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Augusta Davies Webster - A Preacher
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"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.
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