Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1878 — IN THE REVIVAL. [ARTICLE]

IN THE REVIVAL.

“Over there! over there!” sang the white-haired deacons, bofore whoso vision the other world stretched scarcely more distant than the hazy western hills. “Over there! over thoro!” quavered way-worn, thin-faced women, longing only for rest and reunion. “Over tliore! over there!” chimed pewsful of girls, in joyful holiday excursion tones. “ Oh! think of the home over there!” rang out the entire congregation—brethren and sisters, young men and maidens. But little Christie Miller, with her cld striped shawl and hat turned up behind, with a bunch of scarlet poppies on it, couldn’t think much of her home over there, because of her anxieties regarding her home over here. The mortgage had long since expired. The last hundred dollars eouldn’t be raised, and Mr. Simeon Powers had sent word ho was tired of waiting and should be over to-morrow to see about foreclosing. Mr. Simeon Powers was the great man of-Canterbury. He owned the two cotton mills and the plane factory, a store, farms for which he was always wanting tenants, and houses which tenants were always wanting. Where he hadn’t anything else, he had a mortgage; and his mortgages lay over hill and dale, like patches of snow in a spring landscape. He owned no end of bonds and stocks; and when Mr. Powers opened his pocket-book a feeling of awe stole over observing Canterbury. The possibilities in that pocketbook stirred the most dormant imagination

Mr. Powers was a pillar of Canterbury Church; perhaps the pillar, \yhen Mr. Simeon Powers said “Come!” the minister came: and when he said “Go!” the minister picked up and went. There were certain carping women and partially regenerate masculinfe Christians who objected to this monopoly of Mr. Simeon Powers', and occasionally cried out in bitterness of spirit; but a Powers party only enabled church and society to balance itself the more firmly around Powers himself. Mr. Powers was at the meeting, and sang loud and expressively. There seemed a beautiful humility in a man who possessed so many homes over here recognizing his dependence upon the Almighty for one over there. Like his pocket-book, it recommended religion. A wave of religious feeling, not frothy, had swept over Canterbury. Evening after evening the lamps'in the little church had flung soft light down upon a crowded congregation. Curiosity had long since died out. Attendance was now a confession—a confession of somethin®" in some way wanting. Here were dispirited, weary lives, dwarfed or restricted lives, timid, questioning young lives, sin-stained, willusurped or will-ridden lives, lives indefinitely but consciously imperfect. Quiet but eager, they thronged into the pews. To take one look in those asking, speaking faces was to be moved anew by the old thought of the pathos and the tragedy forever underlying human life.

The penetrating voice of the evangelist fell upon a still room; yet there was everywhere a conscious thrill—a sometiling which did not partake of the nature of sound, and yet suggested sound. Tears glistened. Now and then there burst from the audience, as of its own inherent influence over hearts, a simple melody; now rugged men rose to speak, their voices trembling with intensity; then timid women, their voices pulsating with their heart-beats. Here was poetry, here passion; because here were moved the deepest elements in human nature. But more than one individual propounded to himself or others the questions;-Bow-would weights and measures be affected; how the consumption of whisky and bitter beer? Would the sweet charity that thinketh no ill find surer abiding places? Would neighborhood quarrels cease and family differences be reconciled? It is so different—singing fervid hymns by glowing color and warm light,'with a sympathetic congrefation, and going about in the garish ay light, keeping your own interests properly subordinated to other people’s, bearing patiently and doing cheerfully. Christie Miller’s presence at the meeting might be regarded in the light of victory after a carefully-planned campaign. Christie was the eldest daughter of Joseph Miller, an exceptional Yankee, who had tried a variety of pursuits and proved himself a genius of in- ’ competency. Christie's mother was a lady who had united an assiduous study of the medical books with an imagination open to the reception of any physical affections that appeared interesting and congenial. The business of her life was trying remedies. The Miller family was like arepetendin arithmetic "—going on to infinity. The care of the Infants fell largely upon Christie, and these infants were precocious representatives of that class of people who take no comfort in life and yet are never quite ready to die. They wailed through all sorts of difliculties into unhealthy, greedy children, quite unamenable to the alternate spasms of love and law with whieh pere and mere Miller attempted ruling their household. Christie had performed a great variety of services for the household and in her mother’s behalf, before she could get ready for meeting; and her strategy in getting all the children to bed early had been, everything considered, masterful. But she was now physically exhausted, and her mind, consequently, too lax to be securely fastened upon the preaching. She looked dreamily up at the vine-wreathed globes of the chandelier, off on the warm crimson carpet in the chancel and at the polished panelings of the pulpit, flashing in the light, and a quiet happiness gradually stole over her. Perhaps it was as well that this feeling should be produced directly as through the more circuitous channels of the understanding. The better part of religion inheres in many things other than sermons, and there is SO much more power in an emotion God Himself lets into the soul than in anything any patent drill of logic can forco down upon the feelings.

" Where the mint* are robed in their garment* of white, f Over there! Over there’’’ sai.g the _ congregation—sang burly, fall-whiskered men, for whose corporeity white garments would be slightly incongruous; sang pale, thin-blood-ed women, who needed to be robelfl in triple thicknesses of flannel all the year ground. ; 4 .TBut Christie’s mind was still wandering. She wasn’t thinking of a gar-

ment of white over there, but a garment of bine over here—polonaise, of blue plaid, with a single gold thread in it, and underskirt and sleeves of pale blue. Christie didn’t get time at home to dream over her clothes, as other girls do; and when she went to church she had to watch Abra’am Lincoln, that he didn't fall off the seat, and Horace Greeley, who would whisper to Felicia Homans, who, in turn, had a weakness for laughing aloud—so that, even in church, she was denied the privilege which most girls enjoy, of looking over the new lints and dresses and mentally composing her own. It may nave been evidence of carnal affection for Christie to be thinking of her clothes in prayer-meeting; or it may be a question whether love of dress becomes renewed, in nature, by A transfer from terrestrial merino to celestial tulle, whether we are on any higher spiritual plane when sighing after some kind of floating, diaphanous garment for wear, in a Heaven of which we know and can know nothing, and which we frequently despair of reaching any way, than when wishing for something pretty and comfortable, and adapted to that sphere wherein it has actually pleased the Lord to place us. W hite muslin has, to be sure, long been associated with moral purity; but reprobation is not a necessary concomitant of even “cardinal” color. Neither is there anything in reason or revelation to prove that the Lord loveth a “ robe ” more than a polonaise. The services were closing now, and the invitation was extended to those who “ wished to become Christians” to remain. The other girls would stay; but Christie couldn’t. She hadn’t time. Christie’s course home lay off the main road and up a ravine. She sat down upon a rock beside the brook. It was warm and soft, like an evening in late April. Through the hazy moonlight she watched the dark figures of people passing down the mam road, people going to carpeted rooms, with pictured walls and polished surfaces. Christie’s idea of a pleasant home was simple. A red table-spread pretty well symbolized it—something bright and warm. Christie’s dream of life had been to one day “ fix up” the old house that had always been her home. Now she \nas in danger of losing the house. “ Oh, dear, dear!” thought she. “ I suppose if we trusted in the Lord, as Mr. Simeon Powers does, He would take care of us. But we aren’t one of us church members!”

Christie turned around. From the yellow maple canopy above her the leaves drifted softly down; the beeches at her side stirred gently; the riverpool beneath the hemlocks mirrored the moon in silence. An awesome feeling stole over Christie. “Oh, dear!” sighed she: rising and pinning her striped shawl anew. “I wish I could be a Christian, like the other girls; but it takes so much time •that, with the washing and ironing and baking, the patches to set on the boy’s knees, and the herbs to steep for mother, there is no use in thinking of it.” Had our Lord and Master just then come softly stepping over the moonlit Canterbury Hills, and stood for a moment at Christie's side, He might have -quietly smiled at-the girl's ideas. Perhaps he did. Christie again glanced around, felt rather than saw raining over her the yellow and the pale purple light, felt rather than saw the shining waters trembling below the dark hemlocks, and the golden leaves noiselessly dropping, dropping on all sides. Not from anything in these, but from something beyond and through them, a subtle Presence descended into her heart, bringing gladness, bringing confidence. She went on. From light and glory without, she pushed the door open upon an atmosphere stifling with the smoke of burnt fat, nauseous with an odor of long-steeped herbs and a whisky breath.

By the light of two kerosene lamps, three candles and a lantern, Joe Miller was cheerfully eating a heavy supper of his own preparing. Ashes were on ..the hearth, a kettle and miscellaneous garments on the bare floor. With a feeiing like faintness, Christie caught at the back of the wooden rocker. “‘Alight to your eyes and a lamp to your path.’ There’s Scripchur for that,” said Joe, pointing a forefinger at his array of luminaries. “This ’ere ligorous ’citement ain’t the thing, Christie. Yer ought to be at home, doing your duty. I don’t’prove of ’ligerous ’citement. Show me your faith without your works, and I’ll show yer—show ver —show “ Faith without works is dead!” cried Joe, suddenly bringing his hand down upon the table with a force which sent wavelets over the surface of his tea—- ” dead—dead — dead!" Joe leaned back, dropping his head upon his breast, and murmured the last “ dead” as if he experienced exquisite satisfaction touching the demise of faith. Joe belonged to that class of people who are fond of quoting this text, as if faith was a personal enemy and “works” a sort of protege; whereas their acquaintance with either party is usually extremely slight. “Christie!” called a hysterical voioe, from a close, dark bedroom. “Mr. Simeon Powers didn’t say anything about the mortgage, did he?” To the woman's nervous apprehension, Mr. Powers might rise and cry out in meeting: “Mortgage! I’m going to close the mortgage!” “Christie!” sobbed another voice, from another dark bedrbom, only years between the quality of its hysteria and that of the mother’s—“ Christie! Pm afraid of ghosts!” ’ “Christie!” from the head of the stairs*. “Horace Greeley won’t give me my half the bedclothes.” It was after midnight when Christie climbed the bare, warped staircase to her own room. This room contained two beds, and three children were its slumbering occupants.

Christie’s preparations for retiring were peculiar. On a small stand at the head of Jior bed she placed a box of mustard and a little nour«paHte*in. a teacup, a bottle of Jamaica Ginger, a narrpw strip of flannel containing a bit of salt pork, a piece of camphor gum, and a bottle or syrup of ipecac. No ordinary prophecy, basyd upon pastex§crience, could show forth whether elicia Homans would be seized with the eroup or Lincoln with convulsions tlefore morning, and for etthe'r hr both possibilities she must be prepared. Bhe laid her head on her own skimpy pillow, anxious and weary* the peaceful feeling that had come by the brookside quite lost. Moonlight, checked by the shadows of the window-sash, fell upon the floor, faintly illumining the room; but it suggested no comfort. Two dissimilar pictures were present to her imagination: In one, the boys at service and her father a vagabond; in the other, the family crowded into a low tenement, worse degradation on her father’s part, and on , her own all abandonment of the Tight disguises i>v

which she had hoped she concealed from the world the actual wretchedness of the family life. Tears trickled down upon hor hot, nervous fingers. Then suddenly came the thought: God was undoubtedly on Mr. Simeon Powers’ side, since he was a churchmember; but, God being good. He might help hor, though she was in “ the gaU of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.” Her heart seemed literally to swell with this great thought. She clasped her hands, moist with nervous perspiration upon the inside, wet with tears on the outside, and site said aloud: “O God! don’t take onr home from us! Don’t!”

A light southeast breeze rattled tho loose and broken clap-boards at the corner and rats went racing through a partition; but Christie cried again: “ Don't, O Father, take it away from us!’! At two the checkered light on the floor had shrunk in breadth. Christie had begun to rest. Roused by the striking of the clock, she murmured: “Don’t take it away!” Then added, folding her hands, palms downward, “You won’t!” ana smiled wearily. Three o’clock, and only a narrow patch of light beneath the window. “I'm so glad I thought of that,” murmured Christie. Four o’clock, and the moon is down. The wind has shifted to the northwest and it is colder. Christie’s chamber quickly feels any change in the outside temperature. Felicia Hemans starts up, crying with tho toothache. Christio ! s lids are now heavy. Every overstrained nerve and weary muscle has sufficiently relaxed to long for repose; but Christie rolls the child in a blanket, takes her in her arms, and with tho aching face warm against her bosom, rocks and sings patiently. Tennyson has enjoyed telling us how the sweet sister, rising on St. Agnes’ Eve; locked over convent roofs, white with snow and glistening in the moon, and breathed to Heaven her prayer. We have enjoyed hearing about it, and doubtless the sweet sister enjoyed it at the time. There is a vein of religious sentimentality which finds its own exceeding reward in rising at dead of night (providing it isn’t too cold), looking over snowy fields, and sighing after perfect peace, purity, patience ana other virtues beginning with a p. A plain-faced, sleepy girl, in a jerky wooden rocker, singing to a cross child on a windy autumn morning could hardly be wrought into a picture of ppesy and bouna in Russia, to lie upon drawing-room tables; but upon which sister tne great Master of Love and Beauty would look with kindliest eye everyone is entitled to his own convictions. . At two o’clock the next afternoon Christie, hurrying by the open door of the church, heard Mr. Powers’ baritone, beyond all the rest of the congregation, rolling forth: “ Almost persuaded, almost persuaded!” “Dear me!” thought she, “I hope ’tisn’t to close the mortgage!” Then went onto the druggist’s after valerian root for her mother. Mr. Powers went up to Joe Miller’s from the meeting. “You can’t find another man in town who would have had the patience with you Pve had, Joe. If I had seen you making the least effort to pay up I would still let the note lie.” “Come on!” said Joe, who was still in a state of unnatural elevation. “Como on! I fear not the face of man —pruffessors or anti-pruffessors, ministers or laymen. You may turn us out here; but you can’t turn us out of the Kingdom. It is easier for a needle’s eye to go through a camel than for a rich man to enter there.”

Mrs. Miller, who had roused herself to contend with oppression, and who sat by the stove, with a shawl wrapped around her, began nervously stirring her steeping valerian and weeping. “ The rich don’t know anything about the sufferings of the poor. They’ve tot the power in their hands, and they on’t care. But it’s a poor kind of religion, I should say, that turns folks out, without a roof over their heads.” —‘-‘1 don’t wish to Be hard with you,” said Mr. Powers, flushing. “But just see how you’ve allowed this matter to run along. You’ve not only made no payment these three years, but you haven’t kept up the interest, and you don’t seem to be making the slightest effort to pay it. I can’t allow my business to drag along in this way. I honestly think a foreclosure will be best for you. You have three years fop redemption, and it may stimulate Joe up to doing something.” “Don’t crouch to him, Fanny,” said Joe. “ Your family’s as good as his. He thinks he can simulate me, does he! No, sir. It’ll take a larger iiian than Simeon Pow-owersto simulate Joseph Miller!” ~ “ How coujd we make any effort—me flat on my back three-fouryis of the year ’n Joe going on as he does? It’s as much as we can do to get a living, ’n a poor one at that. Some folks talk as if interest wasn’t money. It’s no easier getting interest than any other kind of money.” “ But just look at it in a business light- Every man expects a return from his investments. I haven’t had a cent from you.for three years. Now, if you’re never going ” “ What would you do if you hadn’t no interest nor no investment either; ’n me sick—no liver to speak of, ’n stomach so weak it won’t bear oatmeal gruel, even; Horace Greeley with a white swelliu coinin’, and one or the other of the twins having convulsions if they eat the least bit of green sauced—” “ IXdn’t you let him put you down, Fanny,” interrupted Joe, encouragingly. “He ain’t coming here to insult defenseless women and children. I may be just a trifle ’ntoxication, but I’ll stand by you, Funny, ’n I shan’t never throw away nomiore money on that inorgidge, drunk or sober.” Mr. Powers left the house, angrily, Christie following him out. “ Mr. Powers,” said she, tremulously, “please don’t be angry. Father .isn’t—isn't quite himself to-day, you know, and mother is never well. You’ve been very patient and very good. If you only could wait’’- — “It doesn’ t seem to beef any use to wait. The interest accumulates, and you’re every year furthei' from paying up.” ■ -, ■ .■ .i 1 Mr. Powers thrust one boot-heel into ♦he stiffened turf. A few snowflakes fluttering from the northwest lodged on Christie, thinly clad and shivering, “ It’s been very hard to got along. So ipany things—in this world—seem hard, Mr. Powers ” Here the tears began falling. Mr. Powers felt uncomfortable. A sense of having been abused and unappreciated by Joe and his wife, pity for Christie, business instincts and uneerfaihty iniogard , td the requisitions of Christian charity, conspired to introduce within his consciousness an Irritating perplexity. It was much less agreeable than singing “Hold the Fort.” He left wit|t-

out having addressed many words to Christie. He sat down upon the same roadside rook where Christie had, the night previous, rested. The road-bed, mellow and dark last night,, was now frozen pale and hard, the wheel-ruts and hoof-marks covered with a thin glace of ico, which broke With a crackle, disclosing no water. Ice circled around the edges of the brook. The maple-leaves, which had gontiv drifted down like thin flakes of gold, now fell in a shower, and the more tenacious beech rustled shrilly in the wind. There were no warn}, enwrapping purples in the atmosphere ; but a hare, gray heavens, sun obscured, and, at wide intervals, dry, hardy snowflakes. A loud rattle of teams could be hoard from the hard-frozen main street, and shopkeepers had hung out worsted jackets and scarfs. ’ Lyst night a loving, living God Beemed to speak through Nature; but to-day the world might be given over to hard, inexorable law. “ I wish I knew what to do,” said Simeon, breaking a twig from the frostgrape swinging above nis head. “ A man can’t carry on business successfully and allow rein to his sympathies every time anything turns up.” _ “Siiheon,” saida voice (not from Nature without, but from within,) “lovest thou meP” “Why, yes—that is—l trust I do,” said Simeon. “ Feed my sheep!” “ I suppose, if Joe had it al. in his hands, he’d drink it up in a year,” pondered Mr. Powers. “ Simeon, lovest thou me?” “Why, yes, Lord,” said Simeon, more confidently. “Feed my sheep!” “Well, this sheep drinks.” “ Who hath made thee to differ.” “ Property wouldn’t be of any use to him;: 1 might, I suppose, transfer the mortgage to the girl; dr I could foreclose, get Joe to waive the right of redemption, and deed it to her—keep them off the town, maybe.” 'Mr. Powers plucked another bit of grape-stem and began breaking it ftp. “If the village continues growing in this direction, that little place will be worth twice its mortgaged value. I’ve a perfect right to take legal measures.” An engine came grandly up the track and swept by the narrow white building, drawing after it a train of heavy freight-cars. The grandeur of force and the stirring echoes from the hills in some way acted as a moral stimulant on Simeon

“ I’ll do it, though!” exclaimed he, rising suddenly. “Perhaps, if they’re cleared from aebt, they’ll get a little self-respect. Maybe it’ll be the saving of the girl. I won’t have "the matter dragging along any longer, anyhow.” A horror of having matters “dragging along” had boon one of the secrets of Mr. Powers’ business success. At half-past six that evening Mr. Powers returned to Joe’s. The head of the family had slept off his undue exaltation and the valerian had exercised its own soothing influence upon the mistress. Mr. Powers made known his purpose. Joe was too astounded to find language. Mrs. Miller relieved the general embarrassment by swooning. The evening meeting opened at seven. After singing “ I need Thee every hour,” Mr. Simeon Powers rose, with glowing face and triumphant voice, and said he:

“1 feel that we are enjoying a most glorious and precious season. I feel that I have been blessed in my soul. I pray God to bless still more abundantly the instrumentalities here being employed for the furtherance of His cause, and to quicken us all in the name of Him who has called us to be partakers in the glories of His Kingdom. The quick little parson set the congregation singing “He leadeth Me,” and Mr. Powers’ voice seemed to lift the roof. Mr. Powers, although a church pillar, had never been a sonorous one. Ministers and evangelists had labored in vain to induce him to “speak in meeting.” Some apprehensions had been felt that he was a “dry bone.” _ At its close it was universally agreed this had been the best meeting held. A larger number than usual “rose for prayers.” Christie Miller stayed with “ the other girls,” and to the minister’s inquiry whether she was a Christian replied that she thought she was. The next evening, at a little before seven, Joe Miller was fumbling anxously in all the dark corners of his bedroom. time along back, have you, Mis’ Miller? I think 1 shall jest drop into meetin’. As nigh as I can judge, there’s some pecooliar features about this ’ere revival. Any revival that can take Mr. Simeon Powers right in the vitals, as you may say, must be a genuine work o’ grace; ’n es I could get converted genuine , Mis’ Miller, I think ’twould be one o’ the best things that could happen fur the family, Mis’ Miller.” —Elizabeth A. S. Chester, in N. Y.. Independent.