University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.

One of the greatest deficiencies and disadvantages
of the settler in the new world, is the lack of the ordinary
means of public religious instruction. This is
felt, not only when the Sabbath morn recurs without
its call for public worship, and children ask longingly for
that mild and pleasing form of religious and moral training,
to which they are all attached as if by an intuition
of nature; but it makes itself but too evident throughout
the entire structure and condition of society. Those
who consider Religion a gloom and a burden, have
only to reside for a while where Religion is habitually
forgotten or wilfully set aside. They will soon learn
at least to appreciate the practical value of the injunction,
“Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.”

We have never indeed been entirely destitute for
any length of time of the semblance of public worship.
Preachers belonging to various denominations
have, from the beginning, occasionally called meetings
in the little log school-house, and many of the neighbours
always make a point of being present, although
a far greater proportion reserve the Sunday for fishing

and gunning. And it must be confessed that there
has generally been but little that was attractive in the
attempts at public service. A bare, cold room, the
wind whistling through a thousand crevices in the
unplastered walls, and pouring down through as many
more in the shrunken roof, seats formed by laying
rough boards on rougher blocks, and the whole covered
thick with the week's dirt of the district school; these
are scarcely the appliances which draw the indolent,
the careless, the indifferent, the self-indulgent, to the
house of worship. And the preacher, “the messenger
of Heaven,” “the legate of the skies,”—Alas! I dare
not trust my pen to draw the portraits of some of these
well-meaning, but most incompetent persons. I can
only say that a large part of them seem to me grievously
to have mistaken their vocation.

“All are not such.” We have occasionally a
preacher whose language and manner, though plain, are
far from being either coarse or vulgar, and whose sermons,
though generally quite curious in their way,
have nothing that is either ridiculous or disgusting. If
we suffer ourselves to be driven from the humble
meeting-house by one preacher with the dress and air
of a horse-jockey, who will rant and scream till he is
obliged to have incessant recourse to his handkerchief
to dry the tears which are the natural result of the
excitement into which he has lashed himself, we may
perhaps lose a good plain practical discourse from
another, who with only tolerable worldly advantages,
has yet studied his Bible with profit, and offers with
gentle persuasivenesss its message of mercy. Yet to
sit from two to three hours trying to listen to the blubberer,

is a trial of one's nerves and patience which is
almost too much to ask; greater I confess, than I am
often willing to endure, well convinced as I am, that
the best good of all, requires the support of some form
of public worship.

I have often been a little amused not only at the
very characteristic style of the illustrations which are
freely made use of, by all who are in the habit of preaching
in the new settlements, but at the extreme politeness
with which certain rather too common classes of
sins, are touched upon by these pioneers among us.
They belong to various denominations, and they are
well aware that a still greater number of differing sects
are represented in their audience; and each is naturally
desirous to secure as many adherents as possible
to his own view of religious truth. It becomes therefore
particularly necessary to avoid giving personal
offence. Does the speaker wish to show the evils and
penalties of Sabbath-breaking, of profanity, of falsehood,
of slander, of dishonest dealings, or any other
offence which he knows is practised by some at least
among his auditors, he generally begins with observing
that he is quite a stranger, very little acquainted in
the neighbourhood, entirely ignorant whether what he
is going to say may or may not be especially applicable
to any of his hearers, and that he only judges from
the general condition of human nature, that such cautions
or exhortations may be necessary, &c., exhibitting
a constant struggle between his sense of duty and
his fear of making enemies.

The illustrative style to which I have alluded, is
certainly much better calculated to excite the attention,

and keep alive the interest of an unlettered audience,
than the most powerful argument could possibly
be, but it is sometimes carried so far that the younger
part of the congregation find it hard to maintain the
gravity befitting the time. It is not long since I heard
a good man preach from the text “Behold how great a
matter a little fire kindleth.” He began by saying
that it could not be necessary to show the literal truth
of this observation of the Apostle; “For you yourselves
know, my friends, especially at this time of year, when
most of you have had to fight fire more or less, how
easy it is to kindle what is so difficult to put out. You
know that what fire a man can carry in his hand, applied
to the dry grass on the marshes, will grow so, that
in ten minutes a hundred men could not put it out, and,
if you do n't take care, it will burn up your haystacks and
your barns too, aye, and your houses, if the wind happens
to be pretty strong. And if you get a cannon
loaded up with powder, it wont take but a leetle grain
of fire to produce a great explosion, and maybe kill
somebody. And I dare say that some of you have
seen the way they get along in making rail-roads in
the winter, when the ground's froze so hard that they
can't dig a bit; they blast off great bodies of the hard
ground, just as they blast rocks. And it do n't take
any more than a spark to set it a-going. Even so, a
woman's tongue, can set a whole neighbourhood together
by the ears, and do more mischief in a minute,
than she can undo in a month.” At this all the young
folks looked at each other and smiled, and as the
preacher went on in a similar strain, the smile was frequently
repeated; and such scenes are not very uncommon.

It was some little time before we could learn the
rules of etiquette which are observed among these
itinerant or voluntary preachers. We supposed that
if a meeting was given out for Sunday morning at the
school-house by a Baptist, any other room might be
obtained and occupied at the same hour by a Presbyterian
or Methodist, leaving it to the people to chose
which they would hear. But this is considered a
most ungenerous usurpation, and such things are indignantly
frowned upon by all the meeting-goers in the
community. If a minister of any denomination has appointed
a meeting, no other must preach at the same
hour in the neighbourhood; and this singular notion
gives rise to much of the petty squabbling and ill-will
which torments Montacute as well as other small places.

This is one of the many cases wherein it is easier
to waive one's rights than to quarrel for them. I hope,
as our numbers increase rapidly, the evil will soon
cure itself, since one room will not long be elastic
enough to contain all the church-goers.

Of the state of religion, a light work like this affords
no fitting opportunity to speak; but I may say that the
really devoted Christian can find no fairer or ampler
field. None but the truly devoted will endure the difficulties
and discouragements of the way. “Pride,
sloth, and silken ease,” find no favour in the eyes of
the fierce, reckless, hard-handed Wolverine. He needs

Ministers who cannot or will not conform themselves
to the manners of the country, do more harm than
good. Pride is, as I have elsewhere observed, the bugbear
of the western country; and the appearance of
it, or a suspicion of it, in a clergyman, not only destroys
his personal influence, but depreciates his office.

It takes one a long while to become accustomed to
the unceremonious manner in which the meetings of
all sorts are conducted. Many people go in and out
whenever they feel disposed; and the young men, who
soon tire, give unequivocal symptoms of their weariness,
and generally walk off with a nonchalant air, at
any time during the exercises. Women usually carry
their babies, and sometimes two or three who can
scarcely walk; and the restlessness of these youthful
members, together with an occasional display of their
musical talents, sometimes interrupts in no small measure
the progress of the speaker. The stove is always
in the centre of the room, with benches arranged in a
hollow square around it; and the area thus formed is
the scene of infantile operations. I have seen a dozen
people kept on a stretch during a whole long sermon,
by a little, tottering, rosy-cheeked urchin, who chose
to approach within a few inches of the stove every
minute or two, and to fall at every third step, at the
imminent danger of lodging against the hot iron. And
tae mamma sat looking on with an air of entire complacency,
picking up the chubby rogue occasionally,
and varying the scene by the performance of the maternal
office.

I fancy it would somewhat disconcert a city clergyman,
on ascending his sumptuous pulpit, to find it

already occupied by a deaf old man, with his tin ear-trumpet
ready to catch every word. This I have seen
again and again; and however embarrassing to the
preacher, an objection or remonstrance on the subject
would be very ill-received. And after all, I must confess,
I have heard sermons preached in such circumstances,
which would have reflected no disgrace on
certain gorgeous draperies of velvet and gold.

The meliorating influence of the Sunday school is
felt here as everywhere else, and perhaps here more
evidently than in places where society is farther advanced.
When books are provided, the children flock
to obtain them, with a zest proportioned to the scarcity
of those sweeteners of solitude. Our little Montacute
library has been well-thumbed already, by old and
young; and there is nothing I long for so much as a
public library of works better suited to “children of a
larger growth.” But “le bon temps viendra.”