Christian fiction; Circuit riders -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Spouses of clergy -- Fiction
The second class of obstreperous stewards is easier to manage. The
quality of their perversity is exactly that of the mule's. William
never had to move a church, get a new roof on one or an organ for it,
or even a communion table, that some well-to-do steward did not lie
back in the traces, back his official ears and begin to balk and kick
mule fashion. Often they were good men in every other particular, but
they were simply queer reversions to type--which indicates that at one
time, not so far back in the history of evolution, all men were mules.
The only way to manage them is to wait till they change their minds,
just as the driver must wait upon his stubborn donkey. For you can
never move one by reason or by threats. He would die and go to the
wrong place rather than give up his point. This is why you will see
some churches going to rack, antiquated and out of touch with the life
about them. Look inside and you will find some old mule steward
stalled in the amen corner, with his ears laid back at the pulpit or at
the other stewards.
I pass, without giving details, over several years; they were much like
these first ones. I soon learned, however, that life in the Methodist
Church was all uphill or downhill at a smart spiritual canter. In
these days it is nearly as easy to be a Methodist as it is to be an
Episcopalian.
One rarely sees now the hallelujah end of a human emotion in a
Methodist church. Recently, when an old-fashioned saint gave way and
scandalized the preacher by shouting in one of our fashionable city
churches, the stewards took her out, put her in an ambulance and sent
her to the hospital. And I am not saying that the dear old soul didn't
need a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia; but if every man who
shouts at a political rally were sent to the hospital for treatment the
real sick would be obliged to move out to give them room. As for me, I
contend that a little shouting is good for the soul; it is the human
hysteria of a very high form of happiness, more edifying to unhappy
sinners than the refrigerated manners of some modern saints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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