Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.

Lyman Abbott

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• Publié par: sufan
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 40
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Laicus, by Lyman Abbott Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Laicus The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish Author: Lyman Abbott Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4954] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 4, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAICUS *** This eBook was edited by Charles Aldarondo (www.aldarondo.net).LAICUS; OR, THE EXPERIENCES OF A LAYMAN IN A COUNTRY PARISH. BY LYMAN ABBOTT. NEW YORK: 1872. CONTENTS. I. HOW I HAPPENED TO GO TO WHEATHEDGE II. MORE DIPLOMACY III. WE JOIN THE CHURCH IV. THE REAL PRESENCE V. OUR CHURCH FINANCES VI. AM I A DRONE VII. THE FIELD IS THE WORLD VIII. MR. GEAR IX. I GET MY FIRST BIBLE SCHOLAR X. THE DEACON'S SECOND SERVICE XI. OUR PASTOR RESIGNS XII. THE COMMITTEE ON SUPPLY HOLD AN INFORMAL MEETING XIII. MAURICE MAPLESON DECLINES TO SUBMIT TO A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION XIV. THE SUPPLY COMMITTEE HOLD THEIR FIRST FORMAL MEETING XV. OUR CHRISTMAS AT WHEATHEDGE XVI. MR. GEAR AGAIN XVII. WANTED—A PASTOR XVIII. OUR PRAYER-MEETING XIX. WE ARE JILTED XX. WE PROPOSE XXI. MINISTERIAL SALARIES XXII. ECCLESIASTICAL FINANCIERING XXIII. OUR DONATION PARTY—BY JANE LAICUSXXIV. MAURICE MAPLESON XXV. OUR CHURCH-GARDEN XXVI. OUR TEMPERANCE PRAYER-MEETING XXVII. FATHER HYATT'S STORY XXVIII. OUR VILLAGE LIBRARY XXIX. MAURICE MAPLESON TRIES AN EXPERIMENT XXX. MR. HARDCAP'S FAMILY PRAYERS XXXI. IN DARKNESS XXXII. GOD SAID "LET THERE BE LIGHT" XXXIII. A RETROSPECT PREFACE. This book was not made; it has grown. When three years ago I left the pulpit to engage in literary work and took my seat among the laity in the pews, I found that many ecclesiastical and religious subjects presented a different aspect from that which they had presented when I saw them from the pulpit. I commenced in the CHRISTIAN UNION, in a series of "Letters from a Layman," to discuss from my new point of view some questions which are generally discussed from the clerical point of view alone. The letters were kindly received by the public. To some of the characters introduced I became personally attached. And the series of letters, commenced with the expectation that they might last through six or eight weeks, extended over a period of more than a year and a half—might perhaps have extended to the present it other duties had not usurped my time and thoughts. This was the beginning. But after a time thoughts and characters which presented themselves in isolated forms, and so were photographed for the columns of the newspaper, began to gather in groups. The single threads that had been spun for the weekly issue, wove themselves together in my imagination into the pattern of a simple story, true as to every substantial fact, yet fictitious in all its dress and form. And so out of Letters of Layman grew, I myself hardly know how, this simple story of a layman's life in a country parish. I cannot dismiss this book from my table without adding that I am conscious that the deepest problem it discusses is but barely touched upon. This has obtruded itself upon the pattern in the weaving. It was intended for a single thread; but it has given color and character to all the rest. How shall Christian faith meet the current rationalism of the day? Not by argument; this is the thought I hope may be taught, or at least suggested, by the story of Mr. Gear's experience,—and it is a true not a fictitious story, except as all here is fictitious, i.e. in the external dress in which it is clothed. The very essence of rationalism is that it assumes that the reason is the highest faculty in man and the lord of all the rest. Grant this, as too often our controversial theology does grant it, and the battle is yielded before it is begun. Whether that rationalism leads to orthodox or heterodox conclusions, whether it issues in a Westminster Assembly's Confession of faith or a Positivist Primer is a matter of secondary importance. Religion is not a conclusion of the reason. The reason is not the lord of the spiritual domain. There is a world which it never sees and with which it is wholly incompetent to deal. And Christian faith wins its victories only when by its own—heart life it gives some glimpse of this hidden world and sends the rationalist, Columbus-like, on an unknown sea to search for this unknown continent. I am not sure whether this preface had not better have remained unwritten; whether the parable had not better be left without an interpretation. But it is written and it shall stand. And so this simple story goes from my hands, I trust to do some little good, by hinting to clerical readers how some problems concerning Christian work appear to a layman's mind, and by quickening lay readers to share more generously in their pastors' labors and to understand more sympathetically their pastor's trials. LYMAN ABBOTT.The Knoll, Cornwall on the Hudson, N. Y. LAICUS. CHAPTER I. How I happened to go to Wheathedge. ABOUT sixty miles north of New York city,—not as the crow flies, for of the course of that bird I have no knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief, but as the Mary Powell ploughs her way up the tortuous channel of the Hudson river,—lies the little village of Wheathedge. A more beautiful site even this most beautiful of rivers does not possess. As I sit now in my library, I raise my eyes from my writing and look east to see the morning sun just rising in the gap and pouring a long golden flood of light upon the awaking village below and about me, and gilding the spires of the not far distant city of Newtown, and making even its smoke ethereal, as though throngs of angels hung over the city unrecognized by its too busy inhabitants. Before me the majestic river broadens out into a bay where now the ice- boats play back and forth, and day after day is repeated the merry dance of many skaters—about the only kind of dance I thoroughly believe in. If I stand on the porch upon which one of my library windows opens, and look to the east, I see the mountain clad with its primeval forest, crowding down to the water's edge. It looks as though one might naturally expect to come upon a camp of Indian wigwams there. Two years ago a wild-cat was shot in those same woods and stuffed by the hunters, and it still stands in the ante-room of the public school, the first, and last, and only contribution to an incipient museum of natural history which the sole scientific enthusiast of Wheathedge has founded —in imagination. Last year Harry stumbled on a whole nest of rattlesnakes, to his and their infinite alarm—and to ours too when afterwards he told us the story of his adventure. If I turn and look to the other side of the river, I see a broad and laughing valley,—grim in the beautiful death of winter now however,—through which the Newtown railroad, like the Star of Empire, westward takes its way. For the village of Wheathedge, scattered along the mountain side, looks down from its elevated situation on a wide expanse of country. Like Jerusalem of old,—only, if I can judge anything from the accounts of Palestinian travelers, a good deal more so,—it is beautiful for situation, and deserves to be the joy of the whole earth. A village I have called it. It certainly is neither town nor city. There is a little centre where there is a livery stable, and a country store with the Post Office attached, and a blacksmith shop, and two churches, a Methodist and a Presbyterian, with the promise of a Baptist church in a lecture-room as yet unfinished. This is the old centre; there is another down under the hill where there is a dock, and a railroad station, and a great hotel with a big bar and generally a knot of loungers who evidently do not believe in the water-cure. And between the two there is a constant battle as to which shall be the town. For the rest, there is a road wandering in an aimless way along the hill-side, like a child at play who is going nowhere, and all along this road are scattered every variety of dwelling, big and little, sombre and gay, humble and pretentious, which the mind of man ever conceived of,—and some of which I devoutly trust the mind of man will never again conceive. There are solid substantial Dutch farm-houses, built of unhewn stone, that look as though they were outgrowths of the mountain, which nothing short of an earthquake could disturb; and there are fragile little boxes that look as though they would be swept away, to be seen no more forever, by the first winter's blast that comes tearing up the gap as though the bag of Eolus had just been opened at West Point and the imprisoned winds were off with a whoop for a lark. There are houses in sombre grays with trimmings of the same; and there are houses in every variety of color, including one that is of a light pea-green, with pink trimmings and blue blinds. There are old and venerable houses, that look as though they might have come over with Peter Stuyvesant and been living at Wheathedge ever since; and there are spruce little sprigs of houses that look as though they had just come up from New York to spend