The New Ministers Great Opportunity | Page 6

vision and clear expression; and differences of mind that seem world-wide here, may vanish there. When the spirit breaks its earthly prison and flies away, who can tell how bright and free the humblest of us may come to be! There may be a more varied truth than we commonly think, in the words,--'The last shall be first.'
"Let this day be remembered. Let us think of the vast display of Nature's forces which was made within the long period of our old neighbor's life; but let us also reflect upon the bright pageant that is now unrolling itself before him in a better world."
That evening Miss Maria and her brothers, sitting in state in the little old house, received many a caller; and the conversation was chiefly upon one theme,--not the funeral sermon, although that was commended as a frank and simple biographical discourse, but the great events which had accompanied Uncle Capen's progress through this world, almost like those which Horace records in his Ode to Augustus.
"That's trew, every word," said Apollos Carver; "when Uncle Capen was a boy there wasn't not one railroad in the hull breadth of the United States, and just think: why now you can go in a Pullerman car clear'n acrost to San Francisco. My daughter lives in Oakland, just acrost a ferry from there."
"Well, then, there 's photographing," said Captain Abel. "It doos seem amazing, as the minister said: you set down, and square yourself, and slick your hair, and stare stiddy into a funnel, and a man ducks his head under a covering, and pop! there you be, as natural as life,--if not more so. And when Uncle Capen was a young man, there wasn't nothing but portraits and minnytures, and these black-paper-and-scissors portraits,--what do they call 'em? Yes, sir, all that come in under his observation."
"Yes," said one of the sons, "'tis wonderful; my wife and me was took setting on a settee in the Garding of Eden,--lions and tigers and other scriptural objects in the background."
"And don't forget the telegrapht," said Maria; "don't forget that."
"Trew," said Apollos, "that's another thing. I hed a message come once-t from my son that lives to Taunton. We was all so sca't and faint when we see it, that we did n't none of us dast to open it, and finally the feller that druv over with it hed to open it fur us."
"What was there in it?" said Mr. Small; "sickness?--death?"
"No, he wanted his thick coat expressed up. But my wife didn't get over the shock for some time. Wonderful thing, that telegraph--here's a man standing a hundred miles off, like enough, and harpooning an idea chock right into your mind."
"Then that was a beautiful truth," said Maria: "that father and Shakspeare would like enough be changed right round, in Heaven; I always said father wasn't appreciated here."
"Well," said Apollos, "'tis always so; we don't begin to realize the value of a thing tell we lose it. Now that we sort o' stand and gaze at Uncle Capen at a fair distance, as it were, he looms. Ef he only hed n't kep' so quiet, always, about them 'ere wonders. A man really ought, in justice to himself, to blow his own horn--jest a little. But that was a grand discourse, wa'n't it, now?"
"Oh, yes," said Maria, "though I did feel nervous for the young man. Still, when you come to think what materials he had to make a sermon out of,--why, how could he help it! And yet, I doubt not he takes all the credit to himself."
"I should really have liked to have heard Father Cobb treat the subject," said Mrs. Small, rising to go, and nodding to her husband. "'T was a grand theme. But 't was a real chance for the new minister. Such an opportunity doesn't happen not once in a lifetime."
The next morning, after breakfast, on his way home from the post-office, the minister stopped in at Dr. Hunter's office. The Doctor was reading a newspaper.
Mr. Holt took a chair in silence.
The Doctor laid down the paper and eyed him quizzically, and then slowly shook his head.
"I don't know about you ministers," he said. "I attended the funeral; I heard the biographical discourse; I understand it gave great satisfaction; I have reflected on it over night; and now, what I want to know is, what on earth 'there was in it about Uncle Capen."
The minister smiled.
"I think," he replied, "that all that I said about Uncle Capen was strictly true."

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