The Log-Chapel.--Father Beals.--Aunt Graves.--Sister
Abigail.--Bigelow Van Slyck, the Preacher.--His Entree.--How
he worked.--One of his Sermons.--Performance of the
Choir.--"Coronation" achieved.--Getting into
Position.--Personal Appeals.--Effect on the
Congregation.--Sabbath in the Wilderness.--Is Bigelow the
only Ridiculous Preacher?
Puddleford was not altogether a wilderness, although it was located near a
wilderness. It was located just on the outskirts of civilization, and, like
Venison Styles, it caught a reflection of civilized life from the east, and
of savage life from the west. It was an organized township, and was a part
of an organized county. There were hundreds and thousands of men who were
busy at work all over this county, cutting down the trees and breaking up
the soil. Law and religion had found their way among them, just as they
always accompany the American pioneer. It could not be otherwise; because
these obligations grow up and weave themselves into the very nature of the
people of our republic. They are written on the soul. So that judicial
circuits, a court-house and jail, Methodist circuits and circuit-riders,
and meeting-houses, were established. All this was rough, like the country
itself.
Few persons have ever attempted to define the piety of just such a
community as this; and yet it has a form, tone, and character peculiarly
its own. The portraits of the Puddlefordians were just as clearly
reproduced in their religion, as if they had been drawn by sunlight.
The "log-chapel," as it was called at Puddleford, was filled each week,
with one or two hundred rough, hard-featured, unlearned men and women, who
had come in from all parts of the country; some for devotional exercises,
some for amusement; some to look, and some to be looked at. This
congregation shifted faces each week, like the colors in a kaleidoscope. It
was never the same. The man in the pulpit must have felt as though he were
preaching to a running river, whose parts were continually changing. Yet
there was a church at Puddleford, in the strict sense of the word; it was
organized, and had, at the time I refer to, ten regular members in good
standing; all the rest was "floating capital," that drifted in from Sunday
to Sunday, and swelled the "church proper."
There was "Father Beals," and old "Aunt Graves," and "Sister Abigail," who
were regular attendants at all times and seasons. They were, beyond all
doubt, the pillars of the Puddleford church. Father Beals was _the_ church,
before any building for worship was erected. He was looked upon as a
living, moving, spiritual body; a Methodist organization in himself; and
wherever he went to worship on the Sabbath, whether in a private house, a
barn, or in the forest, all the followers of that order were found with
him, drawn there by a kind of magnetism. The old man had been one of the
faithful from a boy; had carried his principles about him from day to day;
was indeed a light in the world; and he was, by some plan of PROVIDENCE,
flung far back into the wilderness, all burning, to kindle up and set on
fire those about him. His influence had built the log-chapel, and, like a
regulator in a watch, he kept it steady, pushing this wheel a little
faster, and checking that. Sometimes he had to command, sometimes entreat,
sometimes threaten, sometimes soothe.
"Father Beals" was a good man; and no higher compliment can be paid to any
person. His head was very large, bald, and his hair was white. There was an
expression of great benevolence in his face, and a cold calmness in his
blue eye that never failed to command respect. He used to sit, on Sundays,
just under the pulpit, with a red cotton handkerchief thrown over him,
while his wide-brimmed hat, that he wore into the country, stood in front,
on a table, and really seemed to listen to the sermon.
"Aunt Graves" was a very useful body in her way, and the Puddleford church
could not have spared her any more than "Father Beals." She was an old
maid, and had been a member of the log-chapel from its beginning. She was
one of those sincere souls that really believed that there was but one
church in the world, and that was her own. She felt a kind of horror when
she read of other denominations having an actual existence, and wondered
"what kind of judgment would fall upon them." She didn't know very much
about the Bible, but she knew a great deal about religion; she knew all
about her own duty, and quite a good deal about the duty of her neighbors.
Now "Aunt Graves" was useful in many ways. She kept, in the first place, a
kind of spiritual thermometer, that always denoted the range of every
member's piety except her own. Every slip of the tongue; every
uncharitable remark; every piece of indiscretion, by word or deed; all acts
of omission, as well as of commission, were carefully registered by her,
and could at any time be examined and corrected by the church. This was
convenient and useful. Then, she was a choice piece of melody; there was
not another voice like hers in the settlement. It had evidently been
pitched "from the beginning" for the occasion. It possessed great power,
was quite shaky (a modern refinement in music), and could be heard from a
half to three quarters of a mile. She has been known to sweep away on a
high note, and actually take the Puddleford choir off their feet. She rode
through the staff of music headlong, like a circus-rider around the ring;
and could jump three or four notes at any time, without lessening her
speed, or breaking the harmony. She would take any piece of sacred music by
storm, on the very shortest notice. In fact, she was _the_ treble, aided by
a few others who had received their instruction from her; and she was just
as indispensable to worship, she thought, as a prayer or a sermon.
"Aunt Graves" always made it her business to "keep a sharp lookout" after
the morals of the preacher. "Men are but men," she used to say, "and
preachers are but men; and they need some person to give 'em a hunch once
in a while." Sometimes she would lecture him of the log-chapel for hours
upon evidences of piety, acts of immorality, the importance of
circumspection, the great danger that surrounded him--her tongue buzzing
all the while like a mill-wheel, propelled as it was by so much zeal. She
said it almost made her "crazy to keep the Puddleford church right side
up; for it _did_ seem as though she had everything on her shoulders; and
she _really_ believed it would have gone to smash long ago, if it hadn't
been for her."
Now, "Sister Abigail" wasn't anybody in particular--that is, she was not
exactly a free agent. She was "Aunt Graves's" shadow--a reflection of her;
a kind of person that said what "Aunt Graves" said, and did what she did,
and knew what she knew, and got angry when she did, and over it when she
did. She was a kind of dial that "Aunt Graves" shone upon, and any one
could tell what time of day it was with "Aunt Graves," by looking at
"Sister Abigail."
Besides these lights in the church, there were about (as I have said) ten
or a dozen members, and a congregation weekly of one or two hundred.
But I must not pass over the preacher himself. I only speak of one,
although many filled the pulpit of the Puddleford church during my
acquaintance with it. Bigelow Van Slyck was at one time a circuit-rider on
the Puddleford circuit; and I must be permitted to say, he was the most
important character that had filled that station prior to the time to which
I have reference. He was half Yankee, half Dutch; an ingenious cross,
effected somewhere down in the State of Pennsylvania. He was not yet a
full-blown preacher, but an exhorter merely. He was active, industrious,
zealous, and one would have thought he had more duty on his hands than the
head of the nation. His circuit reached miles and miles every way. He was
here to-day, there to-morrow, and somewhere else next day; and he ate and
slept where he could.
Bigelow's appointments were all given out weeks in advance. These
appointments must be fulfilled; and he was so continually pressed, that one
would have thought the furies were ever chasing him.
I have often seen him rushing into the settlement after a hard day's ride.
He wore a white hat with a wide brim, a Kentucky-jean coat, corduroy vest
and breeches, a heavy pair of clouded-blue yarn stockings, and stogy boots.
He rode a racking Indian pony, who wore a shaggy mane and tail. Bigelow
usually made his appearance in Puddleford just as the long shadows of a
Saturday evening were pointing over the landscape. The pony came clattering
in at the top of his speed, panting and blowing, as full of business and
zeal as his master, while Bigelow's extended legs and fluttering bandana
kept time to the movement. The women ran to the doors, the children paused
in the midst of their frolic, as his pony stirred up the echoes around
their ears; and it is said that the chickens and turkeys, who had often
witnessed the death of one of their number when this phantom appeared, set
up a most dismal hue-and-cry, and took to their wings in the greatest
consternation.
We hope that none of our readers will form an unfavorable opinion of
Bigelow, after having read our description of him. He was the man of all
others to fill the station he occupied. He was as much a part of, and as
necessary to, the wilderness he inhabited, as the oak itself. He belonged
to the locality. He was one of a gallery of portraits that nature and
circumstances had hung up in the forest for a useful purpose, just as
Squire Longbow was another. The one managed the church, the other the
courts; and all this was done in reference to society as it was, not what
it ought to be, or might be. There was a kind of elasticity about Bigelow's
theology, as there was about the Squire's law, that let all perplexing
technicalities pass along without producing any friction. They were
graduated upon the sliding-scale principle, and were never exactly the
same.
Bigelow was a host in theology in his way. He could reconcile at once any
and every point that could be raised. He never admitted a doubt to enter
into his exhortations, but he informed his hearers at once just how the
matter stood. He professed to be able to demonstrate any theological
question at once, to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind; and it was
all folly to labor with the unreasonable, he said, for they would "fight
agin the truth as long as they could, any way."
I used occasionally to hear him exhort, and he was in every respect an
off-hand preacher. He worked like a blacksmith at the forge. Coat, vest,
and handkerchief, one after the other, flew off as he became more and more
heated in his discourse. At one time he thundered down the terrors of the
law upon the heads of his hearers; at another he persuaded; and suddenly he
would take a facetious turn, and accompany the truth with a story about his
grandfather down on the Ohio, or an anecdote that he had read in the
newspapers. He wept and he laughed, and the whole assembly were moved as
his feelings moved; now silent with grief, and now swelling with
enthusiasm.
I recollect one of his sermons in part, and, in fact, the most of the
services accompanying it. It was a soft day in June. The birds were singing
and revelling among the trees which canopied the chapel. The church was
filled. The choir were all present. "Father Beals," "Aunt Graves," and
"Sister Abigail" were in their accustomed seats. The farmers from the
country had "turned out;" in fact, it was one of the most stirring days
Puddleford had ever known. It was quite evident that the occasion was
extraordinary, as "Aunt Graves" was very nervous the moment she took her
seat in the choir. If any error should be committed, the exercises would be
spoiled, prayers, preaching, and all; because, according to her judgment,
they all depended upon good music; and _that_ she was responsible for. So
she began to hitch about, first this way, and then that; then she ran over
the music-book, and then the index to it; then she hummed a tune inaudibly
through her nose; then she examined the hymn-book, and then changed her
seat; and then changed back again. She was, in her opinion, the wheel that
kept every other wheel in motion; and what if _that_ wheel should stop!
But the hymn was at last given out; and there was a rustling of leaves, and
an a-hemming, and coughing, and spitting, and sounding of notes; and a toot
on a cracked clarinet, which had been wound with tow; and a low grunt from
a bass-viol, produced by a grave-looking man in the corner. Then all rose,
and launched forth in one of those ancient pieces of church harmony,
"Coronation;" every voice and instrument letting itself go to its utmost
extent. One airy-looking person was pumping out his bass by rising and
falling on his toes; another, more solemn, was urging it up by crowding his
chin on his breast; another jerked it out by a twist of his head; while one
quiet old man, whose face beamed with tranquillity, just stood, in perfect
ecstasy, and let the melody run out of his nose. The genius on the
clarinet blew as if he were blowing his last. His cheeks were bloated, his
eyes were wild and extended, and his head danced this way and that, keeping
time with his fingers; and he who sawed the viol tore away upon his
instrument with a kind of ferocity, as if he were determined to commit some
violence upon it. But the treble--what shall I say of _it_? "Aunt Graves"
was nowhere to be seen, after the "parts" had got into full play; she put
on the power of her voice, and "drowned out" everything around her at once;
and then, rising higher and higher, she rushed through the notes, the choir
in full chase after her, and absolutely came out safely at last, and struck
upon her feet, without injuring herself or any one else.
When this performance closed, quite an air of self-satisfaction played over
the faces of all, declaring clearly enough that their business was over for
an hour at least. In fact, "Aunt Graves" was entirely out of breath, and
remained in a languishing state for several minutes. So they busied
themselves the best way they could. They gazed at every person in the house
except the preacher, and did everything but worship. I noticed that it was
very difficult for the female portion to "get into position." They tried a
lounge and a lean, an averted face and a full one. Then their
bonnet-strings troubled them, and then their shawls; and now a lock of hair
got astray, and then something else. The men were as philosophical and
indifferent as so many players at a show. He of the clarinet once so forgot
the day as to raise his instrument to the window and take a peep through
it, so that he might detect its air-holes, if any there were; and he
afterwards amused himself and me, a long time, by gravely licking down its
tow bandage, so that it might be in condition when called upon to perform
again. In fact, the Puddleford choir was very much like choirs in all other
places.
By and by, Bigelow took his stand, preparatory to his sermon. I do not
intend to follow Bigelow through his discourse, because I could not do so
if I attempted it; nor would it be of any importance to the reader, if I
could. He said he would not take any text, but he would preach a sermon
that would suit a hundred texts. He did not like to confine himself to any
particular portion of the Bible; but wished to retain the privilege of
following up the manifold sins of his congregation, in whomsoever or
wherever they existed. He then launched himself forth, denouncing, in the
first place, the sin of profanity, which is very common in all new
countries, evidently having in view two or three of his hearers who were
notoriously profane; and after considering the question generally, he
declared "that of all sinners, the profane man is the greatest fool,
because he receives nothing for his wickedness. A'n't that true, Luke
Smith?" he continued, as he reached out his finger towards Luke, whose
daily conversation was a string of oaths; "a'n't that true? How much have
_you_ made by it?--answer to me, and this congregation." Luke quivered as
if a shock of electricity had passed through him.
Bigelow then gave a short history of his own sins in that line at an early
day, before he entered the pulpit, when he was young and surrounded by
temptations; but, he said, he reformed at last, and every other man might
do so by the same means. "When you feel yourself swelling with a big
oath--for every man feels 'em inside before they break out," exclaimed
Bigelow,--"jump up and cry "Jezebel!" three times in succession, and you'll
feel as calm as an infant. This," he continued, "lets off the feeling
without the commission of sin, and leaves the system healthy."
He next considered the sin of Sabbath-breaking; and he poured down the
melting lava upon the heads of his hearers with a strength and ingenuity
that I have seldom seen equalled. "Men," he said, "would labor harder to
break the Sabbath than they would for bread. They would chase a deer from
morning till night on this holy day, kill him, and then _throw the carcass
away_; but week-days they lounge about some Puddleford dram-shop, while
their families were suffering. Men, too," he continued, "fish on Sundays,
because the devil has informed them that fish bite better. It is the devil
himself who does the biting, not the fish; it is _he_ who is fishing for
_you_; for Bill Larkin, and Sam Trimble, and Hugh Williams, and scores of
others; he's got you now, and you will be scaled and dressed for his table
unless you escape instantly;" and then, to impress his illustration, he
soared away into a flight of eloquence just suited to his hearers; rough
and fiery, plain and pointed, neither above nor below the capacity of those
he addressed.
Bigelow then made a descent upon lying and liars. He regretted to say that
this sin was very common in the church. "He had a dozen complaints before
him now, undecided;" and he detailed a few of them, as specimens of "the
depravity of the human heart." He "didn't want to hear any more of them, as
he had something else to do, besides taking charge of the tongues of his
church."
Then came an exhortation on _duties_; and almost every practical virtue
was mentioned and impressed. Early rising, industry, economy, modesty,
contentment, etc., etc., all received a notice at his hands. "Don't sleep
yourselves to death!" exclaimed Bigelow; "rise early! work! for while you
sleep the Enemy will sow your fields full of tares; and the only way to
keep him out is to be on the spot _yourself_!" This was a literal
application of the parable, it is true; yet it was very well done, and
productive, I have no doubt, of some good.
Bigelow closed in a most tempestuous manner. He was eloquent, sarcastic,
and comical, by turns. He had taken off nearly all his clothes, except his
pantaloons, shirt, and suspenders; a custom among a certain class of
western preachers, however strange it may appear to many readers. Streams
of perspiration were running down his face and neck; his hair was in
confusion; and altogether, he presented the appearance of a man who had
passed through some convulsion of nature, and barely escaped with his life.
I could not help thinking that Bigelow was entitled to great credit, not
only for the matter his sermon contained, but in being able to deliver a
sermon at all amid the confusion which often surrounded him. There were a
dozen or more infants in the crowd, some crowing, some crying, and some
chattering. One elderly lady, in particular, had in charge one of these
responsibilities, that seemed to set the place and the preacher at
defiance. She tried every expedient to quiet the little nuisance, but it
was of "no use." She set it down, laid it down, turned it around, nursed
it, chirped at it; and finally, giving up in despair, she placed it on her
knee, the child roaring at the top of its lungs, and commenced trotting it
in the very face of the audience. This operation cut up the music of the
innocent, and threw it out in short, quick jerks, very agreeable to the
preacher and congregation.
An excellent old woman also sat directly in front of Bigelow, her left
elbow resting on her knee, which she swayed to and fro with a sigh. Her
face lay devoutly in the palm of her hand, while her right thumb and
fore-finger held a pinch of snuff, which she every now and then slowly
breathed up a hawk-bill nose, with a long-drawn whistle, something after
the sort that broke forth from the clarinet a while before. She then blew a
blast into a faded cotton handkerchief, that reverberated like the voice of
"many trumpets." This was followed by fits of coughing, and sneezing, and
sighing; in fact, she sounded as great a variety of notes as the choir
itself.
Besides all this, a troop of dogs who had followed their masters were
continually marching up and down the chapel; and when any unusual
excitement occurred with Bigelow, or any one else, as there did several
times, we had a barking-chorus, which threatened to suspend the whole
meeting. Bigelow, however, didn't mind any or all of these things; but,
like a skilful engineer, he put on the more steam, and ran down every
obstacle in his way.
Reader, I have given you a description of the log-chapel at Puddleford. It
is like a thousand other places of public worship in a "new country." If
there is something to condemn, there is more to praise. There seems to be a
providence in this, as in all other things.
The settlers in a forest are a rough, hardy, and generally an honest race
of men. It is their business to hew down the wilderness, and prepare the
way for a different class who will surely follow them. They cannot
cultivate their minds to any extent, or refine their characters. They must
be reached through the pulpit by such means as _will_ reach them. Of what
importance is a nice theological distinction with them? Of what force a
labored pulpit disquisition? They have great vices and strong virtues.
Their vices must be smitten and scattered with a sledge-hammer; they are
not to be played with in a flourish of rhetoric. Just such a human tornado
as Bigelow is the man for the place; he may commit some mischief, but he
will leave behind him a purer moral atmosphere and a serener sky.
Society, in such a place as Puddleford, is cultivated very much like its
soil. Both lie in a state of rude nature, and both must be improved. The
great "breaking-plough," with its dozen yoke of cattle, in the first place,
goes tearing and groaning through the roots and grubs that lie twisted
under it, just as Bigelow tore and groaned through the stupidity and
wickedness of his hearers. Then comes the green grass, and wheat, and
flowers, as years draw on; producing, at last, "some sixty, and some a
hundred-fold."
There is something impressive in the Sabbath in the wilderness. A quiet
breathes over the landscape that is almost overwhelming. In a city, the
church-steeples talk to one another their lofty music; but there are no
bells in the wilderness to mark the hours of worship. The only bell which
is heard is rung by Memory, as the hour of prayer draws nigh; some
village-bell, far away, that vibrated over the hills of our nativity, the
tones of which we have carried away in our soul, and which are awakened by
the solemnity of the day.
There is a philosophy in all this, if we will but see it; there is more;
there is a lesson, possibly a reproof. If we are disposed to smile at the
rusticity of a Puddleford church, may we not with equal reason become
serious over the overgrown refinement of many another? May not something be
learned in the very contrast which is thus afforded? Do not the extravagant
hyperbole, coarse allusions, irreverent anecdote, and strong but unpolished
shafts of sarcasm, that such as Bigelow so unsparingly scatter over the
sanctuary, give a rich background and strong relief to the finished
rhetoric of many a pulpit essay, that has been written to play with the
fancy and tranquillize the nerves of a refined and fashionable audience?
Are not the extremes equally ridiculous? the one not having reached, the
other having passed the zenith.