Struggles and Triumphs - P. T. Barnum (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

of hours would soon pass by, and then as late, perhaps, as eleven o’clock, I went home and slyly crept upstairs so as not to awaken my brother with whom I slept, and who would be sure to report my late hours. He made every attempt, and laid all sorts of plans to catch me on my return, but as sleep always overtook him, I managed easily to elude his efforts.

Like most people in Connecticut in those days, I was brought up to attend church regularly on Sunday, and long before I could read I was a prominent scholar in the Sunday school. My good mother taught me my lessons in the New Testament and the Catechism, and my every effort was directed to win one of those “Rewards of Merit,” which promised to pay the bearer one mill, so that ten of these prizes amounted to one cent, and one hundred of them, which might be won by faithful assiduity every Sunday for two years, would buy a Sunday school book worth ten cents. Such were the magnificent rewards held out to the religious ambition of youth.

There was but one church or “meetinghouse” in Bethel, which all attended, sinking all differences of creed in the Presbyterian faith. The old meetinghouse had neither steeple nor bell and was a plain edifice, comfortable enough in summer, but my teeth chatter even now when I think of the dreary, cold, freezing hours we passed in that place in winter. A stove in a meetinghouse in those days would have been a sacrilegious innovation. The sermons were from an hour and one half to two hours long, and through these the congregation would sit and shiver till they really merited the title the profane gave them of “blue skins.” Some of the women carried a “foot-stove” consisting of a small square tin box in a wooden frame, the sides perforated, and in the interior there was a small square iron dish, which contained a few live coals covered with ashes. These stoves were usually replenished just before meeting time at some neighbor’s near the meetinghouse.

After many years of shivering and suffering, one of the brethren had the temerity to propose that the church should be warmed with a stove. His impious proposition was voted down by an overwhelming majority. Another year came around, and in November the stove question was again brought up. The excitement was immense. The subject was discussed in the village stores and in the juvenile debating club; it was prayed over in conference; and finally in general “society’s meeting,” in December, the stove was carried by a majority of one and was introduced into the meetinghouse. On the first Sunday thereafter, two ancient maiden ladies were so oppressed by the dry and heated atmosphere occasioned by the wicked innovation, that they fainted away and were carried out into the cool air where they speedily returned to consciousness, especially when they were informed that owing to the lack of two lengths of pipe, no fire had yet been made in the stove. The next Sunday was a bitter cold day, and the stove, filled with well-seasoned hickory, was a great gratification to the many, and displeased only a few. After the benediction, an old deacon rose and requested the congregation to remain, and called upon them to witness that he had from the first raised his voice against the introduction of a stove into the house of the Lord; but the majority had been against him and he had submitted; now, if they must have a stove, he insisted upon having a large one, since the present one did not heat the whole house, but drove the cold to the back outside pews, making them three times as cold as they were before! In the course of the week, this deacon was made to comprehend that, unless on unusually severe days, the stove was sufficient to warm the house, and, at any rate, it did not drive all the cold in the house into one corner.

During the Rev. Mr. Lowe’s ministrations at Bethel, he formed a Bible class, of which I was a member. We used to draw promiscuously from a hat a text of scripture and write a composition on the text, which compositions were read after service in the afternoon, to such of the congregation as remained to hear the exercises of the class. Once, I remember, I drew the text, Luke 10:42: “But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.” Question, “What is the one thing needful?” My answer was nearly as follows:

“This question ‘what is the one thing needful?’ is capable of receiving various answers, depending much upon the persons to whom it is addressed. The merchant might answer that ‘the one thing needful’ is plenty of customers, who buy liberally, without beating down and pay cash for all their purchases.’ The farmer might reply, that ‘the one thing needful is large harvests and high prices.’ The physician might answer that ‘it is plenty of patients.’ The lawyer might be of opinion that ‘it is an unruly community, always engaged in bickerings and litigations.’ The clergyman might reply, ‘It is a fat salary with multitudes of sinners seeking salvation and paying large pew rents.’ The bachelor might exclaim, ‘It is a pretty wife who loves her husband, and who knows how to sew on buttons.’ The maiden might answer, ‘It is a good husband, who will love, cherish and protect me while life shall last.’ But the most proper answer, and doubtless that which applied to the case of Mary, would be, ‘The one thing needful is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, follow in his footsteps, love God and obey His commandments, love our fellow-man, and embrace every opportunity of administering to his necessities.’ In short, ‘the one thing needful’ is to live a life that we can always look back upon with