The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners with sketches of western life |
THE LOG SCHOOLHOUSE. |
 | The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners |  |
THE LOG SCHOOLHOUSE.
It has been justly objected, with regard to the public idea of the
means of literary culture in our country, that we are too fond of
building our colleges of brick and stone, instead of laying their more
solid foundations in professors and students. We certainly do
practically give our assent to the vulgar notion that showy buildings
are of the first importance in our seminaries of learning, able
teachers only of the second. Funds that would bring talent from
another hemisphere, or call it into action within our own borders, are
often buried in monstrous fabrics which wait useless for years until
new means can be raised for filling them with the teachers and
pupils who are their ultimate object; and State pride is strangely
gratified by gazing at these memorials of one of the many blunders
of our materialism.
But there is a class of educational edifices to which no such
objection can be made. The log schoolhouse in the deep woods is
a far nobler proof of intellectual aspiration than any huge empty
college building of them all. Its grotesque outline has, for the eye
of the thoughtful patriot, a grace that mere columns and arches can
never give—the grace of earnestness, of a purpose truly lofty in its
seeming humility. A log schoolhouse is the veritable temple of
THE LOG SCHOOL HOUSE.
[Description: 626EAF. Illustration page. Image of a log school room. The schoolmaster sits reading at his podium. Young boys are engaged in various activities such as reading aloud and writing on their slates. The room is arranged informally with the boys sitting on benches by the window.]
devoted, in naked simplicity, to an idea which is its
consecration and its beauty. `Do the people need place to pray,
and calls to hear His word?' says Ruskin, in that delightful book
of his,[1] `then it is no time for smoothing pillars or carving
pulpits; let us first have enough of walls and roofs'—and no doubt
a truer dignity attends the roughest erection that has a truly high
purpose, than can be expressed in the richest material and the most
elaborate forms that mere pride and vanity can compass or devise.
And this is not mere empty talk or æsthetic dreaming. The
higher and more perfect the cultivation of mind and taste which the
American traveller carries with him into the western country,
the more of true and touching beauty will he see in the log school-house
that greets him, in some little unexpected clearing, as he takes
his solitary way through the forest. He has passed, it may be,
many a noble farm, with its fenced fields and ample barns, its
woodlands resounding with the axe, and its chambers vocal with the
spinning-wheel; he has seen the owner amid his laborers, sharing or
directing their profitable toil; he has sat at hospitable boards,
spread with the luxury of rural comfort thus provided, and inspected
mills and factories, promising as Californian rivers; but all this had
reference only to the material and the perishable. This was only
the body whereof that uncouth log schoolhouse typifies the soul.
The soul can do without the body, but the body becomes a
loathsome mass without the soul. Indeed all this smiling plenty,
this warm industry, this breathing quiet, is the fruit of the log
schoolhouse, for did not public spirit, general intelligence and piety
emanate from that humble source?
I will not say that as soon as the settler has a roof over his head
for in truth he ascertains the probability of such a building before
he selects a site for his homestead. As soon as a tree is felled,
a schoolhouse is thought of, and the whole neighborhood are
at once, and for once, of one accord in erecting it. It is a rough
enough thing when it is done, for your backwoodsman looks only
to the main point in everything, and dreams not of superfluity. He
means that the roof shall shed rain, and the piled sides keep the
wind out, and the floor afford dry footing. He puts in windows for
light, and benches to sit upon, and a pulpit or rostrum from which
a speaker may be well heard. Then there is a great stove for
the long winter, and sometimes,—not always, unfortunately,—some
shelter for waiting steeds. But a thought of symmetry, of
smoothing, of decoration—never intrudes. Architecture, which
begins after every purpose of mere use in a building is provided for,
is out of the question here. Whoever would admire the log
schoolhouse, must bring the beauty in his own mind.
Yet it is hardly fair to say so, either. Letting the inside go, with
its cave-like roughness, the outer aspect is not altogether devoid of
the beauty which the artist loves. As to color, nothing can be
finer, after a year's mellowing. When the tender spring green
clothes the trees around it, its rich brown and gray earthy
tints make the most delicious harmony, and its undulating outlines
no discord. If log houses have not yet come well into pictures, it is
because no artistic imagination has yet been warmed by them. I
remember one, in a picture of Cole's, but it was the poorest,
nakedest thing that could be, more literal than reality itself. It was
as different from the true—i. e. the ideal log house—as a builder's
draught of the Parthenon from a Raffaelesque picture of it. Such
cold correctness is death to typical beauty, for it does not recognize
had never felt them, as he had the woods and waters that he
painted so well. A Daguerreotype representation of a log house
would be, to all intents and purposes, a libel, for every tint of earth
and sky has peculiar business in a true picture of this characteristic
and interesting object in western scenery. Ruskin talks of Paul
Veronese's painting, not, like Landseer, a dog `wrought out with
exquisite dexterity of handling, and minute attention to all the
accidents of curl and gloss which can give appearance of reality,
while the hue and power of the sunshine, &c., are utterly neglected'
—but the `essence of dog;' now we want a painter who can give
us the essence of log house, and particularly of log schoolhouse, or
we would as soon see a wood-pile painted. That the Swiss
chalet should have proved more inspiring to American painters,
shows the blinding power of prejudice, or the illusion of strangeness;
though, to be sure, we have not Alps to tower above our
primal edifices.
The enmity felt by the backwoodsman against trees too often
exhibits itself in the vicinity of the schoolhouse, which ought to be
shaded in summer, and shielded in winter by the ponderous trunks
and green embracing arms in the midst of which it generally stands.
But, accepting literally the poet's idea—`the groves were God's
first temples,' we cut down the grove to make our temple, yet
inconsistently `clear' the space about it, partly for the sake of
the necessary fuel, partly to make the place look civilized! It
is hard to get a few trees left for the children to sit under in
the summer noon-spell. There is a savage rudeness in this, but it is
in accordance with the leading idea of `subduing' the country, and
there is no surer way of putting a western settler in a passion, than
talking to him about sparing a few trees, for any purpose. He will
standing where nature placed them. When he sits in the
schoolhouse on Sunday, listening to the sermon with his ears, while
his mind, perhaps, strays off into that unseen which the week's
cares and toils are apt to banish, or finds itself still entangled
in those cares and toils, he loves to look through the windows, or
the chinks, at the distant woods. Distant, they please and soothe
him; he feels, if he does not hear, their soft music; he sees their
gentle waving, and appreciates in some degree the power of their
beauty; but near, the association is unpleasant. His hands yet
ache with the week's chopping, which must be forgotten that
Sunday may be Sunday; and the vicinity of huge trunks is
suggestive only of labor. A wide bare space about the building
has, to his imagination, the dignity of a field of triumph. It seems
to afford sanction to the Sabbath repose.
Within, neither paint nor plaster interferes with the impression
of absolute rusticity. Desks of the rudest form line the sides,
making a hollow oblong, in the middle of which stands the stove,
surrounded by low, long benches for the little ones. On week-days
these are filled with pinafored urchins, who sit most of the time
gazing at the pieces of sky they can discern through the high
windows, or playing with bits of stick or straw, too insignificant to
attract the keen, stern eye of the master, who would at once pounce
upon a button or a marble. One by one these minims are called up
to be alphabetized, or spell `c-a-t, pussy,' in the picture-book.
Spelling and arithmetic are decidedly the favorite studies in most
district schools; writing is troublesome, and reading is expected to
come by nature. A half wild, half plaintive sound fills the ear, the
sound of recitation, which is generally an irksome business on both
sides, the teacher too often conscious of utter incompetency and
at least enough to be certain that he himself is in hopeless circumstances
as far as `book-larnin' is concerned. Girls and boys usually
wear an equally sad countenance, for there is too wide a chasm
between the home occupations and those of the school-room, to
allow any familiarity with the themes of the latter. With the
greater part of the scholars it is such up-hill work, that both
they and their parents deserve much credit for persisting in efforts,
the result of which is distant, at least, if not uncertain. A few
happy, bright spirits flash out in spite of the dull influences,
and they are apt to absorb the attention of the teacher, leaving still
less hope for the unready.
The disciplinary part has reference only to behavior, delinquency
in lessons being a fault which the teacher is usually too honest or
too sympathetic to visit with much severity. High offences
are biting apples, rattling nuts or marbles, singing, whistling, making
faces, pinching and scratching. Cutting the desks and benches
is nominally an offence, but not often punished, because it can be
done without noise; once in a while, however, a confiscated knife
diversifies the row of nuts and apples on the teacher's desk. Modes
of punishment are ingeniously varied. To be put on the boys' side
is a terrible one for the little girls; to hold up a slate, formidable to
either sex. Standing upon the bench, or, in summer, on the stove,
is equal to the pillory, especially when, as is sometimes practised,
the whole school is enjoined to point the finger at the delinquent.
Minor transgressions are occasionally atoned for by wearing a piece
of split quill on the top of the ear, or across the bridge of the nose,
saddle-wise; or carrying pinned to the back or shoulder, a piece of
paper, on which a significant word is written. The rod is the last
resource, unless the teacher gets a dislike to some unlucky boy,
As it is conscious weakness that instinctively has recourse to force, it
might naturally be expected that female teachers would be fondest
of the use of the rod, and experience proves the fact. It serves as a
substitute for the mental power which commands respect. The
master's brow being by nature more terrible, he can afford to reserve
flagellation for great occasions.
If the absolute knowledge acquired under these circumstances
could be ascertained, its amount would probably be so small as to
seem disproportioned even to these simple means. But there are a
thousand indirect advantages, both to children and parents, which
make themselves evident in due season, so that the difference between
children who go to school and those who do not, is as patent
as if the teachers were Dr. Arnolds and Hannah Mores. This general
result is all that the farmer expects or wishes; he is, on the
whole, rather prejudiced against books, like other uneducated people.
We lately heard an intelligent Russian say, that children are sent to
the public schools in Russia because the Emperor wishes it; the
parents saying that they consider what is learned, beyond counting
and signing one's name, rather a disadvantage than a good. The
rough, hard-working American forms the same estimate; and this
is the less to be wondered at, when we see highly instructed people,
who may be supposed to have full knowledge of the benefits of cultivation,
adopting these unenlightened sentiments. It will hardly
be believed that men, not only of education but of learning, once
transplanted to the woods, and forced into the hard struggle for the
ordinary comforts of life which occupies both head and hands there,
are found to let their children grow up without even the cultivation
within their reach; so that among the most boorish of western
youth, we see the sons and daughters of those who possess the
the case with transplanted Europeans, certainly, but it is not inapplicable
to many of our own countrymen from the Eastern States.
Sunday—benign provision for the sanity, bodily and mental, of
man, and the comfort of the kindly beasts—wears a marked aspect
here where the labor of the week is labor, and where the difference
in dress, occupation, thoughts, between the Sabbath and the working
days, is as striking as that between the fairy as princess, and
the fairy as cat. In town, we may have been harassed enough;
anxious in business, weary with toilsome pleasure, exhausted with
envious competition, faint with disappointed ambition; perhaps spent
with unselfish efforts to do good, or prostrate through the grief of
ill-success. But we know comparatively little of muscular toil, and
its peculiar consequences upon the whole man, moral and physical.
We go to church habitually; perhaps with devout motives, perhaps
through listlessness; because others go; because we do not know
what to do at home; we admire the preacher or somebody in the
congregation; we have a pew and may as well use it; it is a good
habit for children, or builds up our own character for steadiness.
We do not put on our best clothes, because it is vulgar, and may
lead to a suspicion that we have nowhere else to exhibit them; or
from a better motive—a dislike to anything which may attract
attention from the main and only legitimate object. In short our
way of spending Sunday is like other things that we do, modified by
our principles and circumstances. It has no general character, save
that of outward decency; it tells nothing of the man, except that he
has no desire to be singular.
But in the new country it is different. There, Sunday is something
in itself, over and above the sacredness of the command to refrain
from labor during its hours. It is a day of rest, emphatically;
intellectual exercise; and perhaps of reading and reflection, such as
the toilsome week-days do not encourage, even if they do not wholly
prevent. There has been a general winding up of common affairs
on Saturday. The oven has done double duty; and the churn has
been used with vigor; the remains of the ironing have been finished
—for our Western housewives do not adhere strictly to the good old
custom of `washing-day,' but wash as irregularly as they do almost
everything else; so that the bushes may be seen weighed down with
garments every day in the week, and sometimes even on Sunday.
Everything that could be done beforehand has been attended to, and
the bed-hour hastened a little, to make the most of the coveted repose.
Sunday-morning breakfast is a little dilatory, and the hour or two
after it is one of bustling preparation. The requisite offices about
the house and farm are dispatched as summarily as may be; and
the family—including old grandmother and baby and all—set off
for church, after covering up the fire, and putting a fork over the
latch—a precaution which makes it necessary for one of the boys to
get out of a window. This is merely a hint to those who may call,
that the family is absent; not to guard against thieves, since the
windows are all unguarded. How much trouble is saved by having
little to lose! `Blessed be nothing!' we have often had reason to
exclaim.
At church, the arrivals are various as to time; some liking to be
in season—say an hour before the service begins; others having too
much to do at home to allow of the enjoyment of this precious interval
of gossip. In winter, some good soul makes the fire, for it is
nobody's business in particular; and stout young fellows bring in
huge armfuls of wood, which they pile behind the stove. In summer,
the men congregate on the shady side of the meeting-house,
the price of wheat. The women converse in whispers, comparing
household experiences, or recounting, in moving terms, cases of `fits'
or `inward fever' in their own families or those of their neighbors.
Those on whom is to devolve the burthen of the music, are intent
on their singing-books, humming or softly whistling over new
or only half-learned tunes, and comparing one with another. As
there is not even a guess as to what hymns will be given out,
nothing like general practice can be attempted; but there is so little
leisure during the week, that the quiet, and ease, and clean fingers
of Sunday seem to suggest music, as naturally as joy does; and a
degree of attention and interest is excited which might be turned to
excellent account if good instruction were at hand just at the right
moment.
When the minister arrives, there is a momentary bustle, from resuming
customary places and putting away the music-books. But
soon all becomes solemn. The idea of cheerfulness and religion
being compatible, never enters the head of one of those good people.
A countenance not merely serious but sad, is considered the only
proper one for the contemplation of religious ideas. This is certainly
a great error, and one which tends to the further separation
of religion from the affairs of common life, and the association of
piety with death and sorrow, rather than with life and hope, joy and
peace.
A very short intermission succeeds the morning service, and
lunch is eaten on the spot by all members from a distance. The
horses are looked to, and a little repose or a stroll in the grove is
the preparation for a new session. This is of course a much more
drowsy affair. Even the minister himself, who is hardly expected to
be human, will be heavy-eyed, sometimes, under such a continuous
tokens of complete forgetfulness of mortal things. Fortunately the
babies generally sleep too, and the unlucky boys who let marbles
drop on the floor in the morning, and the girls who would whisper
in spite of frowns, feel the influence of the hour, and grow tame and
good under it. Still the afternoon service is rather uphill work, and
there is a general, though unconfessed feeling of relief when it is
over, even among the best church-goers.
And now the Sunday is over, in fact, though not in form; since
public worship is the marked portion of sacred time. Great stillness
still prevails, however, even where a large portion of the population
never go to church. No one is so abject as not to respect the day
so far as outward appearance goes. There are those who think Sunday
a choice day for gunning, because the woods are undisturbed by
the sound of the axe; others who use the day for a general survey
of the fields and fences; and others still who will toss hay or get in
wheat, in spite of what they deem the prejudices of their neighbors.
But there is no noise—no boasting or bravado. When these independent
people say, `It is a free country, and every man can do as
he likes,' they do not claim the least right to interfere with a neighbor's
freedom. That would not be tolerated in any one. There is
a vast deal of free-thinking, and even what might be called a worse
name, in matters of religion, at the West, but it is necessarily quiet;
for public sentiment is decidedly against it, though that public sentiment
is far from being just what it should be.
In the Sabbath exercises the parents take their own personal
share of the log schoolhouse, and it is a beautiful sight to see them
assemble; hard, knotty, rough, bashful, and solemn, all clean washed
and dressed, though carrying the week's atmosphere of toil about
them, even in their Sunday clothes. The sexes are divided, but sit
to bread-and-milk scholars, are in meeting occupied by mothers,
with babies and younglings who enjoy the benefit of the open space
for manifold evolutions more amusing than edifying. There is a
curious mixture of extreme formality and familiarity on these occasions.
Countenances wear an unconscious and forbidding gravity,
as husbands and wives, parents and children, beaux and belles, look
each other full in the face across the house; but if a baby is troublesome,
the father will go and take it from the mother, and returning
gravely to his seat, toss it and play with it awhile and then
carry it back again. Children go into the passage for a drink; dogs
sit gazing up at the preacher, and fall asleep like Christians if the
day is warm; the speaker stops sometimes to give directions about
matters that need attention, or even points his sermon directly at
some individual whose connection with it is well known.
We remember an occasion when the preacher began his discourse
by a considerable dissertation on controversy, declaring his dislike
to it, and appealing to his auditors for confirmation of his assertion
that he had always avoided it. After spending some fifteen minutes
on this topic, he announced that he had been requested by a person
then present to preach from a certain text, which he forthwith read,
and appealed to the person by name, as to whether it was the text
he meant. An affirmative answer having been given by a deep
bass voice in a far corner, the speaker read some twenty verses by
way of context, adding that if any person present wished him to
read more he would do so, and upon request he proceeded to read
several verses more. Now preparing seriously for the work, by
coughing, etc., he drew the attention of his hearers by saying that
there were only two kinds of isms that he contended with—devilism
and manism; but that if the gentleman who had selected the
show him his error. He thought some people present would open
their eyes, when they found how little of that doctrine the passage
in question really contained. He did not mean to back up his text
with other portions of Scripture; it could stand on its own legs.
He came `neither to criticise, ridicule, or blackguard anybody,' but
thought he was right, and was willing to be shown if he was wrong.
About half an hour had now elapsed, yet the sermon was not fairly
begun. There was plenty of time yet, however, for he went on
more than an hour longer, warming with a feeling of success, and
ever and anon casting triumphant glances at the corner where sat
his opponents, as he felt that he had given a home thrust to their
theological errors. This sermon was much praised, and pronounced
by the schoolmaster of the day the most powerful discourse he had
ever heard.
This sketch, however, represents an individual, not a class. Ambition
is not the pulpit vice of the woods, and sermons are usually
of the hortatory character, delivered with great fervor. It must be
confessed that doctrinal sermons win the most respect, and are most
talked about; exhortation is deemed commonplace in comparison—
mere milk for babes. A sermon on original sin, which asserted that
infants of a day might be damned, and that souls in blessedness
would be able to rejoice over the eternal misery of those they loved
best, because it vindicated Almighty justice, gave great, though perhaps
not general satisfaction. `Ah! wasn't it elegant!' we heard a
good woman say, coming out; `I haven't heard such a sermon
since I came from the East!'
The public taste turning thus toward knotty points of divinity,
the preachers, whose employment depends upon their acceptableness,
naturally make polemics a large part of their little reading—an
among uninstructed people by controversial preaching. The
pulpit is the most efficient instructor of the people, on other subjects
besides religion, and the advance in general intelligence must depend
very much upon the competency of those who undertake the dispensation
of ethical truth. It is therefore greatly to be desired that
knowledge should be added to zeal, in those who go westward in
the hope of doing good. Too many who go are deficient in both,
and no one who has lived there will doubt that the harm done,
directly and indirectly, by such, is incalculable; but there is another
class whose persuasions to religion, though honestly meant, lead
only to superstition and outward observance, too common everywhere,
but especially destructive in their influence on true piety in
unenlightened communities. A considerable portion of the religious
teachers who officiate, self-elected, in the western wilds, are behind
those they teach in general intelligence, and not much above them
in familiarity with religious topics, though they may possess a great
flow of words, which pass for signs of ideas, but are not such, as it
regards either party. Some sermons are mere strings of Scriptural
phrases and well-known texts, often curiously wrenched from their
authorized meaning to favor the purpose of the hour. The idea
on these occasions seems to be, that the people are to be touched,
moved, excited, frightened, or persuaded into an interest in religion,
by any and every means that the Scriptures afford, and that with so
good a purpose it is lawful to make them afford whatever may promise
to be effectual. Griesbach and Rosenmüller would stare at
some of the glosses of our zealous preachers, and the learned Rabbi
who has been lecturing among us would find his metaphysics outdone
in subtility, by certain constructions of the Old Testament
the unlearned.
With all deductions, however, an immense amount of good is
done in various ways. Even when the preacher is deficient, the
hearers extract good in some shape from his blind teaching; that is
to say, seeking for good, they find it whether it is brought them or
not. Who can reckon the value of the rest, the change of thought,
the neat dress, the quiet, the holy associations, which the Sabbath
day brings with it in the country! The best touchstone of valuable
citizenship is found in the log schoolhouse. He who feels no
interest in that, feels none in anything that concerns the welfare of
the community.
The Sunday-school is one of the most interesting of all the occupations
of the school house, but it would require the graphic power
of a Hogarth to describe it worthily. As there is no rod, and no
authority but one founded on sentiment, the erratic genius of the
West has full scope. The youth who would on week-days tell his
teacher—`Scoldin' don't hurt none—whippin' don't last long—and
kill me you darsn't!' would not probably be very lamblike under
the instructions of the Sabbath; and the very proposition to teach
for love, and not for money, puts every one on his guard. They
cannot exactly see the trap, but they are pretty sure there is
one! Something very like bribery is necessary, in order to secure
the attendance of the class of scholars whom it is most desirable to
persuade—the children of parents who do not frequent the school-house.
Some of these hardly know the Bible by name, and others
have heard it only scoffed at. But religious teaching often exerts a
wonderful power even over such, and they are apt to be converted
to a faith in disinterested benevolence at least. The labor of teaching
them is quite equal to that required for teaching in Ceylon, according
of the mission schools in that far land, reminded me very much of
certain western experiences.
Besides the uses we have mentioned, the schoolhouse is the theatre
of the singing-school, so dear to country beaux and belles; of
the spelling-school, as exciting as a vaudeville; of all sorts of shows
and lectures, expositions and orations. Even the ceremonies of the
Catholic Church are found possible within those rude walls, and
incense has won its way to the sky through the chinks of warped
oak shingles. The most numerous sects are the Baptists and Methodists;
but there is hardly one unrepresented. We remember a
Quaker sermon on a certain occasion, which produced perhaps as
great a sensation as any doctrinal discourse of them all, though it
partook very little of theology.
We had occasionally met for public worship, in a lonely school-house
on the border of the forest, where two roads crossed, and
where, in winter, a flooring of chips showed that the seekers after
learning were not behindhand in consuming the woods as fast as
their great stove would assist them. This primitive temple, with its
notched desks and gashed benches, was used in turn by religionists
of every shade of belief and no belief; even the Mormons had expounded
their Golden Bible (by some of the neighbors believed to
have been typified by the Golden Calf which led the people astray
in old times), from its crazy platform, and a rough-looking gentleman
in a plaid neckcloth had, during a whole evening, thumped the
teacher's desk till it quivered again, in his endeavors to prove all
religion a device for the better subjection of the people. A Sunday-school
had been maintained here for some time, at no small cost to
the good laymen who conducted it; for they were obliged, in winter,
to precede their scholars by at least an hour, and make the fire and
for absence on the part of those whom they were most desirous of
benefiting. Here, too, were singing-schools held, and spelling-schools,
and other solemnities requiring space and benches; and the
log schoolhouse, spite of its rough aspect, was, as usual, a building
in much request and high esteem.
There was no `stated preaching' in it on Sundays, but clergymen
of different denominations seemed to know by intuition or magnetism
when it would be available, and their appointments dovetailed
so nicely that its so-called pulpit was seldom unoccupied at the
hours of divine service. Once only, within the memory of `the
oldest inhabitant,' did ten o'clock, Sunday morning, find the people
assembled,—the wagons tied outside, with their seats turned down
as a precaution against falling skies, and their patient steeds chewing
`post-meat' for recreation—and no preacher forthcoming. A sort
of extempore, self-constituted deacon, after much solemn whispering
with the grave-looking farmers who sat near him, gave out a hymn,
which was sung with a sort of nervous slowness, and much looking
at the door. A restless pause followed, and then the deacon gave
out another hymn, in six verses, with a repeat; this occupied a convenient
portion of time, and then came another fidgety silence,
during which, some of the lighter members slipped out, and several
of the children went to the pail outside the door for a drink. The
deacon then offered to read a chapter, and proposed, if the clergyman
did not arrive in that time, that some of the brethren should
`make a few remarks.' The chapter was read, and the remarks
duly invited; but this only made the silence deeper; indeed, it was
such that you might have heard a pin drop.
Nobody belonging to the town seemed to have anything on his
mind, and after a little pause, there were evident symptoms of a
a visit in the neighborhood, laid aside her close bonnet, and standing
up, presented to the view of the assembly a fair and calm face,
on which sat the holy smile of Christian love and confidence. All
was hushed, for such a look has an irresistible charm.
`My friends,' she began, with a sweet solemn tone, between entreaty
and reproof, `since you are disappointed with regard to your
minister, perhaps you will be willing to hear a few words from one
who, though personally a stranger, feels a true interest in you, and
who would fain help you forward, even ever so little, in the religious
life. Your desire to have the gospel preached to you, shows that
you are, at least in some measure, seeking that life, and my mind
has been drawn towards you as I observed the dependence you
seemed to feel on the ministrations of the person expected. It has
certainly seemed strange to me that so much uneasiness and commotion
should have been occasioned by the failure of a particular
person to conduct your worship. `God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit.' Now you, every one of
you, brought with you to this house this morning a spirit, in and
by which alone you can worship acceptably. You have here before
you the book containing the revealed word, in which you could find
wherewithal to direct and govern your thoughts on this occasion;
why then should the absence of any mere man interfere with your
purpose of worship, and leave your minds unquiet and your thoughts
wandering?'
Thus the gentle monitor opened her truly extempore sermon, and,
passing from one topic to another as she proceeded with her remonstrance,
she touched on many points of scripture and practical religion,
until her audience forgot their disappointment, or remembered
it only to rejoice at it. The prejudice against a woman's pretending
people, melted before the feminine grace and modesty with which
the speaker was so largely endowed; and when she finished, and
resumed her seat and her bonnet, there were few present who would
not gladly have agreed to hear her every Sunday. How they
would have relished her silence, or whether her arguments had done
anything towards convincing them that the heart may worship
though no word be spoken, we can only conjecture; for before another
Sabbath, the persuasive eye and voice had departed on some
mission to the farther West, and we never again enjoyed her ministry
of love in The Log Schoolhouse.
| The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners | |