No More Learning

Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess,
God's price is high,' sez he;
'But nothin' else than wut He sells
Wears long, an' thet J. B.
May larn, like you an' me! '



No. III

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ. , TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW

_With the following Letter from the_ REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A. M.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 7th Feb. , 1862.

RESPECTED FRIENDS,--If I know myself,--and surely a man can hardly be
supposed to have overpassed the limit of fourscore years without
attaining to some proficiency in that most useful branch of learning (_e
coelo descendit_, says the pagan poet),--I have no great smack of that
weakness which would press upon the publick attention any matter
pertaining to my private affairs. But since the following letter of Mr.
Sawin contains not only a direct allusion to myself, but that in
connection with a topick of interest to all those engaged in the publick
ministrations of the sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching briefly
thereupon. Mr.
Sawin was never a stated attendant upon my
preaching,--never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the
erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did,
indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir; but,
whether on some umbrage (_omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus_) taken
against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 (_aet. _ 77,)
under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on
account of an imminent subscription for a new bell, he thenceforth
absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to
have preserved (_alta mente repostum_), as it were, in the pickle of a
mind soured by prejudice, a lasting _scunner_, as he would call it,
against our staid and decent form of worship; for I would rather in that
wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my
pulpit discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often
fails to root itself. I humbly trust that I have no personal feeling in
the matter; though I know that, if we sound any man deep enough, our
lead shall bring up the mud of human nature at last. The Bretons believe
in an evil spirit which they call _ar c'houskezik_, whose office it is
to make the congregation drowsy; and though I have never had reason to
think that he was specially busy among my flock, yet have I seen enough
to make me sometimes regret the hinged seats of the ancient
meeting-house, whose lively clatter, not unwillingly intensified by boys
beyond eyeshot of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a wholesome
_reveil_. It is true, I have numbered among my parishioners some who are
proof against the prophylactick fennel, nay, whose gift of somnolence
rivalled that of the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, Epimenides, and who,
nevertheless, complained not so much of the substance as of the length
of my (by them unheard) discourses. Some ingenious persons of a
philosophick turn have assured us that our pulpits were set too high,
and that the soporifick tendency increased with the ratio of the angle
in which the hearer's eye was constrained to seek the preacher. This
were a curious topick for investigation. There can be no doubt that some
sermons are pitched too high, and I remember many struggles with the
drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny
acolytes, however they might profit, could never murmur! _Quare
fremuerunt gentes? _ Who is he that can twice a week be inspired, or has
eloquence (_ut ita dicam_) always on tap? A good man, and, next to
David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, not inexpert of evil in this
particular), has said,--

'The worst speak something good: if all want sense,
God takes a text and preacheth patience. '

There are one or two other points in Mr.