Laicus Or the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish

conscience had been quickened even more than mine respecting my duty to that mission class by Mr. Minging's address. For I have noticed

ge 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 sermo

ed an address before our seminary last week on female education; full of learning sir, full of le

d I think there were three in successive numbers--on female education. The

se amount of work too. He is one of our editorial contributors as perhaps you see,

sion on the whole subject by that scholarly and erudite writer, Dr. Argure. And having heard this asserted so often, I began to think that it certainly must be true. And then in January I received a pamphlet on fema

id Mr. Wheaton to me the other da

g. "I think he can stir more puddings with o

. And if he can do it I do not

hey are the terrors of the little boys, and the thorn in the flesh to the minister. But Deacon Goodsole is the most cheery, bright, and genial of men. He is like a streak of sunshine. He sensibly radiates the prayer-meeting, which would be rather cold except for him. The little boys always greet him with a "How do you do Deacon," and always get a smile, and a nod, and sometimes a stick of candy or a li

with me about that Bible class, and I resolved to

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affairs coining on; pretty smo

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you for it too. I don't think the pars

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he church for leaving its minister unpaid so long. If I were the parson I would

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ve the women would make a deal b

[(with great

istinctly that he does not suffer a woman to teach or to usurp authority over the man, and it is very clear that to permit the female members of the church t

: [(na

e really say that w

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t. And I hold, sir, that for women to preach, or to speak in public, or in the prayer-m

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teach in your Sabbath School?

idently wishes to chan

go on in the wo

not unwilling that i

e tree, Mrs. Laicus, many members of my church who do nothing really to promote its interests. They are not to be found in the Sabbath School; they can

who always goes stra

g men from the barrow factory in the Sabbath School now. But they have no teacher. I am sure if you could see your way clear to take that class you would very soon have as many more. There are some thirty of them tha

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week, and I really don't see how I can take this work up on S

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no professed disciple of the Lord. The work of the church, Mr. L

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seen somewhere that if a man does not provide

this response away fr

Dr. Curall. He was elected at my suggestion last summer as an elder in our church. But he declined the office, which the apostle declares to be honorable, and of such a c

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ch he might do but poorly? May not he who goes about healing the sick be following Christ as truly as he who preaches the Gospel to the poor? Is the one to be accused of serving the world any more because o

k his head but

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or in that of farmer Faragon, or in that of Typsel the printer or in that of Sole the boot-maker, or in

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s. By the time Mr. Work gets fairly into secondly, Farmer Faragon is sound asleep. So he does not even listen to the preaching. Is he then a drone? Suppose you make a calculation how many mouths he feeds indirectly by the products of his farm. I cannot even guess. But I know nothing ever goes from it that is not good. The child is happy that drinks his milk, the butcher fortunate who buys his beef, the housewife well off who has his apples and potatoes in her cellar. He

o not know much about the Newtown Chronicle. But I know that the press is exerting an incalculable influence over the people, for good or for ill and the man who devotes his energies to it, and really uses it to educat

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he cannot w

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If he can do both,

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dangerous doct

,: [(w

not dangerous. The tru

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not to be spoke

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essary doctrine, Dr.,

alike to the sally and to t

instrumentality for the conversion of the world. When the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, then the church will have universal dominion. Here in Wheathedge, for example, Mr. Work is laboring

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. The church which will have universal dominion is not this or that particular organization, but the whole body of those who love the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Church

Argu

rent professors of religion there are, who are doing nothing in the church, and nothing for the church. And you tell them t

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e whether they are doing it in the church or out of the church. Christ himself served

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ference, Mr. Laicus, whether a man

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church or out of the church. I insist that every layman is bound to do ten-fold more for Christ out of the church than in its appointed ways and under its supervision. I have read, Dr., with a great deal of interest your learned and exhaustive treatise on the higher education of women, (I am afraid I told a little lie there; but had not the Dr. just told me that

: [(shaking

dangerous doctrine. You do not consider it

ly aroused and thor

r him. If a devout, active, praying Christian moves into the neighborhood, we angle for him. If a drunken loafer drops down upon us, does anybody ever angle for him? If a poor, forlorn widow, who has to work from Monday morning till Saturday night, comes to dwell under the shadow of our church, do we angle for her? Yes! I am glad to believe we do. But the

meeting." The battle between Christ and the world was long and bitter. Christ at length prevailed. He had come to the prayer meeting. He wanted to tell the brethren what Christ had done for his soul. The experience may have been genuine. It may have been his duty to leave the store for the church that particular morn

been interchanged. She is the meekest and mildest of women. She is also the most timed. In public she rarely speaks. But it is currently reported that she avenges herself for h

Goods

rting to a woman like me who am so busy at home

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otel, two houses always full; and they are capitally kept houses. That, of itself, is enough to keep any man busy. The whole burden of both hotel and farm rests on his shoulders. And yet he is elder and member of the board of trustees, and on hand, in every kind of exigency, in the church. He is one of the public school commissioners, is active in getting new roa

with everybody, and so to live at

n up boy, and who keeps three or four servants to take care of herself and her hus

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evenings in the week, and yet she finds time to visit all the sick in the neighborhood. And when last year we held a fair to raise money for an organ for the Sabbath school, she was the most active and indefa

few minutes of miscellaneous conversation as the gentlemen put on their co

en me your answer yet

nto my face for assent had answered for me. "He will think of it, Mr. Goodsole,

hing the business of Harper & Brothers, which has grown to such immense proportions since, at the very time he was working night as well as day to expedite publications, he was a trustee and class-leader in John Street Methodist Church, and rarely missed the sessions of the board or the meetings of the class. I remember that Mr. Hatch, the famous banker, was almost the founder of the Jersey City Tabernacle Church, and his now President of the Howard Mission. Yet I suppose there is not a busier man in Wall street. I remember that Wm. E

that Bible class, as an e

ad of it