Chapter 44

SINK OR SWIM.

We entered the ministry with a mortal horror of extemporaneous speaking. Each week we wrote two sermons and a lecture all out, from the text to the amen. We did not dare to give out the notice of a prayer-meeting unless it was on paper. We were a slave to manuscript, and the chains were galling; and three months more of such work would have put us in the graveyard. We resolved on emancipation. The Sunday night was approaching when we expected to make violent rebellion against this bondage of pen and paper. We had an essay about ten minutes long on some Christian subject, which we proposed to preach as an introduction to the sermon, resolved, at the close of that brief composition, to launch out on the great sea of extemporaneousness.

It so happened that the coming Sabbath night Was to be eventful in the village. The trustees of the church had been building a gasometer back of the church, and the night I speak of the building was for the first time to be lighted in the modern way. The church was, of course, crowded--not so much to hear the preacher as to see how the gas would burn. Many were unbelieving, and said that there would be an explosion, or a big fire, or that in the midst of the service the lights would go out. Several brethren disposed to hang on to old customs declared that candles and oil were the only fit material for lighting a church, and they denounced the innovation as indicative of vanity on the part of the new-comers. They used oil in the ancient temple, and it was that which ran down on Aaron's beard, and anything that was good enough for the whiskers of an old-time priest was good enough for a country meeting-house. These sticklers for the oil were present that night, hoping--and I think some of them secretly praying--that the gas might go out.

With our ten-minute manuscript we went into the pulpit, all in a tremor. Although the gas did not burn as brightly as its friends had hoped, still it was bright enough to show the people the perspiration that stood in beads on our forehead. We began our discourse, and every sentence gave us the feeling that we were one step nearer the gallows. We spoke very slowly, so as to make the ten-minute notes last fifteen minutes. During the preachment of the brief manuscript we concluded that we had never been called to the ministry. We were in a hot bath of excitement. People noticed our trepidation, and supposed it was because we were afraid the gas would go out. Alas! our fear was that it would not go out. As we came toward the close of our brief we joined the anti-gas party, and prayed that before we came to the last written line something would burst, and leave us in the darkness. Indeed, we discovered an encouraging flicker amid the burners, which gave us the hope that the brief which lay before us would be long enough for all practical purposes, and that the hour of execution might be postponed to some other night. As we came to the sentence next to the last the lights fell down to half their size, and we could just manage to see the audience as they were floating away from our vision. We said to ourselves, "Why can't these lights be obliging, and go out entirely?" The wish was gratified. As we finished the last line of our brief, and stood on the verge of rhetorical destruction, the last glimmer of light was extinguished. "It is impossible to proceed," we cried out; "receive the benediction!"

We crawled down the pulpit in a state of exhilaration; we never before saw such handsome darkness. The odor of the escaping gas was to us like "gales from Araby." Did a frightened young man ever have such fortunate deliverance? The providence was probably intended to humble the trustees, yet the scared preacher took advantage of it.

But after we got home we saw the wickedness of being in such dread. As the Lord got us out of that predicament, we resolved never again to be cornered in one similar. Forthwith the thralldom was broken, we hope never again to be felt. How demeaning that a man with a message from the Lord Almighty should be dependent upon paper-mills and gasometers! Paper is a non-conductor of gospel electricity. If a man have a five-thousand-dollar bill of goods to sell a customer, he does not go up to the purchaser and say, "I have some remarks to make to you about these goods, but just wait till I get out my manuscript." Before he got through reading the argument the customer would be in the next door, making purchases from another house.

What cowardice! Because a few critical hearers sit with lead-pencils out to mark down the inaccuracies of extemporaneousness, shall the pulpit cower? If these critics do not repent, they will go to hell, and take their lead-pencils with them. While the great congregation are ready to take the bread hot out of the oven shall the minister be crippled in his work because the village doctor or lawyer sits carping before him? To please a few learned ninnies a thousand ministers sit writing sermons on Saturday night till near the break of day, their heads hot, their feet cold, and their nerves a-twitch. Sermons born on Saturday night are apt to have the rickets. Instead of cramping our chests over writing-desks, and being the slaves of the pen, let us attend to our physical health, that we may have more pulpit independence.

It would be a grand thing if every minister felt strong enough in body to thrash any man in his audience improperly behaving, but always kept back from such assault by the fact that it would be wrong to do so. There is a good deal of heart and head in our theology, but not enough liver and backbone. We need a more stalwart Christian character, more roast beef rare, and less calf's-foot jelly. This will make the pulpit more bold and the pew more manly.

Which thoughts came to us this week as we visited again the village church aforesaid, and preached out of the same old Bible in which, years ago, we laid the ten-minute manuscript, and we looked upon the same lights that once behaved so badly. But we found it had been snowing since the time we lived there, and heads that then were black are white now, and some of the eyes which looked up to us that memorable night when the gasometer failed us, thirteen years ago, are closed now, and for them all earthly lights have gone out for ever.