My New Curate Part 41

"You can avoid all that," I replied.

"How?"

"Break down hopelessly and they'll all love you. That is the only road to popularity--to make a fool of yourself."

"I did that to-day," he said. "I made a most determined cast-iron resolution not to open my lips unless I was interrogated, but I could not stand that perkiness and self-sufficiency of Duff, especially when it developed into irreverence."

"If you had not spoken I should have challenged him; and I am not sure I would have been so polite as you were. The thing was unpardonable."

We dined at Father Letheby's. Just after dinner there was a timid knock at the door. He went out, and returned in a few minutes looking despondent and angry. I had heard the words from the hall:--

"She must give it up, your reverence. Her little chest is all falling in, and she's as white as a corpse."

"One of the girls giving up work at the machines," he replied. "She's suffering from chest trouble, it appears, from bending over this work."

"Who is she?" I queried.

"Minnie Carmody--that tall girl who sat near the door."

"H'm," I said. "I think it would be nearer the truth to say that Minnie Carmody's delicacy comes from the vinegar bottle and white paper. She was ashamed of her red face, and this is the latest recommendation of the novelette to banish roses, and leave the lilies of anaemia and consumption."

"It augurs badly, however," he replied. "The factory is not open quite a month yet."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SERMON

I am quite sure that sermon cost me more anxiety and trouble than Father Letheby suffered. I was deeply interested in its success, of course. But that was not the point. I am probably the feeblest and worst preacher in my diocese. This gives me the indefeasible right to dogmatize about preaching. Just as failures in literary attempts are the credentials of a great critic, so writers on sermons can claim the high authority and amba.s.sadorship to dictate to the world, on the grounds that they are incapable of producing even a catechetical discourse. But they fall back upon that universal and indisputable privilege of our race--the belief in their own infallibility. It often surprised me that the definition of Papal Infallibility, which concentrated in the Vicegerent of the Most High the reputed privilege of our race, did not create a greater outcry.

It was the final onslaught of the Holy Spirit on the unspeakable vanity of the race. It was the death-blow to private judgment. At least, it ought to have been. But, alas! human vanity and presumption are eternal and indestructible. From the corner-boy here at my window, who asks indignantly, "Why the deuce did not Gladstone push his Bill through the House of Lords, and then force the Commons to accept it?" to the flushed statesman, whose dream is Imperialism; from the little manikin critic, who swells out his chest, and demands summary vengeance on that idiot of an author who has had the daring presumption to write a book on the Greek accent, or binary stars, up to the _Jupiter Tonans_ of the world-wide circulating journal, which dictates to the universe, it is all the same. Each from his own little pedestal--it may be the shuffling stilts of three feet high, or it may be the lofty security of the Vendome column--shrieks out his little opinion, and demands the silence or a.s.sent of the universe. Would that our modern Stylites, like to those of old, might, from their eminences, preach their own nothingness! Would that, like the Muezzins of Islam, they might climb the minarets of publicity and fame, only to call the world to praise and prayer!

But I, sharing the weaknesses, and, therefore, the privileges of a common humanity, claim the right to the luxury of preaching, which comes nearest to that of criticising, and is only in the third degree of inferiority from that supreme pleasure that is involved in _I told you so_.

And so, here by the western seas, where the homeless Atlantic finds a home, do I, a simple, rural priest, venture to homilize and philosophize on that great human gift of talk. Imagine me, then, on one of those soft May evenings, after our devotions in my little chapel, and with the children's hymns ringing in my ears, and having taken one pinch of snuff, and with another poised in my fingers, philosophizing thus:--

"I think--that is, I am sure--that the worst advices I ever heard given in my life were these:--

"On Preaching.--Try to be simple; and never aim at eloquence.

"On Meditation.--Keep your fingers in your Breviary, and think over the lessons of the Second Nocturn.

"And they are evil counsels, not _per se_, but _per accidens_; and for precisely similar reasons. They took no account of the tendency of human nature to relax and seek its ease. When the gray-haired counsellor said, 'Be simple,' he said, 'Be bald and vulgar.' For the young men who listened aimed at simplicity, and therefore naturally argued, the simpler the better; in fact, the conversational style is best of all.

Where, then, the need for elaborate preparation? We shall only vex and confuse the people, consequently preparation is superfluous. We know the results. 'A few words' on the schools; an _obiter dictum_ on the stations; a good, energetic, Demosthenic philippic against some scandal.

But instruction,--oh, no! edification,--oh, no! That means preparation; and if we prepare, we talk over the people's heads, and we are 'sounding bra.s.ses and tinkling cymbals.'"

"But surely, sir, you wouldn't advise young men to study the eloquence of Ma.s.sillon, or Bourdaloue, or Lacordaire? That would be talking over their heads with a vengeance."

"Do you think so?" I said. "Now, listen, young man. Which is, you or I, the elder? I am. All right. Now, my experience is that it is not the language, however eloquent, the people fail to follow, but the ideas, and they fail to follow the ideas because they are ill-instructed in their religion. Of course, I'm involved in the censure myself as well as others. But I proved this satisfactorily to myself long ago. We were in the habit of 'reading a book' at the Lenten exercises in the last town wherein I officiated as curate. Now, the people hate that above all things else. They'd rather hear one word from a stuttering idiot than the highest ascetical teaching out of a book. Nevertheless, we tried it; and we tried the simplest and easiest books we could find. No use. They couldn't follow one paragraph with intelligence. One evening I read for them--it was in Pa.s.sion week--the last discourse of our Lord to His disciples--words that I could never read without breaking down. I a.s.sure you, they failed to grasp the meaning, not to speak of the pathos and divine beauty, of those awful words. They told me so."

"Do you mean then to conclude that we, young priests, should go in for high, flowery diction, long phrases, etc.? I could hardly imagine any man, least of all you, sir, holding such a theory!"

"You're running away with the question, my boy. The eloquence that I recommend is the eloquence of fine taste, which positively excludes all the ornaments which you speak of."

"By Jove, we don't know where to turn," said my curate. "I never ventured, during my late English experience of seven years, to stand in the pulpit and address the congregation, without writing every word and committing it to memory. I daren't do otherwise; for if I made a mistake, fifty chances to one, some Methodist or Socinian would call at the presbytery next morning and challenge me to deadly combat."

"And why should you give up that excellent habit here," I said, "and go on the _dabitur vobis_?"

"Because you may conjecture easily that I shall be talking over their heads."

"Better talk over their heads, young man, than under their feet. And under their feet, believe me, metaphorically, they trample the priest who does not uphold the dignity of his sacred office of preacher. 'Come down to the level of the people!' May G.o.d forgive the fools who utter this ba.n.a.lity! Instead of saying to the people: 'Come up to the level of your priests, and be educated and refined,' they say: 'Go down to the people's level.' As if any priest ever went down in language or habit to the people's level who didn't go considerably below it."

"'Pon my word, Father Dan," said Father Letheby, "if I did not know you so well, I would think you were talking nonsense."

"Hear a little more nonsense!" I said. "I say now that our people like fine, sonorous language from the altar; and they comprehend it! Try them next Sunday with a pa.s.sage from Lacordaire, and you'll see what I mean.

Try that n.o.ble pa.s.sage, 'Il y a un homme, dont l'amour garde la tombe,'--'There is a man whose tomb is guarded by love,'--and see if they'll understand you. Why, my dear fellow, fifty years ago, when the people were a cla.s.sical people, taught only their Homers and Virgils by the side of the ditch, they could roll out pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage from their favorite preachers, and enjoy them and appreciate them. It was only a few days since, I was speaking on the subject to a dear old friend, who, after the lapse of fifty years, quoted a pa.s.sage on h.e.l.l that he had heard almost as a child: 'If we allowed our imagination, my dear brethren, to dwell persistently on this terrific truth, Reason itself would totter on its throne.' But the people of to-day cannot quote, because they cannot get the opportunity. The race of preachers is dead."

I shut him up, and gave myself time to breathe.

"Would you say then, sir," he said meekly, "that I should continue my habit of writing out verbatim my sermons, and then commit them to memory?"

"Certainly not," I replied, "unless you find it necessary to maintain the high level on which all our utterances should be placed. And if now, after the practice of seven years, you cannot command your language, you never will. But here is my advice to you, and, as you are a friend, I shall charge nothing for it, but I make it copyright throughout the universe:--

I. Study.

II. Preach not Yourself, but G.o.d.

III. Live up to your Preaching.

That's all."

He appeared thoughtful and dissatisfied. I had to explain.

"A well-filled mind never wants words. Read, and read, and read; but read, above all, the Holy Scriptures. Never put down your Breviary, but to take up your Bible. Saturate yourself with its words and its spirit.

All the best things that are to be found in modern literature are simple paraphrases of Holy Writ. And interweave all your sentences with the Sacred Text. All the temporal prosperity of England comes from the use of the Bible, all its spiritual raggedness and nakedness from its misuse. They made it a fetish. And their commentators are proving, or rather trying to prove, that it is only a little wax and pasteboard--only the literature of an obscure and subjugated race. But, even as literature, it has had a tremendous influence in forming the masculinity of the British character. They are now giving up the Bible and the Sabbath. And the _debacle_ is at hand. But I often thought we would have a more robust piety, a tenderer devotion, a deeper reverence, if we used the Sacred Scriptures more freely. And our people love the Sacred Writing. A text will hang around them, like a perfume, when all the rest of our preaching is forgotten. Why, look at myself. Forty years ago I attended a certain Retreat. I forget the very name of the Jesuit who conducted it; but I remember his texts, and they were well chosen:--

'I have seen a terrible thing upon the earth: a slave upon horseback, and kings walking in the mire.'

'You have taken my gold and silver, and made idols unto yourselves.'

'If I am a father, where is my honor?'

'If I am a master, where is my fear?'

I have made hundreds of meditations on these words, and preached them many a time. Then, again, our people are naturally poetic; the poetry has been crushed out of their natures by modern education. Yet they relish a fine line or expression. And again, their own language is full of aphorisms, bitter and stinging enough, we know, but sometimes exquisite as befits a nation whose forefathers lived in tents of skins.

Now give them a few of the thousand proverbs of Solomon, and they will chew them as a cow chews the cud. But I should go on with this subject forever."

"But what about the use of sarcasm, sir? Your allusions to the Gaelic sarcasms reminded me of it. I often heard people say that our congregations dread nothing so much as sarcasm."