The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (ebook reader online .txt) 📖

to disguise himself, exchanged his clerical garb for a friend's blue coatee bedizzened with metal buttons; and also had erected a very tasteful and sharp coxcomb on his head, out of hair usually reposing sleek and quiet in the most saint-like decorum; and then, at the bid from the pulpit-stump, out stepped Mr. Sprightly from the opposite spice-wood grove, and advanced with a step so smirky and dandyish as to create universal amazement and whispered demands—"Why! who's that?" And some of his very people, who were present, as they told me, did not know their preacher till his clear, sharp voice came upon the hearing, when they showed, by the sudden lifting of hands and eyebrows, how near they were to exclaiming: "Well! I never!"

Stepping on to the consecrated stump, our friend, without either preliminary hymn or prayer, commenced thus:

"My friends, I only intend to say a few words in answer to the pious brother that's just sat down, and shall not detain but a few minutes. The pious brother took a good deal of time to tell what we soon found out ourselves—that he never went to college and don't understand logic. He boasts, too, of having no sheepskin to preach by; but I allow any sensible buck-sheep would have died powerful sorry, if he'd ever thought his hide would come to be handled by some preachers. The skin of the knowingest old buck couldn't do some folks any good—some things salt won't save.

"I rather allow Johnny Calvin's boys and 'tother baby[Pg 1270] sprinklers,' ain't likely to have they idees physicked out of them by steam logic, and doses of No. 6. They can't be steamed up so high as to want cooling by a cold water plunge. But I want to say a word about Sprightly's preachers, because I have some slight acquaintance with that there gentleman, and don't choose to have them all run down for nothing.

"The pious brother brings several grave charges; first, they ride good horses. Now don't every man, woman and child in the Purchase know that Sprightly and his preachers have hardly any home, and that they live on horseback? The money most folks spend in land these men spend for a good horse; 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? The book 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 fence corner, 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's he live on? Ay! that's the pint! Well, what's them buzzards after?—look at them sailing up there. Now who owns that live carrion?—the pious brother that's just preached to us just now. And I want to know if it wouldn't be better for him to give that dumb brute something to cover his bones, before he talks against 'hunder-dollur hossis' and the like?

"The next charge is, wearing good clothes. Friends, don't all folks when they come to meeting put on their best clothes? and wouldn't it be wrong if preachers came in old torn coats and dirty shirts? It wouldn't do no how. Well, Sprightly and his preachers preach near about every day; and oughtn't they always to look decent? Take, then, a peep at the pious brother that makes this charge;[Pg 1271] his coat is out at the elbow, and has only three or four buttons left, and his arm, where he wipes his nose and mouth, is shiny as a looking glass—his trousers are crawling up to show he's got no stockings on; and his face has got a crop of beard two weeks old and couldn't be cleaned by 'baby sprinklin''; yes, look at them there matters, and say if Sprightly's preachers ain't more like the apostles in decency than the pious brother is.

"A word now about chickin-fixins and doins. And I say it would be a charity to give the pious brother sich a feed now and then, for he looks half-starved, and savage as a meat-ax; and I advise that old hen out thare clucking up her brood not to come this way just now, if she don't want all to disappear. But I say that Sprightly's preachers are so much beliked in the Purchase, that folks are always glad to see them, and make a pint of giving them the best out of love; an' that's more than can be said for some folks here.

"The pious brother says he only wants our souls—then what makes him peddle about Thomsonian physic? Why don't he and Campbell make steam and No. 6 as free as preaching? I read of a quack doctor once, who used to give his advice free gratis for nothing to any one what would buy a box of his pills—but as I see the pious brother is crawling round the fence to his anatomical horse and physical saddle-bags, I have nothing to say, and so, dear friends, I bid you all good-by."

Such was Rev. Elder Sprightly, who preached to us on Sabbath morning at the Camp. Hence, it is not remarkable that in common with many worthy persons, he should think his talents properly employed in using up "Johnny Calvin and his boys," especially as no subject is better for popularity at a camp-meeting. He gave us, accordingly, first, that affecting story of Calvin and Ser[Pg 1272]vetus, in which the latter figured to-day like a Christian Confessor and martyr, and the former as a diabolical persecutor; many moving incidents being introduced not found in history, and many ingenious inferences and suppositions tending to blacken the Reformer's character. Judging from the frequency of the deep groans, loud amens, and noisy hallelujahs of the congregation during the narrative, had Calvin suddenly thrust in among us his hatchet face and goat's beard, he would have been hissed and pelted, nay possibly been lynched and soused in the branch; while the excellent Servetus would have been toted on our shoulders, and feasted in the tents on fried ham, 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 your parental bosoms? (amen!)—Yes! I know you do—(amen! amen!)—Yes, I know, I know it.—(Amen, amen! hallelujah!) Now don't it make your parental hearts throb with anguish to think those dear infantile darlings might some day be out burning brush and fall into the flames and 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 religion and 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 darling infantile sucklings born, if you had a known they were to be burned in a brush heap! (No, no!—groans—shrieks.) What! what! what! if you had foreknown they must have gone to hell?—(hoho! hoho—amen!) And does anybody think He is such a tyrant as to make spotless, innocent babies just to damn them? (No! in a voice of thunder.)—No! sisters! no! no! mothers! No! no! sin[Pg 1273]ners, no!!—He ain't such a tyrant! Let John Calvin burn, torture and roast, but He never foreordained babies, as Calvin says, to damnation! (damnation!—echoed by hundreds.)—Hallelujah! 'tis a free salvation! Glory! a free salvation!—(Here Mr. S. battered the rail of the pulpit with his fists, and kicked the bottom with his feet—many screamed—some cried amen!—others groaned and hissed—and more than a dozen females of two opposite colors arose and clapped their hands as if engaged in starching, etc., etc.) No-h-o! 'tis a free, a free, a free salvation!—away with Calvin! 'tis for all! all! all! Yes! shout it out! clap on! rejoice! rejoice! oho-oho! sinners, sinners, sinners, oh-ho-oho!" etc., etc.

Here was maintained for some minutes the most edifying uproar of shouting, bellowing, crying, clapping and stamping, mingled with hysterical laughing, termed out there "holy laughing," and even dancing! and barking! called also "holy!"—till, at the partial subsidence of the bedlam, the orator resumed his eloquence.

It is singular Mr. S. overlooked an objection to the divine Providence arising from his own illustration. That children do sometimes perish by being burnt and drowned, is undeniable; yet is not their existence prevented—and that in the very case where the sisters were induced to say they would have prevented their existence! But, in justice to Mr. S., we must say that he seemed to have anticipated the objection, and to have 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 an absurdity be supposed—deserves all praise for the facility and simplicity 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[Pg 1274] river, at Smith's Ferry, next Thursday morning, at twenty-two minutes after ten o'clock; and suppose I know it; and suppose I am a free, moral, voluntary, accountable agent, as Calvinists say—do you think I'm going to be drowned? No!—I would stay at home all day; and you'll never ketch the Rev. Elder Sprightly at Smith's Ferry—nor near the 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, in spite of Calvin and the Epistle to the Romans, was put down; if not by acclamation, yet by exclamation—by shouting—by roaring—by groaning and hissing—by clapping and stamping—by laughing, and crying, and whining; and thus the end of the sermon was gained and the preacher glorified!

The introductory discourse in the afternoon was by the Rev. Remarkable Novus. This was a gentleman I had often the pleasure of entertaining at my house in Woodville; and he was a Christian in sentiment and feeling; for though properly and decidedly a warm friend to his own sect, he was charitably disposed toward myself and others that differed from him ecclesiastically. His talents were moderate; but his voice was transcendently excellent. It was rich, deep, mellow, liquid and sonorous, and capable of any inflections. It could preserve its melody in an unruffled flow, at a pitch far beyond the highest point reached by the best-cultivated voice. His fancy naturally capricious, was indulged without restraint; yet not being a learned or well-read man, he mistook words for ideas, and hence employed without stint all the terms in his vocabulary for the commonest thoughts. He believed, too, like most of his brotherhood, that excitement and agitation were necessary to conversion and of the essence[Pg 1275] of religion; and this, with a proneness to delight in the music and witchery of his own wonderful voice, made Mr. Novus an eccentric preacher, and induced him often to excel at camp-meetings, the very extravagances of his clerical brethren, whom more than once he has ridiculed and condemned at my fireside.

The camp-meeting was, in fact, too great a temptation for my friend's temperament, and the very theater for the full display of his magnificent voice; and naturally, this afternoon, off he set at a tangent, interrupting the current of his sermon by extemporaneous bursts of warning, entreaty and exhortation. Here is something like his discourse—yet done by me in a subdued tone—as, I repeat, are most extravaganzas 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, and heaven-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 holy penman meant by 'walking?' Think ye he meant a physical walking, and a moving, and a going backward and forward thus? (represented by Mr. N.'s proceeding, or rather marching, à la militaire, several times from end to end of the staging). No, sirs!—it was not a literal walking and locomotion, a moving and agitating of the natural legs and limbs. No, sirs!—no!—but it was a moral, a spiritual, a religious, ay! yes! a philosophical and metaphorically figurative walking, our holy apostle meant!

"Philosophic, did I say? Yes: philosophic did I say. For religion is the most philosophical thing in the universe—ay! throughout the whole expansive infinitude of the divine empire. Tell me, deluded infidels and mistaken[Pg 1276] unbelievers! tell me, ain't philosophy what's according to the consistency of nature's regular laws? and what's more onsentaneous and homogeneous to man's sublimated moral nature, than religion? Yes! tell me! Yes! yes! I am