On a cold March evening, and in the
metropolis of Scotland, I received licence as a probationer. The
reverend fathers of the Presbytery were so satisfied with my orthodoxy
that they gave me most cordially the right hand of fellowship, and
warmly wished me success. I had half-anticipated a reprimand for
heretical tendencies; but as no censure was uttered, I was at once
overcome by their kindness, and charmed with their unexpected
liberality. I hastened home to receive the congratulations of my
friends, and then repaired to a clothier's for a suit of canonical
blacks. My mother had already provided a boxful of white cravats
sufficient to supply the whole bench of bishops. To err is human, and it
is also human for a humble man to feel considerably elated in certain
circumstances, and at certain times.
I need not be ashamed to confess that
a new dignity seemed to rest upon me, like the mantle of the prophet, on
that eventful evening. I saw the reflection of my face on the bowl of a
silver spoon, and wondered at the resemblance it bore to the bold,
heroic countenance of Edward Irving. High were my hopes, and few were my
fears, for I only expected to speak and conquer.
The responsibilities of the procession were great, I knew, but they only
cast their shadow before. The kind of life on which I was about to enter
possessed all the attractions of novelty. I was to exchange passivity
for action—the quiet of the cloister for the stir of the field. Yet,
while thus I thought of the battle, and made my vows, the still picture
of a rural manse, girdled with incense-breathing flower-plots, and
shaded with murmuring trees, stole upon my slumbers ere I awoke at the
dawn of the next day—a vision, alas! too often resembling the unreal
beauty of the mirage in the desert.
It may be pardoned in a novitiate,
standing on the threshold, if I saw only the sunny side of
preacher-life. Spring was coming, like Miriam and her maidens, with
timbrels and with dances, and the golden summer-tide was following in
her wake, and I knew that I would look on many lovely scenes, receive
kindness from strangers, enjoy the hospitality of the humble, and haply
sow some seeds of goodness and truth in receptive hearts.
I had frequently heard strange stories
about preachers, and several times I had met some curious specimens of
the class. One, it was said, travelled over the country with a sermon
and a-half and a tobacco-pipe. Another, it was averred, carried neither
parchments nor portmanteau, went gadding abroad, and was in fact the
generalissimo of gossips. A third poked his nose into presses, supped
jelly and jam, pocketed lumps of sugar, and performed other absurdities
not at all creditable to his cloth. I had also
learned from ministers' wives in the country, that some were as unsocial
and morose as turnkeys, and others quite the reverse—lively young
fellows, who could rock the cradle, and keep all the children in high
glee. It was necessary for me, then, 1 felt, to be circumspect, to
abstain from all eccentricities, to be sociable among social people, and
dignified when occasion required. Experience soon taught me that a joke
from clerical lips sounds like profanity in the ears of the rigidly
righteous. A kind friend told me to beware of elders who wished to
discuss the doctrine of reprobation, and to avoid walking arm-in-arm
with any rural beauty.
"Were you, in your unsuspecting
innocence," he said, "to commit this last enormity, the village gossips
would tell it to the beadle, the beadle to the managers, the managers to
the elders, and your glory would depart."
The advice was a wise one, as I
afterwards found; but gallantry is more a characteristic of youth than
prudence.
I had prepared a considerable supply
of discourses. They were elaborately written, and I looked with paternal
affection upon the companions of my future wanderings. I shunned those
dry doctrinal discussions which shed so sweet an opiate over the eyes of
old, young, and middle-aged. The topics selected were such as I believed
would interest and instruct all classes of people. I had. enlarged upon
the zeal and self-sacrifice of the sainted men of old, pictured the Holy
One silent in the death chamber, and weeping at the tomb, and drawn
illustrations from the heavens above, and the earth beneath. Something
fresh was needed, I thought —a Christianity rich in blossoms as in
fruit.
I received an appointment for the
first Sabbath after licence, and on Saturday afternoon I was rattling
along Princes Street in the Queensferry omnibus. A small town across the
Firth, in the kingdom of Fife, not far from the coast, was my
destination. Although the sermon I was to deliver on the morrow had been
well committed to memory, and frequently declaimed during the week, yet
I found myself conning it over again ere we had crossed the Dean Bridge,
and certain passages became mysteriously blended in my mind with the
images of Craigcrook and Corstorphine. Then I began to wonder if the
other passengers suspected I was a preacher on my maiden expedition. One
woman was occupied in gazing very fondly upon the face of a dozing child
three months old; a red-faced, purple-nosed old gentleman was sucking
the round head of a walking-stick; a stout elderly lady seemed to find
the leathern cushion very uncomfortable, since of her down-sitting and
up-rising there was no end; a young gentleman of the Tittlebat Titmouse
tribe breathed heavily, and at intervals snored; and a young lady, my
vis-a-vis in the opposite corner, was the only one who seemed really
to be aware of my presence, and the only one who appeared willing to
break the unsocial silence. I remembered my friend's advice, and was
somewhat afraid to speak. Besides, heads, and particulars, and practical
applications, were making such a thoroughfare of my mind, that there was
considerable danger of committing absurd mistakes in conversation. I
became really sorry for the young lady, she looked at me so inquiringly,
and seemed so anxious that I should speak. There was a keen frost in the
air, and one or two outsiders were flapping their hands across their
shoulders—might I not say that the afternoon was cold? Gray-white clouds
were gathering from horizon to horizon and dimming the day—might I not
suggest the possibility of snow ? Suddenly the light wavering crystals
slid down the window-glass, and with uplifted eyebrows and look of
innocent surprise, the fair young traveller exclaimed, "Oh! it snows."
"So it does, ma'am," I rejoined, and
spoke no more.
She might think of me that evening as
very silent or very surly; but she no doubt changed her opinion next
day. for I saw her sitting in the front gallery of the church when I
rose to give out the first psalm.
In crossing the ferry, I thought no:
of the royal dames and princely pageants that so often in the days of
other years passed to and from the shores of Fife. The waters of the
Forth were dreary enough. Inchcolm and the opposite coast were shrouded
from view in the streaming skirts of the snow-clouds. I rolled myself up
in a corner of the boat where no deacon's eye
could intrude, and warmed my heart with a cigar. Then some limping fiend
whispered in my ears the awful words, "What if you should stick!"
Once I had witnessed an unfortunate being in that painful predicament in
the pulpit. I had marked, with sickening apprehensions, the string of
unconnected sentences, the hesitation, the palor overspreading his face,
the terrible stammer, the convulsive clutch, the pause, the sudden gulp,
the dead stop, and portentous silence. A "stickit minister," like
Dominie Sampson, is nothing to a preacher who " sticks." It was a horrid
idea. I resisted the fiend, knit my brow, clenched my fist, and
determined to speak or die. "Always keep your mouth open," was the
charge of a learned divine to his son, and the words afforded me much
consolation.
The night was falling fast, and the
snow was falling faster when I reached the outskirts of the little
inland town where I had been appointed to officiate. Here my rapid march
was arrested by an elderly man who inquired if I was the expected
preacher, and receiving an answer in the affirmative, he relieved me of
my portmanteau, which contained my precious parchment, and led the way
to my lodgings. He gave me to understand that he was the beadle, and
that I was to lodge with Mrs M'Bain, who kept a small grocery shop, and
had a room to spare in her house. The congregation, with much saving
grace, had let the manse until a new minister was obtained. Old John,
like the great proportion of country beadles, was a simple, decent man,
and a sort of character in his way. He was particularly inquisitive, and
asked me some very plain questions as we trudged along the narrow
street, getting gradually whitened by the falling snow. He told me that
my predecessor on the previous Sabbath was a very clever young man, but
only a "wee thocht new-fangled." From further inquiry I found that the
learned Theban had been astonishing John and several members of the
congregation by describing the revolution of the earth on its axis.
"Noo, sir," said the worthy beadle,
"can ye tell me, if the world is aye whirlin' round aboot, what's the
reason we never come to the warm countries?"
I endeavoured to make the matter plain
to his apprehension by supposing a rotatory motion of the human head,
and the nose always maintaining its dignified position in the centre
between the right ear and the left—an illustration which honest John did
not seem to regard as satisfactory in the slightest degree.
Mrs M'Bain's house was of a very
humble description; but she appeared to be a tidy woman, and the room
allotted to me, though small, was clean and comfortable. John put down
my portmanteau on a chair, with the mien and manner of one who has done
his duty, and informed me that one of the elders and the precentor would
likely call in a short time. For the precentor I was perfectly prepared,
knowing well the psalms that would best suit my discourse ; but I was
not so sure what motive an elder could have for visiting me on a
Saturday night. I inwardly hoped, at least, that if he did make his
appearance, he would have the good sense not to trouble me long with his
presence or his conversation, as I was again anxious to rehearse my
discourse to silent chairs and an attentive table.
When Mrs M'Bain was placing the
tea-dishes on the table, she seemed disposed for a little talk, while I,
on the contrary, was not at all in a communicative mood. However, she
persevered, and drew me on by degrees, until at last she brought a
series of queries to a climax by asking if I had been long a preacher.
Now, this was a most absurd question for me to answer in my peculiar
circumstances. If the people knew that I had never "wagged my head in a
poupit" before, they would be sure to listen to me with the most
dreadful silence, so that the slightest stammer would be multiplied and
magnified by a hundred echoes. What was to be done? The question must be
answered. and the truth must be told, despite the consequences.
Mustering up courage, I told my landlady how
the matter stood. Astonished she was, as might naturally have been
expected. She uplifted her eyebrows, opened wide her eyes, drew a long
breath, and said—"Dearie me, sir, ye'll be awfu' feared!" With this
ejaculation, which afforded me little consolation indeed, Mrs M'Bain
left the apartment, and I knew that the tidings would be over the town,
and talked about at every fireside in less than twenty minutes. It could
not be helped; courage and resignation alone were required.
I had just finished swallowing in haste three cups of
very hot tea, when the precentor entered. He was a man past middle age,
with a countenance somewhat grim and gaunt, and a very unmusical mouth.
His hair was sandy-coloured, and he was Sawney all over. I saw at once,
from his steady stare, and the peculiar expression of his face, that Mrs
M'Bain had communicated to him the very pleasant intelligence that the
new arrival was a "green hand." He was not long in making me know that
he was aware of the fact, although he did so in a very cautious,
provoking kind of style. When the ice was fairly broken, he said, " It's
a kittle thing standin' up afore an audience the first time. I mind fine
yet what an awfu' state I was in when I first sang i' the desk. I kent
the Auld Hunderd as weel as I keut my mither; but I wasna lang begun
when I ran awa' wi' the harrows. This kind of talk was rapidly becoming
unendurable, and I enterined anything but a Christian sentiment of
brotherly love towards the conductor of the psalmody.
"How long have you acted as precentor," I enquired,
anxious to change the current of conversation.
"I've precentcd in oor kirk," he replied, "for twunty
years, and, barrin' three days last simmer, I've never missed a
Sabbath."
"That is very extraordinary," I rejoined; "and what
was wrong with you last summer?"
"Weel, sir, ye see I was howkin' tatties for the
denner in oor yaird ae day, when I coupit ower a skep by mistake, and I
was awfu' stung by bees."
"Dear me," I rejoined (for I could not resist such a
favourable opportunity of stinging him again). "it was curious how the
bees should have taken you for a drone!"
This remark had the desired effect. The precentor
soon look himself off, and I was left in undisputed possession of the
room. I had offended the beadle, and insulted the precentor—how was it
possible that I could preach with acceptation to the people? I became
nervous lest the elder also should enter, for I was perfectly persuaded
that I could not escape incurring his reprobation by some unfortunate
reply.
As the night wore on, my trepidation increased. I
paced up and down the room, repeating and re-repeating my discourse from
beginning to end, and from the end to the beginning. Every period,
colon, hyphen, point of exclamation, point of interrogation, ana comma
was engraved upon my mind, and yet I was not satisfied. Something might
escape me—some sounding sentence might take wings and flee away. I heard
Mrs M'Bain listening at times behind the door when I went humming and
thrumming across the room; and I felt a strong inclination to call her
in, and punish her by making her act the part of a popular audience. I
cooled down somewhat before bedtime, and, at my landlady's request,
retired early to bed.
"A gude sleep," she said, "is the forerunner of a
good sermon."
"Yes," I rejoined, "and a good sleep is the ordinary
accompaniment of a bad one."
Mrs M'Bain chuckled, and looked as if she thought
there was something promising in the young man after all.
To bed I went, but not to slumber, knowing well that
sleep, like some eccentric daughters of Eve, must be won without being
wooed. I did not try to "fall over." None but the rankest fool ever
thinks of perpetrating such absurdity. I commenced for the five
hundredth tim—what else could I do?—to con over my discourse. I had just
finished the introduction, without missing a syllable, when—horror of
horrors!—the first head had vanished— evaporated—gone to some outrageous
limbo and could not, would not be recalled. What was to be done? I sat
up in bed—a villanous crib It was—and the perspiration stood beaded on
my brow. The tingling darkness filled the room ; the snow-flakes fussled
on the window panes. Mrs M'Bain was in bed; the candle was out; there
were no lucifers; my precious manuscript was under my pillow; the
missing head was there, but I could neither see nor seize it. It was a
caput mortuum. I cannot describe the agony that I endured, the
feeling of despair that I experienced. My heart beat loudly, and the
inexorable clock tick-ticked, as if everything in the world were going
on with the utmost smoothness and regularity. I must have sat for an
hour groping about in my benighted brain for my lost head. But sleep at
length came, and fantastic dreams, born of fear and excitement, took
possession of me. I thought that I stood on Mars Hill, and that around
me was gathered a great crowd of Stoics, Epicureans, Methodists,
Mormons, and Mahom-medans. They listened attentively for a time, but as
soon as I had finished the introduction to my discourse, they
immediately commenced to grin ano make grimaces, shouting, howling,
roaring like legions of demons. In the twinkling of an eye, the scene
changed, and I stood in the centre of a vast camp-meeting in the
backwoods of America. Negroes and Red Indians were there as well as
stalwart planters with their wives and families. A hymn, pealed with a
sea-like sound from a thousand voices, had just died away, and I was
preparing to address the mighty multitude, when a sudden storm came
crashing down among the woods, and the assemblage was scattered abroad
like the leaves of autumn. I was tossed throughout the night from one
wildered dream to another, and finally awoke in the morning rather
jaded than refreshed. With the return of consciousness, however,
returned the lost head, and I was delighted to discover before rising
that my memory was master of my discourse.
The morning wore on, stiller for the snow that lay
one or two inches deep on the ground. The hour of service approached,
the bells began to sound ; I never heard them pealing so loudly before,
even in the largest cities. My heart beat to the beating of the bells.
At last the beadle came, cool, calm, imperturbable, hoisted the pulpit
Bible under his arm, and signified to me, with an easy inclination of
his head, that all was now ready. Mrs M'Bain was standing in the passage
as we came out of the room, holding the door-key in one hand, and her
Bible wrapped in a white pocket handkerchief in the other. I walked
along the street as steadily and sedately as my perturbation would
permit, and all the little boys and girls, I thought, knew that I was to
preach my first sermon that day. There was a death-like stillness in the
church when I entered. My look was concentrated on the pulpit, but I
knew that every eye in the church was fixed upon the untried preacher. I
managed to get through the introductory services with more fluency and
calmness than I anticipated, only I invariably found myself conning over
the first head of my discourse while the assembled worshippers were
singing the psalms. The precentor was a drone. Even that afforded
me some satisfaction, although the unmelodious tones agitated still more
my excited nervous system. At the close of the second psalm, the time of
my great trial came. I rose and announced the text with great
deliberation. Then every eye was fixed upon me; the moment was awful;
the silence was dreadful. The ready manner in which the first dozen of
sentences came to my recollection made me feel somewhat calm,
comfortable, and composed; but a sudden sense of the peculiar nature of
my situation, the consciousness that all the people knew it was my first
appearance in public, disturbed my equanimity and shook my
self-possession. A dizziness came over me; the congregation revolved
around the pulpit. I grasped the Bible, and declaimed vehemently in
order if possible to recover myself; but from the beginning of the first
head to the last application, although I must have adhered to my
manuscript, I was speaking like one in a dream, not master of myself,
the will passive, and memory alone awake. When I concluded the last
period, I could scarcely believe that I had preached my discourse. The
weakness of my limbs told me of the struggle. On leaving the church I
overheard some remarks concerning myself pass between two of the
officials.
"He's a brisk bit birkie that," quoth the beadle.
"'Od ay," responded the precentor, but 'he has a bee
in his bannet.'"
Sweet reader, if you are studying for the Church, do
not be deterred by vain fears from prosecuting your labours. It is a
glorious thing to succeed, even when you are unconscious of your
success, and thus it happened with "My First Sermon."
