The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-12-29
A New England Confessional.


"JoHNH' said wife, in the tone she
used at tea, treading on his toes under
the table when he propounded some
doctrine that sayored of laxity, with
conservative supply spending the Sun
day.
Whats the matter now?" asked
John, giving the baby double twist
that the offspring of any less muscular
Christianity would have resented.
"Have said anything heretical again
to-day?n
"I-th-think-not 1t sounds right
on the whole" said Coy, anxiously;
"but / never know where You'll turn
up, John. An immortal soul is all
right, so far as it goes, of course, John
dear, but the trouble | have with theol-
ogy is, never know what is coming
next. And your theology especially,
somehow, John, is-you know-I like to
have you make it very plain, because
the baby is usually mixed up with it
little (there, you'll bump her head) or
else, you see-I find it hard to fix my
mind when I'm being kissed If I'd
been intellectual, like Avis, | suppose |
shouldn't mind. Certainly it is quite
true about the Immortality of the soul.
But old Mrs. Bobley-you know the old
lady behind the last pillar, who always
cries in the wrong place, with the ironed
purple strings to her bonnet-asked me
yesterday what | thought were your
views as to the precise nature of the
ministerial vocation. told her L d ask.
She said she hoped you realized, for
you were so very young, the awful re-
sponsibility which rested on minister
if a single soul in his congregation had
never been worried-no, never been
warned, that was it-by his pastor. l
said | supposed so. And then she
asked me if | knew good recipe for
Parker House rolls. But now, John
dear, I'll tell you what | think min
lister is. He is kind of doctor, John,
don't you see?-a soul-doctor. | don't
| pretend to understand about sin q sup
pose that's because I've never associ-
ated with wicked people,; but it seems
to me like an awful disease-like scarlet
fever. Peoples souls are sick-sick-
sick all about us, John. And if you can
cure them, you know"
"Amen!' said John, gravely.
rOr if you could only ease them
| little"
"Amenw said John again.
''Of course | don't mean quite by
yourself-unless Anybody greater
were behind said Coy quickly, slip
ping, with the characteristic reticence
of the atmosphere in which she had
been bred, from explicit expression of
the more vital elements of religious
feeling. but I've been thinking,
John, why shouldn't minister have
an office-system, like a doctor, and be
at home so many hours a day to ach-
ing people
1t was this suggestion which John
Rose, in carrying out almost to the
letter, had made so memorable a feat
ure in his Yarmouth work. He an
nounced, not only from the pulpit and
in the vaguely polite ways usually
thought sufficient to relieve the minis
terial conscience, but literally upon his
modest door-plate, like a physician of
the body, that he who assumed to pre-
scribe for the health of the soul would
| be within to patients from such an hour
to such an hour, making it in due time
quietly understood among the hetero-
geneous population of the town that he
| held himself answerable to the call of
any creature in any lack, were it of
friend or a pillow, were it of heaven or
Il dinner, were it of forgiveness or flan-
nels.
In the course of six months from the
Inauguration of this project the young
| no a.,
whelmed with what Coy called the
''aching people, The aching people
of place in which the intelligence of
society is almost wholly absorbed in the
impairment and the reception of intel
lectual culture have certain bitter
ness in their capacity and ability to
ache not to be matched in communities
of broader and more human interests.
John Rose received into his healthy
young heart, as within the walls of a
| newly-consecrated temple, these refu-
gees of human fate, on an average per-
haps to the number of twenty souls
each day This method of labor brought
him in contact with what we are wont
to term the dangerous classes of
society. The walls of that little study
| llSleDeu 10 SIEdDSe ulSiOIlcS, lOU OUCH,
in the chance of human lots, brought
across the threshold of delicate homes.
Strange figures not known to the pew
roll OF the Central Church skulked in
on Sunday evenings, and stood, savage,
unkempt, like Centaurs, up and down
the crowded aisles. The heavy pew
owners We're gratified, and proposed
mission church.
eff these men and women go, 90
with Them" said John Rose, in a deep
voice with which his deacons were not
familiar. Turn them out into mis-
sion church if you will; but you turn
me there, too
SO the rich and the poor met together
in this young prophets church, for the
Lords sake, who was the Maker of
them all. And John Rose bent to his sa-
cred work with awed and humble eyes,
seeking only on the knees of his heart
to know wherefore he had been found
worthy of that fate than which neither
life nor death has more glorious to give
the Christian pastor-that the common
people heard him gladly.-F'rom the
. Story Of AciS.'