministered to him, he murmured to himself, "Feed my lambs"; and then
turning to his son, he said, "Robbie, dey's some'p'n in 'dis, dey's
some'p'n in it, I tell you."
That night there was a boy's class in the lower room of Robert Dixon's
little church. Boys of all sorts and conditions were there, and Abram
listened as his son told them the old, sweet stories in the simplest
possible manner and talked to them in his cheery, practical way. The old
preacher looked into the eyes of the street gamins about him, and he
began to wonder. Some of them were fierce, unruly-looking youngsters,
inclined to meanness and rowdyism, but one and all, they seemed under
the spell of their leader's voice. At last Robert said, "Boys, this is
my father. He's a preacher, too. I want you to come up and shake hands
with him." Then they crowded round the old man readily and heartily, and
when they were outside the church, he heard them pause for a moment, and
then three rousing cheers rang out with the vociferated explanation,
"Fo' de minister's pap!"
Abram held his son's hand long that night, and looked with tear-dimmed
eyes at the boy.
"I didn't understan'," he said. "I didn't understan'."
"You'll preach for me Sunday, father?"
"I wouldn't daih, honey. I wouldn't daih."
"Oh, yes, you will, pap."
He had not used the word for a long time, and at sound of it his father
yielded.
It was a strange service that Sunday morning. The son introduced the
father, and the father, looking at his son, who seemed so short a time
ago unlearned in the ways of the world, gave as his text, "A little
child shall lead them."
He spoke of his own conceit and vainglory, the pride of his age and
experience, and then he told of the lesson he had learned. "Why,
people," he said, "I feels like a new convert!"
It was a gentler gospel than he had ever preached before, and in the
congregation there were many eyes as wet as his own.
"Robbie," he said, when the service was over, "I believe I had to come
up here to be converted." And Robbie smiled.
_Six_