Am I a Drone?
DEACON Goodsole wants me to take a class in the Sabbath-school. So
does Mr. Work. So I think does Jennie, though she does not say much.
She only says that if I did she thinks I could do a great deal of
good. I wonder if I could. I have stoutly resisted them so far. But
I confess last Sunday's sermon has shaken me a little.
I was kept in the city Saturday night by a legal appointment, and
went the next day to hear my old friend Thomas Lane preach. His text
was "Why stand ye here all the day idle?"
He depicted very graphically the condition of the poor in New York.
He is a man of warm sympathies, of a large and generous heart. He
mingles a great deal with the poor of his own congregation. To his
credit and that of his wife be it said, there are a good many poor
in his congregation. But he does not confine his sympathies to his
own people. He told us of that immense class who live in New York
without a church-home, of the heathen that are growing up among us.
"You need not go to Africa," said he, "to find them. They come to
your door every morning for cold victuals. God will hold you
responsible for their souls. Are you in the Sabbath-school? Are you
in the Mission-school? Are you in the neighborhood prayer-meeting?
Are you a visitor? Are you distributing tracts? Are you doing
anything to seek and to save that which is lost?" Then he went on to
say what should be done; and to maintain the right and duty of
laymen to preach, to teach, to visit, to do all things which belong
to "fishers of men." "There are a great many church members," said
he, "who seem to suppose that their whole duty consists in paying
pew rent and listening to preaching. That is not Christianity. If
you are doing nothing you are drones. There is no room in the hive
for you. The Church has too many idle Christians already. We don't
want you."
He did not argue. He simply asserted. But he evidently felt the
truth of all that he said. I believe I should have decided at once
to go into the Sabbath-school as soon as I came home, but for a
little incident.
After church I walked home with Mr. Lane to dine with him. Mr. Sower
joined and walked along with us. He is at the head of a large
manufacturing establishment. He is one of Mr. Lane's warmest
friends. Mr. Lane believes him to be a devoted Christian. "Well,
parson," said he, "I suppose after to-night's sermon there is
nothing left for me to do but to take a letter from the Church--if
you don't excommunicate me before I get it."
"What's the matter now?" said the parson.
"I am neither visiting," said Mr. Sower, "nor distributing tracts,
nor attending a tenement-house prayer-meeting, nor preaching, nor
working in a mission, nor doing anything in the Church, but going to
its service and paying my pew rent, and sometimes a little something
over to make up a deficiency. The fact is every day in the week I
have my breakfast an hour before you do, and am off to the factory.
I never get home till six o'clock, sometimes not then. My day's work
uses up my day's energies. I can't go out to a tenement-house
prayer-meeting, or to tract distribution in the evening. I can
hardly keep awake in our own church prayer-meeting. If it were not
for Sunday's rest my work would kill me in a year. I sometimes think
that perhaps I am devoting too much of my time to money-making. But
what shall I do? There are four hundred workmen in the factory. Most
of them have families. All of those families are really dependent on
me for their daily bread. It takes all my life's energies to keep
them employed. Shall I leave that work to take hold of tenement-
house visitation and tract distribution?"
Mr. Lane replied promptly that Mr. Sower was to do no such thing.
"Your factory," said he, "is your field. That is the work God has
given you to do. It is your parish. Do not leave it for another--only
do not forget that you have to give an account of your parochial
charge. You are to study, not how to get the most money out of your
four hundred workmen, but how to do them the most good. That is
Christian duty for you. But your case is very peculiar. There is not
one man in a thousand situated as you are."
Then I began to think that perhaps my law office was my field. It
gives me enough to do I am sure. We are not all drones who are not
working for the Church. There is a work for Christ outside. And I do
not want to take a Sabbath-school class. I want Sunday mornings to
myself. Every other morning I have to be an early riser. I do enjoy
being lazy Sunday morning.
But then there is that class of young men from the mill. Deacon
Goodsole says they don't know anything. He has no one who can manage
them. And Mr. Work thinks it's a dreadful sin, I do not doubt, that
I do not take it at once. I do not care much for that. But Jennie
says I am just the one to manage these boys if I feel like
undertaking it. And I would like to prove her good opinion of me
true.
I was just in that perplexity when night before last a meeting on
behalf of the City Mission Society was held here. Mr. Mingins, the
Superintendent of city missions, was one of the speakers.
He made an earnest and at times a really eloquent speech. He would
have made a splendid jury lawyer. He depicted in the most lively
colors the wretched condition of the outcast population of New York.
With all the eloquence of a warm heart, made more attractive by his
broad Scotch, he pled with us to take an active part in their
amelioration. "Pure religion and undefiled, before God and the
Father, is this," cried he, "to visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
I resolved to take up that class of Mission boys straightways. But
as I came out I met Hattie Bridgeman. She is an old friend of
Jennie's and has had a hard, hard life. Her husband is an invalid.
Her children are thrown on her for support. As I met her at the door
she pressed my hand without speaking. I could see by the trembling
lip and the tearful eye, that her heart was full. "I wish I had not
come to-night," she said, as we walked along together. "Such stories
make my heart bleed. It seems as though I ought to go right out to
visit the sick, comfort the afflicted, care for the neglected. But
what can I do? My children are dependent on me. These six weeks at
Wheathedge are my only vacation. The rest of the time I am teaching
music from Monday morning till Saturday night. Sunday, when I ought
to rest, is my most exhausting day. For then I sing in church. If I
were to leave my scholars my children would starve. How can I do
anything for my Savior?"
It was very plain that she was to serve her Savior in the music
lesson as indeed she does. For she goes into every house as a
missionary. She carries the spirit of Christ in her heart. His joy
is radiant in her face. She preaches the Gospel in houses where
neighborhood prayer-meetings cannot be held, in households which
tract-distributors never enter. The street that needs Gospel
visitation most is Fifth avenue. That is in her district. And,
nobly, though unconsciously, she fulfils her mission. More than one
person I have heard say, "If to be a Christian is to be like Mrs.
Bridgeman, I wish I were one." Our pastor preaches no such effective
sermons as does she by her gentleness, her geniality, her patience,
her long suffering with joyfulness. And when the Sabbath comes, her
voice, though it leads the service of song in a fashionable city
church, expresses the ardor of her Christian heart, and is fraught
with quite as true devotion as the prayers of her pastor.
Something like this Jennie told her as we walked along from church;
and she left us comforted. And I was a little comforted too. It is
very clear, is it not, that we are not all drones who are not at
work in the church. There are other fields than the Sabbath-school.
Do I carry Christ into my law office, and into the court-room, as
Mrs. Bridgeman does into the parlor and the chair? That is the first
point to be settled. The other comes up afterward. But it does
persist in coming up. It is not settled yet. Will it hurt my Sunday
to take that class for an hour? I doubt it.
I must talk it over with Jennie and see what she really thinks about
it.