Consider, too, its effect on the individual. I attended a morning prayer meeting last winter in the city. A young man told his experience. He started in the morning, he said, to go to the store.
But it seemed as though the Lord bid him retrace his steps. A voice within seemed to say to him, "Your duty is at the prayer meeting."
The battle between Christ and the world was long and bitter. Christ at length prevailed. He had come to the prayer meeting. He wanted to tell the brethren what Christ had done for his soul. The experience may have been genuine. It may have been his duty to leave the store for the church that particular morning. But what is the effect of a training which teaches a young man to consider all the time he gives to the store as time appropriated to the world? It is that he can serve both G.o.d and mammon; that he actually does. It draws a sharp line between the sacred and secular. And most of his life is necessarily the secular.
I forgot to mention that Mrs. Goodsole had come over with her husband. She and Jennie sat side by side. But she had not opened her mouth since the salutations of the evening had been interchanged.
She is the meekest and mildest of women. She is also the most timed.
In public she rarely speaks. But it is currently reported that she avenges herself for her silence by the curtain lectures, she delivers to her good husband at home. Of that, however, I cannot be sure. I speak only of rumor. Now she took advantage of a pause to say:
Mrs. Goodsole.:
--I like Mr. Laicus"s doctrine. It"s very comforting to a woman like me who am so busy at home that I can hardly get out to church on Sundays.
Deacon Goodsole.:
--I don"t believe it"s true. Yes I do too. But I don"t believe it"s applicable. That is--well what I mean to say--I can"t express myself exactly, but my idea is this, that the people that won"t work in the church are the very ones that do nothing out of it. The busy ones are busy everywhere. There is Mr. Line, for example. He has a large farm. He keeps a summer hotel, two houses always full; and they are capitally kept houses. That, of itself, is enough to keep any man busy. The whole burden of both hotel and farm rests on his shoulders. And yet he is elder and member of the board of trustees, and on hand, in every kind of exigency, in the church. He is one of the public school commissioners, is active in getting new roads laid out, and public improvements introduced, is the real founder of our new academy, and, in short, has a hand in every good work that is ever undertaken in Wheathedge. And there is Dr. Curall, whose case Mr. Laicus has advocated so eloquently and who is too busy to be an elder; and I verily believe I could count all his patients on the fingers of my two hands.
Mrs. Goodsole,: [(inclined to agree with everybody, and so to live at peace and amity with all mankind).]
--There is something in that. There is Mrs. Wheaton who has only one child, a grown up boy, and who keeps three or four servants to take care of herself and her husband and her solitary son, and she is always too busy to do anything in the church.
Deacon Goodsole.:
--On the other hand there is not a busier person in the church than Miss Moore. She supports herself and her widowed mother by teaching.
She is in school from nine till three, and gives private lessons three evenings in the week, and yet she finds time to visit all the sick in the neighborhood. And when last year we held a fair to raise money for an organ for the Sabbath school, she was the most active and indefatigable worker among them all. Mrs. Bisket was the only one who compared with her. And Mrs. Bisket keeps a summer boarding-house, and it was the height of the season, and she only had one girl part of the time.
Dr. Argure rose to go, Deacon Goodsole followed his example. There were a few minutes of miscellaneous conversation as the gentlemen put on their coats. As we followed them to the library door Deacon Goodsole turned to me:--
"But you have not given me your answer yet, Mr. Laicus," said he.
Before I could give it, Jennie had drawn her arm through mine, and looking up into my face for a.s.sent had answered for me. "He will think of it, Mr. Goodsole," said she. "He never decides any question of importance without sleeping on it."
I have been thinking of it. I am sure that I am right in my belief that there are many ways of working for Christ beside working for the church. I am sure the first thing is for us to work for Christ in our daily, secular affairs. I am sure that all are not drones who are not buzzing in the ecclesiastical hive. But I am not so sure that I have not time to take that Bible-cla.s.s. I am not so sure that the busy ones in the church are not also the busy ones out of the church. I remember that when Mr. James Harper was hard at work establishing the business of Harper & Brothers, which has grown to such immense proportions since, at the very time he was working night as well as day to expedite publications, he was a trustee and cla.s.s-leader in John Street Methodist Church, and rarely missed the sessions of the board or the meetings of the cla.s.s. I remember that Mr. Hatch, the famous banker, was almost the founder of the Jersey City Tabernacle Church, and his now President of the Howard Mission.
Yet I suppose there is not a busier man in Wall street. I remember that Wm. E. Dodge, jr., and Morris K. Jessup, than whom there are few men more industrious, commercially, are yet both active in City Missions and in the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation; the former is an elder in an up-town church, and very active in Sabbath School work. I remember Ralph Wells, bishop of all the Presbyterian Sabbath Schools for miles around New York, who was, until lately, active in daily business in the city. Yes I am sure that hard work in the week is not always a good reason for refusing to work in the church on the Sabbath.
"Jennie, I am going to try that Bible cla.s.s, as an experiment, for the winter."
"I am glad of it, John."
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Gear.
"JENNIE," said I, "Harry and I are going out for our walk."
It was Sunday afternoon. I had enjoyed my usual Sunday afternoon nap, and now I was going out for my usual Sunday afternoon walk.
Only this afternoon I had a purpose beside that of an hour"s exercise in the fresh air.
"I wish I could go with you John," said Jennie, "but it"s f.a.n.n.y"s afternoon out, and I can"t leave the baby. Where are you going?"
"Up to the mill village, to see Mr. Gear," said I. "I am going to ask him to join the Bible cla.s.s."
"Why John he"s an infidel I thought."
"So they say," I replied. "But it can"t do an infidel any harm to study the Bible. I may not succeed; I probably shan"t; but I certainly shan"t if I don"t try."
"I wish I could do something to help you John. And I think I can. I can pray for you. Perhaps that will help you?"
Help me. With the a.s.surance of those prayers I walked along the road with a new confidence of hope. Before I had dreaded my errand, now I was in haste for the interview. I believe in the intercession of the saints; and Jennie is a--but I forget. The public are rarely interested in a man"s opinion about his own wife.
The mill village, as we call it, is a little collection of cottages with one or two houses of a somewhat more pretentious character, which gather round the wheel-barrow factory down the river, a good mile"s walk from the church. It was a bright afternoon in October.
The woods were in the glory of their radiant death, the air was crisp and keen. Harry who now ran before, now loitered behind, and now walked sedately by my side, was full of spirits, and there was everything to make the soul feel hope and courage. And yet I had my misgivings. When I had told Deacon Goodsole that I was going to call on Mr. Gear he exclaimed at my proposition.
"Why he"s a regular out and outer. He does not believe in anything--Church, Bible, Sunday, Christ, G.o.d or even his own immortality."
"What do you know of him?" I asked.
"He was born in New England," replied the Deacon, "brought up in an orthodox family, taught to say the Westminster a.s.sembly"s Catechism (he can say it better than I can today), and listened twice every Sunday till he was eighteen to good sound orthodox preaching. Then he left home and the church together; and he has never been to either, to remain, since."
"Does he ever go to church?" I asked.
The Deacon shrugged his shoulders. "I asked him that question myself the other day," said he. "You never go to church, Mr. Gear, I believe?" said I.
"Oh! yes I do," he replied. "I go home every Christmas to spend a week. And at home I always go to church for the sake of the old folks. At Wheathedge I always stay away for my own sake."
"And what do you know of his theology?" said I.
"Theology," said the Deacon; "he hasn"t any. His creed is the shortest and simplest one I know of. I tried to have a religious conversation with him once but I had to give it up. I could make nothing out of him. He said he believed in the existence of a G.o.d.
But he scouted the idea that we could know anything about Him. He was rather inclined to think there was a future life; but n.o.body knew anything about it. All that we could know was that if we are virtuous in this life we shall be happy in the next--if there is a next."
"He does not believe that the gates are wide open there," said I.
"No," said the Deacon; "nor ajar either."
"And what does he say of Christ and Christianity," said I.
"Of Jesus Christ," said the Deacon, "that--well--probably such a man lived, and was a very pure and holy man, and a very remarkable teacher, certainly for his age a very remarkable teacher. But he ridicules the idea of the miracles; says he does not believe them any more than he believes in the mythical legends of Greek and Roman literature. And as to Christianity he believes its a very good sort of thing, better for America than any other religion; but he rather thinks Buddhism is very likely better for India."
"But I wish you would go and see him," continued the Deacon.
"Perhaps you can make something out of him. I can"t. I have tried again and again, and I always get the worst of it. He is well read, I a.s.sure you, and keen as--as," the Deacon failed in his search for a simile and closed his sentence with--"a great deal keener than I am.
He"s a real good fellow, but he doesn"t believe in anything. There is no use in quoting Scripture, because he thinks it"s nothing but a collection of old legends. I once tried to argue the question of inspiration with him. "Deacon," said he to me, "suppose a father should start off one fine morning to carry his son up to the top of Huricane Hill and put him to death there, and should pretend he had a revelation from G.o.d to do it, what would you do to him?" "Put him in the insane asylum," said I. "Exactly," said he. "My boys came home from your Sabbath School the other Sunday full of the sacrifice of Isaac, and Will, who takes after his father, asked me if I didn"t think it was cruel for G.o.d to tell a father to kill his own son.