Nurtured Prejudice by Mrs. Ann Preston

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 25, 1883

Nurtured Prejudice.

By Mrs. Ann Preston

Several years ago a young minister who had just been ordained, accompanied by his wife of three days, went to preach as a candidate for a little church in a small farming town of southern Vermont.

He knew nothing about the place, aside from the fact that the little flock of Christians were seeking a shepherd. He took his young wife with him in good faith, supposing he should find a hotel in the town, however indifferent its accommodations might be, where they could be entertained over the Lord's day, in case none of the church members were prepared to take them in.

Arrived at the village, every family, without exception, was thrown into consternation at the idea of entertaining a lady, a bride, and the bride of a minister at that, without due warning and preparation.

The young man who had brought them up over the hills from the railway station, left them on the steps of a plain pretty little church, and drove away. Not a door opened to receive them, and as there was no public house in the township, the young couple were obliged to walk off over a rough country road to the farm-house of the senior deacon, and to throw themselves upon his hospitality.

Here, although their advent was entirely unexpected, they were made welcome, and in their perturbed state of mind nothing else could have been half so sweet as the kindly Christian house-wife's request that they would make themselves at home, as she ushered them into her pretty parlor.

It was an exceedingly unpleasant position; for there were younger members of the family, who, although they treated the guests politely, showed plainly that they did not join in the housewife's welcome. Probably the young couple demeaned themselves with as much dignity under the circumstances, as could have been expected of the average young couple.

The young man preached on Sunday, and the unprejudiced hearer would have said he preached well; but those of the people who came out to hear him hardened their hearts to fortify themselves in their inhospitable position, looked criticizingly at the timid young wife's traveling suit, and said to themselves and to each other: "I am glad we didn't give her a chance to put on her airs to us."

On Monday morning the bride and groom left the little town for a term of more than a half score years. Then, by a curious conjunction of circumstances the young man was solicited by a friend, interested in both him and the little Vermont hill town church, to go there again and preach as a candidate.

Undismayed by his former experience, he went once more up the well-remembered hills, and stood again in the little church. At first no one associated the dignified man, with threads of silver in his hair, with the young preacher of so many years ago; but soon one of those women to be found in nearly every community, whose memory for trifles is simply marvelous, and who never have any hesitancy in telling what they remember, leaned over and whispered to the woman just in front of her:

"Don't you remember him? He's the very one that nobody in the street would keep over Sunday, and he and his young wife had to walk off with their carpet bag full of finery, away down to the old deacons, don't you know?"

"Why, yes indeed! yes! so it is!"

Before the choir had finished singing the second hymn, half the people in the congregation had had their memories refreshed.

The poor innocent man's fate was sealed from that moment. He had never harbored any resentment toward them, and would have been surprised had he been told of the long-cherished animosity to him existing in the village.

He was preaching now, and there was no mistaking about it, he was preaching well; but the people shut all their sympathies against him, and after service they were as shy of him as if he had small-pox.

"I never fell in with such a singular people," he said afterwards. "Not a person would have spoken to me had I not gone to them and almost compelled them to do so."

The next day after he was fairly out of town, the chairman of the supply committee said to a young lady from the city, who was visiting at his house:--

"It was a great mistake sending Mr. A. here, the people were so prejudiced against him, to begin with, that he could do them no good."

"What ground had they for prejudice?" asked the young woman. "He has always been called a fine speaker, and has left a good record wherever he has been. I have often heard him and his work spoken of. I have not been able to ascertain that he or his wife did anything reprehensible on their former visit here, on which every one lays so much stress."

"Oh! they behaved like good Christians, of course, as I have no doubt they are," the old man hastened to say, "and I have no doubt they are called of the Lord to his work, but, you see, their first coming here was an awkward, unfortunate affair all around."

"So I have been told; and as near as I can ascertain, the people here despise this man because they once ill-treated him."

"To be sure," said the farmer, hitching about in his splint-bottomed chair. "To be sure, I never thought to put it in that light before, but just covers it, judging the rest of our people by the wife and I. You see we were the first offenders because we were nearest the church, and they came first to our door. Had we taken them in, and done our best by them, the whole miserable affair would have been saved. Wife was cleaning house, to be sure, but we could have got along with them well enough, and I was just as shirky as she, for I might have hitched up the chaise and carried them down to the deacon's, but I didn't. Strange such a neglect of duty should rankle so long, but yesterday, wife wouldn't speak to him for fear he would remember her, and I only said as little as I could, and we skulked out, and came home not even waiting for Sunday-school."

"Did you ever think," the young woman asked, "that that is the true reason for many sinners hating God? They have misused him. They have profaned his name. They have refused to entertain him in their hearts, to acknowledge him in their homes at a family altar. It is nothing that God can be blamed for, he has been all kindness and consideration to them. They have received only benefits from his hand. The fault remains entirely with themselves, and do you not think the same idea holds good in regard to the foundations of nearly any prejudices?"

"I never thought of it in that way before, but I don't know but it does," said the farmer. "Do you think we ought to compensate for our great ill-treatment by giving this man a call?"

"It is too late, he would not come. In my heart I believe he is God's man for this people at this time. He is lost through the sin of that old nurtured prejudice for which the preacher was not to blame either in the beginning or now."

The lesson was not wholly lost, for the next Wednesday evening the chairman of the supply committee talked it right out in prayer-meeting. The people took it in good part, although they knew his niece put it into his head, and it had the effect of waking some delinquent ones up to a sense of duty, and there was no more trouble in finding a place for the supply to stay over Sunday until a pastor was found.

The senior deacon's wife, now a very old woman, said the other day in telling this story: "It is strange how after so many years the old sin twisted around like a scorpion and stung itself to death; and it is dead, I do believe, for I think it would be hard to find now a more hospitable place than our quiet little village."—Mrs. Ann Preston.