The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.)
"The pious brother brings several grave charges; first, they ride goodhorses. Now don't every man, woman and child in the Purchase know thatSprightly and his preachers have hardly any home, and that they live onhorseback? The money most folks spend in land these men spend for a goodhorse; and don't they _need_ a good horse to stand mud and swim floods?And is it any sin for a horse to be kept fat that does so much work? Thebook says 'a merciful man is merciful to his beast,' and that we mustn't'muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' Step round that fencecorner, and take a peep, dear friends, at a horse hung on the stake;what's he like? A wooden frame with a dry hide stretched over it. What'she live on? Ay! that's the pint! Well, what's them buzzards after?--lookat them sailing up there. Now who owns that live carrion?--the piousbrother that's just preached to us just now. And I want to know if itwouldn't be better for him to give that dumb brute something to coverhis bones, before he talks against 'hunder-dollur hossis' and the like?
"The next charge is, wearing good clothes. Friends, don't all folks whenthey come to meeting put on their best clothes? and wouldn't it be wrongif preachers came in old torn coats and dirty shirts? It wouldn't do nohow. Well, Sprightly and his preachers preach near about every day; andoughtn't they always to look decent? Take, then, a peep at the piousbrother that makes this charge; his coat is out at the elbow, and hasonly three or four buttons left, and his arm, where he wipes his noseand mouth, is shiny as a looking glass--his trousers are crawling up toshow he's got no stockings on; and his face has got a crop of beard twoweeks old and couldn't be cleaned by 'baby sprinklin''; yes, look atthem there matters, and say if Sprightly's preachers ain't more like theapostles in decency than the pious brother is.
"A word now about chickin-fixins and doins. And I say it would be acharity to give the pious brother sich a feed now and then, for he lookshalf-starved, and savage as a meat-ax; and I advise that old hen outthare clucking up her brood not to come this way just now, if she don'twant all to disappear. But I say that Sprightly's preachers are so muchbeliked in the Purchase, that folks are always glad to see them, andmake a pint of giving them the best out of love; an' that's more thancan be said for some folks here.
"The pious brother says he only wants our souls--then what makes himpeddle about Thomsonian physic? Why don't he and Campbell make steam andNo. 6 as free as preaching? I read of a quack doctor once, who used togive his advice free gratis for nothing to any one what would _buy_ abox of his pills--but as I see the pious brother is crawling round thefence to his anatomical horse and physical saddle-bags, I have nothingto say, and so, dear friends, I bid you all good-by."
Such was Rev. Elder Sprightly, who preached to us on Sabbath morning atthe Camp. Hence, it is not remarkable that in common with many worthypersons, he should think his talents properly employed in using up"Johnny Calvin and his boys," especially as no subject is better forpopularity at a camp-meeting. He gave us, accordingly, first, thataffecting story of Calvin and Servetus, in which the latter figuredto-day like a Christian Confessor and martyr, and the former as adiabolical persecutor; many moving incidents being introduced not foundin history, and many ingenious inferences and suppositions tending toblacken the Reformer's character. Judging from the frequency of the deepgroans, loud amens, and noisy hallelujahs of the congregation during thenarrative, had Calvin suddenly thrust in among us his hatchet face andgoat's beard, he would have been hissed and pelted, nay possibly beenlynched and soused in the branch; while the excellent Servetus wouldhave been _toted_ on our shoulders, and feasted in the tents on friedham, cold chicken fixins and horse sorrel pies!
Here is a specimen of Mr. S.'s mode of exciting triumphant exclamation,amens, groans, etc., against Calvin and his followers: "Dear sisters,don't you love the tender little darling babes that hang on yourparental bosoms? (amen!)--Yes! I know you do--(amen! amen!)--Yes, Iknow, I know it.--(Amen, amen! hallelujah!) Now don't it make yourparental hearts throb with anguish to think those dear infantiledarlings might some day be out burning brush and fall into the flamesand be burned to death! (deep groans.)--Yes, it does, it does! But oh!sisters, oh! mothers! how can you think your babes mightn't get religionand die and be burned for ever and ever? (O! forbid--amen--groans.) But,oho! only think--only think, oh! would you ever a had them darlinginfantile sucklings born, if you had a known they were to be burned in abrush heap! (No, no!--groans--shrieks.) What! what! _what!_ if you had_foreknown_ they must have gone to hell?--(hoho! hoho--amen!) And doesanybody think He is such a tyrant as to make spotless, innocent babiesjust to damn them? (No! in a voice of thunder.)--No! sisters! no! no!mothers! No! _no!_ sinners, _no!!_--He ain't such a tyrant!Let John Calvin burn, torture and roast, but He never foreordainedbabies, as Calvin says, to damnation! (damnation!--echoed byhundreds.)--Hallelujah! 'tis a free salvation! Glory! a freesalvation!--(Here Mr. S. battered the rail of the pulpit with his fists,and kicked the bottom with his feet--many screamed--some criedamen!--others groaned and hissed--and more than a dozen females of twoopposite colors arose and clapped their hands as if engaged instarching, etc., etc.) No-h-o! _'tis_ a free, a free, a _free_salvation!--away with Calvin! 'tis for all! _all!_ ALL! Yes! shout itout! clap on! rejoice! rejoice! oho-oho! sinners, sinners, sinners,oh-ho-oho!" etc., etc.
Here was maintained for some minutes the most edifying uproar ofshouting, bellowing, crying, clapping and stamping, mingled withhysterical laughing, termed out there "holy laughing," and even dancing!and barking! called also "holy!"--till, at the partial subsidence of thebedlam, the orator resumed his eloquence.
It is singular Mr. S. overlooked an objection to the divine Providencearising from his own illustration. That children do sometimes perish bybeing burnt and drowned, is undeniable; yet is not their existenceprevented--and that in the very case where the sisters were induced tosay _they_ would have prevented their existence! But, in justice to Mr.S., we must say that he seemed to have anticipated the objection, and tohave furnished the reply; for, said he, in one part of his discourse,"God did not _wish_ to foreknow _some_ things!"
But our friend's mode of avoiding a predestined death--if such anabsurdity be supposed--deserves all praise for the facility andsimplicity of the contrivance. "Let us," said he, "for argument's sake,grant that I, the Rev. Elder Sprightly, am foreordained to be drowned,in the river, at Smith's Ferry, next Thursday morning, at twenty-twominutes after ten o'clock; and suppose I know it; and suppose I am afree, moral, voluntary, accountable agent, as Calvinists say--do youthink I'm going to be drowned? No!--I would stay at home all day; andyou'll never ketch the Rev. Elder Sprightly at Smith's Ferry--nor nearthe river neither!"
Reader, is it any wonder Calvinism is on the decline? Logic it _can_stand; but human nature thus excited in opposition, it can not stand.Hence, throughout our vast assembly to-day, this unpopular _ism_, inspite of Calvin and the Epistle to the Romans, was put down; if not byacclamation, yet by exclamation--by shouting--by roaring--by groaningand hissing--by clapping and stamping--by laughing, and crying, andwhining; and thus the end of the sermon was gained and the _preacher_glorified!
The introductory discourse in the afternoon was by the Rev. RemarkableNovus. This was a gentleman I had often the pleasure of entertaining atmy house in Woodville; and he _was_ a Christian in sentiment andfeeling; for though properly and decidedly a warm friend to his ownsect, he was charitably disposed toward myself and others that differedfrom him ecclesiastically. His talents were moderate; but his voice wastranscendently excellent. It was rich, deep, mellow, liquid andsonorous, and capable of any inflections. It could preserve its melodyin an unruffled flow, at a pitch far beyond the highest point reached bythe best-cultivated voice. His fancy naturally capricious, was indulgedwithout restraint; yet not being a learned or well-read man, he mistookwords for ideas, and hence employed without stint all the terms in hisvocabulary for the commonest thoughts. He believed, too, like most ofhis brotherhood, that excitement and agitation were necessary toconversion and of the essence of religion; and this, with a pronenessto d
elight in the music and witchery of his own wonderful voice, madeMr. Novus an eccentric preacher, and induced him often to excel atcamp-meetings, the very extravagances of his clerical brethren, whommore than once he has ridiculed and condemned at my fireside.
The camp-meeting was, in fact, too great a temptation for my friend'stemperament, and the very theater for the full display of hismagnificent voice; and naturally, this afternoon, off he set at atangent, interrupting the current of his sermon by extemporaneous burstsof warning, entreaty and exhortation. Here is something like hisdiscourse--yet done by me in a _subdued tone_--as, I repeat, are mostextravaganzas of the ecclesiastical and spiritual sort, not only here,but in all other parts of the work.
"My text, dear hearers," said he, "on this auspicious, and solemn, andheaven-ordered occasion, is that exhortation of the inspired apostle,'Walk worthy of your vocation.'
"And what, my dear brethren, what do you imagine and conjecture our holypenman meant by 'walking?' Think ye he meant a physical walking, and amoving, and a going backward and forward thus? (represented by Mr. N.'sproceeding, or rather marching, _a la militaire_, several times from endto end of the staging). No, sirs!--it was not a literal walking andlocomotion, a moving and agitating of the natural legs and limbs. No,sirs!--no!--but it was a moral, a spiritual, a religious, ay! yes! aphilosophical and metaphorically figurative walking, our holy apostlemeant!
"Philosophic, did I say? Yes: philosophic _did_ I say. For religion isthe most philosophical thing in the universe--ay! throughout the wholeexpansive infinitude of the divine empire. Tell me, deluded infidels andmistaken unbelievers! tell me, ain't philosophy what's according to theconsistency of nature's regular laws? and what's more onsentaneous andhomogeneous to man's sublimated moral nature, than religion? Yes! tellme! Yes! yes! I am for a philosophical religion, and a philosophicalreligion is for _me_--ay! we are mutually made and formed for thisbeautiful reciprocality!
"And yet some say we make too much noise--even some of our respectedWoodville merchants--(meaning the author). But what's worth making anoise about in the dark mundane of our terrestrial sphere, if religionain't? People always, and everywhere in all places, make most noiseabout what they opine to be most precious. See! yon banner streamingwith golden stars and glorious stripes over congregated troops, on theFourth of July, that ever-memorable--that never-to-be-_forgotten_ day,which celebrates the grand annual anniversary of our nation's libertyand independence! when our forefathers and ancestors burst asunder andtore forever off the iron chains of political thraldom! and rose inplenitude, ay! in the magnificence of their grandeur, and crushed theiroppressors!--yes! and hurled down dark despotism from the lofty pinnacleof its summit altitude, where she was seated on her liberty-crushingthrone, and hurled her out of her iron chariot, as her wheels thunderedover the prostrate slaves of power!--(Amen)--Yes!--hark!--we make anoise about that! But what's civil liberty to religious liberty, andemancipated disenthraldom from the dark despotism of yonder terrificprince of darkness! whose broad, black, piniony wings spread wide o'erthe aerial concave like a dense cloud upon a murky sky?--(A-a-men!)--Andain't it, ye men of yards and measures, philosophical to make a noiseabout this?--(Amen!--yes!) Yes! _yes!_ and I ain't ashamed to rejoiceand shout aloud. Ay! as long as the prophet was ordered to stamp withhis foot, I will stamp with my foot;--(here he stamped till the platformtrembled for its safety)--and to smite with his hand, I will _smite_with my hand--(slapping alternate hands on alternate thighs.)--Yes! andI will shout, too!--and cry aloud, and spare not--glory!for--ever!--(and here his voice rang out like the sweet, clear tones ofa bugle).
"And, therefore, my dear sisters and brethren, let us walk worthy of ourvocation; not with the natural legs of the physical corporation, but inthe apostolical way, with the metaphysical and figurative legs of themind--(here Mr. N. caught some one smiling).--Take care, sinner, takecare! curl not the scornful nose--I'm willing to be a fool forreligion's sake--but turn not up the scornful nose--do its ministers noharm! Sinner, mark me!--in yon deep and tangled grove, where tall,aspiring trees wave green and lofty heads in the free air of balmyskies--there sinner, an hour ago, when the sonorous horn called on ourembattled hosts to go to private prayer! an hour ago, in yonder grove Iknelt and prayed for you!--(hooh!)--yes! I prayed some poor soul mightbe given for my hire!--and he promised me one!--(Glory! glory!--ah! givehim one!)--laughing sinner!--take care!--I'll have you!--(Grantit--amen!--ooohoo!) Look out, I'm going to fire--(assuming the attitudeof rifle-shooting)--bang!--may He send that through your heart!--may itpierce clean home through joints and marrow!--and let all people sayamen!--(and here amen _was_ said, and not in the tame style of theAmerican Archbishop of Canterbury's cathedral, be assured; but whetherthe spiritual bullet hit the chap aimed at, I never learned; if it did,his groans were inaudible in the alarming thunder of that amen).
"Ay! ay! that's the way! that's the way! don't be ashamed of yourvocation--that's the way to walk and let your light shine! Now, somewise folks despise light, and call for miracles: but when we can't haveone kind of light, let us be philosophical, and take another. For mypart, when I'm bogging about these dark woods, far away in the silent,somber shadows, I rejoice in sunshine; and would prefer it of choice,rather than all other celestial and translucent luminaries: but when thegentle fanning zephyrs of the shadowy night breathe soft among thetrembling leaves and sprays of the darkening forests, then I rejoice inmoonshine: and when the moonshine dims and pales away, with the waningsilvery queen of heaven in her azure zone, I look up to the blue concaveof the circular vault, and rejoice in starlight. No! _no!_ NO! anylight!--give us any light rather than _none_!--(Ah, do, good--!) Yes!yes! we are the light of the world, and so let us let our light shine,whether sunshine, or moonshine, or starlight!--(oohoo!)--and then thepoor benighted sinner, bogging about this terraqueous, but dark andmundane sphere, will have a light like a pole star of the distant north,to point and guide him to the sunlit climes of yonder world of brightand blazing bliss!"--(A-a-amen!)
Such is part of the sermon. His concluding prayer ended thus--(Divinenames omitted).
"Oh, come down! come, come down! _down!_ now!--to-night!--do wondersthen! come down in _might_! come down in _power_! let salvation _roll_!_Come_ down! _come!_ and let the earthquaking mighty noise of thythundering chariot wheels be heard, and felt, and seen, and experiencedin the warring elements of our spiritualized hearts!"
During the prayer, many petitions and expressions were so rapturouslyand decidedly encored, that our friend kindly repeated them; andsometimes, like public singers, with handsome variations; and manypetitions by amateur zealots were put forth, without any notice of thecurrent prayer offered by Mr. N., yet evidently having in view someelegancy of his sermon. And not a few petitions, I regret to say, seemedto misapprehend the drift and scope of the preacher. One of this sortwas the earnest ejaculations of an old and worthy brother, who, in ahollow, sepulchral, and rather growly voice, bellowed out in a verybeautiful part of the grand prayer: "Oohhoo! take away _moonshine_!"
But our first performance was to be at night: and at the first _toot_ ofthe tin horn we assembled in expectation of a "good time." For, 1. Allday preparation had been making for the night; and the actors seemedevidently in restraint, as in mere rehearsal: 2. The night better suitsdisplays and scenes of any kind: but 3. The African was to preach; andrumor had said, "he was a most powerful big preacher, that could stir upfolks mighty quick, and use up the ole feller in less than no time."
After prefatory prayers and hymns, and _pithy_ exhortations by severalbrothers of the Circassian breed, our dusky divine, the Rev. MizraimHam, commenced his sermon, founded on the duel between David andGoliath.
This discourse we shall condense into a few pages; although the comedyor _mellow_-drama--for it greatly mellowed and relaxed themuscles--required for its entire action a full hour. There was, indeed,a prologue, but the rest was mainly dialogue, in which Mr. Hamwonderfully personated all the different speakers, varying his tone,manner, attitude, etc
., as varying characters and circumstancesdemanded. We fear much of the spirit has evaporated in thiscondensation; but that evil is unavoidable.
REV. MIZRAIM HAM'S DISCOURSE
"Bruthurn and sisturn, tention, if you pleases, while I want you for tounderstand this here battul most partiklur 'zact, or may be youmoughtn't comprend urn. Furst place, I gwyin to undevur to sarcumscribefust the 'cashin of this here battul: second place, the 'comdashins ofthe armies: third place, the folkses as was gwyin for to fite and didn'twant to, and some did: and last and fourth place, I'm gwyin for to showpurtiklur 'zact them as fit juul, and git victry and git kill'd.
"Tention, if you please, while I fustly sarcumscribe the 'casion of thishere battul. Bruthurn and sisturn, you see them thar hethun Fillystines,what warn't circumcised, they wants to ketch King Sol and his 'ar folksfor to make um slave; and so, they cums down to pick a quorl, and beginsa-totin off all their cawn, and wouldn't 'low um to make no hoes to hoeum, nor no homnee. And that 'ar, you see, stick in King Solsis gizurd;and he ups and says, says he, 'I'm not gwying to be used up that 'araway by them uncircumcis'd hethun Fillystines, and let um tote off ourfolkses cawn to chuck to thar hogs, and take away our hoes so we can'thoe um--and so, Jonathun, we'll drum up and list soljurs and try um abattul.' And then King Sol and his 'ar folks they goes up, and thehethun and theirn comes down and makes war. And this is the 'cashin whythey fit.
"Tention, 'gin, if you pleases, I'm gwyin in the next place secondly, toshow the 'comdashins of this here battul, which was so fashin like. TheFillystines they had thar army up thar on a mounting, and King Sol hehad hissin over thar, like, across a branch, amoss like that a onethar--(pointing)--and it was chuck full of sling rock all along on thebottom. And so they was both on um camp'd out; this a one on this 'arside, and tother a one on tother, and the lilly branch tween um--andthem's the 'comdashins.