Maurice Mapleson declines to submit to a competitive examination.
"I have a letter from Maurice Mapleson," said I to Jennie.
"What does he say? Will he come?" said she eagerly.
"No!" said I. "He won't come."
"I am sorry," said she. "It's too bad of him."
"You won't think so, my dear," said I, "when you hear his letter.
You'll be more sorry; but you'll think better of him than you did
before."
We were at the tea-table. It is the rule of our meal hour to have
the conversation one in which the children can engage-in which at
all events they can take an interest. So the topic was suffered to
drop till they were in bed, and we were alone in the library.
Maurice Mapleson was a young minister that I thought a good deal of.
So when two Sundays before, Mr. Wheaton suggested him to me as a
successor to our retiring pastor, I welcomed the suggestion.
"You know that young Mapleson, don't you Mr. Laicus," said he, "who
preached for us two Sundays last summer. I think he stopped at your
house."
I assented.
"I wish you would write him, quite informally you know, to come down
and preach for us a Sunday or two. The folks at our house were quite
taken with him, and I think the people were generally. I shouldn't
wonder if he were the 'coming man,' Mr. Laicus."
So that evening I stayed at home from church and wrote to him. I
remembered what Mr. Wheaton had said about this being a peculiar
parish, and our people a peculiar people, and I waxed eloquent as I
wrote. I reminded Mr. Mapleson of our glorious scenery. I told him
we were but a suburb of New York and he would have a city
congregation, and I did not tell him that he would have to pay very
nearly city prices for everything, and would not have anything that
would approximate a city salary. I told him of the Mill village and
the opportunities of Christian labor it opened before him. I
assured him that he would find the people remembering him kindly,
and ready to welcome him warmly. In short I considered myself
retained as advocate In re the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and I
rather laid myself out to produce an impression.
And I rather flatter myself that I did produce an impression. But I
did not get a verdict. Here is his answer as I read it to Jennie
that evening. KONIWASSET CORNERS, Tuesday. JOHN LAICUS, ESQ.,
Dear Sir,--I thank you very warmly for your kind letter of the 6th
instant. Kind it certainly is, and though I must decline the
invitation it presents so cordially to me, I am none the less
grateful for it, notwithstanding the fact that it has been a strong
and not easily resisted temptation to violate my settled convictions
of duty.
If I were writing formally to the committee it would be enough to
decline your invitation without entering into any explanation. But
the remembrance of the pleasant week I spent at your house last
summer, and the tone of your letter, makes me feel as though I were
writing to a personal friend. This is my excuse (if one is needed)
for giving you more fully than I otherwise should, my reasons for
declining. Those reasons are not in any way connected with the
parish at Wheathedge. I am not insensible to the attractions which
the place possesses as a residence, nor to that which the parish
possesses as a field of labor. But I resolved when I first entered
the ministry that I would never preach as a candidate. I never have,
and I never will. I began my work in a mission school in New York
City, while I was yet in the Seminary. When I left the Seminary, Mr.
Marcus who is one of the trustees of the mission asked me to come up
to this church. It is a sort of mission among the miners, being half
supported by Mr. Marcus who is one of the directors of the
Koniwasset Coal Co. I came for six months. The congregation asked me
to remain, and I remained. And here I purpose to remain till God
shall call me to another field. Another field I will not seek,
though I should live and die here. I pretend to believe that Christ
is my Bishop; and I shall not move without orders from him.
So long as I am pastor here I cannot preach with honor as a
candidate in other parishes. I know other ministers do it-and I do
not judge them. But I cannot. Suppose my people were to take
advantage of my absence for a week to try a candidate. I wonder what
I should say to that. And I cannot see that settled ministers have
any more right to try other parishes with reference to a change of
place, than parishes with settled ministers have to try other
ministers with reference to a change of pastors. In a word I do not
believe in free-love as applied to churches.
But apart from that I cannot preach as a candidate. The minister is
ordained to preach to convert impenitent sinners and to build up and
strengthen Christians. Do you suppose I should do either if I came
to Wheathedge on your invitation to preach as a candidate? Not at
all. The people would come to criticise, and I should go to be
criticised. They would be judges and would expect to put me through
my ministerial faces to try me. Come, the congregation says in
effect to me in such an invitation, let us see how you can preach,
exhibit your proficiency in the doctrines, try your skill in
arousing sinners, see what you can do in interesting the saints,
read us a hymn or two, as a test of your elocution, and display to
us your "gifts in prayer;" and then when the service is over, spend
a week and take tea with two or three of our principal families and
show us what your social qualifications are, and give our children
an opportunity to quiz you. That it is in effect Mr. Laicus, though
it may seem somewhat presumptuous in me to say it. And to such a
quizzing I am not at all inclined to submit. I never preached but
one trial sermon-that was when I was licensed and I never mean to
preach another.
Imagine Paul preaching as a candidate to the people of Athens or
Corinth, and submitting his claims as an apostle to the popular
verdict!
Or imagine, Mr. Laicus, a client coming to you and saying I have an
important case to be tried sir, and I think of placing it in your
hands. Will you oblige me by making a neat little speech for me. I
want to see what kind of a speech you can make.
Since I wrote that last sentence I have read this letter over, and
have been on the point, two or three times, of tearing it up and
sending in its place a simple declination. But I feel as though I
were writing to a friend, and it shall go. I am sorry it must be so.
I should like to go to Wheathedge. That it is a beautiful place, and
has pleasant people, and is a far more important field of labor than
this I recognize fully; and then, what possibly influences me quite
as much, Helen, whom your wife knows very well, is waiting patiently
for me, and I am waiting impatiently for her, and I never can marry
on the little pittance I receive here. But she is of one mind with
me in this matter, I know, for we have often talked it over
together, and she holds me nobly to my resolution. She, I am sure,
would not have me write other than I do.
My kind regards to Mrs. Laicus and my sincere thanks to yourself. A
kiss to Harry too, if you please, if he is not too old to take one.
The baby I have never seen. Yours sincerely, MAURICE MAPLESON.
"Well," said Jennie after I had finished reading the letter, "I
believe he is right; but I am sorry John; sorrier than I was
before."
"Sorry that he won't come, Jennie?"
"Sorry that he is right," said Jennie. "That is, if he is right."
"Do you doubt it, Jennie?" said I.
"Well I don't know, John. I go with him. I like him better for his
letter. I cannot gainsay it. And yet it seems to me that it puts the
ministers in a rather hard position."
"Yes?" said I interrogatively.
"Yes," said Jennie. "You know perfectly well John that our church
here wouldn't call a man that isn't settled somewhere. The very fact
that he was out of a parish,, would be almost conclusive against
him. And they won't call a man without trying him. Must Maurice
Mapleson live and die in that little out of the way corner? And if
he is ever going to get out of it, how is it to come about? How does
a minister have any chance for a change if he takes such a ground as
that? It's high and noble John, and I honor him for it; but I am
afraid it isn't practicable."
"Little woman," said I, "whatever is truly high and noble is
practicable, and you would be the first to tell me so another time.
Don't let our wanting Maurice Mapleson here blind us to that."
Jennie smiled her assent. "Well John," said she, "what you are going
to do about it?"
"Do?" said I. "Nothing. There is nothing to be done, except to read
Mr. Mapleson's letter to the committee, to-morrow night at our first
meeting. And I am curious to see what they'll say to it."