Volume Ii Part 9 (1/2)
Nearing Santa Fe in New Mexico, I pa.s.sed by the adobe temple of Montezuma. Adobe is p.r.o.nounced in three syllables--a-do-be--and is the Mexican name for a mud-built house, which is usually one story high; so that Santa Fe has been compared to a town blown down. When the Emperor Montezuma perished he told his followers to keep the fire burning in the Temple, as he would come again from the east, and they should see ”his face bright and fair.” In warfare and pestilence and decimation of their race, these faithful wors.h.i.+ppers kept the fire burning night and day for three centuries, and it has not long been extinguished. Europe can show no faith so patient, enduring, and pathetic as this.
The pleasantest hours of exploration I spent in Santa Fe were in the old church of San Miguel. Though the oldest church in America, there are those who would remove rather than restore it. A book lay upon an altar in which all who would subscribe to save it had inserted their names, and I added mine for five s.h.i.+llings.
When an Englishman goes abroad, he takes with him a greater load of prejudices than any man of any other nation could bear, and, as a rule, he expresses pretty freely his opinion of things which do not conform to his notions, as though the inhabitants ought to have consulted his preferences, forgetting that in his own country he seldom shows that consideration to others. On fit occasion I did not withhold my opinion of things which seemed to me capable of improvement; but before giving my impressions I thought over what equivalent absurdity existed in England, and by comparing British instances with those before me, no one took offence--some were instructed or amused at finding that hardly any nation enjoyed a monopoly of stupidity. There is all the difference in the world between saying to an international host, ”How badly you do things in your country,” and saying, ”We are as unsuccessful as you in 'striking twelve all at once.'”
We all know the maxim: ”'Before finding fault with another, think of your own.” But Charles d.i.c.kens, with all his brightness, forgot this when he wrote of America. Few nations have as yet attained perfection in all things--not even England.
When in Boston, America, 1879, I went to the best Bible store I could find or be directed to, to purchase a copy of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. In a church where I had to make a discourse, I wanted to read the dialogue between the prophet Esdras and the angel Uriel.
The only copy I could obtain was on poor, thin paper; of small, almost invisible print, and meanly bound. The price was 4s. 2d. ”How is it,” I inquired, ”that you ask so much in the Hub of the Universe for even this indifferent portion of Scripture--seeing that at the house of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in Northumberland Avenue, London, a house ten times handsomer than yours, in a much more costly situation--I can buy the same book on good, strong paper, in large type, in a bright, substantial cover for exactly 3s. less than you ask me.” ”You see, sir,” said the manager of the store, ”we have duty to pay.” ”Duty!” I exclaimed. ”Do you mean me to understand that in this land of Puritan Christians, you tax the means of salvation?” He did not like to admit that, and could not deny it, so after a confused moment he answered: ”All books imported have to pay twenty-five per cent, duty.”
All I could say was that ”it seemed to me that their protective duties protected sin; and, being interested in the welfare of emigrants, I must make a note counselling all who wish to be converted, to get that done before coming out; for if they arrive in America in an unconverted state they could not afford to be converted here.” Until then I was unaware that Protection protected the Devil, and that he had a personal interest in its enactment.
My article in the _Nineteenth Century_ ent.i.tled, ”A Stranger in America,” written in the uncarping spirit as to defects and ungrudgingly recognising the circ.u.mstances which frustrated or r.e.t.a.r.ded other excellences in their power, was acknowledged by the press of that country, and was said by G. W. Smalley--the greatest American critic in this country then--to be ”one of those articles which create international goodwill.” Approval worth having could no further go. It was surprising to me that mere two-sided travelling fairness should meet with such a.s.sent, whereas I expected it would be regarded as tame and uninteresting.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV. THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH AT SEA
The voyage out to America described in the last chapter included an instance of the extraordinary behaviour of the Established Church at sea, which deserves special mention as it is still repeated.
There is an offensive rule on board s.h.i.+ps that the service on Sunday shall be that of the Church of England, and that the preacher selected shall be of that persuasion.
Several of the twelve ministers of religion among the pa.s.sengers of the _Bothnia_ in 1879 were distinguished preachers, whereas the clergyman selected to preach to us was not at all distinguished, and made a sermon which I, as an Englishman, was ashamed to hear delivered before an audience of intelligent Americans. The preacher told a woful story of loss of trade and distress in England, which gave the audience the idea that John Bull was ”up a tree.” Were he up ever so high I would not have told it to an alien audience.
The preacher said that these losses were owing to our sins--that is the sins of Englishmen. The devotion of the American hearers was varied with a smile at this announcement. It was their surpa.s.sing ingenuity and rivalry in trade which had affected our exports for a time. Our chief ”sins” were uninventiveness and commercial incapacity, and the greater wit and ingenuity of the audience were the actual punishment the preacher was pleading against, and praying them to be contrite on account of their own success. The minister described bad trade as a punishment from G.o.d, as though G.o.d had made the rascally merchants who took out shoddy calico and ruined the markets. It was not G.o.d that had driven the best French and German artists and workmen into America, where they have enriched its manufacturers with their skill and industry, and enabled that country to compete with ours.
The preacher's text was as wide of any mark as his sermon. It asked the question, ”How can we sing in a strange land?” When we should arrive there, there would hardly be a dozen of us in the vessel who would be in a strange land; the great majority were going home--mostly commercial reapers of an English harvest who were returning home rejoicing--bearing their golden sheaves with them. Neither the sea nor the land were strange to them. Many of them were as familiar with the Atlantic as with the prairie. I sat at table by a Toronto dealer who had crossed the ocean twenty-nine times. The congregation at sea formed a very poor opinion of the discernment of the Established Church.
On the return voyage in the _Gallia_ we had another ”burning” but not ”a s.h.i.+ning light” of the Church of England to discourse. He was a young man, and it required some a.s.surance on his part to look into the eyes of the intelligent Christians around him, who had three times his years, experience, and knowledge, and lecture them upon matters of which he was absolutely ignorant.
This clergyman enforced the old doctrine of severity in parental discipline of the young, and on the wisdom of compelling children to unquestioning obedience, and argued that submission to a higher will was good for men during life. At least two-thirds of the congregation were American, who regard parental severity as cruelty to the young, and utterly uninstructive; and unquestioning obedience they hold to be calamitous and demoralising education. They expect reasonable obedience, and seek to obtain it by reason. Submission to a ”higher will” as applied to man, is submission to arbitrary authority against which the whole polity of American life is a magnificent protest. The only higher will they recognise in worldly affairs is the will of the people, intelligently formed, impartially gathered, and const.i.tutionally recorded--facts of which the speaker had not the remotest idea.
Who can read this narrative of the ignorance and effrontery, nurtured by the Established Church and obtruded on pa.s.sengers at sea, without a sense of patriotic humiliation that it is continued every Sunday in every s.h.i.+p? It is thought dangerous to be wrecked and not to have taken part in this pitiable exhibition.
CHAPTER x.x.xV. ADVENTURES IN THE STREETS
Were I persuaded, as many are, that each person is a subject of Providential care, I might count myself as one of the well-favoured. I should do so, did it not demand unseemly egotism to believe the Supreme Master of all the worlds of the Universe gave a portion of His eternal time to personally guide my unimportant footsteps, or s.n.a.t.c.h me from harm, which might befall me on doing my duty, or when I inadvertently, negligently, or ignorantly put myself in the way of disaster. Whatever may be the explanation, I have oft been saved in jeopardy.
The first specific deliverance occurred when I was a young man, in the Baskeville Mill, Birmingham. Working at a b.u.t.ton lathe, the kerchief round my neck was caught by the ”chock,” and I saw myself drawn swiftly to it. To avert being strangled, I held back my neck with what force I could. All would have been in vain had not a friendly Irishman, who was grinding spectacle gla.s.ses in an adjoining room, come to my a.s.sistance, by which I escaped decapitation without benefit of the clergy, or the merciful swiftness of the guillotine.
In days when the cheap train ran very early in the morning, I set out before daylight from Exeter, where I had been lecturing. At the station at which the train stopped for an hour or two, as was the custom in days before the repeal of the tax on third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, we were in what Omar Khayyam called the ”false dawn of morning.” The train did not properly draw up to the platform, and when I stepped out I had a considerable fall, which sprained my ankle and went near breaking my neck.
On my arrival in Boston, 1879, I was invited by a newspaper friend, whom I had brought with me into the city, to join a party of pressmen who were to a.s.semble next morning at Parker House, to report upon the test ascent of a new elevator. It happened that Mr. Wendell Phillips visited me early at Adam's House, before I was up. He sat familiarly on the bedrail, and proposed to drive me round the city and show me the historic glories of Boston, which being proud to accept, I sent an apology for my absence to the elevator party at Parker House. That morning the elevator broke down, and out of five pressmen who went into it only four were rescued--more or less in a state of pulp. One was killed. But for Mr. Phillips's fortunate visit I should have been among them.
In Kansas City, in the same year (1879), I was taken by my transatlantic friend, Mr. James Charlton, to see a sugar bakery, concerning which I was curious. The day was hot enough to singe the beard of Satan, and I was glad to retreat into the bakery, which, however, I found still hotter, and I left, intending to return at a cooler hour next morning.
At the time I was to arrive I heard that the whole building had fallen in. Some were killed and many injured. This was the City of Kansas, of which the mayor once said: ”He wished the people would let some one die a natural death, that a stranger might know how healthy the city was.
Accidents, duels, and shootings prevented cases of longevity occurring.”
Another occasion when misadventure took place, when we--my daughter, Mrs. Marsh, and I--were crossing the Tesuque Valley, below Santa Fe, the party occupied three carriages; road, there was none, and the horses knew it, and when they came to a difficulty--either a ravine or hill--the driver would give the horses the rein, when they spread themselves out with good sagacity, and descended or ascended with success. One pair of horses broke the spring of their carriage, making matters unpleasant to the occupants; another pair broke the shaft, which, cutting them, made them mad, and they ran away. The carriage in which I was remained sound, and I had the pleasure for once of watching the misfortunes of my friends.
The river was low, the sand was soft, and the distance through the Tesuque River was considerable, and we calculated that no horses were mad enough to continue their efforts to run through it, and we were rewarded by seeing them alter their minds in the midst of it, and continue their journey in a sensible manner.
Returning from Guelph, which lies below Hamilton, in the Niagara corner of Canada, where we had been to see the famous Agricultural College, we were one night on the railway in what the Scotch call the ”gloaming.” My daughter remarked that the scenery outside the carriage was more fixed than she had before observed it, and upon inquiry it appeared that we were fixed too--for the train had parted in the middle, and the movable portion had gone peacefully on its way to Hamilton. We were left forming an excellent obstruction to any other train which might come down the line. Fortunately, the guard could see the last station we had left, two miles from us, and see also the train following us arrive there. We hoped that the stationmaster would have some knowledge of our being upon the line, and stop the advancing train; but when we saw it leave the station on its way to us we were all ordered to leave the carriages, which was no easy thing, as the banks right and left of us were steep, and the ditch at the base was deep. However, our friends, Mr.
Littlehales and Mr. Smith, being strong of arm and active on a hill, very soon drew us up to a point where we could observe a collision with more satisfaction than when in the carriages. Fortunately, the man who bore the only lamp left us, and who was sent on to intercept the train, succeeded in doing it. Ultimately we arrived at Hamilton only two hours late. When we were all safely at home, one lady, who accompanied us, fainted--which showed admirable judgment to postpone that necessary operation until it was no longer an inconvenience. One lady fainted in the midst of the trouble, which only increased it. The excitement made fainting sooner or later justifiable, although an impediment, but I was glad to observe my daughter did not think it necessary to faint at any time.