Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.Abbott, Lyman
Religion
Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish.
Abbott, Lyman
Christian fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction; Parishes -- Fiction
After church I walked home with Mr. Lane to dine with him. Mr. Sower
joined and walked along with us. He is at the head of a large
manufacturing establishment. He is one of Mr. Lane's warmest
friends. Mr. Lane believes him to be a devoted Christian. "Well,
parson," said he, "I suppose after to-night's sermon there is
nothing left for me to do but to take a letter from the Church--if
you don't excommunicate me before I get it."
"What's the matter now?" said the parson.
"I am neither visiting," said Mr. Sower, "nor distributing tracts,
nor attending a tenement-house prayer-meeting, nor preaching, nor
working in a mission, nor doing anything in the Church, but going to
its service and paying my pew rent, and sometimes a little something
over to make up a deficiency. The fact is every day in the week I
have my breakfast an hour before you do, and am off to the factory.
I never get home till six o'clock, sometimes not then. My day's work
uses up my day's energies. I can't go out to a tenement-house
prayer-meeting, or to tract distribution in the evening. I can
hardly keep awake in our own church prayer-meeting. If it were not
for Sunday's rest my work would kill me in a year. I sometimes think
that perhaps I am devoting too much of my time to money-making. But
what shall I do? There are four hundred workmen in the factory. Most
of them have families. All of those families are really dependent on
me for their daily bread. It takes all my life's energies to keep
them employed. Shall I leave that work to take hold of tenement-
house visitation and tract distribution?"
Mr. Lane replied promptly that Mr. Sower was to do no such thing.
"Your factory," said he, "is your field. That is the work God has
given you to do. It is your parish. Do not leave it for another--only
do not forget that you have to give an account of your parochial
charge. You are to study, not how to get the most money out of your
four hundred workmen, but how to do them the most good. That is
Christian duty for you. But your case is very peculiar. There is not
one man in a thousand situated as you are."
Then I began to think that perhaps my law office was my field. It
gives me enough to do I am sure. We are not all drones who are not
working for the Church. There is a work for Christ outside. And I do
not want to take a Sabbath-school class. I want Sunday mornings to
myself. Every other morning I have to be an early riser. I do enjoy
being lazy Sunday morning.
But then there is that class of young men from the mill. Deacon
Goodsole says they don't know anything. He has no one who can manage
them. And Mr. Work thinks it's a dreadful sin, I do not doubt, that
I do not take it at once. I do not care much for that. But Jennie
says I am just the one to manage these boys if I feel like
undertaking it. And I would like to prove her good opinion of me
true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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