  I AM New England born. I want a hymn and a prayer on Sunday. Not that I do not like both, on other days; but I am always homesick without them on Sunday. I want them in church, too. I said I wanted a hymn and a prayer. I want a sermon, too; but, alas! I am so often disappointed there, and I so dread being disappointed, that I generally take a seat near the door, where I can leave at the precise point when I feel happy, and the sermon begins. This is naughty, I know, but as I have gone into the confessional, I will make a clean "shrive" of it. I want what I want so much, and the lack of it spoils my Sunday. I want to know how to live; and the Rev. —— only tells me that I've "got to die." I want to know how to manage with to-day; and the Rev. —— only speculates about what may or what may not be in eternity. I want to be soothed, and helped, and propped, and comforted; and the Rev. —— tries to scare me with an "angry God," and a "sure damnation." I want earnestness in the pulpit; and instead, I find the Rev. —— drawling lazily, "And the Lud Ged said unto Adam." Perhaps these reasons may be some excuse for my dodging the "sermon" occasionally; if not, I plead guilty, and only ask you to acquit me of intentional irreverence. It still remains that who else soever can do without their Sunday, it is not I—Fanny. But that's not what I meant to speak about, only that you will insist on the "prelude" in church. I meant to tell you that the Sunday before I left New York, I had a genuine Sunday—one of my Sundays; when, on entering the church of the Rev. Dr. Hall, I did not exchange the sweet song of birds, the vivid green of the trees, or the blue of the fair skies, for sulphureous terrors. Since I heard Dr. Payson, of Portland, when he reached out pleading hands to win wayward feet into the path of life, I have never been so entirely satisfied with the delivery of the Master's message. Dr. Hall has the same dignity; the same pleading earnestness; the same deep, rich voice; the same appreciative way of reading the hymns; the same heart-tone in every syllable. With him it is no performance. No person present could fail to feel that he had come there that morning as a fond parent would go forth, full of tender love, and yearning for the child who had strayed from home. There was no narrowness, no bigotry, no uncharitable denunciation; and, at the same time, no blinking of the truth—and the whole truth. It was the lovely spirit of the I had a full meal; and if you could have gone away unsatisfied, I am sorry for you. It must be that you never had a heart-wrench; that you never reached out imploring hands in the darkness, only to grasp the empty air. It must be that the earth never opened at your feet, and swallowed up your dear ones. It must be that you never—with a sincere desire to do right, by yourself, and by others—found yourself choking with distressful tears, that each day's sun should go down with so poor a record. Oh, you never could have felt thus, or you could not have gone away from the sound of Dr. Hall's voice, and said, there was nothing there for me. At least I think you would have admired, as I did, his noble frankness in telling "church-members" that he did not blame outsiders for doubting their Christianity, when they were so swift to pronounce judgment on those who differed from them in opinion. "This is bigotry," said he; "this is fanaticism—it is not Christianity. Man's conscience was not given him for this—it was given him to scrutinize his own shortcomings." This pleased me, in contrast with the opinion held by many "Christians," that the faults of such should never be spoken of, "for the possible harm to the cause." Now, in conclusion, I would say to Dr. Hall's church, that to allow a clergyman like him to preach in a place so badly ventilated as was that church the What Difference can it Make what I Do or Say?—Now, there is not a man or woman living, nor ever has been, to whom it "makes no difference." If you have neither father, mother, brother, sister, child, husband, or wife, in the wide world, still there is some neighbor, some companion, whose eye, fixed upon you, is moved, perhaps unknown to themselves, for good or for evil. You slip an arm through theirs, in the crowded thoroughfare, or lay a friendly hand on their shoulder, and, in a leisure moment, saunter along together. Where? It was you who decided where. It is on you that the responsibility falls, perhaps, of that friend's first downward step. Never say, it "makes no difference what I do." It makes a difference to yourself, even were it true that it did to no one else. They who have passed many milestones on the journey of life, with their faces toward the Celestial City, do not stop to ask those who pass them on the road, of their creeds or nationalities. They see only the brother, or sister, to whom the helping hand and sympathizing word in time may be life or death for this world and the next. This is the true Christ-spirit. |
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