Divers Women.

by Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston.

CHAPTER I.

SOME PEOPLE WHO WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE.

An elegant temple it was, this modern one of which I write--modern in all its appointments. Carpets, cushions, gas fixtures, organ, pulpit furnishings, everything everywhere betokened the presence of wealth and taste. Even the vases that adorned the marble-topped flower-stands on either side of the pulpit wore a foreign air, and in design and workmanship were unique. The subdued light that stole softly in through the stained-gla.s.s windows produced the requisite number of tints and shades on the hair and whiskers and noses of the worshippers. The choir was perched high above common humanity, and praised G.o.d for the congregation in wonderful voices, four in number, the soprano of which cost more than a preacher's salary, and soared half an octave higher than any other voice in the city. To be sure she was often fatigued, for she frequently danced late of a Sat.u.r.day night. And occasionally the grand tenor was disabled from appearing at all for morning service by reason of the remarkably late hour and unusual dissipation of the night before. But then he was all right by evening, and, while these little episodes were unfortunate, they had to be borne with meekness and patience; for was he not the envy of three rival churches, any one of which would have increased his salary if they could have gotten him?

The soft, pure tones of the organ were filling this beautiful church on a certain beautiful morning, and the worshippers were treading the aisles, keeping step to its melody as they made their way to their respective pews, the heavy carpeting giving back no sound of footfall, and the carefully prepared inner doors pushing softly back into place, making no jar on the solemnities of the occasion--everything was being done "decently and in order"--not only decently, but exquisitely.

A strange breaking in upon all this propriety and dignity was the sermon that morning. Even the text had a harsh sound, almost startling to ears which had been lifted to the third heaven of rapture by the wonderful music that floated down to them.

"Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you." What a harsh text!--Wasn't it almost rough? Why speak of fear in the midst of such melody of sight and sound? Why not hear of the beauties of heaven, the glories of the upper temple, the music of the heavenly choir--something that should lift the thoughts away from earth and _doing_ and fear? This was the unspoken greeting that the text received. And the sermon that followed! What had gotten possession of the preacher! He did not observe the proprieties in the least! He dragged stores, and warehouses, and common workshops, even the meat markets and vegetable stalls, into that sermon! Nay, he penetrated to the very inner sanctuary of home--the dressing-room and the kitchen--startling the ear with that strange-sounding sentence: "Take heed what ye do." According to him religion was not a thing of music, and flowers, and soft carpets, and stained lights, and sentiment. It had to do with other days than Sunday, with other hours than those spent in softly cushioned pews. It meant _doing_, and it meant taking heed to each little turn and word and even thought, remembering always that the fear of the Lord was the thing to be dreaded. What a solemn matter that made of life! Who wanted to be so trammelled! It would be fearful. As for the minister, he presented every word of his sermon as though he felt it thrilling to his very soul. And so he did. If you had chanced to pa.s.s the parsonage on that Sat.u.r.day evening which preceded its delivery--pa.s.sed it as late as midnight--you would have seen a gleam of light from his study window. Not that he was so late with his Sabbath preparation--at least the _written_ preparation. It was that he was on his knees, pleading with an unutterable longing for the souls committed to his charge--pleading that the sermon just laid aside might be used to the quickening and converting of some soul--pleading that the Lord would come into his vineyard and see if there were not growing some shoots of love and faith and trust that would bring harvest.

It was not that minister's custom to so infringe on the sleeping hours of Sat.u.r.day night--time which had been given to his body, in order that it might be vigorous, instead of clogging the soul with the dullness of its weight. But there are _special_ hours in the life of most men, and this Sat.u.r.day evening was a special time to him. He felt like wrestling for the blessing--felt in a faint degree some of the persistency of the servant of old who said: "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Hence the special unction of the morning.

Somewhat of the same spirit had possessed him during the week, hence the special fervour of the sermon. With his soul glowing then in every sentence, he presented his thoughts to the people. How did they receive them? Some listened with the thoughtful look on their faces that betokened hearts and consciences stirred. There were those who yawned, and thought the sermon unusually long and prosy. Now and then a gentleman more thoughtless or less cultured than the rest snapped his watch-case in the very face of the speaker, by accident, let us hope. A party of young men, who sat under the gallery, exchanged notes about the doings of the week, and even pa.s.sed a few slips of paper to the young ladies from the seminary, who sat in front of them. The paper contained nothing more formidable than a few refreshments in the shape of caramels with which to beguile the tedious-ness of the hour. There was a less cultured party of young men and women who unceremoniously whispered at intervals through the entire service, and some of the whispers were so funny that occasionally a head went down and the seat shook, as the amused party endeavoured, or _professed_ to endeavour, to subdue untimely laughter. I presume we have all seen those persons who deem it a mark of vivacity, or special brilliancy, to be unable to control their risibles in certain places. It is curious how often the seeming attempt is, in a glaring way, nothing but _seeming_. These parties perhaps did not break the Sabbath any more directly than the note-writers behind them, but they certainly did it more noisily and with more marked evidence of lack of ordinary culture. The leader of the choir found an absorbing volume in a book of anthems that had been recently introduced. He turned the leaves without regard to their rustle, and surveyed piece after piece with a critical eye, while the occasionally peculiar pucker of his lips showed that he was trying special ones, and that just enough sense of decorum remained with him to prevent the whistle from being audible. Then there were, dotted all over the great church, heads that nodded a.s.sent to the minister at regular intervals; but the owners of the heads had closed eyes and open mouths, and the occasional breathing that suggested a coming snore was marked enough to cause nervous nudges from convenient elbows, and make small boys who were looking on chuckle with delight.

And thus, surrounded by all these different specimens of humanity, the pastor strove to declare the whole counsel of G.o.d, mindful of the rest of the charge, "whether men will hear or whether they will forbear." He could not help a half-drawn breath of thanksgiving that _that_ part was not for him to manage. If he had had their duty as well as his own to answer for what _would_ have become of him!

Despite the looking at watches, the cases of which would make an explosive noise, and the audible yawning that occasionally sounded near him, the minister was enabled to carry his sermon through to the close, helped immeasurably by those aforesaid earnest eyes that never turned their gaze from his face, nor let their owners' attention flag for an instant. Then followed the solemn hymn, than which there is surely no more solemn one in the English language. Imagine that congregation after listening, or professing to listen, to such a sermon as I have suggested, from such a text as I have named, standing and hearing rolled forth from magnificent voices such words as these:--

"In all my vast concerns with thee, In vain my soul would try To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee The notice of thine eye.

"My thoughts lie open to the Lord Before they're formed within; And ere my lips p.r.o.nounce the word He knows the sense I mean.

"Oh, wondrous knowledge, deep and high!

Where can a creature hide!

Within thy circling arm I lie, Inclosed on every side."

Follow that with the wonderful benediction. By the way, did you ever think of that benediction--of its fulness? "The _grace_ of our Lord Jesus Christ, the _love_ of G.o.d, the _communion_ of the Holy Ghost, be with you _all_. Amen." Following that earnest amen--nay, _did_ it follow, or was it blended with the last syllable of that word, so nearly that word seemed swallowed in it--came the roll of that twenty-thousand-dollar organ. What did the organist select to follow that sermon, that hymn, that benediction? Well, what was it? Is it possible that that familiar strain was the old song, "Comin' Through the Rye"? No, it changes; that is the ring of "Money Musk." Anon there is a touch--just a dash, rather--of "Home, Sweet Home," and then a bewilderment of sounds, wonderfully reminding one of "Dixie"

and of "Way down upon the Suwanee River," and then suddenly it loses all connection with memory, and rolls, and swells, and thunders, and goes off again into an exquisite tinkle of melody that makes an old farmer--for there was here and there an old farmer even in that modern church--murmur as he shook hands with a friend, "Kind of a dancing jig that is, ain't it?"

To the sound of such music the congregation trip out. Half-way down the aisle Mrs. Denton catches the fringe of Mrs. Ellison's shawl.

"Excuse me," she says, "but I was afraid you would escape me, and I have so much to do this week. I want you to come in socially on Tuesday evening; just a few friends; an informal gathering; tea at eight, because the girls want a little dance after it. Now come early."

Just in front of these two ladies a group have halted to make inquiries.

"Where is f.a.n.n.y to-day? Is she sick?"

"Oh, no. But the truth is her hat didn't suit, and she sent it back and didn't get it again. She waited till one o'clock, but it didn't come. Milliners are growing so independent and untrustworthy! I told f.a.n.n.y to wear her old hat and never mind, but she wouldn't. Estelle and Arthur have gone off to the Cathedral this morning. Absurd, isn't it? I don't like to have them go so often. It looks odd. But Arthur runs wild over the music there. I tell him our music is good enough, but he doesn't think so."

"I don't know what the trouble is, but the young people do not seem to be attracted to our church," the elder lady says, and she says it with a sigh. She belongs to that cla.s.s of people who _always_ say things with a sigh.

Further on Mrs. Hammond has paused to say that if the weather continues so lovely she thinks they would better have that excursion during the week. The gardens will be in all their glory. Tell the girls she thinks they better settle on Wednesday as the day least likely to have engagements. The lady knows that she is mentioning the day for the regular church prayer-meeting, and she is sending word to members of the church. But what of that?

"I'm tired almost to death," says Mrs. Edwards, "We have been house-cleaning all the week, and it is such a trial, with inefficient help. I wouldn't have come to church at all to-day but the weather was so lovely, and we have so few days in this climate when one can wear anything decent it seemed a pity to lose one. Have you finished house-cleaning?"

At the foot of the stairs Miss Lily Harrison meets the soprano singer.

"Oh, Lorena!" she exclaims, "your voice was just perfectly divine this morning. Let me tell you what Jim said, when you went up on the high notes of the anthem. He leaned over and whispered to me, 'The angels can't go ahead of that, _I_ know; irreverent fellow!--Lorena, what a perfect match your silk is! Where did you succeed so well? I was _dying_ to see that dress! I told mamma if it were not for the first sight of that dress, and of Laura's face when she saw it was so much more elegant than hers, I should have been tempted to take a nap this morning instead of coming to church. However, I got a delicious one as it was. Weren't you horribly sleepy?"

At this point Misses Lily and Lorena are joined by the said "Jim."

And be it noticed that he makes the first remark on the sermon that has been heard as yet.

"We had a stunning sermon this morning, didn't we?"

"Oh, you shocking fellow!" murmurs Lorena "How _can_ you use such rough words?"

"What words!' Stunning?' Why, dear me, that is a jolly word; so expressive. I say, you sheep in this fold took it pretty hard. A fellow might be almost glad of being a goat, I think."

"Jim, don't be wicked," puts in Miss Lily who has a cousinship in the said Jim, and therefore can afford to be brusque. Jim shrugs his shoulders.

"Wicked," he says. "If the preacher is to be credited, it is you folks who are wicked. I don't pretend, you know, to be anything else."

A change of subject seems to the fair Lorena to be desirable, so she says:

"Why were you not at the hop last night, Mr. Merchant?"

And Jim replies, "I didn't get home in time. I was at the races. I hear you had a _stunning_--I beg your pardon--a _perfectly splendid_ time. Those are the right words, I believe."

And then the two ladies gathered their silken trains into an aristocratic grasp of the left hand, and sailed down town on either side of "Jim" to continue the conversation. And those coral lips had but just sung--

"My thoughts lie open to the Lord, Before they're formed within; And ere my lips p.r.o.nounce the word He knows the sense I mean."

What _could_ He have thought of her? Is it not strange that she did not ask this of herself.

"How are you to-day?" Mr. Jackson asked, shaking his old acquaintance, Mr. Dunlap, heartily by the hand. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

Now, what will be the next sentence from the lips of those gray-headed men, standing in the sanctuary, with the echo of solemn service still in their ears? Listen:

"Splendid weather for crops. A man with such a farm as mine on his hands, and so backward with his work, rather grudges such Sundays as these this time of year."

And the other?

"Yes," he says, laughing, "you could spare the time better if it rained, I dare say. By the way, Dunlap, have you sold that horse yet?

If not, you better make up your mind to let me have it at the price I named. You won't do better than that this fell."

Whereupon ensued a discussion on the respective merits and demerits, and the prospective rise and fall in horse-flesh.

"Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you." _Had_ those two gentlemen heard that text?

CHAPTER II.