University of Virginia Library

OLD FATHER MORRIS.
A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

Of all the marvels that astonished my childhood,
there is none I remember to this day with
so much interest as the old man whose name
forms my caption. When I knew him he was
an aged clergyman, settled over an obscure village
in New-England. He had enjoyed the anvantages
of a liberal education, had a strong
original power of thought, an omnipotent imagination,
and much general information; but
so early and so deeply had the habits and associations
of the plough, the farm, and country
life wrought themselves into his mind, that his

after acquirements could only mingle with
them, forming an unexampled amalgam, like
unto nothing but itself.

He was an ingrain New-Englander, and whatever
might have been the source of his information,
it came out in Yankee form, with the
strong provinciality of Yankee dialect.

It is in vain to attempt to give a full picture
of such a genuine unique; but some slight and
imperfect dashes may help the imagination to a
faint idea of what none can fully conceive but
those who have seen and heard old Father Morris.

Suppose yourself one of half a dozen children,
and you hear the cry, “Father Morris is
coming!” You run to the window or door, and
you see a tall, bulky old man, with a pair of saddle-bags
on one arm, hitching his old horse with
a fumbling carefulness, and then deliberately
stumping towards the house. You notice his
tranquil, florid, full-moon face, enlightened by
a pair of great, round blue eyes, that roll with
dreamy inattentiveness on all the objects
around, and as he takes off his hat, you see the
white curling wig that sets off his round head.
He comes towards you, and as you stand staring
with all the children around, he deliberately
puts his great hand on your head, and with
deep, rumbling voice inquires,

“How d'ye do, my darter? Is your daddy at
home?” “My darter” usually makes off as fast
as possible in an unconquerable giggle. Father
Morris goes into the house, and we watch him
at every turn, as, with the most liberal simplicity,
he makes himself at home, takes off his wig,
wipes down his great face with a checked pocket-handkerchief,
helps himself hither and thither
to whatever he wants, and asks for such
things as he cannot lay his hands on, with all
the comfortable easiness of childhood.

I remember to this day how we used to peep
through the crack of the door, or hold it half
ajar and peer in, to watch his motions; and
how mightily diverted we were with his deep,
slow manner of speaking, his heavy, cumbrous
walk, but, above all, with the wonderful faculty
of hemming which he possessed.

His deep, thundering, protracted a-hem-em
was like nothing else that ever I heard; and
when once, as he was in the midst of one of
these performances, the parlour door suddenly
happened to swing open, I heard one of my roguish
brothers calling, in a suppressed tone,
“Charles! Charles! Father Morris has hemmea
the door open!” and then followed the signs of
a long and desperate titter, in which I sincerely
sympathized.

But the morrow is Sunday. The old man

rises in the pulpit. He is not now in his own
humble little parish, preaching simply to the
hoers of corn and planters of potatoes, but
there sits Governor D., and there is Judge R.,
and Counsellor P., and Judge G. In short, he
is before a refined and literary audience. But
Father Morris rises; he thinks nothing of this
—he cares nothing—he knows nothing, as he
himself would say, but “Jesus Christ, and him
crucified.” He takes a passage of Scripture to
explain; perhaps it is the walk to Emmaus, and
the conversation of Jesus with his disciples.
Immediately the whole start out before you,
living and picturesque: the road to Emmaus is
a New-England turnpike; you can see its milestones—its
mullen-stalks—its toll-gates. Next
the disciples rise, and you have before you all
their anguish, and hesitation, and dismay, talked
out to you in the language of your own fireside
You smile—you are amused—yet you are touched,
and the illusion grows every moment. You
see the approaching stranger, and the mysterious
conversation grows more and more interesting.
Emmaus rises in the distance, in the
likeness of a New-England village, with a white
meeting-house and spire. You follow the travellers—you
enter the house with them; nor do
you wake from your trance until, with streaming
eyes, the preacher tells you that “they saw
it was the Lord Jesus! and what a pity it was
they could not have known it before!”

It was after a sermon on this very chapter of
Scripture history that Governor Griswold, in
passing out of the house, laid hold on the sleeve
of his first acquaintance: “Pray tell me,” said
he, “who is this minister?”

“Why, it is old Father Morris.”

“Well, he is an oddity—and a genius too! I
declare!” he continued, “I have been wondering
all the morning how I could have read the
Bible to so little purpose as not to see all these
particulars he has presented.”

I once heard him narrate in this picturesque
way the story of Lazarus. The great bustling
city of Jerusalem first rises to view, and you
are told, with great simplicity, how the Lord
Jesus “used to get tired of the noise;” and
how he was “tired of preaching again and again
to people who would not mind a word he said;”
and how, “when it came evening, he used to go
out and see his friends in Bethany.” Then he
told about the house of Martha and Mary: “a
little white house among the trees,” he said;
“you could just see it from Jerusalem.” And
there the Lord Jesus and his disciples used to
go and sit in the evenings, with Martha, and
Mary, and Lazarus.

Then the narrator went on to tell how Lazarus
died, describing, with tears and a choking
voice, the distress they were in, and how they
sent a message to the Lord Jesus, and he did
not come, and how they wondered and wondered;
and thus on he went, winding up the interest
by the graphic minutiæ of an eyewitness,
till he woke you from the dream by his
triumphant joy at the resurrection scene.

On another occasion, as he was sitting at a
tea-table unusually supplied with cakes and
sweetmeats, he found an opportunity to make a
practical allusion to the same family story. He
spoke of Mary as quiet and humble, sitting at
her Saviour's feet to hear his words; but Martha
thought more of what was to be got for tea.
Martha could not find time to listen to Christ:
no; she was “`cumbered with much serving'
—around the house, frying fritters and making
gingerbread.”

Among his own simple people, his style of
Scripture painting was listened to with breathless
interest. But it was particularly in those
rustic circles, called in New-England “Conference-meetings,”
that his whole warm soul unfolded,
and the Bible in his hands became a
gallery of New-England paintings.

He particularly loved the Evangelists, following
the footsteps of Jesus Christ, dwelling upon

his words, repeating over and over again the
stories of what he did, with all the fond veneration
of an old and favoured servant.

Sometimes, too, he would give the narration
an exceedingly practical turn, as one example
will illustrate.

He had noticed a falling off in his little circle
that met for social prayer, and took occasion, the
first time he collected a tolerable audience, to
tell concerning “the conference-meeting that
the disciples attended” after the resurrection.

“But Thomas was not with them.” Thomas
not with them! said the old man, in a sorrowful
voice. “Why! what could keep Thomas
away? Perhaps,” said he, glancing at some of
his backward auditors, “Thomas had got cold-hearted,
and was afraid they would ask him to
make the first prayer; or perhaps,” said he,
looking at some of the farmers, “Thomas was
afraid the roads were bad; or perhaps,” he added,
after a pause, “Thomas had got proud, and
thought he could not come in his old clothes.”
Thus he went on, significantly summing up the
common excuses of his people; and then, with
great simplicity and emotion, he added, “But
only think what Thomas lost! for in the middle
of the meeting, the Lord Jesus came and
stood among them! How sorry Thomas must

have been!” This representation served to fili
the vacant seats for some time to come.

At another time Father Morris gave the details
of the anointing of David to be king. He
told them how Samuel went to Bethlehem to
Jesse's house, and went in with a “How d'ye
do, Jesse?” and how, when Jesse asked him to
take a chair, he said he could not stay a minute;
that the Lord had sent him to anoint one of his
sons for a king; and how, when Jesse called in
the tallest and handsomest, Samuel said “he
would not do;” and how all the rest passed the
same test; and at last, how Samuel says, “Why,
have not you any more sons, Jesse?” and Jesse
says, “Why, yes, there is little David down in
the lot;” and how, as soon as ever Samuel saw
David, “he slashed the oil right on to him;” and
how Jesse said “he never was so beat in all his
life!”

Father Morris sometimes used his illustrative
talent to very good purpose in the way of re-buke.
He had on his farm a fine orchard of
peaches, from which some of the ten and twelve-year-old
gentlemen helped themselves more liberally
than even the old man's kindness thought
expedient.

Accordingly, he took occasion to introduce
into his sermon one Sunday, in his little parish,
an account of a journey he took; and how he

was very warm and very dry; and how he saw
a fine orchard of peaches that made his mouth
water to look at them. “So,” says he, “I came
up to the fence and looked all around, for I
would not have touched one of them without
leave for all the world. At last I spied a man,
and says I, `Mister, won't you give me some of
your peaches?' So the man came and gave me
nigh about a hat full. And while I stood there
eating, I said, `Mister, how do you manage to
keep your peaches?' `Keep them!' said he,
and he stared at me; `what do you mean?'
`Yes, sir,' said I; `don't the boys steal them?'
`Boys steal them!' said he; `no, indeed!'
`Why, sir,' said I, `I have a whole lot full of
peaches, and I cannot get half of them”'—here
the old man's voice grew tremulous—“`because
the boys in my parish steal them so.' `Why,
sir,' said he, `don't their parents teach them
not to steal?' And I grew all over in a cold
sweat, and I told him `I was afeard they didn't.'
`Why, how you talk!' says the man; `do tell me
where you live?' Then,” said Father Morris,
the tears running over, “I was obliged to tell
him I lived in the town of G.” After this Father
Morris kept his peaches.

Our old friend was not less original in the
logical than in the illustrative portions of his

discourses. His logic was of that familiar, colloquial
kind, which shakes hands with common
sense like an old friend. Sometimes, too, his
great mind and great heart would be poured
out on the vast themes of religion, in language
which, though homely, produced all the effects
of the sublime. He once preached a discourse
on the text, “the High and Holy One that in-habiteth
eternity;” and from the beginning to
the end it was a train of lofty and solemn thought
With his usual simple earnestness, and his great,
rolling voice, he told about “the Great God—
the Great Jehovah—and how the people in this
world were flustering and worrying, and afraid
they should not get time to do this, and that,
and t'other.” “But,” he added, with full hearted
satisfaction, “the Lord is never in a hurry;
he has it all to do but he has time enough, for
he inhabiteth eternity.” And the grand idea
of infinite leisure and almighty resources was
carried through the sermon with equal strength
and simplicity.

Although the old man never seemed to be
sensible of anything tending to the ludicrous
in his own mode of expressing himself, yet he
had considerable relish for humour, and some
shrewdness of repartee. One time, as he was
walking through a neighbouring parish, famous

for its profanity, he was stopped by a whole
flock of the youthful reprobates of the place:

“Father Morris! Father Morris! the devil's
dead!”

“Is he?” said the old man, benignly laying
his hand on the head of the nearest urchin,
“you poor fatherless children!”

But the sayings and doings of this good old
man, as reported in the legends of the neighbourhood,
are more than can be gathered or reported.
He lived far beyond the common age
of man, and continued, when age had impaired
his powers, to tell over and over again the same
Bible stories that he had told so often before.

I recollect hearing of the joy that almost
broke the old man's heart, when, after many
years' diligent watching and nurture of the
good seed in his parish, it began to spring into
vegetation, sudden and beautiful as that which
answers the patient watching of the husbandman.
Many a hard, worldly-hearted man—
many a sleepy, inattentive hearer—many a listless,
idle young person, began to give ear to
words that had long fallen unheeded. A neighbouring
minister, who had been sent for to see
and rejoice in these results, describes the scene,
when, on entering the little church, he found
an anxious, crowded auditory assembled around

their venerable teacher, waiting for direction
and instruction. The old man was sitting in
his pulpit, almost choking with fulness of emotion
as he gazed around. “Father,” said the
youthful minister, “I suppose you are ready to
say with old Simeon, `Now, Lord, lettest thou
thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have
seen thy salvation.”' “Sartin, sartin,” said the
old man, while the tears streamed down his
cheeks, and his whole frame shook with emotion.

It was not many years after that this simple
and loving servant of Christ was gathered in
peace unto him whom he loved. His name is
fast passing from remembrance, and in a few
years, his memory, like his humble grave, will
be entirely grown over and forgotten among
men, though it will be had in everlasting remembrance
by Him who “forgetteth not his
servants,” and in whose sight the death of his
saints is precious.