I am in despair. And despite the breach of ecclesiastical etiquette, I have resolved to resort to advertising. I have not submitted my advertisement to the other members of the committee, but I am sure that it is in accord with the general feelings of the Church.

"Jennie, what do you think of my sending this advertisement to the Christian Union?"

WANTED.-A pastor. He must be irreproachable in his dress, without being an exquisite; married, but without children, young, but with great experience; learned, but not dull; eloquent in prayer, without being colloquial or stilted; reverential, but not conventional; neither old nor commonplace; a brilliant preacher, but not sensational; know every one, but have no favorites; settle all disputes, engage in none; be familiar with the children, but always dignified; be a careful writer, a good extempore speaker, and an assiduous and diligent pastor. Such a person, to whom salary is less an object than a "field of usefulness," may hear of an advantageous opening by addressing Wheathedge, care of "The Christian Union," 27, Park Place.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Our Prayer-Meeting.



ONE thing we have gained by losing our pastor-the promise of better prayer-meetings.

Not that he was recreant in his duty. He performed it only too well. We learned to depend on him. He suffered us to do so. It was only by a delicate irony that the prayer-meeting could be termed one of the "social meetings" of the Church. A solemn stillness pervaded the room. No one ever spoke after he entered the awful presence, unless he rose, formally addressed "the chair," and delivered himself of a set address. Occasionally one bolder than the rest spoke in a sepulchral whisper to his neighbor-that was all. In other social meetings the ladies, according to my observation, bear their full burden of conversation. In our prayer-meetings no woman ever ventured to open her mouth. In fact, I hardly know why they were called prayer-meetings. We rarely had any greater number of prayers than in our usual Sabbath service. Yes, I think we usually had one more.

The minister entered solemnly at the appointed hour, walked straight to his desk, without a word, a bow, a smile of recognition; read a long hymn, offered a very respectable imitation of the "long prayer," gave out a second hymn, and called on an elder to pray, who always imitated the imitation, and included in his broad sympathies all that his pastor had just prayed for-the Church, the Sabbath-school, the unconverted, backsliders, those in affliction, the President and all those in authority, the (Presbyterian) bishops and other clergy, not forgetting the heathen and the Jews. Then followed a passage of Scripture for a text from the pastor, with a short sermon thereafter. Nor was it always short. I fancied he felt the necessity of occupying the time. It was not unfrequently long enough for a very respectable discourse, if length gives the discourse its respectability. Then we had another prayer from another layman, and then the invariable announcement, "the meeting is now open," and the invariable result, a long, dead pause. In fact, the meeting would not open. Like an oyster, it remained pertinaciously shut. Occasionally some good elder would rise to break the painful silence, by repeating some thought from the previous Sunday's sermon, or by telling some incident or some idea which he had seen in a previous number of "The Christian Union." But as we had all been to church, and as most of us take "The Christian Union," this did not add much to the interest of the meeting. Generally another prayer and hymn, sometimes two, sufficed to fill the hour. The pastor kept his eye on the clock. When the hand pointed to nine he rose for the benediction. And never did a crowd of imprisoned schoolboys show more glad exultation at their release than was generally indicated by these brethren and sisters when the words of benediction dismissed them from their period of irksome restraint. Every man, and every woman, too, found a tongue. We broke up into little knots. A busy hum of many voices replaced the dead silence. The "social meeting" commenced when the "prayer-meeting" ended. This, I think, is a fair portraiture of our prayer-meetings at Wheathedge as they were during our late pastor's presence with us.

The fault was not his-at least it was only proximately his. He felt the burden, groaned under it, tried hard, poor man! to remedy the evil. He often came to consult me about it. He tried various plans. He gave a course of weekly lectures. The prayer-meeting was less a meeting of prayer than before. No man was willing to follow his elaborate lecture with a fragmentary talk. He announced from the pulpit, the preceding Sabbath, the topic for the next meeting. Worse and worse! A few members conscientiously studied up the passage in "Barnes's Notes" and the "Comprehensive Commentary," and brought us the result of their investigations in discourse powerfully prosy, and recondite with second hand learning. The Minister at last gave up the matter in despair. I think the condition of our prayer-meetings was one consideration which greatly influenced him in deciding to leave.

I thought that there was nothing left in them to be lost, that no change could be other than for the better; but after he went what little meeting we had fell away. The few who had been attracted by his personal presence ceased to come. In vain we endeavored to revive our flagging spirits by continually reminding one another that the promise was to two or three gathered together. That was our standard text. Every leader referred to it in his prayers, and generally in his opening remarks. We had need of it. For the last two weeks there were not members enough present to serve as pall-bearers for the dead prayer-meeting.

This brought about a crisis. Two weeks ago, Deacon Goodsole came to me to talk over the spiritual condition of our church. I agreed with him that the prayer-meeting was a fatal symptom if not a fatal disease. We agreed to do what we could to remedy it. We asked the session to put it into our hands. They were only too glad to do so. We spoke quietly to two other of the brethren to co-operate with us. We divided the parish among ourselves, and undertook to visit all the praying and waking members-not a very onerous task. We talked with one by one, concerning the spiritual condition of the church, asked them to come next week to the prayer-meeting, and to bring with them warm hearts. "Come," we said, "from your closets. Come in the spirit of prayer." Fifteen minutes before the hour of meeting we four met in the Bible-class room. One agreed to act that night as leader. It was Deacon Goodsole. He told the rest of us his subject. Then we all knelt together and asked God's blessing on our prayer-meeting. From that brief and simple conference we went together to the conference-room. Each one agreed to carry some offering with him-a word, a prayer, a hymn. Each one agreed also to bring in speech but a single thought, and in prayer but a single petition. The leader himself should occupy but five minutes. Our hearts were aglow. We never had such a prayer-meeting in Wheathedge. Deacon Goodsole did not have to announce that the prayer-meeting was open. It opened itself. We had hard work to close it. The meeting last week was preceded in the same manner by fifteen minutes of prayer. It was characterized by the same warmth and freshness. We are astonished to find how short our hour is when we come to the meeting from our knees, when we bring to it, in our hearts, the spirit of God. We have no long speeches. So far we have had few exhortations and much true experience. Shall we fall back again into the old ruts? Perhaps. It is something that we are not in them now. Meanwhile, from this brief experience I cull five proverbs for my own reflection.

The minister cannot make a good meeting.

Warm hearts are better than great thoughts.

Solemn faces do not make sacred hours.

Little leading makes much following.

Brevity is the soul of the prayer-meeting.



CHAPTER XIX.

We are Jilted.



WHEATHEDGE is in a fever of excitement-not very agreeable excitement. Disappointment and anger are curiously commingled. Little knots of men and women gathered after church on Sunday in excited discussion. A by-stander might overhear in these conferences such phrases dropped as "Shameful." "It's too bad." "If he is that sort of man it's very fortunate we did not get him." "I have no faith in ministers," and the like. Do you ask what is the matter? We have been jilted.

I will not give names, at least not the true ones. For I have no inclination to involve myself in a newspaper controversy, and none to injure the prospects of a young man who possesses qualities which fit him for abundant usefulness if vanity and thoughtlessness do not make shipwreck of him.

For six months now we have been without a pastor. We are hard to suit. Mr. Wheaton was right. Wheathedge is a peculiar place, and requires a very peculiar man. But about six weeks ago there came along a very peculiar man. He seemed to be just adapted to the place. He was fresh from the seminary. He had a wife but no children. He was full of enthusiasm. As a preacher he was free from conventionalism, bright, sparkling, brilliant; more brilliant than warm. In private life he was social, genial, unministerial. Old Aunt Sue did indeed complain that when he called there he did not offer to pray with her. And good old Father Haines said he wished that there was less poetry and more Christ in his sermons. But neither old Aunt Sue nor old Father Haines contribute much to the support of the Church, and their criticisms did nothing to abate the general enthusiasm. Jim Wheaton said he was just the man, and promised to double his subscription, if necessary, to get him. Deacon Goodsole was scarcely less enthusiastic. I do not think there was a dissenting voice among the ladies; and the young folks were absolutely unanimous.

"If we can only get Mr. Uncannon," said Jim Wheaton to me one morning, as we rode to the city in the cars together, "in three weeks we will drain the Methodist church dry of its young folks."

Personally, I have no taste for foraging in other men's fields. But I knew that Jim Wheaton would not appreciate my sentiments, and so I kept silence.

Mr. Uncannon preached for us two Sabbaths. He spent the intervening week in Wheathedge. He visited with Deacon Goodsole most of the leading families. He stopped at Mr. Wheaton's. If the people had been charmed with him in pulpit they were delighted with him in the parlor. The second Sabbath I do not think there would have been a dissenting voice to the call.

There was only one difficulty. It was considered very doubtful if we could get him. That doubt I undertook to solve.

Monday he returned to the city. I went down in the same train, and took occasion to fall into conversation with him. I told him frankly the state of feeling. I represented that it was very desirable that the matter should go no further unless there was a prospect that he would consider favorably a call if it were given him. He replied with equal frankness. He said that he was delighted with the place and with the people. He wanted to come. There was only one obstacle. He understood that we paid our former pastor only $1,200 a year. He could not undertake to live on that.

"In fact," said he, "they want me very much at North Bizzy, in Connecticut. They pay there $1,500 a year. It is a manufacturing town. I do not think either the society or the work would be as congenial as in Wheathedge. I like the quiet of your rural parish. I appreciate the advantages it would afford me for study. But $300 is a good deal of money. I do not want to be mercenary, Mr. Laicus, but I do not want to be pinched."

I assured him that no such difficulty should stand in his way. When I returned, I found he had expressed the same sentiments to Deacon Goodsole and Mr. Wheaton. We were all agreed that we would do as well as North Bizzy. So we gave him a call at $1,500. Possibly we presumed too much; but we generally considered it as good as settled.

The Sabbath after the call he came to Wheathedge. This time he brought his young wife with him. The ladies were more charmed than ever. All Wheathedge turned out to see and hear our new minister. He remained over to our weekly prayer-meeting. It was astonishing what a spirit of devotion was awakened in our church. I have never seen the prayer-meeting so fully attended. He seemed fully to reciprocate our enthusiasm. He and his wife were tireless in the praises of the beauties of Wheathedge. "It is just the place," said Mrs. Uncannon, "in which I should choose to spend my days." Of course this saying was repeated all over the parish, and this evidence of her appreciative taste increased very measurably her own and her husband's popularity.

He went away Thursday morning without giving a final and definite answer. Deacon Goodsole indeed asked him point blank for one. He replied that though his mind was about made up, still he felt that so solemn a connection ought not to be made without a prayerful consideration. This was all very proper. We waited, with patience, till this decorous delay should be over. But we already considered him our pastor.

It was the next week that Deacon Goodsole came into my house one evening, in a state of great excitement. He had an open letter in his hand. "Look there," said he. "The Church at North Bizzy is trying to get our minister away from us."

The letter was from Mr. Uncannon. It was to the effect that the Church at North Bizzy were taking measures to secure a parsonage. He preferred to come to Wheathedge, but he did not know what he should do for a house. There had been, he believed, some talk of building a parsonage at Wheathedge. He felt very desirous to take his bride to her "home"—not to depend on boarding-houses or landlords. If this could be provided he thought it would settle the question; for both he and his wife infinitely preferred the clear air and sunny skies, and grand old mountains, and glorious river basking in the golden sunlight, &c., &c., to the dust and soot and noise of man's busy but dirty industry.

"Very well," said I. "I do not care to bid against the Church at North Bizzy. But I have always wanted a parsonage at Wheathedge. I will be one of five to pay the rent for this year, and one of ten to build one next year."

Deacon Goodsole started a subscription paper on the spot. In a few days we had secured a house for the year, and money enough to make our building operation certain. The Deacon wrote Mr. Uncannon accordingly. We expected his answer forthwith, and his arrival soon after. Wheathedge was at last satisfied.

Imagine, then, if you can, the chagrin and disappointment which was caused when, last Sunday morning, a letter was read from Mr. Uncannon to Mr. James Wheaton, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, declining the call. Mr. Uncannon had given it his most prayerful consideration. He was deeply moved by the warm welcome which had been accorded to him. He had hoped that the Lord would make it plain that it was to be his privilege to cast in his lot with us. But the Lord had ordered it otherwise. The Providential indications seemed to him clear that it was his duty to labor in another field.

But he united his prayers with ours that the Great Bishop would soon send us a pastor who should feed us with the bread of life.

Deacon Goodsole says that the Providential indications are a salary of $1,800 and a parsonage; and Mr. Wheaton says if any other young man succeeds in playing us off against a rival parish he is mistaken; that's all. Even gentle Jennie is indignant. "Of all flirtation, ministerial flirtation seems to me to be the worse," she says; and truth to tell, she never had much patience with any other.

I do not want to judge Mr. Uncannon too harshly. In fact I am not in a very judicial frame of mind. But, whatever his intent, his ministerial coquetry has injured the cause of Christ in Wheathedge more than a year of preaching can benefit it in North Bizzy. Meanwhile, the parsonage, which we hired, lies vacant on our hands, and waits for an occupant.



CHAPTER XX.

We propose.



WE are in the valley of humiliation. Since the church has been rejected, it has an opportunity to understand how a candidate feels when he is rejected. I am inclined on consideration to recall the last paragraph of the last chapter. I am inclined to think Mr. Uncannon may prove a "means of grace" to us yet. He has certainly been a thorn in the side.

On further consideration, I do retract it. I here emphatically record that first thoughts are not always best thoughts, and that it is my sober second judgment that Mr. Uncannon has done us more good than he has the parish at North Bizzy. We gave him to them grudgingly. But it has been a case in which the proverb applies: It is more blessed to give than to receive. For Mr. Uncannon's flirtation has probably given us Maurice Mapleson for a pastor.

Two weeks ago I was coming up from New York on the train. Deacon Goodsole was in the seat in front of me. My satchel was my only traveling companion. And I, according to custom, was enjoying a train nap, when I was aroused by a hand on my shoulder coupled with a hearty "Hallo! you could not be sounder asleep if you were in church and Dr. Argure was in the pulpit."

It was Mr. Wheaton.

"Good afternoon," said I. "Sit down." And my satchel exchanged its seat for a place in my lap in order to make room for Mr. Wheaton on the seat beside me.

"Look here, gentlemen," said Mr. Wheaton, taking the proffered seat, "we've been fooling about this minister business long enough."

"Been fooled you mean," said Deacon Goodsole.

"I tell you," said Mr. Wheaton, slapping his knee by way of emphasis, "that young Maurice Mapleson is the man for us. The more I think of it the more I am sure of it."

"He is a right earnest man," said the Deacon. "I think he was the first spark we have seen in the ashes of our prayer meeting for many a day."

"Can't you get him to come down, Mr. Laicus?" asked Mr. Wheaton.

I shook my head resolutely.

"Not as a candidate you know, but on some dodge or other. Invite him to spend a week with you, and book on to him for the pulpit when Sunday comes."

"He isn't the man for dodges," said the Deacon, doubtfully.

I shook my head as decidedly to the second proposition as to the first.

"Well then," said Mr. Wheaton, "if he won't come here we will have to go there. It isn't far."

The Deacon doubted whether the church would agree to deviate from the old paths.

"They wouldn't have done it," said Mr. Wheaton. "But they'll agree to anything now I think."

"Mr. Gear recommended that plan when we first met," said I. "He will approve of it. But how as to Mr. Hardcap?"

"Oh! no matter about Hardcap," said Mr. Wheaton, "he's no account."

"Excuse me," said I, "he is one of our committee and is of account."

So after some consultation it was finally agreed that we should get off at the Mill Village Station to see Mr. Gear, and then walk up to Wheathedge. Deacon Goodsole also proposed to put Mr. Hardcap on the special committee to go to Koniwasset Corners, and Mr. Wheaton said he would furnish a free pass over the road to all who would go. No man is impervious to compliments if they are delicately administered. At all events Mr. Gear was sensibly pleased by having us call on him in a body. And Mr. Hardcap, when he found that the new plan involved a free ride on the railroad and a Sunday excursion for himself, withdrew all objections.

My wife says, "For shame, John," and wants me to strike that last sentence out. But it is true, and I do not know why it should not stand. It is in confidence you know.

The next Saturday Mr. Wheaton, Mr. Hardcap and Deacon Goodsole started for Koniwasset Corners. They reached it, or rather they reached Koniwasset, the nearest point, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning rode over, a drive of five miles. It was a beautiful day; the congregation turned out well; the little church was full, and Maurice, unconscious of the presence of a committee, and preaching, not to fish for a place, but to fish for men, was free, unconstrained and, as Providence willed it, or as good fortune would have it (the reader may have his choice of expressions, according as he is Christian or heathen), was in a good mood. Deacon Goodsole was delighted. Jim Wheaton was scarcely less so, and even Mr. Hardcap was pleased to say that it was "a real plain Gospel sermon." Deacon Goodsole found an old friend in one of the congregation and went home with him to dinner, while Mr. Wheaton and Mr. Hardcap went back to the hotel. Deacon Goodsole joined them in the evening and brought a good report of the Sunday-school, where he had watched the unconscious parson (who superintends his own school), and had even, to avoid suspicion, taken the place of an absent teacher for the afternoon.

Mr. Wheaton had to return the next day, but the Deacon found no great difficulty in persuading Mr. Hardcap to stay over, and Tuesday evening they went to the weekly prayer-meeting. Meanwhile they inquired quietly in the neighborhood about the preacher at the Corners, giving however no one a hint of their object, except the parson at Koniwasset who commended Maurice very highly for his piety and his efficiency. As to his preaching, he said he should not call him eloquent, "but" he added, "there is one thing; Maurice Mapleson never speaks without having something to say; and he is very much in earnest."

Both the Deacon and Mr. Hardcap were very much pleased with the spirit of the prayer-meeting—the Deacon said Mr. Mapleson could make more of a fire with less fuel than any man he knew—and when the committee made their report, which they did at the close of our Wednesday evening meeting, it was unanimous in favor of giving Maurice a call.

To call a man without hearing him was not the orthodox way, and the objections which Mr. Hardcap had originally proposed in the committee meeting were renewed by others. In reply it was said, very truly, that the church really knew more about Mr. Mapleson than they could possibly learn from a trial sermon, or even from half a dozen of them, that a careful investigation by a committee into his actual working power was a far better test than any pulpit exhibition, however brillant. I added that Mapleson's letter was positive, and his convictions settled, and that I felt reasonably certain he would not preach as a candidate. On the whole this increased the desire to get him; and finally a second committee was appointed to go and hear him. A couple of ladies were put, informally, on this committee, and the church paid the expenses of the four. I say informally. Deacon Goodsole nominated Miss Moore and Mrs. Biskit, and quoted the case of Phoebe from the sixteenth chapter of Romans to prove that it was apostolic. But the ladies shook their heads, as did some of the elders of the church and Mr. Hardcap entered a vigorous protest. The Deacon was a born and bred Congregationalist, and is radical, I am afraid, in church matters. A compromise was finally effected by appointing two of the elders, who agreed to take their wives.

They came back as well pleased as the first committee had been, and the result was, to make a long story short, that last week a unanimous call was sent to Maurice, and as I write this letter I have before me a private note from him, saying that he has received it, and that, if agreeable to us, he will come down and spend a week with me. He says he wants to see our prayer-meeting, our Sabbath-school teachers' meeting, and our Sabbath-school. He adds that he will preach for us on Sunday if we desire, but that he does not want it known that he will be here at the prayer-meeting, as he wants to take a back seat and see how it goes.

In short he gives me to understand that it is the church which is on trial, not the minister, and that whether he comes or not depends on what kind of a church he finds it to be. This reversal of the ordinary course of things is a little queer; but I guess it is all right. At all events it will not do the church at Wheathedge any harm. Meanwhile until we get a final answer from Maurice Mapleson our pulpit is no longer in the market. For after our experience of ministerial coquetry I do not think there will be any inclination on our part for a flirtation.



CHAPTER XXI.

Ministerial Salaries.



"MR. Wheaton," said I, "we made a queer blunder the other night; we did not settle on any salary when we made out our call to Mr. Mapleson."

"No blunder," said Mr. Wheaton, "I left it out on purpose. I thought may be we could get him for less than fifteen hundred dollars. What do you think? Wouldn't he come on twelve hundred, and the parsonage?" And Mr. Wheaton smiled on me with an air of self-satisfaction which seemed to say, 'Jim Wheaton is the man to manage church business.'

I confess I was indignant at the idea of driving a sharp bargain with a minister, but I rather suspect Jim Wheaton never makes any other than a sharp bargain.

"Not with my advice," said I. "I told him the church ought to pay fifteen hundred a year and a parsonage, and I presumed it would. But I recommend him not to come till he knows."

We were in the Post Office, waiting for the distribution of the evening mail. Mr. Hardcap was one of our group. So was Deacon Goodsole. It was indeed a sort of extemporized and unintentional meeting of our supply committee, only Mr. Gear being absent.

"The church won't give mor'n 1,200 with my advice," said Mr. Hardcap decidedly. "And that's mor'n I make. I would just like to contract my time for the year at four dollars a day. And I have to get up at six and work till sunset, ten hours, hard work. I don't see why the parson should have half as much again for five or six hours' work. I have heard our old pastor say myself that he never allowed himself to study mor'n six hours a day."

"But the pastoral work, Mr. Hardcap?" said I. "You make no account of that."

"The calls, do you mean?" said he. "Well, I should like to be paid four dollars a day for just dressin' up in my best and visitin', that's all."

"Not only the calls," said I, "though you would find calling anything but recreation, if it was your business. But there are the prayer-meetings, and the Sabbath-school, and the whole management and direction of the church."

"Prayer-meetin' and Sabbath-school!" replied Mr. Hardcap; "don't we all work in them? And we don't ask any salary for it. I guess it ain't no harder for the parson to go to prayer-meetin' than for me."

I shrugged my shoulders. The deacon interposed.

"I agree with you, Mr. Laicus," said he. "We have got to pay a good salary. I wish we could make it two thousand a year instead of fifteen hundred."

Mr. Hardcap opened his eyes and pursed his mouth firmly together, as though he would say 'Do my ears deceive me?'

"But," continued the deacon, "there is something in what Mr. Hardcap says. There are half-a-dozen farmers in our Wheathedge congregation who don't handle fifteen hundred dollars in money from one year's end to the other. Mr. Hardcap isn't the only man to whom it seems a big sum to pay. Mr. Lapstone the shoemaker, Mrs. Croily the seamstress, Joe Hodgkins the blacksmith, and half-a-dozen others I could name, have to live on less. And you must remember their incomes, Mr. Laicus, as well as yours, and mine, and Mr. Wheaton's here."

"Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Wheaton, "we've got to pay a good salary, but I think we ought to keep expenses down all we can."

"I don't believe in makin' preachin' a money makin' business no-how," said Mr. Hardcap. "Parsons hain't got no business to be a layin' up of earthly riches, and fifteen hundred dollars is a good deal of money to spend on bread and butter, now I tell you."

"Mr. Hardcap," said I, "what do your tools cost you?"

"My tools?" said he. "Yes," said I, "your tools. What do they cost you?"

"Well," said he, "they range all the way from ten cents up to five dollars, accordin' to the article and its quality."

"Did you ever consider," said I, "what a minister's tools cost?"

"Minister's tools!" said he, "I didn't know he had any, except his pen."

"My dear sir," said I, "his tools alone cost him between one and two hundred dollars a year."

Mr. Hardcap expressed his incredulity by a long whistle; and even Deacon Goodsole expressed a quiet doubt. But my father was a minister and I know something about it.

"Look here," said I. "He must have at least two religious weeklies, one of his own denomination, and one of a more general character," and I took out a pencil and paper and noted down my list as I made it, "that's six dollars. He ought to have at least two of the popular magazines, that's eight dollars. He ought to have a good scientific magazine of some kind, four dollars more; and his theological quarterly is indispensable, four dollars more; and at least one of the daily newspapers, he ought really to read on both sides, but we will allow only one, that's ten dollars, and here is the footing of his periodical literature: Two religious weeklies $6 Popular Magazines 8 Scientific Magazine 4 Theological Quarterly 4 Daily Paper 10 $32"

"That's what it will cost him," said I, "simply to keep up with the times."

The other gentlemen looked at my figures a moment in silence. Deacon Goodsole was the first to speak. "That is a pretty liberal estimate," said he. "A great many ministers get along on less than that."

"Oh yes," said I, "and grow dry and dull in consequence. Little food makes lean men."

Mr. Hardcap shook his head resolutely, "I don't believe in preachin' to the times," said he. "It's scripter interpretation and the doctrines we want."

"Very well," said I, "the tools for that work cost more yet. Yours cost you from ten cents to five dollars, his from five dollars to a hundred. A single volume of Lange, or Alford, or the Speaker's Commentary cost five dollars; a good Bible Dictionary, from twenty to thirty; a good Encyclopedia, from fifty to a hundred. And theological treaties have a small market and therefore a high price-very high for their value. And his tools grow old too, and have to be replaced oftener than yours do, Mr. Hardcap."

"I don't see that, Mr. Laicus," said he. "A book, if you keep it careful, will last a great many years. I am reading out of a Bible that belonged to my grandfather. And I expect 'll belong to my grandson yet."

"My dear Mr. Hardcap," said I, "the leaves and covers and printed works do not make the book. Ideas make the book. You can use your tools over and over again. If your plane gets dull out comes the hones and the dulled edge is quickly sharpened again. But ideas are gone when they are used."

"I don't see it," said Mr. Hardcap. And I do not suppose he does. I wonder if he knows what an idea is.

"It is so," continued I, "with all student-tools. There are a few which the minister uses over and over again; his dictionaries, commentaries, and cyclopedia, if he has one. There are a few treaties that are worth reading and re-reading; but they are exceptional. Generally the student gets the gist of a book in one reading, as a squirrel the kernel of a nut at one crack. What remains on his shelves thereafter is only a shell. A book that has been dulled can rarely be sharpened and put to use again. There is no ministerial hone. The parson must replenish his bench every year. At least he ought to."

"I haven't no great opinion of larned ministers no-how," said Mr. Hardcap. "It isn't larnin' we want, Mr. Laicus. It is the Gospel, the pure, unadulterated Gospel."

Mr. Hardcap was incorrigible. I might as well try to explain to a North American Indian the cost and the value of a modern cotton mill as the cost and the value of student tools to Mr. Hardcap.

But I believe I produced some impression on the others. Deacon Goodsole still pondered my figures. "I never thought of the cost of minister's tool before," said he. "It's quite an item."

"Well," said Mr. Hardcap, "for my part I don't see why the parson can't live on a thousand dollars a year as well as I can."

I had failed to produce conviction on the subject of tools. I resolved to try another tack. "What do you pay for help?" said I.

"Help?" said he interrogatively.

"Yes," said I. "What do you pay your cook and chambermaid?"

"Hoh!" said he contemptuously. "I don't keep no help. My Bible tells me that God made the wife to be a help-meet for man, and my wife is all the help I want. I wouldn't have a servant round my house at no price."

"Do you suppose our pastor and his wife can get along the same way?" I asked.

"Don't see why not," said he sententiously.

"What!" said Mr. Wheaton. "Would you have your pastor's wife do her own work, Mr. Hardcap? I hope we haven't got so poor as that. She must be a lady, Mr. Hardcap; a lady, sir."

"Well," said Mr. Hardcap, "and can't a lady do her own work? High and mighty notions these that a woman must eat the bread of idleness to be a lady."

"Oh! it's all very well, Mr. Hardcap," said Mr. Wheaton; "but our pastor's wife has a position to maintain. She owes a duty to the parish, sir. She can't be maid of all work at home. I should be ashamed of the church to suffer it."

"There certainly is a difference, Mr. Hardcap," said the Deacon. "Mrs. Hardcap may do her own washing. And if anybody finds her over the washtub Monday morning no one thinks the worse of her for it. But it really wouldn't do for our pastor's wife."

Mr. Hardcap shook his head resolutely. "I don't see it," said he. "I don't believe a minister's wife is too good to work."

"She isn't," said the Deacon. "But if she washes Monday, and irons Tuesday, and sweeps Wednesday, and bakes Thursday, and sews Friday and Saturday, what time has she left to make calls or receive them?"

Mr. Hardcap only shrugged his shoulders.

"How many calls does your wife make in a year?" I asked.

"Oh! we don't make no calls," said Mr. Hardcap. "We've got other work to do."

"And yet you expect your minister and his wife to call on you?" said I interrogatively.

"I s'pose so," said he.

"I remember hearing you say that you thought it rather hard of Mrs. Work, just before they left, that she hadn't been inside of your house for six months. How many calls do you suppose Mrs. Mapleson would have to make in a year in order to call on every family once in six months?"

"Don't know," said Mr. Hardcap, shortly.

"Well," said the Deacon, "we've got over a hundred families in our parish. It would take nearly one call every day."

"Beside extra calls on the sick," I continued. "You will either have to give Mrs. Mapleson a servant or relinquish your expectation of receiving any calls from her; that is very evident."

Mr. Hardcap made no reply.

"There are one or two other items that ought to be considered in deciding what the pastor's salary should be," said a gentle but tremulous voice at my side. I turned about to see the speaker. It was old Father Hyatt, who had joined our group, unperceived.

"I suppose Mr. Hardcap's best broadcloth coat and Mrs. Hardcap's black silk gown last them a good many years. Isn't it so, Mr. Hardcap?"

Mr. Hardcap confessed that it was.

"The minister has to wear broadcloth, Mr. Hardcap, all the week. He must be always in society dress. So must his wife. With the utmost economy their bill for clothes mounts up to a frightful sum. I know, for I have tried it."

"There is something in that," said Mr. Hardcap.

Old Father Hyatt is a great favorite with Mr. Hardcap, as indeed he is with all of us. And no one ever accused Father Hyatt of extravagance.

"I know a city clergyman," continued the old man, "who always preaches in a silk gown, though he is a Congregationalist. 'It saves my coat', said he to me once in explanation. 'I can wear a seedy coat in the pulpit and no one is the wiser.' 'But,' said I, 'how about the silk gown?' 'Oh!' said he, 'the ladies furnish the gown.'"

We laughed at the parson's shrewdness. Even Mr. Hardcap smiled.

"And there are some other items, too, gentlemen," added Father Hyatt, "which I hope you will consider. The churches don't ordinarily know about them. At least they do not consider them. The company item alone is an enormous one. Not once in six months now do I have a friend to pass the night with me. But when I was settled here my spare room always had a guest, and half the time my stable an extra horse. Every benevolent agent, every traveling minister, every canvasser makes straight for the minister's house. He has to keep an inn for the benefit of the parish, and gets no pay for it."

"Cut them off," said Mr. Hardcap. But he said it good naturedly.

"'Given to hospitality,' says the Apostle," replied Father Hyatt.

"Well," said Deacon Goodsole, with a sigh, "we ought to pay the fifteen hundred a year. It's none too much. But I don't see where it's coming from."

"Oh! never you fear," said Mr. Wheaton. "Mr. Mapleson is worth fifteen hundred, and we'll have to pay it. We'll get it somehow. Write him it's fifteen hundred, Mr. Laicus. You'll be safe enough."

With which our informal conference came to an end. But I have not written. I wonder if Jim Wheaton runs the Koniwasset Coal Company, and the Newtown railroad, and the Wheathedge bank on the "somehow" principle. I wish had asked him. I am glad I have no stock in them.



CHAPTER XXII.

Ecclesiastical Financiering.



BUT though I have no stock in the Koniwasset Coal Company or the Newtown railroad or the Wheathedge Bank, I have some in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and I decidedly object on consideration to carry on that institution on the "somehow" principle. So I intimated as much to Mr. Wheaton the other day, after thinking the whole matter over, and taking counsel with Jennie about it.

"Oh! go ahead," said Mr. Wheaton. "Tell him we'll pay him $1,500 and a parsonage. The church will back you, Mr. Laicus."

"And if the church don't," said I, "will you pay the deficit?"

Mr. Wheaton shook his head, very decidedly. I was equally decided that without a responsible backer I would not "go ahead." So on my demand a meeting of the Board of Trustees was called. The Supply Committee met with them. James Wheaton, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Trustees, was in the chair.

On behalf of the Supply Committee I stated the object for which the Board was convened. The church had hitherto paid $1,200 salary. It was quite inadequate. No one doubted that. It was unreasonable to expect that Maurice Mapleson would come for less than we had offered Mr. Uncannon-$1,500 a year and a parsonage. But in the call, by a strange omission, the church had neglected to mention any salary. The Committee wished to write Mr. Mapleson on the subject. Would the Board sustain us in pledging the church to $1,500 and the parsonage?

Upon this there was an informal expression of opinion all round the Board. Mr. Wheaton led the way. He had no doubt on the subject. We must have a minister, a good minister, a live, wide-awake, practical man. Such men were in demand. If one could not be got for $1,200, we must pay $1,500. That was the way in which he managed railroads; and business was business, whether in church or railroad. Not pretending to be a saint, he naturally took a worldly view of the matter; but he at least tried to conduct worldly matters on equitable principles. It was certainly true that the laborer was worthy of his hire.

So, in substance, said James Wheaton, Esq., Chairman Board of Trustees, etc., etc.; and so, in substance, said they all. Even Mr. Hardcap acquiesced, though with a mild protest against modern extravagance.

"Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Wheaton, "this is just what I expected; yes, let me say, just what I was sure of. In fact, I told Mr. Laicus he might depend on having $1,500 a year; but he was not satisfied with my assurance-he wanted yours. I hope he is satisfied."

"Excuse me," said I, "if I seem unreasonable, but I am not satisfied; and I should certainly have been so with Mr. Wheaton's assurance. I never doubted that he was good for $1,500 a year. But, in dealing with a church board, to be frank, I want to know where the money is coming from. Pray, Mr. Treasurer, what was our income last year?"

The Treasurer murmured something about not having his accounts.

"In round numbers," said I.

"Between fourteen and fifteen hundred dollars."

"And our expenses?"

"Not far from eighteen hundred dollars."

"And, pray, how," continued I, "was the deficit made up?"

A part, it appears, was made up by a special subscription, and a part is still due as floating debt, and part went in to increase the mortgage. Perhaps I would remember the meeting in the fall at Mr. Wheaton's house.

I did remember it very well. But I was anxious that the other gentlemen should not forget it.

"And now, gentlemen," said I, "you propose to add three hundred dollars to that annual deficit. Where is the money to come from?"

There was a momentary silence. The question was evidently a new one. Apparently not a member of the Board had considered it. At length one gentleman suggested that we must raise the pew rents. This brought an indignant protest from Deacon Goodsole, who is a strong advocate of the free-pew system.

"Never," said he, "with my consent. Any pew-rent is bad enough. Trafficking in the Gospel is abominable at best. It shuts out the poor. Worse than that, it shuts out the godless, the irreligious, the profane—the very men we want to catch. The pew-rents are too high now. We must not raise them."

The Treasurer also added a mild protest. The pew-holders would not stand it.

"What do you say, Mr. Wheaton?" said I.

"Say?" said he: "why, I say you cannot carry on a church on the same principles on which you carry on a railroad or a bank. It is a different affair altogether. You must trust the Lord for something. I think that we can safely trust Him to the amount of three hundred dollars at least. Where's your faith?"

"Making false promises and trusting the Lord to fulfil them isn't faith," said Deacon Goodsole.

"I say, Jim," said Mr. Jowett, "you trust Him for your interest money—that will set us all right."

There was a little laugh at this suggestion. Mr. Wheaton holds a mortgage on the church. He did not take kindly to this practical application of the doctrine of faith.

"Oh! well," said he, "we can raise it somehow. Never fear. A good minister will fill up our empty pews. Then in the summer we must manage to bleed the boarders a little more freely. It won't hurt them. What with a concert, or fair, or a subscription, or a little extra effort our plate collections, we can manage it, I have no doubt."

"For my part," said I, "I agree with one the gentlemen, who told us early in this discussion that we must carry on church affairs on business principles. I don't see any business principles in agreeing to pay money which we have not got and don't know where to get."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jowett, "Mr. Laicus is right. The shamefully loose ways in which our Protestant churches carry on their finances is a disgrace to the Christian religion."

Mr. Jowett is a broker. He assured me after the meeting that it was almost impossible to get a loan on church property because churches were so notoriously slack in paying their interest.

Mr. Hardcap murmured an assent. "I don't b'lieve, gentlemen, in agreein' to pay what we hain't got. If we'd got the $1,500, I'd say give it to him. I don't grudge him the money. But I don't want this church to make no promises that it aint' a goin' to keep."

"Mr. Hardcap has had some experience with promise-breaking churches," said Deacon Goodsole.

It seems that Mr. Hardcap did the carpenter work in some repairs on the Methodist church here last summer. When he got through he carried in his bill to the President of the Board of Trustees. The President referred him to the Treasurer. The Treasurer reported no funds and referred him to the Chairman of the Building Committee. The Chairman of the Building Committee explained that it was his business to supervise the building, not to raise the funds, and sent him back to the President. It was not till Mr. Hardcap, whose stock of patience is small, threatened the church with a mechanic's lien that the remedy was forthcoming.

"Well, gentlemen," said I, "I will not be a party to getting a minister here on-excuse the term,—false pretences; on the assurance that we can pay him $1,500 a year when it is a hard matter to pay him $1,200. There are ten of us here. I will put my name down now for $30, if the rest will do the same. If the Lord sends the $300, or if the ladies raise it by a fair, or if Mr. Wheaton gets up a concert, or the summer boarders come to our rescue, we shall have nothing to pay. If none of these things happen, the minister will not have it all to lose."

The matter was eventually settled in that way. We raised a contingent fund of $250 then and there, which we have since made up to $400. So that now we can offer $1,500 a year with a clear conscience.

As a lawyer I have had some experience dealing with corporations. And I record my deliberate conviction here that of all corporations church corporations are financially the worst; the most loose and dilatory and unconsciously dishonest. I record it as my deliberate conviction, having had some opportunities for knowing, that in the Calvinistic church, of the others I don't pretend to know anything, on the average not one half the ministry get their meagre salaries promptly. This injustice is the greatest and most scandalous feature in the treatment to which the churches subject their ministers. That ministers are subjected to hardships is a matter of no consequence. So are other people. It is the injustice, the absolute and indefensible injustice, the promising to pay their meagre salaries and then not paying even those-the obtaining of their services under false pretences-that I complain of. If I were a minister I never would accept a call without knowing thoroughly the income and the expenditure of the church.

As I write there lies before me a letter from my late pastor. He wants to borrow $300 for a few weeks. His Board of Trustees are thus much behind-hand in the first quarter's payment. He has not the means to pay his rent. The duty of the Board in such a case is very evident. The very least they can do is to share in providing temporarily for the exigency. The very most which a mean Board could do would be to ask the minister to unite with them in paying up the deficiency. In fact, he who is least able to do it has to carry it all. Nobody else will trust the church. He has to trust it for hundreds of dollars. And then when his grocer and his landlord and his tailor go unpaid, men shrug their shoulders and say, pityingly, "Oh! he's a minister, he is not trained to business habits." And the world looks on in wonder and in silent contempt to see the Christian Church carrying on its business in a manner the flagrant dishonesty of which would close the doors of any bank, deprive any insurance company of its charter, and drive any broker in Wall street from the Brokers' Board.

Jennie says this last is pretty sharp writing; and she shakes her head over it. But it is time, and I decline to cancel it.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Our Donation Party—by Jane Laicus.



MY husband wants me to write an account of the donation we gave our new minister. He wants it to put in his book.

"Why, John," said I, "I can't write anything for a book. I never wrote anything for print in my life. You mustn't think I am clever because you are."

"My dear Jennie," said he, "there is no magic in print. Write just such an account as you wrote your mother. If you had that letter you could not do better than give me that to put in."

"I can't possibly write, John. I would indeed if I could."

"Then," said John, "it can't go in at all. For I was not here. I cannot describe it."

He was so earnest about it I finally had to yield. He says I always have my own way. I didn't this time I am sure. There is only one thing that reconciles me to it. I do not believe the publishers will print it. I told John I wouldn't trust my writing to his judgment. I wouldn't you know, of course because he would be sure to say it was good. So we agreed to leave it to the publishers. If they don't like this chapter they are going to leave it out. John is going to leave them to read the proof, and we shan't either of us know till the book is published whether "our donation party" gets in or not. I confess to a little hope it will get in.

Let me see how it happened. Oh! this was the way: Maurice was at our house the Sunday he supplied our pulpit. He told my husband that he thought he should accept our call. But he said he didn't think the parsonage would do him any good. He wanted to go to housekeeping, but he had not the money to furnish it with, and he would not run in debt.

That set me thinking. I talked the matter over with Miss Moore and found she was quite of my mind; and the week after, we got Maurice's letter accepting the call, we proposed to the ladies at the sewing society to undertake to furnish the parsonage. The idea took at once. In fact the having a parsonage is a new thing at Wheathedge, and we feel a little pride in having it respectable, you know; at least so as not to be a disgrace to the church. Mrs. Goodsole thought it doubtful about raising the money, and Mrs. Hardcap said that "her husband wasn't in favor of the parsonage nohow, and she didn't believe would think much of fixin' of it up;" but Miss Moore replied to Mrs. Goodsole that she could try at any rate, and to Mrs. Hardcap that she would be responsible that Mr. Hardcap would do his share; a remark which to some of us seemed a bold one, but which pleased Mrs. Hardcap for all that.

Mr. Hardcap, I believe, means well, though to some of us his ideas do seem very contracted, sometimes. But my husband says that narrow men are needed as well as broad ones, and that if there were no Mr. Hardcap to count the cost of every venture before it was undertaken, the church would have been bankrupt long before this time.

We appointed committees that evening; one to raise the money-of course Miss Moore was at the head of that—one to furnish the kitchen, one to furnish the parlor and bed-room, (as I knew the bride, I was put on that committee,) and one to provide a supper. Some of the ladies wanted to have a grand reception. They said it would be a good thing to surprise the new pastor with a house-warming. Mrs. Hardcap proposed that the sewing society meet there that afternoon. But Miss Moore objected strongly. She said it would cost nearly as much to provide a supper for the whole congregation as to furnish a good bed-room set. I think, though, it was really little Miss Flidgett who put a quietus on that plan.

"Why," said she in an injured tone, "I want to be there and see how they like it."

Nobody dared advocate the plan after that speech. I really think that they all felt very much the same way, however.

The next day some of us met at the parsonage to take a survey. Last year the house was without a tenant, and it had come to be in rather a dilapidated condition. The fence gate was off the hinges. The garden was over-grown with weeds. The sink in the kitchen was badly rotted. One of the parlor blinds was off. There was a bad leak over the back porch, and the plastering looked just ready to fall, and the whole looked dingy,—it needed outside painting sadly.

"We needn't let these things go so," said Miss Moore. "The landlord must put the house to rights."

So off we posted to the landlord, who is a queer, crusty old bachelor, who has, I verily believe, a kind heart, and does a good deal of good in his own fashion; but his fashion is never like any one else's. Not a thing could Miss Moore get out of him. He had rented the house as it stood, he said. If the trustees didn't like it they needn't have taken it. They paid little enough rent to repair it themselves. He had nothing more to do except to get his rent regularly, and that she might depend he would do.

Miss Moore returned somewhat disappointed, but nothing daunted. "So much the better," said she. "It will give Mr. Hardcap a chance to do something."

"How about the painting?" said Mrs. Wheaton. "It ought to be painted."

Miss Moore shook her head. "So it ought," she said, "and so I told Mr. Quirk; but he won't do anything,—and we can't afford to paint it; we shouldn't have money left for furnishing."

So we took the measure of the floors for the carpets, settled on what furniture we would get, and adjourned.

Next week I went down to New York and called on the young lady to whom Maurice is engaged. Her home is in New York, or rather it was there; for to my thinking a wife's home is always with her husband; and I never like to hear a wife talking of "going home" as though home could be anywhere else than where her husband and her children are. Maurice and Helen were to be married two weeks from the following Friday, for Maurice proposed to postpone their wedding trip till his next summer's vacation; and Helen, like the dear, sensible girl she is, very readily agreed to that plan. In fact I believe she proposed it. She had some shopping to do before the wedding, and I had some to do on my own account, and we went together. I invented a plan of refurnishing my parlor. I am afraid I told some fibs, or at least came dreadfully near it. I told Helen I wanted her to help me select the carpet; and though she had no time to spare, she was very good-natured, and did spare the time. We ladies had agreed-not without some dissent-to get a Brussels for the parlor, as the cheapest in the end, and I made Helen select her own pattern, without any suspicion of what she was doing, and incidentally got her taste on other carpets, too, so that really she selected them herself without knowing it. Deacon Goodsole recommended me to go for furniture to Mr. Kabbinett, a German friend of his, and Mrs. Goodsole and I found there a very nice parlor set, in green rep, made of imitation rosewood, which he said would wear about as well as the genuine article, and which we both agreed looked nearly as well. We would rather have bought the real rosewood, but that we could not afford. Mr. Kabbinett made us a liberal discount because we were buying for a parsonage. We got an extension table and chairs for the dining-room, (but we had to omit a side-board for the present), and a very pretty oak set for the chamber. We did not buy anything but a carpet for the library, for Mr. Laicus said no one could furnish a student's library for him. He must furnish it for himself.

When we got back to Wheathedge, Tuesday afternoon, we found the parsonage undergoing transformations so great that you would hardly know it. Miss Moore had got Mr. Hardcap, sure enough, to repair it. She had agreed to pay for the material, and he was to furnish the labor. The fence was straightened, and the gate re-hung, and the blinds mended up, and Mr. Hardcap was on the roof patching it where it leaked or threatened to. Deacon Goodsole had a bevy of boys from the Sabbath-school at work in the garden under his direction. If there is anything the Deacon takes a pride in, next to his horse, it is his garden, and he said that the parson should have a chance for the best garden in town. Great piles of weeds stood in the walk. Two boys were spading up; another was planting; a fourth was wheeling away the weeds; and still another was bringing manure from the Deacon's stable. Miss Moore was setting out some rose-bushes before the door; and the Deacon himself, with his coat off, was trimming and tying up a rather dilapidated looking grape-vine over a still more dilapidated grape arbor.

The next morning, about eleven o'clock, little Miss Flidgett came running into our house, without ever knocking, in the greatest possible excitement.

"Mrs. Laicus," said she, "the painters have come."

"The painters!" said I. "What painters?"

"Why didn't you order them?" said she.

"They are painting the parsonage. I supposed of course you ordered them."

It was very evident that she did not suppose anything of the kind, but was dying of curiosity to know who did. I confess I had some curiosity to know myself. So I put on my bonnet and shawl, and ran over with her to find out about it. Sure enough the painters were there, three or four of them, with their ladders up against the side of the house, and the parsonage already beginning to change color under their hands. Some of the ladies were in the kitchen supervising the repairs of the sink, and the putting up of some shelves in the pantry, but they knew nothing about the painters. I asked one of the hands, at work on the front door, who sent him.

"The boss, ma'am," he replied, very promptly.

"And who is the boss?" said I.

"Mr. Glazier, ma'am."

Mr. Glazier is the painter himself, the head-man. So I was no better off than before. I was afraid Mrs. Wheaton had ordered them, and I knew our funds were getting low, for we had overrun our estimate for carpets; and I have the greatest horror of running in debt. So I resolved to go right over to Mrs. Wheaton's and get at the bottom of the mystery. But Mrs. Wheaton knew nothing of the matter. We were both sure Miss Moore would not have ordered them, and I was returning as wise as I started, when, as I passed the parsonage, I saw Mr. Glazier and Mr. Quirk in the yard, talking together. So I turned in to ask Mr. Glazier about it. As I passed up the walk Mr. Quirk called out to me.

"You ladies are in possession, I see," said he. "You mean to make the parson comfortable and contented if you can."

"Yes, Sir," said I, "though we are not responsible for the greatest improvement, the painting. I think Mr. Glazier must be responsible for that himself. I can't find any one that ordered it done."

I thought that would bring the information, and it did.

"Oh! that's Mr. Quirk's orders," said he.

"Yours?" said I turning to the crusty old landlord who wouldn't do anything.

He nodded. I think he enjoyed my perplexity. I spoke on the impulse of the moment. If I had given it a second thought I should not have done it; and yet I am not sorry I did.

"Mr. Quirk," said I, "my husband was right and I was wrong. We ladies thought very hard of you that you would not do anything toward repairing the parsonage. For one I want to apologize."

"Judge not, that ye be not judged," said the old man; and he turned on his heel and went away. He is the queerest man I ever saw.

I wish you could have seen that parsonage last Friday, the day that Mr. Mapleson and his wife were to arrive. The walks were trim. The plot before the piazza had been new sodded. The grapevine was already putting out new buds as if it felt the effect of the Deacon's tender care. There was not a weed to be seen. The beds, with their rich, black loam turned up to the sun, had a beauty of their own, which only one who loves to dig among flowers as much as I do can appreciate. Mr. Glazier had made the dingy old house look like a new one. After all there is nothing I like better for a cottage than pure white with green blinds. Inside we had a lovely carpet on the parlor, and the new set of imitation rosewood. A beautiful bouquet from Mrs. Wheaton's garden stood in the bay window, which looks out upon the river. My girl, lent for the occasion, was in the kitchen; and in the dining-room there was supper spread just for two, with cake, preserves, and pies enough in the closet (every body in the parish had sent in supper for that evening) to keep the parson supplied for a month at least. I was the last to leave the house, and I did not leave it till I heard the whistle of the train. Then I ran over to Miss Moore's little cottage, which is right across the way. Her parlor window was full of ladies peering out, first and foremost of whom was little Miss Flidgett, who thus gratified her wish to see how they would take it. The Deacon, who was fixing something about the stable, was almost caught. But he heard the carriage-wheels just in time to run into the shed, and I could see him there holding the door open a crack and peering out to see what passed. Even dignified Mrs. Wheaton could not resist the temptation to be passing along, accidentally of course, just as the parson drove up. Mr. Wheaton had called for them at the depot. It was arranged (with them, that is) that he was to take them right to our house, and they were to stay there till they could decide whether to board or keep house. He proposed to them, however, according to pre-arrangement, to stop a minute at the parsonage on the way. "Mrs. Mapleson," he said, "can see what it is and how she likes the house, and the location; and besides I have an errand to do at the store."

We saw him get out and hand them out. Just then Mrs. Wheaton passed by, and he introduced her to them. Mrs. Wheaton took a seat in the now vacant carriage to go with her husband to the store; and Mr. and Mrs. Mapleson went up the walk. We saw them go in and shut the door. In a moment they came out again. Maurice looked up and down the street in perplexity; then he stepped back a few paces and looked up at the house. His wife stood meanwhile on the door-step. Suddenly she beckoned to him, and pointed out something on the side of the door just over the bell-handle. They had discovered the little silver plate on which was engraved "Rev. Maurice Mapleson." At that moment the expressman drove up with their trunks. Maurice settled with him, looked up and down the street as if looking for Mr. Wheaton, who did not make his appearance as you may believe; and then parson, wife, and trunks all went into the house together, and we dispersed.

As to the Deacon, he had to climb out of a back window into an ally that runs behind the house in order to get out of his position without being discovered.

And that is the way we gave our donation party in Wheathedge.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Maurice Mapleson.



IT is not six weeks since Maurice Mapleson preached his first sermon here, at Wheathedge, and already events prove the wisdom of our selection. I have been studying somewhat and pondering more the secret of his success, and I have sat down this evening to try and clear up my own shadowy thoughts by reducing them to form. I often take my pen for such a purpose. Is it not Bacon who says the pen makes an accurate thinker?

Maurice Mapleson certainly is not what I should call a great preacher. He is not learned. He is not brilliant. He seldom tells us much about ancient Greece or Rome. He preached a sermon on Woman's function in the church, a few Sundays ago. I could not help contrasting it with Dr. Argure's sermon on the same subject. Maurice could not have made a learned editorial or magazine article out of his sermon. He did not even discuss the true interpretation of Paul's exhortations and prohibitions. He talked very simply and plainly of what the women could do here at Wheathedge.

He thanked them with unmistakeable sincerity for what they had already done, and made it an incentive to them to do more-more for Christ, not for himself.

Jennie says that is the secret of Maurice's success. He is appreciative. He never scolds. He commends his people for what they have done and so incites them to do more. She thinks that praise is a better spur than blame. She always manages her servants on that principle. Perhaps that is the reason why they are not the greatest plague of life to her.

But if Maurice's sermons are not great, neither are they long. He lays it down as a cardinal rule in moral hygiene that a congregation should not go away from the church hungry. Harry no longer begs to stay at home Sunday mornings, and even Mr. Hardcap rarely gets asleep.

If I compare Mr. Mapleson with Mr. Uncannon, I should say unhesitatingly that the latter was the more brilliant preacher of the two. No one ever comes out of church saying "What a powerful discourse! What a brilliant figure! What a pretty illustration! How eloquent!" But I find that we very often spend our dinner hour in discussing not the sermon, but its subject.

There are however two or three peculiarities which I observe about Maurice Mapleson's preaching. Dr. Argure tells me that he never writes a sermon without a reference to its future use. I once asked him whether he ever preached extemporaneously. "No," said he. "I have meant to. But I have so many fine sermons waiting to be preached that I could never bring myself to abandon them for a mere talk."

I do not think Maurice has any fine sermons waiting to be preached. Indeed I know he has not. For one evening when he excused himself from accepting an invitation to tea, because he was behind-hand in his work and had his sermon to prepare, I replied, "You must have a good stock on hand. Give us an old one."

"I haven't a sermon to my name," he replied.

"What do you mean?" said I.

"I mean," said he, "that a sermon is not an essay; that every sermon I ever preached was prepared to meet some special want in my parish, and that when it was preached, there was an end of it. I could no more preach an old sermon than I could fire a charge of gun powder a second time."

"But experiences repeat themselves," said my wife. "What your people at Koniwasset Corners knew of doubt, of trouble, of sorrow, of imperfect Christian experience, we know too. As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."

"That is true," said Maurice thoughtfully. "But there are no two faces exactly alike. And my sermon is meaningless to me, if not to my people, unless I can see the want and bring out the truth to meet it."

"But the truth is always the same," said Jennie, "and the wants of the human heart are not widely different."

"That is both true and false," said he. "The truth is always the same; but not always the same to me. I fell into conversation with Mr. Gear last night on the subject of the atonement. He thinks it represents God as revengeful and unforgiving. Can I answer him with an old sermon? God's love is immutable. But I hope I understand it better and feel it more than I did three years ago. I cannot bring an old experience to meet a new want. No! a sermon is like a flower, it is of worth only when it is fresh."

His sermons at all events are always fresh. They are his personal counsel to personal friends. I dimly recognize this element of power in them. But this is not all. There is something more, something that I missed in Dr. Argure's learned essays, and in Mr. Uncannon's pulpit pyrotechnics. But it is something very difficult to define.

Did you ever consider the difference between a real flower and a wax imitation? The latter may be quite as beautiful. It may deceive you at first. And yet when you discover the deception you are disappointed. "The lack of fragrance," Jennie suggests. No! the flower may be odorless. It is the lack of life. I do not know what there is in that mystic life that should make such a difference. But I am sure that the charm of the flower is in its life.

The most beautiful statue that Powers ever chiseled does not compare for grace and beauty with the Divine model. The same mystic element of life is wanting.

There is life in Maurice Mapleson's sermons. What do I mean by life? Earnestness? No! Mr. Work was earnest. But this mysterious life was wanting. I can feel it better than I can define it. It is not in the sermon. It is in the man. I get new information from Dr. Argure. I do not get much new information from Maurice Mapleson. I used to get new ideas occasionally from Mr. Work. I rarely get a new idea from Maurice Mapleson. But I get new life, and that is what I most want.

This element of life enters into all his work. It is in the man rather than in his productions.

Our prayer-meetings have improved wonderfully since he came. "How do you prepare for the prayer-meeting?" I asked him the other day.

"By an hour of sleep and an hour of prayer," he replied. "I always try to go into the meeting fresh."

And he succeeds. His coming into the meeting is like the coming of Spring. He brings an atmosphere with him. It is indescribable, but its effect is marvelous. Jennie says she never understood before as she does now what was meant by the declaration in Acts concerning the Apostles, that though they were unlearned men, the people took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

And it is this life which makes him so admirable as a pastor. "Is he social?" a friend asked me the other day. Yes. He is social. But that is not all. Mr. Work was social. But he was always a minister. He went about the streets in a metaphysical white choker and black gown. He was everywhere professional. When he opened the subject of personal religion he did it with an introduction as formal and stately as that with which he habitually began his sermons. He formally inducted you into the witness box and commenced a professional inquisition on the state of your soul. I confess I have no fancy for that sort of Presbyterian confessional. I like the Papal confessional better. It does not invade your house and attack you with its questionings when you are in no mood for them. I told Mr. Work so once, whereat he was greatly shocked and somewhat indignant.

Mr. Uncannon too was very social. But he was never a minister. Outside the pulpit he never introduced the subject of religion. I think it is perfectly safe to say that no one would have taken knowledge of him that he had been with Jesus. As to pastoral calls he expressly disavowed any intention of making any. "I have no time," said he, "for gadding about and spiritual gossiping. It's as much as I can do to get up my two sermons a week."

But Maurice is social in a different way. I asked him once what system he pursued as to pastoral calls.

"A very simple system," said he, "mix much with my people and be much with Christ. If I do both, Mr. Laicus, I shall not fail to bring them together. I don't trouble myself about ways and means."

The week after Mr. Mapleson came to Wheathedge, some ecclesiastical body met at Albany. I had a case before the Court of Appeals, and Maurice and I happened to take the same train. As we waited in the station he addressed himself to a surly looking baggage-master with this question, "What time will the train get to Albany?"

"Can't tell," said the surly baggage-master. "Nothing is certain to railroad men."

"Except one thing," said Mr. Mapleson.

"What's that?" said the surly baggage-master.

"Death," said Mr. Mapleson.

"That's a fact," said the surly baggage-master. "Specially certain to railroad men."

"And there is one other thing certain," added Maurice.

"What's that?" asked the baggage-master, no longer surly.

"That we ought to be ready for it."

The baggage-master nodded thoughtfully. "So we ought," said he; and he added as he turned away, "I hope you're readier than I be."

I note this little incident here because it revealed so much of Maurice Mapleson's character to me. I think it did more to disclose to me the secret of his success than any sermon he has ever preached. Mr. Work when he went away read us the statistics of his ministerial industry. He told us how many sermons he had preached, how many prayer meetings he had attended, how many sick he had visited, and how many religious conversations he had held with the impenitent. I should as soon think of Maurice Mapleson's keeping a record of the number of times he kissed his wife or taught his children-if he had any.

While I have been writing in a vain endeavor to put my vague and shadowy ideas of Maurice Mapleson's magnetic power into words, Jennie has come in and has seated herself beside me.

"Jennie, I cannot get into clear and tangible form my shadowy ideas. What is the secret of ministerial success? What is the common characteristic which gives pulpit power to such widely dissimilar characters as Chalmers, Whitefields, the Westleys, Spurgeon and Robertson in England, and Edwards, Nettleton, Finney, the Beechers, father and son, Murray, John Hall, Dr. Tyng, and a score of others I could mention in this country?"

"Hand me your New Testament, John."

It was lying on the table beside me. She took it from my hand and opened it.

"I don't know as to all the names you have mentioned, John, but I think the secret of true pulpit power, the secret of Paul's wondrous power, the secret of Maurice Mapleson's power—the same in kind though smaller in measure—is this. And she read from Galatians, the second chapter and twentieth verse:

"'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.'"



CHAPTER XXV.

Our Church-Garden.



ONE needs no other evidence that Maurice Mapleson is working a wonderful transformation in this parish than is afforded by the change which has been made in the external appearance of the church. It is true that Miss Moore always was a worker. But I do not believe that even Miss Moore could have carried out her plan of a church garden under Mr. Work. And Mr. Work was a good minister too.

When I first came to Wheathedge the Calvary Presbyterian church was externally, to the passer-by, distinguished chiefly for the severe simplicity of its architecture, and the plainness, not to say the homeliness, of its surroundings. It is a long, narrow, wooden structure, as destitute of ornament as Squire Line's old fashioned barn. Its only approximation to architectural display is a square tower surmounted by four tooth-picks pointing heavenward, and encasing the bell. A singular, a mysterious bell that was and is. It expresses all the emotions of the neighborhood. It passes through all the moods and inflections of a hundred hearts. To-day it rings out with soft and sacred tones its call to worship. To-morrow from its watch-tower it sees the crackling flame in some neighboring barn or tenement, and utters, with loud and hurried and anxious voice, its alarm. Anon, heavy with grief, it seems to enter, as a sympathising friend, into the very heart experiences of bereaved and weeping mourners. And when the rolling year brings round Independence day, all the fluctuations of feeling which mature and soften others are forgotten, and it trembles with the excitement of the occasion, and laughs, and shouts, and capers merrily in its homely belfry, as though it were a boy again.

Pardon the digression. But I love the dear old bell. And its voice is musical to me, albeit I sometimes fancy, like many another singer's it is growing weak and thin with age.

The surroundings of the church were no better than the external aspect. The fence was broken down. The cows made common pasture in the field-there is an acre of ground with the church, I believe-till the grass was eaten so close to the ground that even they disdained it. A few trees eked out a miserable existence. Most of them, girdled by cattle, were dead. A few still maintained their "struggle for life," but looked as though they pined for the freedom of the woods again. Within, the church justified the promise of its external condition. The board of trustees are poor. Every man had been permitted to upholster his own pew. Some, without owners, were also without upholstering. In the rest, the only merit was variety. The church looked as though it had clothed itself in a Joseph's coat of many colors; or rather, its robe presented the appearance of poor Joe Sweaten's pantaloons, which are so darned and pieced and mended that no man can guess what the original material was, or whether any of it is left. There was but one redeeming feature-the bouquet upon the pulpit. Every Sunday, Sophie Jowett brought that bouquet. As her father had a large conservatory, the bouquet was rarely missing even in winter. As she has admirable taste it was always beautiful even when the flowers were not rare. She had done her work very quietly, had asked no permission, had consulted with no one. One Sabbath the bouquet appeared upon the pulpit. After that it was never missing, except one Sunday when Miss Sophie was sick, and for three weeks in the Fall, when she was away from home.

Such was the condition of the church at Wheathedge when I bought my house.

Last spring Miss Sophie was married. There were more tears and less radiance than usual at that wedding. Mr. Line said that he never could supply the place in the Sunday-school. Mr. Work came up from New York to marry them. His voice was tenderer than usual when he pronounced the marriage ceremony. The first Sabbath after that wedding the pulpit was without flowers. Was there any who did not miss them, and in missing them did not miss her? It took the last ornament from our church, which thenceforth looked desolated enough.

When Maurice Mapleson came the bouquet came back. But it was made mostly of wild flowers. I think his wife began it. Perhaps it was this which suggested to Miss Moore's fertile brain the idea of a church-garden.

At all events one Wednesday after prayer-meeting Miss Moore and Mrs. Biskit came to me. "We want a dollar from you," said Miss Moore.

"What for?" said I. Not that I thought of questioning Miss Moore's demand,—no one ever does that; but because I naturally liked to know what my money was going to do.

"We are going to start a church-garden," said she. "The trustees have given us the ground, and we want to raise about ten dollars for a beginning."

I gave her the dollar and thought no more about it; indeed, I should have accounted the scheme quite chimerical if there had been any one at the head of it except Miss Moore.

However, the next week, as I was passing the church, I saw Miss Moore and Mrs. Biskit at work in the churchyard. A little plot had been spaded up at one side, one or two walks laid out, and they were busy putting in some flower seed. I thought of offering my services. But as my agricultural education was neglected in my youth, and as my knowledge of gardening is very limited, I passed on.

My chance came pretty soon. When Miss Moore has anything to do for the church every one gets an opportunity to help.

It could not have been more than two or three days later, when, as I passed, I perceived that she had already increased her stock of gardeners. Half a dozen young men were working with a will. She had half of the minister's Bible-class engaged. Two of them had brought a load of gravel from down under the hill as you go to the Mill village. They were shoveling this out at the front gate, while some others were spreading it in a broad walk up to the church-door. A great pile of sods lay right by the side of the growing gravel-heap. Deacon Goodsole, in his shirt sleeves, was raking over the ground preparing it for grass-seed. "Rather late for grass-seed," he had remonstrated, but the inexorable Miss Moore had replied, "Better late than never." Four or five of the boys, who had used the church common as a ball-ground, were enlisted-a capital stroke of policy that. Among them was Bill Styles, who prides himself on throwing a stone higher and with surer aim than any other boy in Wheathedge, and had demonstrated it by stoning all the glass out of the tower windows. A melancholy-looking cow, transfixed with astonishment, had stopped in the middle of the road to look with bewilderment upon their invasion of its ancient territory. I leaned for a moment on the tottering fence and looked, equally bewildered, on the busy scene.

But Miss Moore never suffers any one to look on idly where she is laboring. "Ah! Mr. Laicus," said she, cheerily, "you are just the man we want. That cow will come in through these gaps in the fence and undo our work in an hour after we leave it. I wish you would get hold of somebody and fix it up." With that she was off again, and I was in for an office.

Deacon Goodsole afterwards told me confidentially that he was caught in the same way.

Now, though I am no gardener, I am a bit of a carpenter. So, after taking the dimensions of the fence, mentally, I started off for the material, which Mr. Hardcap gave, and, with the aid of a volunteer or two, I succeeded in so far filling the breach that the melancholy cow gave up her little game, and walked philosophically away.

To make a long story short, the result of Miss Moore's energetic endeavors was seen the next Sabbath, in part, in an entirely new aspect of affairs, which has been constantly improving since. The board of trustees, moved thereto partly by the energies of Miss Moore, partly by those of their Baptist neighbors who have just got into a new church, have commenced to build a new fence. A graveled walk, free from dust in drought and from mud in rainy weather, leads up to the church-door. A border of sod on either side melts gradually away into the beginning of a lawn of grass which will be fuller and better next year than this. On a couple of fan shaped lattices, in which I take a little pride as my own handiwork, a honey-suckle on one side of the church-door and a prairie rose on the other are planted. In imagination I already see them reaching out their tendrils in courtship over the door. I should not wonder if next Spring should celebrate their nuptials. Some ivy, planted by Miss Moore, on the eastern side of the church promises in time to embosom it in green. A parterre of flowers in the rear, has already helped to furnish the pulpit every Sunday with a bouquet, and, Miss Moore declares, will, another summer, give the minister a bouquet on his study table all the week, and messengers of beauty to add to the comfort of many a sick-room. And in the Fall Deacon Goodsole and I with half a dozen young men from the pastor's Bible-class are going up into the woods for some maples to set out in the place of the dead sticks which served only as monuments of the departed.

But Miss Moore is in a quandary. She does not know what to do with her ten dollars. All the work was given. Even Pat Maloney, Roman Catholic though he is, would not take anything for spading up the ground for "our church garden."

I am a conservative man. But I do wish Miss Moore could be chairman of our board of trustees for a year or two.



CHAPTER XXVI.

Our Temperance Prayer-Meeting.



IT is late in the fall. The summer birds have fled southward. The summer residents have fled to their city homes. The mountains have blossomed out in all the brilliance of their autumnal colors; but the transitory glory has gone and they are brown and bare. One little flurry of snow has given us warning of what is coming. The furnace has been put in order; the double windows have been put on; a storm-house has enclosed our porch; a great pile of wood lies up against the stable, giving my boy promise of plenty of exercise during the long winter. And still the summer lingers in these bright and glorious autumnal days. And of them the carpenters and the painters are making much in their work on the new library-hall.

Do not let the reader deceive himself by erecting in his imagination an edifice of brick or stone, with all the magnificent architectural display which belongs to the modern style of American cosmopolitan architecture. Library-hall is a plain wooden building, one story high, and containing but three rooms. It is to cost us just $1,000, when it is finished. Let me record here how it came to be begun.

Temperance is not one of the virtues for which Wheathedge is, or ought to be, famous. I know not where you will find cooler springs of more delicious water, than gush from its mountain sides. I know not where you will find grapes for home wine-that modern recipe for drunkenness-more abundant or more admirably adapted to the vintner's purpose. But the springs have few customers, and one man easily makes all the domestic wine which the inhabitants of Wheathedge consume. But at the landing there are at least four grog-shops which give every indication of doing a thriving business, beside Poole's, half-way to the Mill village; to say nothing of the bar the busiest room by all odds, at Guzzem's hotel, busiest, alas! on the Sabbath day.

Maurice Mapleson is not one who considers that his parish and his congregation are coterminus. "I like the Established Church for one thing," he says. "The parish is geographical, not ecclesiastical. All within its bounds are under the parson's care. In our system the minister is only responsible for his own congregation. It is like caring for the wounded who are brought into hospital, and leaving those that are on the field of battle uncared for."

A little incident occurring soon after he came, first opened Maurice's eyes, I think, to the need of temperance reform in the community.

He had occasion, one evening after prayer-meeting, to visit a sick child of his Sabbath-school. The family were poor and his road led him down near the brickyard toward "Limerick," as this settlement of huts-half house, half pig-stye-is derisively called. The night was dark, and returning, abstracted in thought, he almost fell over what he first took to be a log lying in the street. It was a man, who, on a cursory examination, proved to be suffering under no less a disorder than that of hopeless intoxication. It was a dangerous bed. Maurice made one or two unsuccessful attempts to arouse the fellow, but in vain. Retracing his steps a few rods to the nearest hut, he summoned assistance, and with the aid of Pat sober, got Pat drunk upon his feet. But he was quite too drunk to help himself, and too large and heavy to be left to the sole charge of Pat sober, who happened to recognize a friend, whose home he said was a quarter of a mile down the valley. Maurice, who had preached a few Sundays ago on the parable of the Good Samaritan, could not bring himself to imitate the example of the Priest and Levite; so steadying the tipsy pedestrian on one side, while sober Pat sustained him on the other, they half led, half dragged the still unconscious sleeper to a little round hut, which he called home. The wife was sitting up for her husband and received both him and his custodians with objurgations loud on the first, and thanks equally loud addressed to the others. No sooner was the stupid husband safely deposited on the bed than, begging them to wait a moment, she went to the cupboard and taking down a big, black bottle, half filled a cracked tea-cup with whiskey, which she offered to Maurice as an expression of her gratitude. "I do not know," said Maurice to me, as he told me the story, "that she will ever forgive me for declining, though I couched my declension as courteously as possible."