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
Do I carry Christ into my law office, and into the court-room, as
Mrs. Bridgeman does into the parlor and the chair? That is the first
point to be settled. The other comes up afterward. But it does
persist in coming up. It is not settled yet. Will it hurt my Sunday
to take that class for an hour? I doubt it.
I must talk it over with Jennie and see what she really thinks about
it.
CHAPTER VII.
The Field is the World.
LAST evening before I had found an opportunity to talk it over with
Jennie, Dr. Argure and Deacon Goodsole called. I suspect the
deacon's conscience had been quickened even more than mine
respecting my duty to that mission class by Mr. Minging's address.
For I have noticed that our consciences are apt to be quickened by
sermons and addresses more respecting our neighbors' duties even
than respecting our own.
Dr. Argure had come down the day before from Newtown to attend the
city mission meeting. He is a very learned man. At least I suppose
he is, for everybody says so. He is at all events a very sonorous
man. He has a large vocabulary of large words, and there are a great
many people who cannot distinguish between great words and great
thoughts. I do not mean to impugn his intellectual capital when I
say that he does a very large credit business. In sailing on lake
Superior you can sometimes see the rocky bottom 30 or 40 feet below
the surface--the water is so clear. You never can see the bottom of
Dr. Argure's sermons. Perhaps it is because they are so deep; I
sometimes think it is because they are so muddy. Still he really is
an able man, and knows the books, and knows how to turn his
knowledge to a good account. Last summer he preached a sermon at
Wheathedge, on female education. He told us about female education
among the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Hebrews, and the Persians,
and the Egyptians--though not much about it in America of to-day. But
it was a learned discourse--at least I suppose so. Three weeks after,
I met the President of the Board of Trustees of the Polltown Female
Seminary, I mentioned incidentally that I was spending the summer at
Wheathedge.
"You have got a strong man up there somewhere," said he, "that Dr.
Argure, of Newtown. He delivered an address before our seminary last
week on female education; full of learning sir, full of learning. We
put him right on our Board of Trustees. Next year I think we shall
make him President."
A month or so after I found in the weekly Watch Tower an
editorial,--indeed I think there were three in successive numbers--on
female education. They had a familiar sound, and happening to meet
the editor, I spoke of them.
"Yes," said he "they are by Dr. Argure. A very learned man that sir.
Does an immense amount of work too. He is one of our editorial
contributors as perhaps you see, and an able man, very learned sir.
Those are very original and able articles sir."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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