Chapter XXIII Russell Bigelow’s Sermon
Two years have ripened Patty from the girl to the woman. If Kike is happy in his self-abnegation, Patty is not happy in hers. Pride has no balm in it. However powerful it may be as a stimulant, it is poor food. And Patty has little but pride to feed upon. The invalid mother has now been dead a year, and Patty is almost without companionship, though not without suitors. Land brings lovers—land-lovers, if nothing more—and the estate of Patty’s father is not her only attraction. She is a young woman of a certain nobility of figure and carriage; she is not large, but her bearing makes her seem quite commanding. Even her father respects her, and all the more does he wish to torment her whenever he finds opportunity. Patty is thrifty, and in the early West no attraction outweighed this wifely ordering of a household. But Patty will not marry any of the suitors who calculate the infirm health of her father and the probable division of his estate, and who mentally transfer to their future homes the thrift and orderliness they see in Captain Lumsden’s. By refusing them all she has won the name of a proud girl. There are times when out of sight of everybody she weeps, hardly knowing why. And since her mother’s death she reads the prayer-book more than ever, finding in the severe confessions therein framed for us miserable sinners, and the plaintive cries of the litany, a voice for her innermost soul.
Captain Lumsden fears she will marry and leave him, and yet it angers him that she refuses to marry. His hatred of Methodists has assumed the intensity of a monomania since he was defeated for the legislature partly by Methodist opposition. All his love of power has turned to bitterest resentment, and every thought that there may be yet the remotest possibility of Patty’s marrying Morton afflicts him beyond measure. He cannot fathom the reason for her obstinate rejection of all lovers; he dislikes her growing seriousness and her fondness for the prayer-book. Even the prayer-book’s earnestness has something Methodistic about it. But Patty has never yet been in a Methodist meeting, and with this fact he comforts himself. He has taken pains to buy her jewelry and “artificials” in abundance, that he may, by dressing her finely, remove her as far as possible from temptations to become a Methodist. For in that time, when fine dressing was not common and country neighborhoods were polarized by the advent of Methodism in its most aggressive form, every artificial flower and every earring was a banner of antagonism to the new sect; a well-dressed woman in a congregation was almost a defiance to the preacher. It seemed to Lumsden, therefore, that Patty had prophylactic ornaments enough to save her from Methodism. And to all of these he added covert threats that if any child of his should ever join these crazy Methodist loons, he would turn him out of doors and never see him again. This threat was always indirect—a remark dropped incidentally; the pronoun which represented the unknown quantity of a Methodist Lumsden was always masculine, but Patty did not fail to comprehend.
One day there came to Captain Lumsden’s door that out-cast of New England—a tin-peddler. Western people had never heard of Yale College or any other glory of Connecticut or New England. To them it was but a land that bred pestilent peripatetic peddlers of tin-ware and wooden clocks. Western rogues would cheat you out of your horse or your farm if a good chance offered, but this vile vender of Yankee tins, who called a bucket a “pail,” and said “noo” for new, and talked nasally, would work an hour to cheat you out of a “fipenny bit.” The tin-peddler, one Munson, thrust his sharpened visage in at Lumsden’s door and “made bold” to inquire if he could git a night’s lodging, which the Captain, like other settlers, granted without charge. Having unloaded his stock of “tins” and “put up” his horse, the Connecticut peddler “made bold” to ask many leading questions about the family and personal history of the Lumsdens, collectively and individually. Having thus taken the first steps toward acquaintance by this display of an aggravating interest in the welfare of his new friends, he proceeded to give elaborate and truthful accounts—with variations—of his own recent adventures, to the boundless amusement of the younger Lumsdens, who laughed more heartily at the Connecticut man’s words and pronunciation than at his stories. He said, among other things, that he had ben to Jinkinsville t’other day to what the Methodis’ called a “basket meetin’.” But when he had proceeded so far with his narrative, he prudently stopped and made bold to inquire what the Captain thought of these Methodists. The Captain was not slow to express his opinion, and the man of tins, having thus reassured himself by taking soundings, proceeded to tell that they was a dreffle craoud of folks to that meetin’. And he, hevin’ a sharp eye to business, hed went forrard to the mourner’s bench to be prayed fer. Didn’t do no pertik’ler harm to hev folks pray fer ye, ye know. Well, ye see, the Methodis’ they wanted to incourage a seeker, and so they all bought some tins. Purty nigh tuck the hull load offen his hands! (And here the peddler winked one eye at the Captain and then the other at Patty.) Fer they was seen a dreffle lot of folks there. Come to hear a young preacher as is ‘mazin’ elo’kent—Parson Goodwin by name, and he was a good one to preach, sartain.
This startled Patty and the Captain.
“Goodwin?” said the Captain; “Morton Goodwin?”
“The identikle,” said the peddler.
“Raised only half a mile from here,” said Lumsden, “and we don’t think much of him.”
“Neither did I,” said the peddler, trimming his sails to Lumsden’s breezes. “I calkilate I could preach e’en a’most as well as he does, myself, and I wa’n’t brought up to preachin’, nother. But he’s got a good v’ice fer singin’—sich a ring to’t, ye see, and he’s got a smart way thet comes the sympathies over the women folks and weak-eyed men, and sets ’em cryin’ at a desp’ate rate. Was brought up here, was he? Du tell! He’s powerful pop’lar.” Then, catching the Captain’s eye, he added: “Among the women, I mean.”
“He’ll marry some shouting girl, I suppose,” said the Captain, with a chuckle.
“That’s jist what he’s going to do,” said the peddler, pleased to have some information to give. Seeing that the Captain and his daughter were interested in his communication, the peddler paused a moment. A bit of gossip is too good a possession for one to part with too quickly.
“You guessed good, that time,” said the tinware man. “I heerd say as he was a goin’ to splice with a gal that could pray like a angel afire. An’ I heerd her pray. She nearly peeled the shingles off the skewl-haouse. Sich another excitement as she perjuced, I never did see. An’ I went up to her after meetin’ and axed a interest in her prayers. Don’t do no harm, ye know, to git sich lightnin’ on yer own side! An’ I took keer to git a good look at her face, for preachers ginerally marry purty faces. Preachers is a good deal like other folks, ef they do purtend to be better, hey? Well, naow, that Ann Elizer Meacham is purty, sartain. An’ everybody says he’s goin’ to marry her; an’ somebody said the presidin’ elder mout tie ’em up next Sunday at Quartily Meetin’, maybe. Then they’ll divide the work in the middle and go halves. She’ll pray and he’ll preach.” At this the peddler broke into a sinister laugh, sure that he had conciliated both the Captain and Patty by his news. He now proposed to sell some tinware, thinking he had worked his audience up to the right state of mind.
Patty did not know why she should feel vexed at hearing this bit of intelligence from Jenkinsville. What was Morton Goodwin to her? She went around the house as usual this evening, trying to hide all appearance of feeling. She even persuaded her father to buy half-a-dozen tin cups and some milk-buckets—she smiled at the peddler for calling them pails. She was not willing to gratify the Captain by showing him how much she disliked the scoffing “Yankee.” But when she was alone that evening, even the prayer-book had lost its power to soothe. She was mortified, vexed, humiliated on every hand. She felt hard and bitter, above all, toward the sect that had first made a division between Morton and herself, and cordially blamed the Methodists for all her misfortunes.
It happened that upon the very next Sunday Russell Bigelow was to preach. Far and wide over the West had traveled the fame of this great preacher, who, though born in Vermont, was wholly Western in his impassioned manner. “An orator is to be judged not by his printed discourses, but by the memory of the effect he has produced,” says a French writer; and if we may judge of Russell Bigelow by the fame that fills Ohio and Indiana even to this day, he was surely an orator of the highest order. He is known as the “indescribable.” The news that he was to preach had set the Hissawachee Settlement afire with eager curiosity to hear him. Even Patty declared her intention of going, much to the Captain’s regret. The meeting was not to be held at Wheeler’s, but in the woods, and she could go for this time without entering the house of her father’s foe. She had no other motive than a vague hope of hearing something that would divert her; life had grown so heavy that she craved excitement of any kind. She would take a back seat and hear the famous Methodist for herself. But Patty put on all of her gold and costly apparel. She was determined that nobody should suspect her of any intention of “joining the church.” Her mood was one of curiosity on the surface, and of proud hatred and quiet defiance below.
No religious meeting is ever so delightful as a meeting held in the forest; no forest is so satisfying as a forest of beech; the wide-spreading boughs—drooping when they start from the trunk, but well sustained at the last—stretch out regularly and with a steady horizontalness, the last year’s leaves form a carpet like a cushion, while the dense foliage shuts out the sun. To this meeting in the beech, woods Patty chose to walk, since it was less than a mile away.* As she passed through a little cove, she saw a man lying flat on his face in prayer. It was the preacher. Awe-stricken, Patty hurried on to the meeting. She had fully intended to take a seat in the rear of the congregation, but being a little confused and absent-minded she did not observe at first where the stand had been erected, and that she was entering the congregation at the side nearest to the pulpit. When she discovered her mistake it was too late to withdraw, the aisle beyond her was already full of standing people; there was nothing for her but to take the only vacant seat in sight. This put her in the very midst of the members, and in this position she was quite conspicuous; even strangers from other settlements saw with astonishment a woman elegantly dressed, for that time, sitting in the very midst of the devout sisters—for the men and women sat apart. All around Patty there was not a single “artificial,” or piece of jewelry. Indeed, most of the women wore calico sunbonnets. The Hissawachee people who knew her were astounded to see Patty at meeting at all. They remembered her treatment of Morton, and they looked upon Captain Lumsden as Gog and Magog incarnated in one. This sense of the conspicuousness of her position was painful to Patty, but she presently forgot herself in listening to the singing. There never was such a chorus as a backwoods Methodist congregation, and here among the trees they sang hymn after hymn, now with the tenderest pathos, now with triumphant joy, now with solemn earnestness. They sang “Children of the Heavenly King,” and “Come let us anew,” and “Blow ye the trumpet, blow,” and “Arise my soul, arise,” and “How happy every child of grace!” While they were singing this last, the celebrated preacher entered the pulpit, and there ran through the audience a movement of wonder, almost of disappointment. His clothes were of that sort of cheap cotton cloth known as “blue drilling,” and did not fit him. He was rather short, and inexpressibly awkward. His hair hung unkempt over the best portion of his face—the broad projecting forehead. His eyebrows were overhanging; his nose, cheek-bones and chin large. His mouth was wide and with a sorrowful depression at the corners, his nostrils thin, his eyes keen, and his face perfectly mobile. He took for his text the words of Eleazar to Laban,—“Seeking a bride for his master,” and, according to the custom of the time, he first expounded the incident, and then proceeded to “spiritualize” it, by applying it to the soul’s marriage to Christ. Notwithstanding the ungainliness of his frame and the awkwardness of his postures, there was a gentlemanliness about his address that indicated a man not unaccustomed to good society. His words were well-chosen; his pronunciation always correct; his speech grammatical. In all of these regards Patty was disappointed.
But the sermon. Who shall describe “the indescribable”? As the servant, he proceeded to set forth the character of the Master. What struck Patty was not the nobleness of his speech, nor the force of his argument; she seemed to see in the countenance that every divine trait which he described had reflected itself in the life of the preacher himself. For none but the manliest of men can ever speak worthily of Jesus Christ. As Bigelow proceeded he won her famished heart to Christ. For such a Master she could live or die; in such a life there was what Patty needed most—a purpose; in such a life there was a friend; in such a life she would escape that sense of the ignobleness of her own pursuits, and the unworthiness of her own pride. All that he said of Christ’s love and condescension filled her with a sense of sinfulness and meanness, and she wept bitterly. There were a hundred others as much affected, but the eyes of all her neighbors were upon her. If Patty should be converted, what a victory!
And as the preacher proceeded to describe the joy of a soul wedded forever to Christ—living nobly after the pattern of His life—Patty resolved that she would devote herself to this life and this Saviour, and rejoiced in sympathy with the rising note of triumph in the sermon. Then Bigelow, last of all, appealed to courage and to pride—to pride in its best sense. Who would be ashamed of such a Bridegroom? And as he depicted the trials that some must pass through in accepting Him, Patty saw her own situation, and mentally made the sacrifice. As he described the glory of renouncing the world, she thought of her jewelry and the spirit of defiance in which she had put it on. There, in the midst of that congregation, she took out her earrings, and stripped the flowers from the bonnet. We may smile at the unnecessary sacrifice to an over-strained literalism, but to Patty it was the solemn renunciation of the world—the whole-hearted espousal of herself, for all eternity, to Him who stands for all that is noblest in life. Of course this action was visible to most of the congregation—most of all to the preacher himself. To the Methodists it was the greatest of triumphs, this public conversion of Captain Lumsden’s daughter, and they showed their joy in many pious ejaculations. Patty did not seek concealment. She scorned to creep into the kingdom of heaven. It seemed to her that she owed this publicity. For a moment all eyes were turned away from the orator. He paused in his discourse until Patty had removed the emblems of her pride and antagonism. Then, turning with tearful eyes to the audience, the preacher, with simple-hearted sincerity and inconceivable effect, burst out with, “Hallelujah! I have found a bride for my Master!”
Notes
* I give the local tradition of Bigelow’s text, sermon, and the accompanying incident.