"Trifling as this incident is in my estimation, it has decided me on one
point already. In shaping my future course I am now resolved to act on
my own convictions--in preference to taking the well-meant advice of
such friends as are still left to me.
"All my little success in life has been gained in the pulpit. I am what
is termed a popular preacher--but I have never, in my secret self, felt
any exultation in my own notoriety, or any extraordinary respect for the
means by which it has been won. In the first place, I have a very low
idea of the importance of oratory as an intellectual accomplishment.
There is no other art in which the conditions of success are so easy of
attainment; there is no other art in the practice of which so much that
is purely superficial passes itself off habitually for something that
claims to be profound. Then, again, how poor it is in the results which
it achieves! Take my own case. How often (for example) have I thundered
with all my heart and soul against the wicked extravagance of dress
among women--against their filthy false hair and their nauseous powders
and paints! How often (to take another example) have I denounced the
mercenary and material spirit of the age--the habitual corruptions and
dishonesties of commerce, in high places and in low! What good have I
done? I have delighted the very people whom it was my object to rebuke.
'What a charming sermon!' 'More eloquent than ever!' 'I used to dread
the sermon at the other church--do you know, I quite look forward to it
now.' That is the effect I produce on Sunday. On Monday the women are
off to the milliners to spend more money than ever; the city men are off
to business to make more money than ever--while my grocer, loud in
my praises in his Sunday coat, turns up his week-day sleeves and
adulterates his favorite preacher's sugar as cheerfully as usual!
"I have often, in past years, felt the objections to pursuing my career
which are here indicated. They were bitterly present to my mind when I
resigned my curacy, and they strongly influence me now.
"I am weary of my cheaply won success in the pulpit. I am weary of
society as I find it in my time. I felt some respect for myself, and
some heart and hope in my works among the miserable wretches in Green
Anchor Fields. But I can not, and must not, return among them: I have no
right, _now_, to trifle with my health and my life. I must go back to my
preaching, or I must leave England. Among a primitive people, away
from the cities--in the far and fertile West of the great American
continent--I might live happily with my wife, and do good among my
neighbors, secure of providing for our wants out of the modest little
income which is almost useless to me here. In the life which I thus
picture to myself I see love, peace, health, and duties and occupations
that are worthy of a Christian man. What prospect is before me if I
take the advice of my friends and stay here? Work of which I am weary,
because I have long since ceased to respect it; petty malice that
strikes at me through my wife, and mortifies and humiliates her, turn
where she may. If I had only myself to think of, I might defy the worst
that malice can do. But I have Mercy to think of--Mercy, whom I love
better than my own life! Women live, poor things, in the opinions of
others. I have had one warning already of what my wife is likely to
suffer at the hands of my 'friends'--Heaven forgive me for misusing the
word! Shall I deliberately expose her to fresh mortifications?--and this
for the sake of returning to a career the rewards of which I no longer
prize? No! We will both be happy--we will both be free! God is merciful,
Nature is kind, Love is true, in the New World as well as the Old. To
the New World we will go!"