Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (moboreader TXT) 📗

is suitable to a free and intelligent being, but every thing conducted in the most abject manner, as if accountable human souls were no better than so many mutes in a Turkish palace."

"You ought to mention this in the Active Inquirer," said Aristabulus.

"All in good time, sir; I have many things in reserve, among which I propose to give a few remarks, I dare say they will be very worthless ones, on the impropriety of a rational being's ever kneeling. To my notion, gentlemen and ladies, God never intended an American to kneel."

The respectable mechanics who stood around the table did not absolutely assent to this proposition, for one of them actually remarked that "he saw no great harm in a man's kneeling to the Deity;" but they evidently inclined to the opinion that the new- school of pews was far better than the old.

"It always appears to me, Miss Effingham," said one, "that I hear and understand the sermon better in one of the low pews, than in one of the old high-backed things, that look so much like pounds."

"But can you withdraw into yourself better, sir? Can you more truly devote all your thoughts, with a suitable singleness of heart, to the worship of God?"

"You mean in the prayers, now, I rather conclude?"

"Certainly, sir, I mean in the prayers and the thanksgivings."

"Why, we leave them pretty much to the parson; though I will own it is not quite as easy leaning on the edge of one of the new-school pews as on one of the old. They are better for sitting, but not so good for standing. But then the sitting posture at prayers is quite coming into favour among our people, Miss Effingham, as well as among yours. The sermon is the main chance, after all."

"Yes," observed Mr. Gouge, "give me good, strong preaching, any day, in preference to good praying. A man may get along with second-rate prayers, but he stands in need of first-rate preaching."

"These gentlemen consider religion a little like a cordial on a cold day," observed John Effingham, "which is to be taken in sufficient doses to make the blood circulate. They are not the men to be pounded in pews, like lost sheep, not they?"

"Mr. John will always have his say;" one remarked: and then Mr. Effingham dismissed the party, by telling them he would think of the matter.

When the mechanics were gone, the subject was discussed at some length between those that remained--all the Effinghams agreeing that they would oppose the innovation, as irreverent in appearance, unsuited to the retirement and self-abasement that best comported with prayer, and opposed to the delicacy of their own habits; while Messrs. Bragg and Dodge contended to the last that such changes were loudly called for by the popular sentiment--- that it was unsuited to the dignity of a man to be 'pounded,' even in a church--and virtually, that a good, 'stirring' sermon, as they called it, was of far more account, in public worship, than all the prayers and praises that could issue from the heart or throat.

Chapter XIV.

"We'll follow Cade--we'll follow Cade."

MOB.

"The views of this Mr. Bragg, and of our old fellow-traveller, Mr. Dodge, appear to be peculiar on the subject of religious forms," observed Sir George Templemore, as he descended the little lawn before the Wigwam, in company with the three ladies, Paul Powis, and John Effingham, on their way to the lake. "I should think it would be difficult to find another Christian, who objects to kneeling at prayer."

"Therein you are mistaken, Templemore," answered Paul; "for this country, to say nothing of one sect which holds it in utter abomination, is filled with them. Our pious ancestors, like neophytes, ran into extremes, on the subject of forms, as well as in other matters. When you go to Philadelphia, Miss Effingham, you will see an instance of a most ludicrous nature--ludicrous, if there were not something painfully revolting mingled with it--of the manner in which men can strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; and which, I am sorry to say, is immediately connected with our own church."

It was music to Eve's ears, to hear Paul Powis speak of his pious ancestors, as being American, and to find him so thoroughly identifying himself with her own native land; for, while condemning so many of its practices, and so much alive to its absurdities and contradictions, our heroine had seen too much of other countries, not to take an honest pride in the real excellencies of her own. There was, also, a soothing pleasure in hearing him openly own that he belonged to the same church as herself.

"And what is there ridiculous in Philadelphia, in particular, and in connection with our own church?" she asked. "I am not so easily disposed to find fault where the venerable church is concerned."

"You know that the Protestants, in their horror of idolatry, discontinued, in a great degree, the use of the cross, as an outward religious symbol; and that there was probably a time when there was not a single cross to be seen in the whole of a country that was settled by those who made a profession of love for Christ, and a dependence on his expiation, the great business of their lives?"

"Certainly. We all know our predecessors were a little over-rigid and scrupulous on all the points connected with outward appearances."

"They certainly contrived to render the religious rites as little pleasing to the senses as possible, by aiming at a sublimation that peculiarly favours spiritual pride and a pious conceit. I do not know whether travelling has had the same effect on you, as it has produced on me; but I find all my inherited antipathies to the mere visible representation of the cross, superseded by a sort of solemn affection for it, as a symbol, when it is plain, and unaccompanied by any of those bloody and minute accessories that are so often seen around it in Catholic countries. The German Protestants, who usually ornament the altar with a cross, first cured me of the disrelish I imbibed, on this subject, in childhood."

"We, also, I think, cousin John, were agreeably struck with the same usage in Germany. From feeling a species of nervousness at the sight of a cross, I came to love to see it; and I think you must have undergone a similar change; for I have discovered no less than three among the ornaments of the great window of the entrance tower, at the Wigwam."

"You might have discovered one, also, in every door of the building, whether great or small, young lady. Our pious ancestors, as Powis calls them, much of whose piety, by the way, was any thing but meliorated with spiritual humility or Christian charity, were such ignoramuses as to set up crosses in every door they built, even while they veiled their eyes in holy horror whenever the sacred symbol was seen in a church."

"Every door!" exclaimed the Protestants of the party.

"Yes, literally every door, I might almost say certainly every panelled door that was constructed twenty years since. I first discovered the secret of our blunder, when visiting a castle in France, that dated back from the time of the crusade. It was a château of the Montmorencies, that had passed into the hands of the Condé family by marriage; and the courtly old domestic, who showed me the curiosities, pointed out to me the stone croix in the windows, which has caused the latter to be called croisées , as a pious usage of the crusaders. Turning to a door, I saw the same crosses in the wooden stiles; and if you cast an eye on the first humble door that you may pass in this village, you will detect the same symbol staring you boldly in the face, in the very heart of a population that would almost expire at the thoughts of placing such a sign of the beast on their very thresholds."

The whole party expressed their surprise; but the first door they passed corroborated this account, and proved the accuracy of John Effingham's statements. Catholic zeal and ingenuity could not have wrought more accurate symbols of this peculiar sign of the sect; and yet, here they stood, staring every passenger in the face, as if mocking the ignorant and exaggerated pretension which would lay undue stress on the minor points of a religion, the essence of which was faith and humility.

"And the Philadelphia church?" said Eve, quickly, so soon as her curiosity was satisfied on the subject of the door; "I am now more impatient than ever, to learn what silly blunder we have also committed there."

"Impious would almost be a better term," Paul answered. "The only church spire that existed for half a century, in that town, was surmounted by a mitre , while the cross was studiously rejected!"

A silence followed; for there is often more true argument in simply presenting the facts of a case, than in all the rhetoric and logic that could be urged, by way of auxiliaries. Every one saw the egregious folly, not to say presumption, of the mistake; and at the moment, every one wondered how a common-sense community could have committed so indecent a blunder. We are mistaken. There was an exception to the general feeling in the person of Sir George Templemore. To his church-and-state notions, and anti-catholic prejudices, which were quite as much political as religious, there was every thing that was proper, and nothing that was wrong, in rejecting a cross for a mitre.

"The church, no doubt, was Episcopal, Powis," he remarked, "and it was not Roman. What better symbol than the mitre could be chosen?"

"Now I reflect, it is not so very strange," said Grace, eagerly, "for you will remember, Mr. Effingham, that Protestants attach the idea of idolatry to the cross, as it is used by Catholics."

"And of bishops, peers in parliament, church and state, to a mitre."

"Yes, but the church in question I have seen; and it was erected before the war of the revolution. It was an English rather than an American church."

"It was, indeed, an English church, rather than an American; and Templemore is very right to defend it, mitre and all."

"I dare say, a bishop officiated at its altar?"

"I dare say--nay, I know, he did; and, I will add, he would rather that the mitre were two hundred feet in the air, than down on his own simple, white-haired, apostolical-looking head. But enough of divinity for the morning; yonder is Tom with the boat, let us to our oars."

The party were now on the little wharf that served as a village- landing, and the boatman mentioned lay off, in waiting for the arrival of his fare. Instead of using him, however, the man was dismissed; the gentlemen preferring to handle the oars themselves. Aquatic excursions were of constant occurrence in the warm months, on that beautifully limpid sheet of water, and it was the practice to dispense with the regular boatmen, whenever good oarsmen were to be found among the company.

As soon as the light buoyant skiff was brought to the side of the wharf, the whole party embarked; and Paul and the baronet taking the oars, they soon urged the boat from the shore.

"The world is getting to be too confined for the adventurous spirit of the age," said Sir George, as he and his companion pulled leisurely