CHAPTER IV.
The Log-Chapel.--Father Beals.--Aunt Graves.--Sister Abigail.--Bigelow Van Slyck, the Preacher.--His Entree.--How he worked.--One of his Sermons.--Performance of the Choir.--"Coronation" achieved.--Getting into Position.--Personal Appeals.--Effect on the Congregation.--Sabbath in the Wilderness.--Is Bigelow the only Ridiculous Preacher?
Puddleford was not altogether a wilderness, although it was located near awilderness. It was located just on the outskirts of civilization, and, likeVenison Styles, it caught a reflection of civilized life from the east, andof savage life from the west. It was an organized township, and was a partof an organized county. There were hundreds and thousands of men who werebusy at work all over this county, cutting down the trees and breaking upthe soil. Law and religion had found their way among them, just as theyalways accompany the American pioneer. It could not be otherwise; becausethese obligations grow up and weave themselves into the very nature of thepeople of our republic. They are written on the soul. So that judicialcircuits, a court-house and jail, Methodist circuits and circuit-riders,and meeting-houses, were established. All this was rough, like the countryitself.
Few persons have ever attempted to define the piety of just such acommunity as this; and yet it has a form, tone, and character peculiarlyits own. The portraits of the Puddlefordians were just as clearlyreproduced in their religion, as if they had been drawn by sunlight.
The "log-chapel," as it was called at Puddleford, was filled each week,with one or two hundred rough, hard-featured, unlearned men and women, whohad come in from all parts of the country; some for devotional exercises,some for amusement; some to look, and some to be looked at. Thiscongregation shifted faces each week, like the colors in a kaleidoscope. Itwas never the same. The man in the pulpit must have felt as though he werepreaching to a running river, whose parts were continually changing. Yetthere was a church at Puddleford, in the strict sense of the word; it wasorganized, and had, at the time I refer to, ten regular members in goodstanding; all the rest was "floating capital," that drifted in from Sundayto Sunday, and swelled the "church proper."
There was "Father Beals," and old "Aunt Graves," and "Sister Abigail," whowere regular attendants at all times and seasons. They were, beyond alldoubt, the pillars of the Puddleford church. Father Beals was _the_ church,before any building for worship was erected. He was looked upon as aliving, moving, spiritual body; a Methodist organization in himself; andwherever he went to worship on the Sabbath, whether in a private house, abarn, or in the forest, all the followers of that order were found withhim, drawn there by a kind of magnetism. The old man had been one of thefaithful from a boy; had carried his principles about him from day to day;was indeed a light in the world; and he was, by some plan of PROVIDENCE,flung far back into the wilderness, all burning, to kindle up and set onfire those about him. His influence had built the log-chapel, and, like aregulator in a watch, he kept it steady, pushing this wheel a littlefaster, and checking that. Sometimes he had to command, sometimes entreat,sometimes threaten, sometimes soothe.
"Father Beals" was a good man; and no higher compliment can be paid to anyperson. His head was very large, bald, and his hair was white. There was anexpression of great benevolence in his face, and a cold calmness in hisblue eye that never failed to command respect. He used to sit, on Sundays,just under the pulpit, with a red cotton handkerchief thrown over him,while his wide-brimmed hat, that he wore into the country, stood in front,on a table, and really seemed to listen to the sermon.
"Aunt Graves" was a very useful body in her way, and the Puddleford churchcould not have spared her any more than "Father Beals." She was an oldmaid, and had been a member of the log-chapel from its beginning. She wasone of those sincere souls that really believed that there was but onechurch in the world, and that was her own. She felt a kind of horror whenshe read of other denominations having an actual existence, and wondered"what kind of judgment would fall upon them." She didn't know very muchabout the Bible, but she knew a great deal about religion; she knew allabout her own duty, and quite a good deal about the duty of her neighbors.
Now "Aunt Graves" was useful in many ways. She kept, in the first place, akind of spiritual thermometer, that always denoted the range of everymember's piety except her own. Every slip of the tongue; everyuncharitable remark; every piece of indiscretion, by word or deed; all actsof omission, as well as of commission, were carefully registered by her,and could at any time be examined and corrected by the church. This wasconvenient and useful. Then, she was a choice piece of melody; there wasnot another voice like hers in the settlement. It had evidently beenpitched "from the beginning" for the occasion. It possessed great power,was quite shaky (a modern refinement in music), and could be heard from ahalf to three quarters of a mile. She has been known to sweep away on ahigh note, and actually take the Puddleford choir off their feet. She rodethrough the staff of music headlong, like a circus-rider around the ring;and could jump three or four notes at any time, without lessening herspeed, or breaking the harmony. She would take any piece of sacred music bystorm, on the very shortest notice. In fact, she was _the_ treble, aided bya few others who had received their instruction from her; and she was justas indispensable to worship, she thought, as a prayer or a sermon.
"Aunt Graves" always made it her business to "keep a sharp lookout" afterthe morals of the preacher. "Men are but men," she used to say, "andpreachers are but men; and they need some person to give 'em a hunch oncein a while." Sometimes she would lecture him of the log-chapel for hoursupon evidences of piety, acts of immorality, the importance ofcircumspection, the great danger that surrounded him--her tongue buzzingall the while like a mill-wheel, propelled as it was by so much zeal. Shesaid it almost made her "crazy to keep the Puddleford church right sideup; for it _did_ seem as though she had everything on her shoulders; andshe _really_ believed it would have gone to smash long ago, if it hadn'tbeen for her."
Now, "Sister Abigail" wasn't anybody in particular--that is, she was notexactly a free agent. She was "Aunt Graves's" shadow--a reflection of her;a kind of person that said what "Aunt Graves" said, and did what she did,and knew what she knew, and got angry when she did, and over it when shedid. She was a kind of dial that "Aunt Graves" shone upon, and any onecould tell what time of day it was with "Aunt Graves," by looking at"Sister Abigail."
Besides these lights in the church, there were about (as I have said) tenor a dozen members, and a congregation weekly of one or two hundred.
But I must not pass over the preacher himself. I only speak of one,although many filled the pulpit of the Puddleford church during myacquaintance with it. Bigelow Van Slyck was at one time a circuit-rider onthe Puddleford circuit; and I must be permitted to say, he was the mostimportant character that had filled that station prior to the time to whichI have reference. He was half Yankee, half Dutch; an ingenious cross,effected somewhere down in the State of Pennsylvania. He was not yet afull-blown preacher, but an exhorter merely. He was active, industrious,zealous, and one would have thought he had more duty on his hands than thehead of the nation. His circuit reached miles and miles every way. He washere to-day, there to-morrow, and somewhere else next day; and he ate andslept where he could.
Bigelow's appointments were all given out weeks in advance. Theseappointments must be fulfilled; and he was so continually pressed, that onewould have thought the furies were ever chasing him.
I have often seen him rushing into the settlement after a hard day's ride.He wore a white hat with a wide brim, a Kentucky-jean coat, corduroy vestand breeches, a heavy pair of clouded-blue yarn stockings, and stogy boots.He rode a racking Indian pony, who wore a shaggy mane and tail. Bigelowusually made his appearance in Puddleford just as the long shadows of aSaturday evening were pointing over the landscape. The pony came clatteringin at the top of his speed, panting and blowing, as full of business andzeal as his master, while Bigelow's extended legs and fluttering bandanakept time to the movement. The women ran t
o the doors, the children pausedin the midst of their frolic, as his pony stirred up the echoes aroundtheir ears; and it is said that the chickens and turkeys, who had oftenwitnessed the death of one of their number when this phantom appeared, setup a most dismal hue-and-cry, and took to their wings in the greatestconsternation.
We hope that none of our readers will form an unfavorable opinion ofBigelow, after having read our description of him. He was the man of allothers to fill the station he occupied. He was as much a part of, and asnecessary to, the wilderness he inhabited, as the oak itself. He belongedto the locality. He was one of a gallery of portraits that nature andcircumstances had hung up in the forest for a useful purpose, just asSquire Longbow was another. The one managed the church, the other thecourts; and all this was done in reference to society as it was, not whatit ought to be, or might be. There was a kind of elasticity about Bigelow'stheology, as there was about the Squire's law, that let all perplexingtechnicalities pass along without producing any friction. They weregraduated upon the sliding-scale principle, and were never exactly thesame.
Bigelow was a host in theology in his way. He could reconcile at once anyand every point that could be raised. He never admitted a doubt to enterinto his exhortations, but he informed his hearers at once just how thematter stood. He professed to be able to demonstrate any theologicalquestion at once, to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind; and it wasall folly to labor with the unreasonable, he said, for they would "fightagin the truth as long as they could, any way."
I used occasionally to hear him exhort, and he was in every respect anoff-hand preacher. He worked like a blacksmith at the forge. Coat, vest,and handkerchief, one after the other, flew off as he became more and moreheated in his discourse. At one time he thundered down the terrors of thelaw upon the heads of his hearers; at another he persuaded; and suddenly hewould take a facetious turn, and accompany the truth with a story about hisgrandfather down on the Ohio, or an anecdote that he had read in thenewspapers. He wept and he laughed, and the whole assembly were moved ashis feelings moved; now silent with grief, and now swelling withenthusiasm.
I recollect one of his sermons in part, and, in fact, the most of theservices accompanying it. It was a soft day in June. The birds were singingand revelling among the trees which canopied the chapel. The church wasfilled. The choir were all present. "Father Beals," "Aunt Graves," and"Sister Abigail" were in their accustomed seats. The farmers from thecountry had "turned out;" in fact, it was one of the most stirring daysPuddleford had ever known. It was quite evident that the occasion wasextraordinary, as "Aunt Graves" was very nervous the moment she took herseat in the choir. If any error should be committed, the exercises would bespoiled, prayers, preaching, and all; because, according to her judgment,they all depended upon good music; and _that_ she was responsible for. Soshe began to hitch about, first this way, and then that; then she ran overthe music-book, and then the index to it; then she hummed a tune inaudiblythrough her nose; then she examined the hymn-book, and then changed herseat; and then changed back again. She was, in her opinion, the wheel thatkept every other wheel in motion; and what if _that_ wheel should stop!
But the hymn was at last given out; and there was a rustling of leaves, andan a-hemming, and coughing, and spitting, and sounding of notes; and a tooton a cracked clarinet, which had been wound with tow; and a low grunt froma bass-viol, produced by a grave-looking man in the corner. Then all rose,and launched forth in one of those ancient pieces of church harmony,"Coronation;" every voice and instrument letting itself go to its utmostextent. One airy-looking person was pumping out his bass by rising andfalling on his toes; another, more solemn, was urging it up by crowding hischin on his breast; another jerked it out by a twist of his head; while onequiet old man, whose face beamed with tranquillity, just stood, in perfectecstasy, and let the melody run out of his nose. The genius on theclarinet blew as if he were blowing his last. His cheeks were bloated, hiseyes were wild and extended, and his head danced this way and that, keepingtime with his fingers; and he who sawed the viol tore away upon hisinstrument with a kind of ferocity, as if he were determined to commit someviolence upon it. But the treble--what shall I say of _it_? "Aunt Graves"was nowhere to be seen, after the "parts" had got into full play; she puton the power of her voice, and "drowned out" everything around her at once;and then, rising higher and higher, she rushed through the notes, the choirin full chase after her, and absolutely came out safely at last, and struckupon her feet, without injuring herself or any one else.
When this performance closed, quite an air of self-satisfaction played overthe faces of all, declaring clearly enough that their business was over foran hour at least. In fact, "Aunt Graves" was entirely out of breath, andremained in a languishing state for several minutes. So they busiedthemselves the best way they could. They gazed at every person in the houseexcept the preacher, and did everything but worship. I noticed that it wasvery difficult for the female portion to "get into position." They tried alounge and a lean, an averted face and a full one. Then theirbonnet-strings troubled them, and then their shawls; and now a lock of hairgot astray, and then something else. The men were as philosophical andindifferent as so many players at a show. He of the clarinet once so forgotthe day as to raise his instrument to the window and take a peep throughit, so that he might detect its air-holes, if any there were; and heafterwards amused himself and me, a long time, by gravely licking down itstow bandage, so that it might be in condition when called upon to performagain. In fact, the Puddleford choir was very much like choirs in all otherplaces.
By and by, Bigelow took his stand, preparatory to his sermon. I do notintend to follow Bigelow through his discourse, because I could not do soif I attempted it; nor would it be of any importance to the reader, if Icould. He said he would not take any text, but he would preach a sermonthat would suit a hundred texts. He did not like to confine himself to anyparticular portion of the Bible; but wished to retain the privilege offollowing up the manifold sins of his congregation, in whomsoever orwherever they existed. He then launched himself forth, denouncing, in thefirst place, the sin of profanity, which is very common in all newcountries, evidently having in view two or three of his hearers who werenotoriously profane; and after considering the question generally, hedeclared "that of all sinners, the profane man is the greatest fool,because he receives nothing for his wickedness. A'n't that true, LukeSmith?" he continued, as he reached out his finger towards Luke, whosedaily conversation was a string of oaths; "a'n't that true? How much have_you_ made by it?--answer to me, and this congregation." Luke quivered asif a shock of electricity had passed through him.
Bigelow then gave a short history of his own sins in that line at an earlyday, before he entered the pulpit, when he was young and surrounded bytemptations; but, he said, he reformed at last, and every other man mightdo so by the same means. "When you feel yourself swelling with a bigoath--for every man feels 'em inside before they break out," exclaimedBigelow,--"jump up and cry "Jezebel!" three times in succession, and you'llfeel as calm as an infant. This," he continued, "lets off the feelingwithout the commission of sin, and leaves the system healthy."
He next considered the sin of Sabbath-breaking; and he poured down themelting lava upon the heads of his hearers with a strength and ingenuitythat I have seldom seen equalled. "Men," he said, "would labor harder tobreak the Sabbath than they would for bread. They would chase a deer frommorning till night on this holy day, kill him, and then _throw the carcassaway_; but week-days they lounge about some Puddleford dram-shop, whiletheir families were suffering. Men, too," he continued, "fish on Sundays,because the devil has informed them that fish bite better. It is the devilhimself who does the biting, not the fish; it is _he_ who is fishing for_you_; for Bill Larkin, and Sam Trimble, and Hugh Williams, and scores ofothers; he's got you now, and you will be scaled and dressed for his tableunless you escape instantly;" and then, to impress his illustration, hesoared away into a flight of eloquence just suited to his hearers; rou
ghand fiery, plain and pointed, neither above nor below the capacity of thosehe addressed.
Bigelow then made a descent upon lying and liars. He regretted to say thatthis sin was very common in the church. "He had a dozen complaints beforehim now, undecided;" and he detailed a few of them, as specimens of "thedepravity of the human heart." He "didn't want to hear any more of them, ashe had something else to do, besides taking charge of the tongues of hischurch."
Then came an exhortation on _duties_; and almost every practical virtuewas mentioned and impressed. Early rising, industry, economy, modesty,contentment, etc., etc., all received a notice at his hands. "Don't sleepyourselves to death!" exclaimed Bigelow; "rise early! work! for while yousleep the Enemy will sow your fields full of tares; and the only way tokeep him out is to be on the spot _yourself_!" This was a literalapplication of the parable, it is true; yet it was very well done, andproductive, I have no doubt, of some good.
Bigelow closed in a most tempestuous manner. He was eloquent, sarcastic,and comical, by turns. He had taken off nearly all his clothes, except hispantaloons, shirt, and suspenders; a custom among a certain class ofwestern preachers, however strange it may appear to many readers. Streamsof perspiration were running down his face and neck; his hair was inconfusion; and altogether, he presented the appearance of a man who hadpassed through some convulsion of nature, and barely escaped with his life.
I could not help thinking that Bigelow was entitled to great credit, notonly for the matter his sermon contained, but in being able to deliver asermon at all amid the confusion which often surrounded him. There were adozen or more infants in the crowd, some crowing, some crying, and somechattering. One elderly lady, in particular, had in charge one of theseresponsibilities, that seemed to set the place and the preacher atdefiance. She tried every expedient to quiet the little nuisance, but itwas of "no use." She set it down, laid it down, turned it around, nursedit, chirped at it; and finally, giving up in despair, she placed it on herknee, the child roaring at the top of its lungs, and commenced trotting itin the very face of the audience. This operation cut up the music of theinnocent, and threw it out in short, quick jerks, very agreeable to thepreacher and congregation.
An excellent old woman also sat directly in front of Bigelow, her leftelbow resting on her knee, which she swayed to and fro with a sigh. Herface lay devoutly in the palm of her hand, while her right thumb andfore-finger held a pinch of snuff, which she every now and then slowlybreathed up a hawk-bill nose, with a long-drawn whistle, something afterthe sort that broke forth from the clarinet a while before. She then blew ablast into a faded cotton handkerchief, that reverberated like the voice of"many trumpets." This was followed by fits of coughing, and sneezing, andsighing; in fact, she sounded as great a variety of notes as the choiritself.
Besides all this, a troop of dogs who had followed their masters werecontinually marching up and down the chapel; and when any unusualexcitement occurred with Bigelow, or any one else, as there did severaltimes, we had a barking-chorus, which threatened to suspend the wholemeeting. Bigelow, however, didn't mind any or all of these things; but,like a skilful engineer, he put on the more steam, and ran down everyobstacle in his way.
Reader, I have given you a description of the log-chapel at Puddleford. Itis like a thousand other places of public worship in a "new country." Ifthere is something to condemn, there is more to praise. There seems to be aprovidence in this, as in all other things.
The settlers in a forest are a rough, hardy, and generally an honest raceof men. It is their business to hew down the wilderness, and prepare theway for a different class who will surely follow them. They cannotcultivate their minds to any extent, or refine their characters. They mustbe reached through the pulpit by such means as _will_ reach them. Of whatimportance is a nice theological distinction with them? Of what force alabored pulpit disquisition? They have great vices and strong virtues.Their vices must be smitten and scattered with a sledge-hammer; they arenot to be played with in a flourish of rhetoric. Just such a human tornadoas Bigelow is the man for the place; he may commit some mischief, but hewill leave behind him a purer moral atmosphere and a serener sky.
Society, in such a place as Puddleford, is cultivated very much like itssoil. Both lie in a state of rude nature, and both must be improved. Thegreat "breaking-plough," with its dozen yoke of cattle, in the first place,goes tearing and groaning through the roots and grubs that lie twistedunder it, just as Bigelow tore and groaned through the stupidity andwickedness of his hearers. Then comes the green grass, and wheat, andflowers, as years draw on; producing, at last, "some sixty, and some ahundred-fold."
There is something impressive in the Sabbath in the wilderness. A quietbreathes over the landscape that is almost overwhelming. In a city, thechurch-steeples talk to one another their lofty music; but there are nobells in the wilderness to mark the hours of worship. The only bell whichis heard is rung by Memory, as the hour of prayer draws nigh; somevillage-bell, far away, that vibrated over the hills of our nativity, thetones of which we have carried away in our soul, and which are awakened bythe solemnity of the day.
There is a philosophy in all this, if we will but see it; there is more;there is a lesson, possibly a reproof. If we are disposed to smile at therusticity of a Puddleford church, may we not with equal reason becomeserious over the overgrown refinement of many another? May not something belearned in the very contrast which is thus afforded? Do not the extravaganthyperbole, coarse allusions, irreverent anecdote, and strong but unpolishedshafts of sarcasm, that such as Bigelow so unsparingly scatter over thesanctuary, give a rich background and strong relief to the finishedrhetoric of many a pulpit essay, that has been written to play with thefancy and tranquillize the nerves of a refined and fashionable audience?Are not the extremes equally ridiculous? the one not having reached, theother having passed the zenith.