A Circuit Rider's Wife Part 3

"Then it's all right," I said. "G.o.d would not trifle with you about the witness of His Spirit, especially at such a time as this!"

It was not often that I showed such boundless confidence in the Lord's ways, and I was indeed far from feeling as familiar with them as I pretended. But the affectation comforted him and certainly it was no injury to the Maker of the heavens and the earth. William fell asleep at once and awakened in the proper protracted-meeting frame of mind next morning.

Many times afterward he experienced the same catastrophe, and these have been the only occasions in my life when I have put on the whole armor of G.o.d so that I might go forth properly to battle with the powers and princ.i.p.alities of William's darkness.

I used to wonder a great deal in those days about "the witness of the Spirit." Before my marriage I had heard little of it. I wanted to know what it was, but I never prayed for it myself. The thought occurred to me that what William called the witness of the Spirit might be the shoulder tap of his own spirit approving him now and then. But then came the deeper question, How did William come by his own spirit, that part of him which was neither flesh, nor bone, nor blood, but which had the power to make him sit up in the middle of the night to pray, and to make him fast maybe all the next day? At last I reached a comforting conclusion. That is one peculiarity of the human, he never rests upon any other kind of conclusion. What he thinks may be so, but if it is not comforting he thinks further on into the daybreak of Eternity till he gets something better, more satisfactory for his needs. This is why we shall always keep on finding G.o.d. There is something lacking in us to which G.o.d only answers. The conclusion I came to was this, that we are not all called to do the same things, that William was called to preach and pray, and the witness of his Spirit approved when he did it right. And I was called to look after William, to see that he did not pray too much or preach too long. And I always had that sweet inward glow which he called his witness when I attended most carefully to his needs. It may be a narrow way to look at it, but you couldn't live with William in any peace of mind without this witness of the Spirit. It would have made him unhappy to live with a person who couldn't claim it, and I've had mine these thirty years without having to pray or to fast to get it--a tender eye in me that regarded him and a heart that prayed for him.

CHAPTER VI

WILLIAM ENTERS HIS WORLDLY MIND

This is the wonderful thing about the pure in heart--they do see G.o.d.

And that was William's distinction. In spite of his own faults and of ethical errors in some of his preaching, he outstripped all these and did actually see G.o.d; and it made him different from other men who, however wise, do not see G.o.d. On this account I have no doubt that he fumbled more souls into the Kingdom of Heaven than some of the most popular tabernacle preachers of modern times.

Nevertheless, William had his worldly mind. There was an ancient Antaeus in him whose heel occasionally touched the strengthening earth, and he was as unconscious of it as a baby is of its expression. But, once he entered his worldly mind, he became as navely unscrupulous as any other man of the world. Never, in all the years we lived together, did he repent of these particular deeds done in the body. He could be brought to the very sackcloth and ashes for a supposit.i.tious sin that he had not really committed; but no man could make him repent of a horse trade, and I never knew but one who had the best of him in one.

In common with all circuit riders he had a pa.s.sion for horses, and a knowledge of them that would have made his fortune on the race track.

This brings me to relate an incident which will serve to indicate the shrewdness and unscrupulousness of William once he took the spiritual bit in his teeth.

We were on the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse--a horse gifted with unG.o.dly speed in the legs and a mettlesome, race-track temperament. On a certain Sat.u.r.day, after services at Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William tightened the reins, took on a scandalous expression of Coliseum delight and let the horse out. Instantly the thin flanks of the creature tautened, he laid his tail over the dashboard, stretched his neck, flattened his ears and settled himself close to the ground in action that showed sinful training. William's expression developed into one of ecstasy that was far from spiritual, and I had much ado to keep my hat on. Presently we heard the clatter of another horse's feet behind us, and the next moment the bay was neck and neck with Charlie Weaver's black mare. Charlie was one of the younger goats in the Beaverdam congregation, whose chief distinction was that he was an outbreaking sinner and owned the fastest horse in the county.

Instantly William's whole nature changed; he was no more a minister than the florid young man in the buggy that was whirling giddily beside us. He tightened his reins and touched the bay with his whip. The effect was miraculous; the horse leaped forward in a splendid burst of speed, the mare showed signs of irritation and broke her gait, and the two jockeys exchanged challenging glances. At that moment we rounded a curve in the road, and in the hot dust ahead there came to view a heavy, old-fas.h.i.+oned rockaway drawn slowly by a pair of sunburned plow-horses.

"Oh, William," I gasped, "do stop! That is the Brock carriage and this is a horse race!"

Brother Brock was a rich Methodist steward who not only owned most of the property in Beaverdam neighborhood, but the church as well. He was a sharp-faced man who gave you the impression that his immortal soul had cat whiskers. He fattened his tyrannical faculties upon the meekness of the preacher and the helplessness of a congregation largely dependent upon him to pay the pastor's salary and the church a.s.sessments. Any preacher who offended him was destined to be deprived of his subscriptions. Knowing this I took an anxious, economical view of the old rockaway heaving forward in the road ahead and vainly implored William to slacken his speed to a moral, ministerial gait.

In another moment it was over. The mare crashed into the rockaway on one side and the bay shattered the swingletree on the other with the forewheel of our buggy. The old plow-horses plunged feebly, then lowered their heads in native dejection, while the Brocks shrieked, root and branch. Never have I seen such a look of feline ferocity upon the human countenance as when Brother Brock scrambled down from his seat into the road and, with his mouse-catching eyes, added William Asbury Thompson, preacher, to Charles Jason Weaver, loafer, drunkard and horse racer, and placed the sum of them on the blackboard of his outer darkness. I sat in the buggy, holding the reins over the trembling, wild-eyed bay, while William descended and, with great dignity, tied up the disabled swingletree. There was not the slightest evidence of moral repentance in his manner, although he expressed a polite, man-of-the-world regret at the accident.

When Brother Brock resumed his place on the driver's seat and Sister Brock had ascended to hers with the cacklings of a hen who had been rudely s.n.a.t.c.hed from her nest, and all the medium-sized and little Brocks were safely bestowed beside her, we drove on at a funeral's pace behind them. The bay was grossly insulted, but it was the only mark of humility left within our reach.

Three days later the Presiding Elder appeared at the parsonage door.

He was a big man, riding a handsome gray horse and wearing a look of executive severity. I trembled with apprehension, for we had heard, of course, that Brother Brock had written to him preferring charges against William for horse racing. But now I had an astonis.h.i.+ng and unexpected view of William's character. His worldly mood was still upon him, his Antaeus heel still upon the earth. He hurried out to meet Doctor Betterled, the elder, and, having thrown the saddlebags of his guest across his shoulder, stood apparently transfixed with admiration before the gray horse.

"I'd almost be willing to swap my bay for him!" I heard him say.

"Let's see the bay," replied Doctor Betterled guardedly.

Five minutes later, peeping through the kitchen window, I saw the mettlesome bay standing beside the big-headed, thick-necked gray, and the two men, each with one foot planted far forward after the manner of traders, facing one another with concert eloquence concerning the respective merits of the two animals. Presently they entered the house together, Doctor Betterled evidently in a cheerful frame of mind and William wearing his chastened look.

Late in the afternoon, when our guest rode away, he was mounted on the bay; but he had not mentioned the horse race of the previous Sat.u.r.day.

William stood, the genial host, bareheaded at the gate till the rider's back was turned; then he came into the house, dropped into a chair at the open window and fixed his eyes, with a deep frown above them, upon the gray horse asleep in his dotage under the apple tree in the barnyard.

"That horse has three windgalls, he is swinneyed in both shoulders, and I think he has a gravel in one of his forefeet!" he remarked in a tone of deep dejection.

I laughed and felt more nearly kin to him morally than I had ever felt before. There was a squint-eyed shrewdness in the way he involved and disposed of the Presiding Elder that was wittily familiar to me, and all the more diverting because William never suspected the Machiavellian character of his conduct. He kept his eye on G.o.d, as usual, letting not his soul's right hand know what his left one was doing.

But, going back to Brother Brock and the subject of Methodist stewards in general. The preacher soon discovers that the rich ones are the most obstreperous. And besides the good ones, the rich, obstreperous ones are divided into two cla.s.ses. The first cla.s.s consists of those who threaten to resign if everything is not done according to their desires, which they hide and compel you to find out the best way you can. Occasionally a preacher gets into a community where everybody in the church--from the janitor to the steward and treasurer--has this mania for threatening to resign.

I shall never forget William's first experience with such a church. It was in a little village where human interest consisted in everybody hating, suspecting or despising everyone else. He went about like a d.a.m.ned soul, trying to restore peace and brotherly love. But they would have none of either. Each steward approached him privately and tendered his resignation, giving reasons that reflected upon the character of some other steward. Then the organist tendered her resignation because the Sunday-school superintendent had reflected upon her playing, and she retaliated by reflecting upon his unmarried morals. When the superintendent heard of her complaint and withdrawal he at once sent in his resignation, because he did not wish to cause contention in the church.

William afterward discovered that they treated every new preacher the same way, taking advantage of the opportunity to damage each other as much as possible and to try his faith to the limit. But the delightful thing about William was that where his patience and faith gave out his natural human blood began to boil, and when that started he could preach some of the finest, fiercest, most truthful Gospel I have ever heard from any preacher. So it happened in this church.

When he was in certain spiritual--or, to be more precise, unspiritual--moods he refused to shave, but wore the stubble on his chin, either by way of mourning or defiance, as the case might be. On this Sabbath he presented a ferocious chin to the congregation, after having waited patiently for all of the resigners to take their respective prominent places in it. He preached a short sermon with the air of a plagued, unkempt angel; then he took up the resignations and read them out exactly as he read the church letters of new members, accepting each one and giving the reasons why. It was the most sensational service ever held in that church. In the first place, to accept their resignations was an unprecedented proceeding and the last thing they had expected him to do. The custom had been for the preacher to persuade them to keep their offices, which they had done from year to year with an air of proud reluctance. But the sensation was when he stated, literally, what each had said of the other--calling no names, of course--and saying that he was glad that these sinners had had the humility to give up positions of trust and honor in the church which they were evidently unfit to fill. He hoped before the end of the year they would be restored spiritually and worthy to perform the services they had formerly performed. Meanwhile, there was nothing left for him to do but to appoint a committee of sinners to attend to the stewards' duties until these should be reclaimed from their backslidden state. He named half a dozen young men who roosted on the back benches after the manner of happy, young lost souls, and I do not know whether it was astonishment or mischief that led them to accept with such alacrity the obligations imposed upon them. But William has always claimed since that they were the most active and effective stewards he ever had, that it was the first year he had ever received his salary in full, and the congregation was thoroughly cured of the resignation habit.

The second cla.s.s of obstreperous stewards is easier to manage. The quality of their perversity is exactly that of the mule's. William never had to move a church, get a new roof on one or an organ for it, or even a communion table, that some well-to-do steward did not lie back in the traces, back his official ears and begin to balk and kick mule fas.h.i.+on. Often they were good men in every other particular, but they were simply queer reversions to type--which indicates that at one time, not so far back in the history of evolution, all men were mules.

The only way to manage them is to wait till they change their minds, just as the driver must wait upon his stubborn donkey. For you can never move one by reason or by threats. He would die and go to the wrong place rather than give up his point. This is why you will see some churches going to rack, antiquated and out of touch with the life about them. Look inside and you will find some old mule steward stalled in the amen corner, with his ears laid back at the pulpit or at the other stewards.

I pa.s.s, without giving details, over several years; they were much like these first ones. I soon learned, however, that life in the Methodist Church was all uphill or downhill at a smart spiritual canter. In these days it is nearly as easy to be a Methodist as it is to be an Episcopalian.

One rarely sees now the hallelujah end of a human emotion in a Methodist church. Recently, when an old-fas.h.i.+oned saint gave way and scandalized the preacher by shouting in one of our fas.h.i.+onable city churches, the stewards took her out, put her in an ambulance and sent her to the hospital. And I am not saying that the dear old soul didn't need a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia; but if every man who shouts at a political rally were sent to the hospital for treatment the real sick would be obliged to move out to give them room. As for me, I contend that a little shouting is good for the soul; it is the human hysteria of a very high form of happiness, more edifying to unhappy sinners than the refrigerated manners of some modern saints.

Anyhow, I say there were no level grounds in Methodist experience in William's and my early days in the itinerancy. No matter how young or old or respectable they might be, those received into members.h.i.+p were expected to show signs of awful conviction for sin, to repent definitely--preferably in solemn abas.e.m.e.nt at the church altar--and to experience a sky-blue conversion. There were no such things as we see now--boys and girls simply graduating into church members.h.i.+p from the Sunday-school senior or junior cla.s.s. I am not saying it is wrong, you understand; on the contrary, it would be much better for the church if it did more spiritual hospital work among the kind of people who are too bad even to go to Sunday-school. I think they all ought to be taken into the church and kept there till they get well spiritually and decent morally. Then they might be discharged as other cured people are, to go back into the world to do the world's work properly instead of improperly.

As it is, one trouble with all the churches is that they have too many incurable saints in them, men and women who pray too much and do too little, who cannot forget their own selfish salvation enough to look after other people's without feeling their own spiritual pulse all the time they are doing it. Of late I've sometimes suspected that it is nearly as debilitating to stay in the church all the time as it would be to stay in a hospital all the time.

But I am telling now how things were twenty-five and thirty years ago.

After conversion an honest Methodist's life was divided into two parts--the seasons when he was "in grace" and the seasons when he was out of it. Naturally, the preacher had his hands full looking after such members instead of having his hands full, as he does now, attending committee meetings and mission cla.s.ses and what not, for the ethical uplifting of the native poor and the foreign heathen. For, if old Brother Settles, of Raburn Gap Church, was up and coming, resisting temptation and growing like Jonah's gourd spiritually, apt as not young Brother Jimmy Trotter, of Bee Creek Church, had backslid and gone on a spree.

There was never a night when William's family-prayer instinct did not include both of them with equal anxiety, and often he would reach back into past circuits for some especially dear sinner and remind the Lord to have mercy on him also, while He was at His mercies. He could forget the saints he had known, easy enough, but he clung year after year to the sinners he had found, name by name.

If the redeemed really do wear crowns in Heaven, with jewels in them to represent the souls they have helped to save, I know William's will not look very handsome. There will be no flas.h.i.+ng diamonds or emeralds in it, but he will have it set with very common stones to symbolize the kind of souls that were most dear to him. There will be a dull jade for the young country woman that he brought back home from the city and saved from a life of sin, and, maybe, a bit of red gla.s.s for Sammy Peters, the young man with whom he was wont to go through such orgies of repentance on account of Sammy's many scandalous transgressions.

And he will have a piece of granite beaten down into fine gold for the old man who repented before it was too late. And I reckon he will be sitting somewhere upon the dimmer outskirts of Paradise most of the time, with grandly-folded wings, holding the thing in his hands instead of wearing it on his head; and he will be recalling those for whom the stones stand, with a tender homesickness for them. For even in Heaven he will be lonely without them, his dear, straying sheep.

Always the people we served were poor, and, of course, we were a trifle poorer. The circuit rider is not only a priest to his people, but he is a good deal of a mendicant besides. William rarely returned from an appointment or from visiting among his flock that he did not bring with him some largess of their kindness. This made pastoral visiting an amiable form of foraging and had its effect on character. We were continually struggling against the beggar instinct that is dormant in every hopelessly poor man. We were tempted within and without.

Sometimes we could not live on the salary paid, neither could we refuse the gifts offered without giving offense. If it was winter he would come back with the pockets of his great-coat stuffed with sausage, or there would be a tray of backbone, souse and spareribs under the buggy seat. If it was summer the wide back would be filled with fruit. One old lady on the Raburn Gap Circuit, famous for her stinginess, never varied her gift with the seasons. It was always dried peaches with the skins on them. But, as a rule, we received the very best they had to give, and with a fragrant openheartedness that sweetens memory. This is the glory of the itinerancy: if the preacher sees the worst of the people, knows their faults and weaknesses better than any other man, he also knows their virtues better.

Once, when we were far up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the people had no money at all except that which they received for a few loads of tanbark and with which they paid their taxes, we came to desperate straits. Now, it so happened that year that the women in a rich city church sent out Christmas boxes containing clothing and other necessities. We were fortunate enough to receive one of these, and I flourished forth in singularly fas.h.i.+onable garments for a season, while William made a splendid appearance in the cast-off dinner suit of a certain rich but wicked Congressman. The swaggering cut of the coat, however, gave almost a sacrilegious grace to his gestures in the pulpit.

CHAPTER VII

THE LITTLE ITINERANT--AND OTHERS

On this circuit, in a house nearly as open as a barn, on a freezing winter night, our baby was born. The gaunt, dark room, the roaring fire upon the wide hearth, the ugly little kettle of herb tea steaming on the live coals, and the old mountain midwife, bending with her hideous scroll face over me, are all a part of the memory of an immortal pain. At the end of a dreadful day she had turned with some contempt from the fine lady on the bed, who could not give birth to her child, and said simply, as if with the saying she washed her hands of the whole matter:

"She ain't doin' right. I reckon somethin' is wrong."

William had ridden forth in the driving storm of snow and ice for the doctor, who lived ten miles distant across the mountain. And then the hours came and sat around the awful bed and would not pa.s.s, nor let even midnight come. Now and again the old scroll face peeped down at me with an expression of extreme terror. The firelight made a red mist over the dark walls and the steam of the herbs filled my nostrils with a sickening odor.

At last there was an end of endurance; the hours lifted their leaden wings and hurried away; the old midwife changed to a dragon-faced b.u.t.terfly, and I knew no more till the dawn and the snow spread a pale light over the world outside. Within, the fires still blazed, but the herb kettle was gone and the ring of ghosts coals lay whitening in their ashes where it spouted and steamed; the old hag sat asleep in the chimney corner, with her hands hanging down, her head thrown back, and her warped mouth gaping wide at the rafters above. Over a little table by the door a fine white tablecloth was spread. I wondered at it dimly and what it concealed. I felt William's s.h.a.ggy head bowed upon the bed and a peace in my body akin to the peace of death. Laboriously my eyes traveled back to the fine white cloth over the table. I knew all about it, but could not remember. Only, nothing in the world mattered to me but that, whatever it was, under the cloth on the table. Presently, soft as a shade returns, it came to me, and I knew the little shape, barely curving the cloth, was my baby. Grief was an emotion I had not the strength to afford. I closed my eyes and felt tears press through the lids, and then a gruff voice sounded close to me on the other side of the bed.

"Thank G.o.d!"