Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins — Chapter 4 Part II - In the Old Paths

I don’t know how old I was when I “experienced religion.

” Reared from infancy “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” there had been, during childhood, a period of apparent indifference to such matters;

later one of acute interest; then the lull and reaction from the excitement of a revival; then one of renewed and deepened interest, followed by a gradual decline in religious observances, a creeping in of doubt and unbelief; a period of acute suffering, extending probably over three or four years (because I could no longer walk in the old paths); then one of lonely wanderings in strange paths, till I finally settled down to where I now find myself, though that state would be hard to define.

Of the length of these various periods, and the age at which some of them occurred, I am uncertain.

I was perhaps fifteen When I first became “converted.

” There had been premonitory symptoms a year or two before, at Auburndale, but the real attack came one winter during a prolonged revival.

Many of the boys and girls “went forward” long before I did.

Steeling my heart I stayed at home and applied myself to my studies with increased zeal, for Professor Durland, a Baptist, less carried away by the revival than many others, although attending the meetings occasionally, had talked wisely in school about religion, urging us to be temperate in frequenting the meetings.

He reminded us that all this emotion was not religion, and that it was our duty as students to let nothing interfere with our studies.

I was impressed by what he said, but this religious wave was sweeping over the town, and was hard to withstand.

Two young evangelists were there with gospel hymns, moving prayers, and engaging ways of leading souls to the Lord.

Every night witnessed the conversion of sinners who, having groaned under the burden of the conviction of sin, finally sought salvation.

Night after night I studied at home when most of the young people were thronging to the meetings; but finally I succumbed and went forward, to the great joy of associates, parents, and friends.

But our principal’s admonitions still acted as a restraining force, and kept me from yielding to the extreme emotionalism influencing so many, young and old.

Why, the girls got so they held prayer-meetings at noon in an old stage-coach in the lumber-yard near the Academy!

I

went once, but the incongruity so overcame my religious ardour that I never went again.

Still I was devout and had a pretty severe and long-continued attack.

My diaries at that time, were full of religious yearnings and strivings.

I read the Bible diligently, taking a “verse” for guidance each day.

I was religious in season and out of season.

After the revival had died down, many converts backslid, but with me this religious experience was a steady thing, of varying phases, it is true, but of tremendous importance for perhaps three years.

During the height of the revival, when the other converts joined the church, Sister and I, having been baptized in infancy, felt ourselves defrauded of a part of the ceremony.

So intent were we on being baptized, we prevailed upon our parents, much against their wishes, to consent to a repetition of the sacrament.

Little sophists that we were, we made it a point of conscience, our argument being the Biblical injunction, “Repent and be baptized.

” Baptized in infancy, before we had anything to repent of, the cart had been put before the horse, and we were not following the Scriptures.

This view grieved our parents who had given us to the Lord in holy baptism when we were babies.

To them it seemed wrong to set aside that sacrament for a later one, but the strenuous converts, thinking they were acting from conscientious motives, overruled parents and pastor.

Of course “sprinkling” had been the form of baptism in infancy.

Now most of the converts were being immersed.

Sister chose “immersion.

” There was still another form sanctioned by the Discipline, though seldom used--“pouring.

” This was to go down into the water and kneel while the minister, dipping water from the stream, poured it upon the convert’s head.

As usual, seeking something distinctive, therefore conspicuous (though quietly so), I chose to be “poured.

” Not that I was conscious of it then, but I see now that the desire to be different from the herd was largely what influenced me in choosing that mode of baptism.

Moreover, I abhorred “immersion.

” The sight of it outraged my esthetic sense.

It was such a sudden transition that I, as onlooker, experienced: the gathering of the congregation at the water-side was beautiful; the holy songs seemed more holy there; the black-gowned pastor and the convert wading out in the stream while the hymn was being sung; the pause, the solemn words; the yielding body as the minister started to immerse the convert--up to this point the scene filled me with religious awe; but from that point onward it was most repellent--the convert’s rigidity and the struggle at contact with water; the determined push of the minister, as he forced the resisting head under water; and the gasping, snorting, drowned-rat appearance of the victim when pulled out--all this was hideous.

So I was “poured,” and it was a beautiful ceremony.

But many a time since I have regretted setting aside the earlier sacrament so revered by my parents.

And yet, how can I regret it when I remember the strange, beatific mood induced that day by the sacred rite?

It lasted several hours.

I have never experienced anything like it before or since.

It was hard to come down to practical matters on reaching home.

I went about helping to get dinner in a kind of dream-state, eager to have the work out of the way, so I could be alone and think over the beautiful solemnity of it all.

It was a real uplift of my introspective little soul, and very beautiful while it lasted.

Dressing myself that afternoon with great care, Bible in hand, I visited a sick neighbour.

She had a bad-smelling, untidy house which I always disliked to enter, though often sent there by Mother with delicacies.

I think it was in a spirit of real self-sacrifice that I required this of myself that day.

Probably nowadays, under a similar beneficent impulse, I should put on a suitable gown and go and clean her house; but then I was under the spell of stories of pious maidens who read the Bible to sick people.

I can’t recall whether I actually read to her that day, but do recall how the dingy house smelled.

In the door-yard was a bush of dainty pink roses, and, as she sometimes told me to pick one, I hope she did then.

It seemed queer that the only place in town where those exquisite roses grew was in that unlovely yard, amid those sordid surroundings.

Religion was for a long time thereafter the guiding influence of my life.

Conscientious and devout, I was consumed with the desire to be useful.

Out of school I helped with the housework at home and at Grandma’s, and helped Father in the Post Office.

I do not recall much recreation.

Though sentimental, most of my sentiment took a religious turn.

The Presiding Elder and other clergymen were entertained in our home during those years, and the silver Communion service was kept with us.

To polish this before Quarterly meetings was one of my duties; and to prepare the bread in long strips for Communion, and in the little cubes for Love Feast.

One Communion Sunday, being indisposed and staying at home alone, when the time came for the sacrament to be administered, I read aloud the solemn service from the Discipline, sang, then knelt, devoutly partaking of the bread and water (in place of wine).

The hour was a real means of grace to me.

I have never divulged this before.

Much as it meant to me then, I find in myself now a tendency to ridicule that strange little creature, and to wonder if it was not a partial pose, albeit at the time she thought herself sincere.

I recall that during the revival at which I was converted Father took an active part, though in a more moderate way than many of the brethren and sisters.

During the singing of gospel hymns, the workers would go up and down the aisles and, by a sort of intuitive knowledge, seek out those “under conviction,” urging the obdurate ones to go forward and confess Christ.

One night after they had sung the hymn that begins tenderly: “Why do you wait, dear brother?

Why do you tarry so long?

” the refrain being, “Why not, why not, why not come to Him now?

” the workers sought to lead the penitents to the Throne of Grace.

The crowded house, vibrant with religious fervour, the reiterated invitation, the contrite sinners making their way forward, were powerful appeals to others with whom the Holy Spirit was striving.

As the last words of the hymn died away, Father, stepping up to a certain townsman, and putting his hand on his shoulder, looked in his face appealingly and asked, “Why not, Wilbur?

” I recall the man’s stern look as he struggled for further resistance, Father’s quiet, persuasive tones, and, at length, the actual yielding of the man’s body as the tension relaxed, and they came down the aisle together, the man shaking with sobs, while the happy tears streamed down Father’s face.

One particular Love Feast stands out in memory.

In fact I never went to many; they were held too early in the morning.

At this one a loud-mouthed local preacher (whose reputed private life was much at variance with his professed religion) held forth at great length about the wrath of God, the fear of God, and the unending punishment God would visit upon those who kept not his Commandments.

He was a burly, blustering man who worked himself up into a state of tremendous physical excitement during exhortations.

As he sat down, breathless, with red, sweaty face and tumbled hair, Father arose and in a few quiet words said that the God he worshipped was a God of love; that he liked to think of the love, not the fear, of God.

Beautiful and memorable this recollection, and all the more so that Father so seldom expressed his religious feelings in public, although he frequently addressed the congregation at the close of the sermon, on financial matters.

It fell to him to stir up the people when there were extra expenses to be met, church repairs to be made, and the minister’s salary raised.

Generous of time and money, he accepted the trusteeship with the zeal that characterized him in whatever he undertook.

Stating concisely the needs, he would so plead with the congregation as to stir up the apathetic members, sometimes fairly talking the money out of the pockets of those whose purse-strings were tightly drawn.

It was a study to see him play upon the different ones by earnest appeal, by gleams of humour, by eloquent pauses--his own enthusiasm, as he announced the sums subscribed, egging others, and still others, on to announce their grudging subscriptions.

He should have been a lawyer.

What a special pleader he would have made!

If he had been able to exercise the same gifts in his own business interests, he would not always have had to contend with the ogre, Economy.

But there seemed little self-seeking in him; his commercial spirit was never strong; his zeal could not be aroused for personal gain, only for some Cause into which he could throw heart and soul.

I remember well his weary looks after such sessions were over, especially if the needed amount had not been raised.

On reaching home he would unburden himself of scorn and indignation at the parsimonious ones who had sat unmoved when the needs of the Church were so urgent.

Against the obnoxious local preacher before mentioned, Sister and I had a special grievance: While standing one day on the creek bridge, when he and some boys were below, fishing, we had heard him say an obscene word as a fish got off his hook.

Indignant to our finger tips, we walked on, harbouring this in righteous wrath.

And shortly after that, when he was assisting the pastor at Communion, Sister and I tacitly agreed to stay away from the altar rather than be ministered unto by him.

Noting our failure to commune, and meeting us on the street later, he questioned us.

Kate took the initiative but we were both terrible in our wrath.

We told him we did not care to take the bread and wine from one who talked as he did on week-days.

Astonished, he inquired what we meant; concerned and uncomfortable, he seemed divided between wanting to know and dreading to hear.

Kate said she would not repeat such talk, but that she heard it herself on the creek bridge when he was fishing.

He looked very cheap.

Having reproved this whited sepulchre, the offended misses went disdainfully on their way.

I suppose that was the least of his sins.

I fancy he felt relieved that it was nothing worse we knew about him.

Later his conduct became notorious, but he never had more inflexible accusers than those stern maidens who upbraided him that Sunday.

Another Communion service, probably before this, stands out vividly.

It was when I was having doubts and waverings about acceptance as a child of God, when, in Methodist parlance, I was “falling from grace.

” That day, sitting through the service, seeing altar-full after altar-full kneel, commune, rise, and “go in peace,” I had said to myself, “I will not go.

” Steeling my heart, I sat upright, conscious of Mother’s questioning glances, but apparently unmoved.

After the congregation had communed, the choir-members went to the altar-rail, and as the sparse gathering knelt there, and the last notes of the hymn died away, instead of immediately passing the bread and wine, the minister and the young evangelist paused to see if others would come.

Although the evangelist made a moving appeal, still was I determined not to go and, anyhow, having waited so long, I was too embarrassed to go.

The choir communed and left the altar.

It was the last chance.

No, the evangelist still stood there, and in a few earnest words besought any who were hanging back to come.

I knew he meant me, still I tried to withstand.

In conclusion he said, “While the choir is singing the next hymn, I know God will soften your heart and you will come”: “Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidd’st me come to thee, Oh, Lamb of God, I come, I come!

” Melted by the singing, broken and contrite, alone I went and knelt at the altar-rail.

I can remember just how glad and gentle his voice sounded; and how soothing it was as the evangelist placed his hand upon my bowed head and prayed for the young sister who had tried in vain to turn away the Holy Spirit.

One other girl, moved by my example, came sobbing to the altar, too--one who always followed my lead.

In justice to myself I must say that there was no pose this time.

I

did not want to be singled out in this way, for I abhorred betrayal of emotion in public; to be the centre of a scene like this was painful to me.

Nevertheless, there was a great peace in my heart as I arose and returned to our pew.

When zealous young converts join the Methodist Church and “renounce the Devil and all his works,” they give little heed to such renunciation, only to learn later, as their religious fervour subsides, and their social needs assert themselves, that the Discipline regards card-playing and dancing as the works of his Satanic Majesty.

I

remember when my sister was inveigled by some unconverted boys and girls into playing cards, how I laboured with her with but poor results.

She refrained for a time, but soon again succumbed to the pastime.

It makes me smile to recall how long it took me to regard those wicked-looking cards as an innocent amusement.

Not caring for them, however, they were never a temptation to me, and I found myself distinctly bored when by the occasional playing of Hearts I declared my independence.

I never could learn Whist or Euchre.

But dancing, because more pleasurable, seemed more wicked; and, little by little, I yielded to the seductions of the violin and the quadrille when, at an evening party, dancing would form the wind-up.

But I never learned to dance well.

Too self-conscious, the few times that I indulged in it in those days I suffered so from remorse that it was a questionable pleasure.

Toward spring, after the revival at which we had been converted, we attended a party given by a boy whose father owned the Masonic Hall.

It was an innocent affair with dancing and light refreshments.

I imagine we were home in our beds before midnight.

But a few nights later, at a church sociable, one of the good sisters of the church, attacking a group of us, berated us soundly for attending a dance in a public hall, thus forsaking Christ and espousing the Devil and all his works.

Her unjust, intemperate, and tactless accusations made me regard the whole matter more rationally than I had theretofore.

Through gossip our little party had grown beyond all recognition.

It was characterized as a public dance.

Without any foundation whatever it had been asserted that we had had supper at the hotel--a thing reprehensible in itself;

that wine had been passed; that Sister had tasted it, but that I had refused it.

Whoever had so falsified had done it skilfully, as Kate was then more inclined to dip into the untried than I. But we had been near no hotel, and did not know the taste or sight of wine, except the unfermented “wine” used at Communion.

This rigour of our church discipline concerning amusements which I had come to regard as innocent pleasures, made me loth to continue belonging to a body placing such strictures upon its members.

Many church members danced and played cards without compunction, but I was strenuously opposed to belonging to anything to which I could not heartily subscribe and obey to the letter.

So when, a year or more later, I left home, I requested that my name be taken from the church books.

Reluctant to accede to this request, the pastor urged me to take a church letter, but I refused, determined not to begin my new life by professing what I no longer believed or practised; I wanted to start with a clean slate, since I no longer conformed to the rulings of the church.

Emancipation from the old teachings and beliefs came about gradually and painfully.

When first assailed by doubts as to teachings and traditions formerly accepted unquestioningly, I had tried to talk them over with Mother, but her unreasoning faith irritated me.

Unable to command my temper, I was narrowly and harshly critical; her devoutness, her intuitions, her faith all irritated me, counting for almost nothing with me then, when I wanted something to satisfy my reason; wanted to reconcile the conflict between orthodox teachings, and the truths of science as I was coming upon them in my studies.

Moreover, I was tenderly attached to the Old Paths, and Mother’s manifestations of feelings I was trying to stifle only increased my intolerance.

The church members no longer rent the same pews year after year.

Now when I go home I look in vain for the old families, or their representatives, in their accustomed places.

Scattered here and there throughout the congregation, like lost sheep, I see a few of the brethren and sisters who in the early days sat with us “under the droppings of the sanctuary.

” I would like to see them once again in the places that knew them in those long-gone days; would like to sit with Father and Mother in our own pew; join in the hymns, and once again feel at home in the old church; for, however far I have wandered from the old paths, they must always be sacred to me.

CHAPTER V