I have just received the following letter, which I take the liberty of
publishing, in order that good may come out of it, and that the public
generally may be on the watch:
William Nye, Esq.
Dear Sir.--There has been a great religious upheaval here, and great
anxiety on the part of our entire congregation, and I write to you,
hoping that you may have some suggestions to offer that we could use at
this time beneficially.
All the bitter and irreverent remarks of Bob Ingersoll have fallen
harmlessly upon the minds of our people. The flippant sneers and wicked
sarcasms of the modern infidel, wise in his own conceit, have alike
passed over our heads without damage or disaster. These times that have
tried, men's souls have only rooted us more firmly in the faith, and
united us more closely as brothers and sisters.
We do not care whether the earth was made in two billion years or two
minutes, so long as it was made and we are satisfied with it. We do not
care whether Jonah swallowed the whale or the whale swallowed Jonah.
None of these things worry us in the least. We do not pin our faith on
such little matters as those, but we try to so live that when we pass on
beyond the Hood we may have a record to which we may point with pride.
But last Sabbath our entire congregation was visibly moved. People who
had grown gray in this church got right up during the service and went
out, and did not come in again. Brothers who had heard all kinds of
infidelity and scorned to be moved by it, got up, and kicked the pews,
and slammed the doors, and created a young riot.
For many years we have sailed along in the most peaceful faith, and
through joy or sorrow we came to the church together to worship. We have
laughed and wept as one family for a quarter of a century, and an humble
dignity and Christian style of etiquette have pervaded our incomings and
our outgoings.
That is the reason why a clear case of disorderly conduct in our church
has attracted attention and newspaper comment. That is the reason why
we want in some public way to have the church set right before we suffer
from unjust criticism and worldly scorn.
It has been reported that one of the brothers, who is sixty years of
age, and a model Christian, and a good provider, rose during the
first prayer, and, waving his plug hat in the air, gave a wild and
blood-curdling whoop, jumped over the back of his pew, and lit out.
While this is in a measure true, it is not accurate. He did do some wild
and startling jumping, but he did not jump over the pew. He tried to,
but failed. He was too old.
It has also been stated that another brother, who has done more to build
up the church and society here than any other man of his size, threw his
hymn book across the church, and, with a loud wail that sounded like the
word "Gosh!" hissed through clenched teeth, got out through the window
and went away. This is overdrawn, though there is an element of truth in
it, and I do not try to deny it.
There were other similar strong evidences of feeling throughout the
congregation, none of which had ever been noticed before in this place.
Our clergyman was amazed and horrified. He tried to ignore the action
of the brethren, but when a sister who has grown old in the church, and
been such a model and example of rectitude that all the girls in the
county were perfectly discouraged about trying to be anywhere near equal
to her; when she rose with a wild snort, got up on the pew with her
feet, and swung her parasol in a way that indicated that she would not
go home till morning, he paused and briefly wound up the services.
Of course there were other little eccentricities on the part of the
congregation, but these were the ones that people have talked about the
most, and have done us the most damage abroad.
Now, my desire is that through the medium of the press you will state
that this great trouble which has come upon us, by reason of which
the ungodly have spoken lightly of us, was not the result of a general
tendency to dissent from the statements made by our pastor, and
therefore an exhibition of our disapproval of his doctrines, but that
the janitor had started a light fire in the furnace, and that had
revived a large nest of common, streaked, hot-nosed wasps in the warm
air pipe, and when they came up through the register and united in the
services, there was more or less of an ovation.
Sometimes Christianity gets sluggish and comatose, but not under the
above circumstances. A man may slumber on softly with his bosom gently
rising and falling, and his breath coming and going through one corner
of his mouth like the death rattle of a bath-tub, while the pastor opens
out a new box of theological thunders and fills the air full of the
sullen roar of sulphurous waves, licking the shores of eternity and
swallowing up the great multitudes of the eternally lost; but when one
little wasp, with a red-hot revelation, goes gently up the leg of that
same man's pantaloons, leaving large, hot tracks whenever he stopped and
sat down to think it over, you will see a sudden awakening and a revival
that will attract attention.
I wish that you would take this letter, Mr. Nye, and write something,
from it in your own way, for publication, showing how we happened to
have more zeal than usual in the church last Sabbath, and that it was
not directly the result of the sermon which was preached on that day.
Yours, with great respect,
_WILLIAM LEMONS_.