A Preacher

"Lest that by any means

    When I have preached to others I myself

    Should be a castaway." If some one now

    Would take that text and preach to us that preach, —

    Some one who could forget his truths were old

    And what were in a thousand bawling mouths

    While they filled his — some one who could so throw

    His life into the old dull skeletons

    Of points and morals, inferences, proofs,

  Hopes, doubts, persuasions, all for time untold

  Worn out of the flesh, that one could lose from mind

  How well one knew his lesson, how oneself

  Could with another, may be choicer, style

  Enforce it, treat it from another view

  And with another logic — some one warm

  With the rare heart that trusts itself and knows

  Because it loves — yes such a one perchance,

  With such a theme, might waken me as I

  Have wakened others, I who am no more

  Than steward of an eloquence God gives

  For others' use not mine. But no one bears

  Apostleship for us. We teach and teach

  Until, like drumming pedagogues, we lose

  The thought that what we teach has higher ends

  Than being taught and learned. And if a man

  Out of ourselves should cry aloud, "I sin,

  And ye are sinning, all of us who talk

  Our Sunday half-hour on the love of God,

  Trying to move our peoples, then go home

  To sleep upon it and, when fresh again,

  To plan another sermon, nothing moved,

  Serving our God like clock-work sentinels,

  We who have souls ourselves," why I like the rest

  Should turn in anger: "Hush this charlatan

  Who, in his blatant arrogance, assumes

  Over us who know our duties."

                                                     Yet that text

  Which galls me, what a sermon might be made

  Upon its theme! How even I myself

 Could stir some of our priesthood! Ah! but then

  Who would stir me?

                                      I know not how it is;

  I take the faith in earnest, I believe,

  Even at happy times I think I love,

  I try to pattern me upon the type

  My Master left us, am no hypocrite

  Playing my soul against good men's applause,

  Nor monger of the Gospel for a cure,

  But serve a Master whom I chose because

  It seemed to me I loved him, whom till now

  My longing is to love; and yet I feel

  A falseness somewhere clogging me. I seem

  Divided from myself; I can speak words

  Of burning faith and fire myself with them;

  I can, while upturned faces gaze on me

  As if I were their Gospel manifest,

  Break into unplanned turns as natural

  As the blind man's cry for healing, pass beyond

  My bounded manhood in the earnestness

  Of a messenger from God. And then I come

  And in my study's quiet find again

  The callous actor who, because long since

  He had some feelings in him like the talk

  The book puts in his mouth, still warms his pit

  And even, in his lucky moods, himself

  With the passion of his part, but lays aside

  His heroism with his satin suit

  And thinks "the part is good and well conceived

  And very natural — no flaw to find" —

  And then forgets it.

                                    Yes I preach to others

  And am — I know not what — a castaway?

  No, but a man who feels his heart asleep,

  As he might feel his hand or foot. The limb

  Will not awake without a little shock,

  A little pain perhaps, a nip or blow,

  And that one gives and feels the waking pricks.

  But for one's heart I know not. I can give

  No shock to make mine prick. I seem to be

  Just such a man as those who claim the power

  Or have it, (say, to serve the thought), of willing

  That such a one should break an iron bar,

  And such a one resist the strength of ten,

  And the thing is done, yet cannot will themselves

  One least small breath of power beyond the wont.

  To-night now I might triumph. Not a breath

  But shivered when I pictured the dead soul

  Awaking when the body dies to know

  Itself has lived too late, and drew in long

  With yearning when I shewed how perfect love

  Might make Earth's self be but an earlier Heaven.

  And I may say and not be over-bold,

  Judging from former fruits, "Some one to-night

  Has come more near to God, some one has felt

  What it may mean to love Him, some one learned

  A new great horror against death and sin,

  Some one at least — it may be many." Yet —

  And yet — Why I the preacher look for God,

  Saying "I know thee Lord, what I should see

  If I could see thee as some can on earth,

  But I do not see thee," and "I know thee Lord,

  What loving thee is like, as if I loved,

  But I cannot love thee." And even with the thought

  The answer grows "Thine is the greater sin,"

  And I stand self-convicted yet not shamed,

  But quiet, reasoning why it should be thus,

  And almost wishing I could suddenly

  Fall in some awful sin, that so might come

  A living sense of God, if but by fear,

  And a repentance sharp as is the need.

  But now, the sin being indifference,

  Repentance too is tepid.

                                            There are some,

  Good men and honest though not overwise

  Nor studious of the subtler depths of minds

  Below the surface strata, who would teach,

  In such a case, to scare oneself awake

  (As girls do, telling ghost-tales in the dark),

  With scriptural terrors, all the judgments spoken

  Against the tyrant empires, all the wrath

  On them who slew the prophets and forsook

  Their God for Baal, and the awful threat

  For him whose dark dread sin is pardonless,

  So that in terror one might cling to God —

  As the poor wretch, who, angry with his life,

  Has dashed into a dank and hungry pool,

  Learns in the death-gasp to love life again

  And clings unreasoning to the saving hand.

  Well I know some — for the most part with thin minds

  Of the effervescent kind, easy to froth,

  Though easier to let stagnate — who thus wrought

  Convulsive pious moods upon themselves

  And, thinking all tears sorrow and all texts

  Repentance, are in peace upon the trust

  That a grand necessary stage is past,

  And do love God as I desire to love.

  And now they'll look on their hysteric time

  And wonder at it, seeing it not real

  And yet not feigned. They'll say "A special time

  Of God's direct own working — you may see

  It was not natural."

                                    And there I stand

  In face with it, and know it. Not for me;

  Because I know it, cannot trust in it;

  It is not natural. It does not root

  Silently in the dark as God's seeds root,

  Then day by day move upward in the light.

  It does not wake a tremulous glimmering dawn,

  Then swell to perfect day as God's light does.

  It does not give to life a lowly child

  To grow by days and morrows to man's strength,

  As do God's natural birthdays. God who sets

  Some little seed of good in everything

  May bring his good from this, but not for one

  Who calmly says "I know — this is a dream,

  A mere mirage sprung up of heat and mist;

  It cannot slake my thirst: but I will try

  To fool my fancy to it, and will rush

  To cool my burning throat, as if there welled

  Clear waters in the visionary lake,

  That so perchance Heaven pitying me may send

  Its own fresh showers upon me." I perchance

  Might, with occasion, spite of steady will

  And steady nerve, bring on the ecstasy:

  But what avails without the simple faith?

  I should not cheat myself, and who cheats God?

  And wherefore should I count love more than truth,

  And buy the loving him with such a price,

  Even if 'twere possible to school myself

  To an unbased belief and love him more

  Only through a delusion?

                                              Not so, Lord.

  Let me not buy my peace, nay not my soul,

  At price of one least word of thy strong truth

  Which is Thyself. The perfect love must be

  When one shall know thee. Better one should lose

  The present peace of loving, nay of trusting,

  Better to doubt and be perplexed in soul

  Because thy truth seems many and not one,

  Than cease to seek thee, even through reverence,

  In the fullness and minuteness of thy truth.

  If it be sin, forgive me: I am bold,

  My God, but I would rather touch the ark

  To find if thou be there than — thinking hushed

  "'Tis better to believe, I will believe,

  Though, were't not for belief, 'Tis far from proved" —

  Shout with the people "Lo our God is there,"

  And stun my doubts by iterating faith.

  And yet, I know not why it is, this knack

  Of sermon-making seems to carry me

  Athwart the truth at times before I know —

  In little things at least; thank God the greater

  Have not yet grown by the familiar use

  Such puppets of a phrase as to slip by

  Without clear recognition. Take to-night —

  I preached a careful sermon, gravely planned,

  All of it written. Not a line was meant

  To fit the mood of any differing

  From my own judgment: not the less I find —

  (I thought of it coming home while my good Jane

  Talked of the Shetland pony I must get

  For the boys to learn to ride yes here it is,

  And here again on this page — blame by rote,

  Where by my private judgment I blame not.

  "We think our own thoughts on this day," I said,

  "Harmless it may be, kindly even, still

  Not Heaven's thoughts — not Sunday thoughts I'll say."

  Well now do I, now that I think of it,

  Advise a separation of our thoughts

  By Sundays and by week-days, Heaven's and ours?

  By no means, for I think the bar is bad.

  I'll teach my children "Keep all thinking's pure,

  And think them when you like, if but the time

  Is free to any thinking. Think of God

  So often that in anything you do

  It cannot seem you have forgotten Him,

  Just as you would not have forgotten us,

  Your mother and myself, although your thoughts

  Were not distinctly on us, while you played;

  And, if you do this, in the Sunday's rest

  You will most naturally think of Him;

  Just as your thoughts, though in a different way,

  (God being the great mystery He is

  And so far from us and so strangely near),

  Would on your mother's birthday-holiday

  Come often back to her." But I'd not urge

  A treadmill Sunday labour for their mind,

  Constant on one forced round: nor should I blame

  Their constant chatter upon daily themes.

  I did not blame Jane for her project told,

  Though she had heard my sermon, and no doubt

  Ought, as I told my flock, to dwell on that.

  Then here again "the pleasures of the world

  That tempt the younger members of my flock."

  Now I think really that they've not enough

  Of these same pleasures. Grey and joyless lives

  A many of them have, whom I would see

  Sharing the natural gaieties of youth.

  I wish they'd more temptations of the kind.

  Now Donne and Allan preach such things as these

  Meaning them and believing. As for me,

  What did I mean? Neither to feign nor teach

  A Pharisaic service. 'Twas just this,

  That there are lessons and rebukes long made

  So much a thing of course that, unobserving,

  One sets them down as one puts dots to i's,

  Crosses to t's.

                                A simple carelessness;

  No more than that. There's the excuse — and I,

  Who know that every carelessness is falsehood

  Against my trust, what guide or check have I

  Being, what I have called myself, an actor

  Able to be awhile the man he plays

  But in himself a heartless common hack?

  I felt no falseness as I spoke the trash,

  I was thrilled to see it moved the listeners,

  Grew warmer to my task! 'Twas written well,

  Habit had made the thoughts come fluently

  As if they had been real —

                                                   Yes, Jane, yes,

  I hear you — Prayers and supper waiting me —

  I'll come —

                           Dear Jane, who thinks me half a saint.