Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1860-03-05

Opening the Pews.


Now, you wouldn't have thought I'd evsr
been ehnrchmaB, Patriot Moons age,
when the days were s,mmery-and sermons
ditto, your correspondent was elected to a
lay membership, and made a pillar of fash
ionable church in your stony metropolis. and
elevated to the responsible losiiion OF door
keeper, polite usher, and velvet bag small
change collector for The Lutheran Pedo-Bap-
tismal u niversalist church of Piety street.
Every Sabbath morning. used to don my
"very-bests'i-sporta an immaculate COLLAR
and give al extra brush to a diiapidated
beaver, which you your readers may have
observed at semi-occasional periods. bobbing
round the street corners through the Evening
Market, and never--no nerer-"in and out" at
bar-room entrances. Every Sabbath morning
after the hour of ten, when had appealed
to the sexton TO give peal of the bell, aud
Immediately thereafter peeled my overall and
beaver and pegged both behind the large
green door. The congregation were wont
to arrive in carriages and on foot and reduce
the undersigned to the delightful necessity
of plotting said congref ation, one by one
and very frequently in crowds, to their re-
spective seals, or such other seats as JOHN
HAPPY thought proper to consign 10 them
Ny purpose Is not now 10 give you his
tory of pew opening from the halcyon days
when the ancient and decidedly old fogy
Druids inauguraIed the free pew system ty
having camp meetings in the open air, WITH
miseltoe decorated affairs upon the open
plains of Albion, down to the present degen-
crate times, when the children of Israel con-
vert their sacred temples into display-rooms
for the more advantageous exhibition OF their
richest apparel. Far from it. / only wish
TO enter ing protest against being considered
by the vast public-"a 'ired aud" l am
not paid to stand guard at the church door
and show everybody "a quiet corner where he
or she can fulfill his or her weekly religious
devoils and Gifts "be.") ogle the female
christians in the Intervals. I'm nonesaca."
Mine is a labor of lOye-a self-imposed, and
voluntary but very thankless and unprofta-
bic task.
Now there's a forty-year-old "gentler SEX"
who sails towards the door of Sunday morn
ing's with such dn air of superciliious self
Importance and determination, that some
times fear she contemplates walking right
over me and making door-mat OF j. H., 10
wipe the streets sinful dust from her slippers
ere she treads the carpeled aisles of the in
ner sanctuary. She'd better not though
If you tread upon serpent he will sting-if
you tread on JOHN H.. he ,ciu look up-if he
dies for it. l do believe that woman thinks
I am regularly angaged on monthly sii-
pend to act as church usher. This to a man
OF refined feelings, forty-fve years of age,
and possessing the usual quantum of small
vanities, is rather CALLING. Perhaps she
doesn't know that 1 deposit my weekly dol
lar in that little purse at the end of the stick,
which it affords me so much qualification now
and then to poke right under her ladyshIp's
nose Perhaps she doesn't know that my
euphonious cognomen is registered opposite
the sum of several thousand dollars (more
or less) on a subscription to 1.-The new church,
which very much fear will never be built,
as the foundation isn't yet laid. l. she
didn't-then mayb she scW if the naughty
glance she sometimes levels at me should
some day fall upon this page. She is not my
only silent prosecutor. The pert Miss, who
turns up her little red nose because | have
not the presence of mind every time to seat
her where she can S, e the military students"
or where a fiuteG column don't quite eclipse
her own Particular brightness from the ardent
Ledger-ly gaze of the ''buttoned boys; !"
young gents there are too, ~"d iUuhSefs
who visit churches only to look at the ladies,
or let the ladies have an uninterrupted eye
feast at their upper-lip whiskers for two
hours and old dodgers with gold headed
canes, and ;wenty-per-cent. expression
about the mouth-corners, and especially the
the little old maid with a galvanized "re-
pea ter'' crushed so tight between her waist
band and stays it can't tick, and decorated
with watch and locket chains enough 10 build
u Jacobs Ladder quite out of this sinful
world to some other one, and who frowns
withall so spi efuIly if l should un-Happi-ly
assign her pew without a cushion, and
where she can't be seen by everybody. Thus
much have said in defense of the patient
and modest. yet much abused man-at-the-
door, who would never have had courage to
speak for himself, if it hadn't been for
JOHN HAPPY.
P.S--Let us pray.