Poganuc People. Stowe Harriet Beecher
conceit of his own vocal powers, and had been heard to express himself contemptuously of the new Episcopal organ. He had been to Doctor Cushing with suggestions as to the tunes that the singers wanted, to keep up the reputation of their "meetin'-house." So after "Denmark" came old "Majesty," and Ben so bestirred himself beating time and roaring, first to treble and then to counter and then to bass, and all the singers poured forth their voices with such ringing good-will, that everybody felt sure they were better than any Episcopal organ in the world.
And as there is a place for all things in this great world of ours, so there was in its time and day a place and a style for Puritan music. If there were pathos and power and solemn splendor in the rhythmic movement of the churchly chants, there was a grand wild freedom, an energy of motion, in the old "fuguing" tunes of that day that well expressed the heart of a people courageous in combat and unshaken in endurance. The church chant is like the measured motion of the mighty sea in calm weather, but those old fuguing tunes were like that same ocean aroused by stormy winds, when deep calleth unto deep in tempestuous confusion, out of which at last is evolved union and harmony. It was a music suggestive of the strife, the commotion, the battle cries of a transition period of society, struggling onward toward dimly-seen ideals of peace and order. Whatever the trained musician might say of such a tune as old "Majesty," no person of imagination and sensibility could ever hear it well rendered by a large choir without deep emotion. And when back and forth from every side of the church came the different parts shouting,
"On cherubim and seraphim
Full royally he rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad" —
there went a stir and a thrill through many a stern and hard nature, until the tempest cleared off in the words,
"He sat serene upon the floods,
Their fury to restrain,
And he, as sovereign Lord and King,
Forever more shall reign."
And when the doctor rose to his sermon the music had done its work on his audience, in exalting their mood to listen with sympathetic ears to whatever he might have to say.
When he spread out his sermon before him there was a rustle all over the house, as of people composing themselves to give the strictest attention.
He announced his text from Galatians iv., 9, 10, 11.
"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain."
The very announcement of the text seemed to bring out upon the listening faces of the audience a sympathetic gleam. Hard, weather-beaten countenances showed it, as when a sunbeam passes over points of rocks.
What was to come of such a text was plain to be seen. The yoke of bondage from which Puritan New England had escaped across the waters of a stormy sea, the liberty in Christ which they had won in this new untrodden land, made theirs by prayers and toils and tears and sacrifice, for which they had just fought through a tedious and bloody war – there was enough in all these remembrances to evoke a strain of heartfelt eloquence which would awaken a response in every heart.
Then the doctor began his investigations of Christmas; and here his sermon bristled with quotations in good Greek and Latin, which he could not deny himself the pleasure of quoting in the original as well as in the translation. But the triumphant point in his argument was founded on a passage in Clemens Alexandrinus, who, writing at the close of the second century, speaks of the date of Christ's birth as an unimportant and unsettled point. "There are some," says the Father, "who over-curiously assign not only the year but the day of our Saviour's birth, which they say was the 25th of Pachon, or the 20th of May."
The doctor had exulted in the finding of this passage as one that findeth much spoil, and he proceeded to make the most of it in showing that the modern keeping of Christmas was so far unknown in the earliest ages of the church that even the day was a matter of uncertainty.
Now it is true that his audience, more than half of them, did not know who Clement was. Even the judges, men of culture and learning, and the teacher at the Academy, professionally familiar with Greek, had only the vaguest recollection of a Christian Father who had lived some time in the primitive ages; the rest of the congregation, men and women, only knew that their minister was a learned man and were triumphant at this new proof of it.
The doctor used his point so as to make it skillfully exciting to the strong, practical, matter-of-fact element which underlies New England life. "If it had been important for us to keep Christmas," he said, "certainly the date would not have been left in uncertainty. We find no traces in the New Testament of any such observance; we never read of Christmas as kept by the apostles and their followers; and it appears that it was some centuries after Christ before such an observance was heard of at all." In fact the doctor said that the keeping of the 25th of December as Christmas did not obtain till after the fourth century, and then it was appointed to take the place of an old heathen festival, the "natalis solis invicti;" and here the doctor rained down names and authorities and quotations establishing conflicting suppositions till the wilderness of learning grew so wild that only the Academy teacher seemed able to follow it through. He indeed sat up and nodded intelligently from point to point, feeling that the eyes of scholars might be upon him, and that it was well never to be caught napping in matters like these.
The last point of the Doctor's sermon consisted in historical statements and quotations concerning the various abuses to which the celebration of the Christmas festival had given rise, from the days of Augustine and Chrysostom down to those of the Charleses and Jameses of England, in all of which he had free course and was glorified; since under that head there are many things more true than edifying that might be recounted.
He alluded to the persecutions which had forced upon our fathers the alternative of conforming to burdensome and unspiritual rites and ceremonies or of flying from their native land and all they held dear; he quoted from St. Paul the passage about false brethren who came in privily to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us again into bondage – "to whom" (and here the doctor grew emphatic and thumped the pulpit cushion) "we gave place by subjection not for an hour."
The sermon ended with a stirring appeal to walk in the good old ways, to resist all those, however fair their pretenses, who sought to remove the old landmarks and repeal the just laws and rules that had come down from the fathers. It was evident from the enkindled faces in every pew that the doctor carried his audience fully with him, and when in the closing petition he prayed to the Lord that "our judges might be as at the first, and our counsellors as at the beginning," everybody felt sure that he was thinking of the next election, and Tim Hawkins with difficulty restrained himself from giving a poke of the elbow to a neighbor in the next pew suspected of Democratic proclivities.
As to Dolly, who as a babe of grace was duly brought to church every Sunday, her meditations were of a very confused order. Since the gift of her red dress and red shoes, and the well remembered delightful scene at the church on Christmas Eve, Christmas had been an interesting and beautiful mystery to her mind; a sort of illuminated mist, now appearing and now disappearing.
Sometimes when her father in his sermon pronounced the word "Christmas" in emphatic tones, she fixed her great blue eyes seriously upon him and wondered what he could be saying; but when Greek and Latin quotations began to rain thick and fast she turned to Spring, who as a good, well-trained minister's dog was allowed to go to meeting with his betters, and whose serious and edified air was a pattern to Dolly and the boys.
When she was cold – a very common experience in those windy pews – she nestled close to Spring and put her arms around his neck, and sometimes dropped asleep on his back. Those sanctuary naps were a generally accorded privilege to the babes of the church, who could not be expected to digest the strong meat of the elders.
Dolly had one comfort of which nothing could deprive her: she had been allowed to wear her new red dress and red shoes. It is true the dress was covered up under