The Deacon’s Experience.
By Rose Terry Cooke
The communion service of January was just over in the church at Sugar Hollow, and people were waiting for Mr. Parkes to give out the hymn, but he did not give it out; he laid his book down on the table and looked about on his church. He was a man of simplicity and sincerity, fully in earnest to do his Lord’s work, and do it with all his might, but he did sometimes feel discouraged. His congregation was a mixture of farmers and mechanics, for Sugar Hollow was cut in two by Sugar Brook, a brawling, noisy stream that turned the wheel of many a mill and factory; yet on the hills around it there was a scattered population eating their bread in the full perception of the primeval curse. It seemed sometimes to Mr. Parkes that nothing but the trump of Gabriel could arouse people from their sins, and make them believe on the Lord and follow his footsteps. To-day, no, a long time before to-day, he had mused and prayed till an idea took shape in his thought, and now he was to put it in practice; yet he felt peculiarly responsible and solemnized, as he looked about him and foreboded the success of his experiment. But with the sense of strength, the minister spoke. “My dear friends,” he said, “you all know, though I did not give any notice to that effect, that this week is the week of prayer. I have a mind to ask you to make it for this once a week of practise instead. I think we may discover some of the things of God in this manner that a succession of prayer meetings would not, perhaps, so thoroughly reveal to us. Now, when I say this I don’t mean to have you go home and vaguely endeavor to walk straight in the old way; I want you to take ‘topics,’ as they are called, for the prayer meetings. For instance, Monday is prayer for the temperance work. Try all that day to be temperate in speech, in act, in indulgence of any kind that is hurtful to you. Tuesday is for Sunday schools. Go and visit your scholars, such of you as are teachers, to try to feel that they have living souls to save. Wednesday is a day for fellowship meeting. We are cordially invited to attend a meeting of this sort at Bantam. Few of us can go twenty-five miles to be with our brethren there; let us spend that day cultivating our brethren here; let us go and see those who have promoted breaches of friendship, confess our shortcomings one to another, and act as if, in our Master’s words, ‘All ye are brethren.’” “Thursday is the day to pray for the family relation; let us each try to be to our families on that day, in our measure, what the Lord is to his family, the church, remembering the words, ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to anger;’ ‘Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.’ These are texts rarely commented upon, I have noticed, in our conference meetings; we are more apt to speak of the obedience due from children, and the meekness our wives owe us, forgetting that duties are always reciprocal.” “Friday the church is to be prayed for. Let us then, each for himself, try to act that day just as we think Christ, our great Example, would have acted in our places. Let us try to prove to ourselves and the world about us that we have not taken upon us his name lightly or in vain. Saturday is prayer day for the heathen and foreign missions. Brethren, you know and I know that there are heathen at our doors here; let every one who will take that day to preach the Gospel to some one who does not hear it anywhere else. Perhaps you will find work that you know not lying in your midst. And let all on Saturday evening meet here again and choose one brother to relate his experience of the week. You who are willing to try this method, please rise.” Everybody rose except old Amos Tucker, who never stirred, though his wife pulled at him, and whispered to him imploringly. He shook his grizzled head and sat immovable. “Let us sing the Doxology,” said Mr. Parkes, and it was sung with full fervor. The new idea had roused the church fully; it was something fixed and positive to do; it was the lever point that Archimedes longed for, and each one felt ready and strong enough to move a world. Saturday night the church assembled again. The cheerful eagerness was gone from their faces; they looked downcast, troubled, weary—as the pastor expected. When the box for ballots was passed about, each one tore a bit of paper from the sheet placed in the hymn-books for the purpose, and wrote on it a name. The pastor said, after he had counted them, “Deacon Emmons, the lot has fallen on you.” “I’m sorry for it,” said the deacon, rising and taking off his overcoat. “I ha’n’t got the best of records, Mr. Parkes, now I tell ye.” “That isn’t what we want,” said Mr. Parkes. “We want to know the whole experience of some one among us, and we know you will not tell us either more or less than what you did experience.” Deacon Emmons was a short, thick-set man, with a shrewd, kindly face, and gray hair, who kept the village store, and had a well-earned reputation for honesty. “Well, brethren,” he said, “I do’no why I shouldn’t tell it. I am pretty well ashamed of myself, no doubt, but I ought to be, and12maybe I shall profit by what I’ve found out these six days back. I’ll tell you just as it come. Monday I looked about me to begin with. I am amazing fond of coffee, and it ain’t good for me; the doctor says it ain’t; but, dear me, it does set a man up good, cold mornings, to have a cup of hot, sweet, tasty drink, and I haven’t had the grit to refuse. I knew it made me what other folks call nervous, but I call cross, before night comes; and I knew it fetched on spells of low spirits, when our folks couldn’t get a word out of me—not a good one, anyway—so I thought I’d try on that to begin with. I tell you it come hard. I hankered after that drink of coffee dreadful. Seemed as though I could not eat my breakfast without it. I know how to pity a man that loves liquor more’n ever I did in my life before; but I feel sure they can stop it if they’ll try, for I’ve stopped, and I’m a goin’ to stay stopped.” “Well, come to dinner, there was another fight. I do set by pie the most of anything. I was fetched up on pie, as you might say. Our folks always had it three times a day, and the doctor he’s been talkin’ and talkin’ to me about eatin’ pie. I have the dyspepsy like everything, and it makes me useless by spells, and unreliable as a weathercock. An’ Doctor Drake he says there won’t nothing help me but to diet. I was readin’ the Bible that morning while I was waiting for breakfast, for ’twas Monday, and wife was kind of set back with washin’ and all, and I come across that part where it says that the bodies of Christians are temples of the Holy Ghost. Well, thinks I, we’d ought to take care of ’em if they be, and see that they’re kept clean and pleasant, like the church; and nobody can be clean nor pleasant that has dyspepsy.” “But, come to pie, I felt as though I couldn’t, and, look ye, I didn’t. I eat a piece right against my conscience; facin’ what I knew I ought to do, I went out and did what I ought not to. I tell ye my conscience made music of me considerable, and I said then I wouldn’t never sneer at a drinkin’ man no more when he slipped up. I’d feel for him and help him, for I see how it was. So that day’s practice give out, but it learnt me a good deal more than I knew before.” “I started out next day to look up my Bible class. They haven’t really tended up to Sunday school as they ought, along back, but I was busy here and there, and there didn’t seem to be a real chance to get to it.” “Well, ’twould take the evenin’ to tell it all, but I found one real sick, been abed for three weeks, and was so glad to see me that I felt fairly ’shamed of myself. Seemed as though I heard the Lord for the first time, sayin’, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me.’” “Then another man’s old mother says to me, before he came in from the shed, says she:— “He’s been a-sayin’ that if folks practiced what they preached, you’d ha’ come around to look him up afore now, but he reckoned you kinder looked down on the mill hands. I’m awful glad you come.” “Brethren, so was I. I tell you that day’s work done me good. I got a poor opinion of Josiah Emmons, now, I tell ye, but I learned more about the Lord’s ways than a month of Sundays ever showed me.” A smile he could not repress passed over Mr. Parkes’ earnest face. The deacon had forgotten all external issues in coming so close to the heart of things, but the smile passed away as he said:— “Brother Emmons, do you remember what the Master said, ‘If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself’?” “Well, it’s so,” answered the deacon, “it’s so, right along. Why, I never thought so much of my Bible class nor took such interest in ’em as I do to-day—not since I begun to teach. I b’lieve they’ll come more reg’lar now, too.” “Now come fellowship day. I thought that would be all plain sailin’; seemed as tho’ I’d got warmed up till I felt pleasant towards everybody; so I went around seein’ folks that was neighbors, and ’twas easy, but when I come home at noon spell, Philury says, says she:— “Square Tucker’s black bull is into th’ orchard a tearin’ round, and he’s knocked two lengths o’ fence flat.” “Well, the old Adam riz up then, you’d better b’lieve. That black bull had been a breakin’ into my lots ever since we got in th’ aftermath, and it’s Square Tucker’s fence, and he won’t make it bull-strong as he’d oughter, and that orchard was a young one just comin’ to bear, and all the new wood crisp as cracklin’s with frost. You’d better b’lieve I didn’t have much feller-feeling with Amos Tucker. I jest put over to his house and spoke up pretty free to him, when he looked up and says, says he:— “‘Fellowship meetin’ day, ain’t it, deacon?’” “I’d rather he’d ha’ slapped my face. I felt as tho’ I should like to slip behind the door. I see pretty distinct what sort of life I’d been livin’ all the years I’d been a professor, when I couldn’t hold onto my tongue and temper one day.” “‘Breth-e-ren,’” interrupted a slow, harsh voice, somewhat broken with emotion, “I’ll tell rest on’t. Josiah Emmons came around like a man an’ a Christian right there. He asked me to forgive him, and not to think ’twas the fault of his religion, because ’twas his’n, and nothin’ else. I think more of him to-day than I ever done before. I was one that wouldn’t say I’d practise with the rest of ye. I thought ’twas everlastin’ nonsense. I’d rather go to forty-nine prayer meetin’s than work at bein’ good a week. I b’lieve my hope has been one of them that perish; it hain’t worked, and I leave it behind to-day. I mean to begin honest, and it was seein’ one honest Christian man fetched me round to’t.” Amos Tucker sat down, and buried his grizzled head in his rough hands. “Bless the Lord!” said the quavering tones of a still older man from a far corner of the house, and many a glistening eye gave a silent response. “Go on, Brother Emmons,” said the minister. “Well, when next day come, I got up to make the fire, and my boy Joe had forgot the kindlin’s. I’d opened my mouth to give him ‘Jesse,’ when it came over me suddin that this was the day of prayer for the family relation. I thought I would say nothin’, so I jest fetched in the kindlin’s myself, and when the fire burnt up good, I called my wife.” “‘Dear me,’ said she, ‘I’ve got such a headache, ’Siah, but I’ll come in a minit.’” “I didn’t mind that, for women are always havin’ aches, and I was just a goin’ to say so, when I remembered the tex’ about not bein’ bitter against ’em, so I says:— “‘Philury, you lay abed. I expect Emmy and me can get the vittles to-day.’” “I declare she turned over and give me such a look; why, it struck right in! There was my wife, that had worked for an’ waited on me twenty odd years, ’most scar’t because I spoke kind of feelin’ to her. I went and fetched the pail o’ water she’d always drawn herself, and then milked the cow. When I came in, Philury was up frying the potatoes, and the tears a shinin’ on her white face. She didn’t say nothin’—she’s kinder still—but she hadn’t no need to. I felt a leetle meaner’n I did the day before. But ’twan’t nothing to my condition when I was goin’, towards night, down the suller stairs for some apples, so’s the children could have a roast, and I heard Joe up in the kitchen say to Emmy:— “‘I do b’lieve, Em, pa’s goin’ to die.’” “‘Why, Josiah Emmons, how you talk!’” “‘Well, I do; he’s so everlastin’ pleasant and good-natured, I can’t but think he’s struck with death.’” “I tell ye, brethren, I set right down on them suller stairs and cried. I did reely. Seemed as though the Lord had turned and looked at me just as he did at Peter. Why, there was my own children never see me act real fatherly and pretty in all their lives. I’d growled and scolded and prayed at ’em, and tried to fetch ’em up jest as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined, ye know, but I had never thought they’d got right an’ reason to expect I’d do my part as well as their’n. Seemed as though I was findin’ out more about Josiah Emmons’ shortcomings than was real agreeable.” “Come around Friday I got back to the store. I’d kind of left it to the boys the early part of the week, and things was a little cluttering, but I did have sense not to tear around and use sharp words so much as common. I began to think ’twas getting easy to practise after five days, when in come Judge Herrick’s wife after some curt’n calico. I had a han’some piece, all done off with roses and things, but there was a fault in the weavin’, every now and then a thin streak. She didn’t notice it, but she was pleased with the figures on’t, and said she’d take the whole piece. Well, just as I was wrappin’ of it up, what Mr. Parkes here said about tryin’ to act just as the Lord would in our place come across me. Why, I turned as red as a beet, I knew I did. It made me all of a tremble. There was I, a doorkeeper in the tents of my God, as David says, really cheatin’, and cheatin’ a woman. I tell ye, brethren, I was all a sweat.” “‘Mis’ Herrick,’ says I, ‘I don’t believe you’ve looked real close at this goods; ’tain’t thorough work,’ says I. So she didn’t take it; but what fetched me was to think how many times before I’d done sech mean, unreliable little things to turn a penny, and then all the time sayin’ and prayin’ that I wanted to be like Christ. I kep’ a trippin’ of myself up all day jest in the ordinary business, and I was a peg lower down when night come than I was a Thursday. I’d rather, as far as the hard work is concerned, lay a mile of four-foot stone wall than undertake to do a man’s livin’ Christian duty for twelve hours; and the heft of that is, it’s because I ain’t used to it, and I ought to be.” “So this mornin’ came around, and I felt a mite more cherk. ’Twas missionary mornin’, and seemed as if ’twas a sight easier to preach than to practice. I thought I’d begin to old Mis’ Vedder’s. So I put a Testament in my pocket and knocked to her door. Says I, ‘Good-mornin’, ma’am,’ and then I stopped. Words seemed to hang somehow. I didn’t want to pop right out that I’d come to try’n to convert her folks. I hemmed and swallowed a little, and fin’ly I said, says I, ‘We don’t see you to meetin’ very frequent, Mis’ Vedder.’” “‘No, you don’t,’ ses she, as quick as a wink; ‘I stay to home and mind my business.’” “‘Well, we should like to hev you come along with us and do ye good,’ says I, sort of conciliatory.” “‘Look a here, deacon,’ she snapped, ‘I’ve lived alongside of you fifteen years, and you knowed I never went to meetin’; we ain’t a pious lot, and you knowed it; we’re poorer’n death and uglier’n sin. Jim he drinks and swears and Malviny do’no her letters. She knows a heap she hadn’t ought to besides. Now what are you comin’ here to-day for, I’d like to know, and talkin’ so glib about meetin’. Go to meetin’! I’ll go and come just when I please, for all you. Now get out o’ this!’” “Why, she comes at me with a broomstick. There wasn’t no need on’t; what she said was enough. I hadn’t never asked her13nor her’n to so much as think of goodness before.” “Then I went to another place just like that—I won’t call no more names—and sure enough there was ten children in rags, the hull on ’em, and the man half drunk. He give it to me, too, and I don’t wonder. I’d never lifted a hand to serve nor save ’em before in all these years. I’d said considerable about the heathen in foreign parts, and give some little for to convert ’em, and I had looked right over the heads of them that was next door. Seemed as if I could hear Him say, ‘These ye ought to have done, and not have left the other undone.’ I couldn’t face another soul to-day, my brethren; I come, and here I be. I’ve been searched through and through and found wantin’. ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’”—Examiner.