Samantha at Saratoga [93]
porters, and managers, and blowers, still it must be, that the separate high ways would all end at last in a serener road, where the true wayfarers and the earnest pilgrims would all walk side by side, and forget the very name of the station they sot out from. I sez as much to my companion, as we wended our way home from one of the meetin's, and he sez, "There haint but one right way, and it is a pity folks can't see it." Sez he a sithin' deep, "Why can't everybody be Methodists?" We wuz a goin' by the 'Piscopal church then, and he sez a lookin' at it, as if he wuz sorry for it, "What a pity that such likely folks as they be, should believe in such eronious doctrines. Why," sez he, "I have hearn that they believe that the bread at communion is changed into sunthin' else. What a pity that they should believe anything so strange as that is, when there is a good, plain, practical, Christian belief that they might believe in, when they might be Methodists. And the Baptists now," sez he, a glancin' back at their steeple, "why can't they believe that a drop is as good as a fountain? Why do they want to believe in so much water? There haint no need on't. They might be Methodists jest as well as not, and be somebody." And he walked along pensively and in deep thought, and I a feelin' somewhat tuckered didn't argue with him, and silence rained about us till we got in front of the hall where the Spiritualists hold their meetin's, and we met a few a comin' out on it and then he broke out and acted mad, awful mad and skernful, and sez he angrily, "Them dumb fools believe in supernatural things. They don't have a shadow of reason or common sense to stand on. A man is a fool to gin the least attention to them, or their doin's. Why can't they believe sunthin' sensible? Why can't they jine a church that don't have anything curius in it? Nothin' but plain, common sense facts in it: Why can't they be Methodists?" "The idee!" sez he, a breakin' out fresh. "The idee of believin' that folks that have gone to the other world can come back agin and appear. Shaw!" sez he, dretful loud and bold. I don't believe I ever heard a louder shaw in my life than that wuz, or more kinder haughty and highheaded. And then I spoke up, and sez, "Josiah, it is always well, to shaw in the right place, and I am afraid you haint studied on it as much as you ort. I am afraid you haint a shawin' where you ort to." "Where should I shaw?" sez he, kinder snappish. "Wall," sez I, "when you condemn other folkses beliefs, you ort to be careful that you haint a condemin' your own belief at the same time. Now my belief is grounded in the Methodist meetin' house like a rock; my faith has cast its ancher there inside of her beliefs and can't be washed round by any waves of opposin' doctrines. But I am one who can't now, nor never could, abide bigotry and intolerance either in a Pope, or a Josiah Allen. "And when you condemn a belief simply on the ground of its bein' miraculous and beyond your comprehension, Josiah Allen, you had better pause and consider on what the Methodist faith is founded. "All our orthodox meetin' houses, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, every one on 'em, Josiah Allen, are sot down on a belief, a deathless faith in a miraculous birth, a life of supernatural events, the resurrection of the dead, His appearance after death, a belief in the graves openin' and the dead comin' forth, a belief in three persons inhabitin' one soul, the constant presence and control of spiritual influences, the Holy Ghost, and the spirits of just men. And while you are a leanin' up against that belief, Josiah Allen, and a leanin' heavy, don't shaw at any other belief for the qualities you hold sacred in your own." He quailed a very little, and I went on. "If you want to shaw at it, shaw for sunthin' else in it, or else let it entirely alone. If you think it lacks active Christian force, if you think it is not aggressive in its assaults at Sin, if you think it lacks faith in the Divine Head of the church, say so, do; but for mercy's sake try to