8. The Revival
There was a revival in the town. Do you know what that means? In a country village, where most of the time there is a stagnation even in gossip, where a wedding of any sort is a capital event, where a funeral is of universal interest, and where even a birth is matter oi common talk, it is all moral aspects of the case aside a great thing to have a hurricane of excitement sweep over the still waters of the little pool. Every one of the fifteen hundred people in the little town knew that there was a revival "going on." Every one of them carried in his head each day a list of those who had " been to the mourner's bench" the night before, and of those who were converted ; and everybody knew who had shouted or " taken on " in any way at the meetings. Forlorn groups of young men who looked as though the day of judgment were surely come, stood upon the street corners and discussed the fact that Bill Works had " gone forward " the evening before. Some thought he wouldn't "holdout long." But the morning after old Tom Walters " got religion," the town was convulsed with excitement. He was a notorious drunkard, and when he was converted there did seem something supernaturally awful abouj it. To see Tom sober was like seeing a dead man alive. Few were living now who could remember when Walters had been entirely ober before. There was many a man ready to assure you that he'd "seen a good many of these roaring excitements in his time," and that they "all died down afore hay-harvest," and " old Tom Walters would he drunker'n ever, time the corn crop was laid by." And yet, and yet, all this spoken in a voice a little tremulous did have an air of grave-yard whistling.
There were the scoffers, however, who laughed, and who banded together to laugh. The best man among them was Ben Thomas, who laughed in the preacher's face, when he was going through the congregation exhorting. The preacher, a slender Boanerges, had rebuked him from the pulpit, and this had given Ben a still greater prominence among his fellows. But when two of Ben's cronies, after a fiery and prophet-like denunciation from the preacher, became frightened, and came cowed and bellowing to the " mourner's bench," even Ben's voice grew a little tremulous as he saw himself the forlorn hope of the opposition. But all the thunders of the preacher could not bring him down. He was too much flattered by his unique position. It was better to be tiie devil than to be nobody in particular, and Ben would have faced perdition itself for the sake of gratifying hia love of bravado.
All this storm was raised by the new Methodist preacher, a man who had been a mechanic until religion seized ',' upon his enthusiastic spirit. Since that time he had been a blazing torch of religious excitement, sweeping like a prairie fire over every region to which the conference had assigned him. In the autumn, after the August election, he had been sent to Luzerne. In November, General Harrison and his logcabin were elected to the presidency Now, the ebb tide of political or financial excitement often ends in becoming a flood tide of religious excitement. It is a resolution of force, not easily accounted for but very easily seen. So that Ml*. Dale's revival took on proportions surprising even to his faith and enterprise.
Mr. Whittaker was a New Englander, and to him this revival was something appalling. Not that ho did not believe in revivals; but he believed in revivals like Dr. Payson's and Jonathan Edwards's of the quiet, awful, iind pervasive kind, which would not have been possible among the inflammable people on the Ohio in the last, generation, Mr. Whittaker, believing that Borne good must be done in spite of the " wild-lire " thought it no more than right that he should attend the Methodist meetings. He could not do this in any spirit of patronage as ho tnighl have done in New England, for here the Methodists were more than half their own. Still he could not but feel that it would he a condescension for a college bred man like himself to lend Ids countenance io thesepeople whose minister had Laid down his hatter's bow to become a preacher on an education consisting chiefly of a reading of Wesley's Sermons and Clarke's Commentary, lb' went one evening and did his best to get into sympathy with the meeting, but the loud praying, the constant interruptions of responsive "Aniens" and other ejaculalory cries, the kneeling mourners weeping and Bobbing, fifty at a time, in the space around the pulpit, the public prayer offered by women, the pathetic melodies and choruses, the occasional shouting these and a hundred other things offended his prejudices and grated on his sense of propriety, He wondered how Row could seem oblivious to the din about her as she moved among the penitents on the women's side of the house, to comfort whom washer special vocation, llo saw how everybody loved her,how the gladnuss of her face seemed to mollify the terribleness of Dale's iiery preaching, it happened to be the very night of old Tom Walter's " start," and Whittaker saw that after the old man had wept and cried, lying prone upon the floor during the whole evening, he Beemod not a little cheered by the words which sister Roxy spoke to him at the close of the meeting; not by the words perhaps, but by the radiant face and hopefuf tone.
But Whittaker did not go again. How could he ? To him this religious intoxication was profanation, and he wrote a strong letter to the Home Missionary Society setling forth the "wild and semi-barbarous character" of many of the religious services at the West, and urging the importance of sending men to plant "an intelligent and thoughtful Christianity " in its place. This was because he was an exotic. The religion which he despised was indigenous. A better and more thoughtful Christiauity has grown as the people have grown thoughtful. But it has developed on the ground. It is not chiefly New England thought fulness, but the home growth of Western intelligence that has done it.
But though Whittaker washed his hands of this ranting revivalism he wished that he were free to dislike it wholly. Tom Walters, he reflected, would no doubt slip back into the mire as soon as the excitement was over, but in all this ingathering there must be some good grain. And so he found himself in that state which is least comfortable of all his sympathy dividing the ground with his antipathy. And such is the solidarity of people in a village that an excitement of this sort is sure to affect everybody, sooner or later. Whittaker soon saw in his own conirreijation an unusual solemnity. He was unwilling to admit that the Methodist revival had inlluenced him, but he found himself appealing more earnestly than ever to his few hearers to become religious. He found himself expecting something. What to do he did not know. At last he appointed an " Inquiry Meeting" at the close oi bis Sunday evening service. Just one person remained us an " inquirer." To Mr. Whittaker's amazement this was Twonnet. There were others a week later, but that the first should be the volatile Twonnet, whose gay banter and chaffer had made him afraid to speak to her seriously, quite upset him. After the inquiry meeting was over and he had seated himself alone in the little parlor at Mr. Lefaure's, where a melancholy ticking was kept up by an old Swiss clock screwed to the wall, with its weights and pendulum hanging exposed below, he looked into the blazing fire on the hearth and wondered how it was that Twonnet, who, at supper that very evening, had been as gay as ever, should have suddenly remained to an inquiry meeting. He tried to think what there was unusual in his sermon that might have impressed her.
Just then the brass knob of the door was turned hesitantly, the old-fashioned latch, big at one end and little at the other, was raised with a snap, and the door was opened a little way by Twonnet, who immediately began to close it irresolutely.
" Come in, Twonnet," said the minister gravely.
Thus reassured, Twonnet entered, took up the broom mechanically and swept the ashes on the hearth into the fire-place, set the broom down and stood haltingly by the fire.
" Sit down, Twonnet," said Whittaker gently, ae though he were addressing a little child. "How long have you been thinking seriously about becoming a Christian?"
" Ever since I can remember."
" Yes, yes, but lately."
" All the time." Then after a pause, " I would like to be as good as Roxy, but I can't. I can't be serious long at a time, I'll be laughing and teasing somebody tomorrow, I suppose. That's the reason I haven't tried befoie. I can't be much of a Christian anyhow."
" But divine grace can help you," said Whittaker, using the form of words to which he had always been accustomed.
" But divine grace won't make me somebody else, will it? It won't make me like to look inside as Roxy does, and to keep diaries and all that. It won't make me want to be a martyr as she does, I'm sure. I'll never be good all over. It doesn't seem to make other people all alike, and I suppose I'll be the same giddy-headed Twonnet, as long as I live, and father will have to keep shaking his head and saying, ' Tais-toi, Toinette] in that awful way, forever. If I ever get to heaven, I'll laugh one minute and get mad the next," and at this she laughed in her sudden mercurial fashion.
The minister was silent. He was afraid to say anything that might discourage her. There was not a trace of cant or mimicry in her piety. But, on the other hand, it seemed to him that there was a strange lack of the seriousness which he had always been taught was the first step of a Christian life. The cool Saxon New Englander was trying to apply Puritan rules to one of a different race.
' But I thought," continued Twonnet, gravely, li that, if I couldn't be as good as I wanted to, I would just try to be as good as I could." And here she began to shed tears. " I thought that was the common-sense way. I've got a temper all of us Swiss have. But then we don't stay mad, and that's a good thing." Here she laughed again. " Any way, I'm going to do my best."
Mr. Whittaker thought it safe to approve of this last resolution, though the girl was a puzzle to him. This certainly was not an experience according to the common itaudard. He could not dissect it and label its parts with the approved scientific names.