Christmas Eve | Page 2

luckless cause of scandal:?I verily fancied the zealous light?(In the chapel's secret, too!) for spite?Would shudder itself clean off the wick,?With the airs of a Saint John's Candlestick.?[Footnote: See Rev. i. 20.]?There was no standing it much longer.?"Good folks," thought I, as resolve grew stronger,?"This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor?"When the weather sends you a chance visitor??"You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,?"And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!?"But still, despite the pretty perfection?"To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,?"And, taking God's word under wise protection,?"Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,?"And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,--?"Still, as I say, though you've found salvation,?"If I should choose to cry, as now, 'Shares!'--?"See if the best of you bars me my ration!?"I prefer, if you please, for my expounder?"Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own Founder;?"Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest?"Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:?"So shut your mouth and open your Testament,?"And carve me my portion at your quickliest!"?Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad?With wizened face in want of soap,?And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,?(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,?To get the fit over, poor gentle creature,?And so avoid disturbing the preacher)?--Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise?At the shutting door, and entered likewise,?Received the hinge's accustomed greeting,?And crossed the threshold's magic pentacle,?And found myself in full conventicle,?--To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,?On the Christmas-Eve of 'Forty-nine,?Which, calling its flock to their special clover,?Found all assembled and one sheep over,?Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.
III
I very soon had enough of it.?The hot smell and the human noises,?And my neighbour's coat, the greasy cuff of it,?Were a pebble-stone that a child's hand poises,?Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure?Of the preaching man's immense stupidity,?As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,?To meet his audience's avidity.?You needed not the wit of the Sibyl?To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:?No sooner our friend had got an inkling?Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,?(Whene'er 'twas the thought first struck him,?How death, at unawares, might duck him?Deeper than the grave, and quench?The gin-shop's light in hell's grim drench)?Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,?As to hug the book of books to pieces:?And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,?Not improved by the private dog's-ears and creases,?Having clothed his own soul with, he'd fain see equipt yours,-- So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.?And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:?Nay, had but a single face of my neighbours?Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labours?Were help which the world could be saved without,?'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet?A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,?Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered?Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:?But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,?Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon?With such content in every snuffle,?As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.?My old fat woman purred with pleasure,?And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,?While she, to his periods keeping measure,?Maternally devoured the pastor.?The man with the handkerchief untied it,?Showed us a horrible wen inside it,?Gave his eyelids yet another screwing,?And rocked himself as the woman was doing.?The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,?Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!?My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;?So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,?"I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,"?I flung out of the little chapel.
IV
There was a lull in the rain, a lull?In the wind too; the moon was risen,?And would have shone out pure and full,?But for the ramparted cloud-prison,?Block on block built up in the West,?For what purpose the wind knows best,?Who changes his mind continually.?And the empty other half of the sky?Seemed in its silence as if it knew?What, any moment, might look through?A chance gap in that fortress massy:--?Through its fissures you got hints?Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,?Now, a dull lion-colour, now, brassy?Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,?Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,?All a-simmer with intense strain?To let her through,--then blank again,?At the hope of her appearance failing.?Just by the chapel, a break in the railing?Shows a narrow path directly across;?'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss--?Besides, you go gently all the way uphill.?I stooped under and soon felt better;?My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,?As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.?My mind was full of the scene I had left,?That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,?--How this outside was pure and different!?The sermon, now--what a mingled weft?Of good and ill! Were either less,?Its fellow had coloured the whole distinctly;?But alas for the excellent earnestness,?And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,?But alas for the excellent earnestness, ment,?However to pastor and flock's contentment!?Say rather, such