Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-06-11
THE COUNTRY MINISTER.

THE COUNTRY MINISTER.
H14 PASTORAL WORK, HIS DOUBTFUL JOYS, MS
TRIBULATIoNs, AND HIS SURE REWARDS IN
THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF FORTY YEARS AGO.
At the recent annual festival Of the Ameri.
can Unitarian association in Boston, the ad.
dress Of welcome to the clergy was delivered
by George NJ. Stearns, Esq, the welLknown
lawyer Of Springfield, Mass., who drew vivid
picture Of the life Of the country minister OF
40 years ago. The speech WAS brimful Of
bright and witty sayings, and all OF them were
true to life, for Mr. Stearns was himself the
son Of Rowe, Mass, Clergyman, and he had
only to draw on the memories Of bis own
childhood TO fill In the lights and shades of
his picture. He said
The life Of country minister as it was
forty years ago, and ~ ii is now, imagine,
however family the picture may be drawn,
would seem scarcely less than grotesque
exaggeration. He had no time OF his own.
His labors were never at an end. Two sound,
prolonged, elaborated sermons, saudwiched
with an unAbbreviated Sunday school between,
and an evening lecture in an adjoining ham
let constituted the measure Of fair, ordinary
Sundays services. In addition to this, no
child ever gssped this mortal air 80 briefly
but its death must be commemorsted by a
so old, so idiotic, no outside the pale Of hum
an society, no tramp 80 unknown, no beRgar
10 vile, but his demise must be the subject OF
the parsons highest word
He must neglect nobody he must bear un-
noticed the neglect Of everybody. The an
nual visitation Of the parish IL memory
never TO be lost until all things are swept be-
meath oblivions horizon. The cheerful and
the gloomy, the wise and the foolish, the gay
md ha N nd ha
must be omitted and il any one chances to
be omitted, the subscription list the coming
year will testify TO the n, glect Aud 30 the
minister and his wife put on their Sunday sp-
parel, and with a sad professional smile start
out to make the circuit. They must take the
little boy along, for nature, which delights in
contraries, has decreed that the hoier the
father the wilder the boy, and they dare not
leave the little boy behind, lest be burn the
barn or cruelty the cat during their absence.
Aud 30 the harmless, barefooted lad is dragged
in from the outside, ruddy dirty, IN form and
shape like the jack Of clubs, and made to ar
ray himself in his best Sunday go.to meeting
clothes, cut Of size to admit Of impossible,
unless miraculous, future growth. Upon his
bare feet they put again his winter boots, bill
lowy with unduleting wrinkles which no per
suasion Of tallow can induce to r, lent from
laceratng his ankles and feet and, although
~
fur cap on his head, because it is his best one
and ths parish like to see the minst RS fam
lily well dressed. Arriving at some honest
mans home, they are at once uahered into
the unspeakable horrors OF the best room,
which has not been opened since his last visit,
unless for funeral, and into which no fading
ray of sunlight has been permitted to enter
and rest upon the wonderful furniture. Ev-
cry chHir is a miracle of discomfort, and the
| IL fah ~ 20 4 To- ~
Of torture, with whispered admonitions not to
put his boots on the rounds and to sit stil aud
behave himself at his peril He looks over
the room, at the ingram carpet with figure
the size Of a barn door the rug before the
fireplace, worked in wonderful designs in
worsted OF a wolf with a swelled head pounc.
ing on a lamb whose only visible leg is the
same sizs az his body brass Rndirons hair.
| cloth sofa and the little boy wonders il all
the rooms in the mansions OF the skies are
equipped as luXuriously as this. The oonver-
ssIion takes on professional hue. After the
little gossip Of the family and town is e1.
hausted, all the falsities the errors, the mis-
takes and the wrongs Of Orthodoxy are clear.
| ly demonstrated and the truth, the certain
ties and the greatness OF Unitarianism are
equally well and clearly established
The little boy, weary OF the oft. told tale,
pulls out his pocket handkeTchief-his Sun
| yellow cotton fabric, on the centre OF which
| are printed the ten commandments, and on
| one margin OF which is picture Of Moses,
originally resembling the portraits Of John
| Brown, but from whose face repeat, wash
iDgs have so dispersed the features that it
now looks as though be had made the ac
quaintance OF Boston's best Sullivan. On the
other margin Is representation Of Elijsh's
translation, which looks like a Knight OF La
hnK Ana apfV tV.N Nha 40, -
freight car. The time drags, and fually a
diseased melodeon is opened and the minis
ters wife is called upon to sing from two to
| five dozen psalm tunes, the host striking in
on the bass, touching lightly the notes about
which he is doubtful, but coming down with
compensating power on those he is secure on.
At last supper is announced, and with formal
soemnitY they all proceed to the kitchen to
discuss 1t. The minister knows Just what il
| is and that II will be the same in every house
in the parish-the usual bread, butter and tea
but that the meal will be exalted and made
illustrious by the addition of ounce sauce
and of cookies with carawsy seed in them.
| The good man OF the house seizes the bread
tray to pass around its contents, when he is
recalled to the forgotten propristies by kick
under the table from his wife. whereupon be
pretends to have been brushing flies from of
the loaf and innocently asks the minister to
|
and the minister returns home with a weary
sigh. The little boy pulls of his suit OF tor
ture, resumes bis semi-nudity, rushes out of
| doors, leaps like an antelope, shouts like a
| Comanche, and races of to the pasture after
| the cows.
And when the weary round is over, and
when the parish has been visited all through,
on the tablets Of the minister's brain are cat
aloRued every babys age and the number of
teeth they have cut, every pain, every mis-
| fortune, every i'll, every contention, every
dispute that has occurred during the year
and he can iK and locate every toothache,
| every tHinge OF rheumatism, every cold and
| every bunion that has assailed his fold dur.
ing the past year. The minister's children,
too, are put upon a special department diet,
which is always open to criticism. l know
whereof speak. II the little boy happens
| to shy stone at vaRrant rooster or visiting
cat, the people wonder whether or not the
religion the pastor breaches so clearly on
Sunday il 10 use at home. The boy must
have his Sunday school lesson, although it is
not at all the style Of the other boys; and
when his teacher propounds sundry exhilar-
ating and highly morally educational oonun.
drums such az, what prophet had q sheep
skin jacket with the wool on ?" "What king
had an iron bedstead 2" that boys peace OF
mind is gone for a week, and he is compel.
| ou u othtCu tue DlDlo tuo HuOle seven uhyb
to answer the question, and finally on Sun
day morning, the good pArson has to cleave
the biblical rock for him, let loose the forbid
den secret and permit him to go to church
| proud in his stolen plumes-
His house is not a castle. Anybody and
everybody may invade it at pleasure, and all
expect to find it in good clerical keeping at
| all times and when a knock comes to the
door, the minister's wife sweeps with a hasty
glance the room to see that it is in good min
isteTial shape and that no stray ace OF spades
or displaced dice box from the backgammon
board are visible. l need not speak of the
financial annoyances of the minister and the
liberty that the subscribers TO his little salary
take of unloading upon the parson erything
of which they have an unmarketAble excess,
and of requiring that it be credited against
their subscription how his little income is
abridged in winter by forced credits of wood,
all sled length and all of such complications
of fibre and knots that nothing but supernat-
ural wedges and miraculous billets can ever
cleave il, and the poor minister and son have
to fight hard to keep up with the FIRE nor
how in the spring his pantry, from the show.
ers of veal that come in from the neighbors,
| looks like the antioiDatton of Lha reLnrn of a